hip-hop/rap albums
Album review: The Allergies – ‘Promised Land’: on a hot streak with huge melodies
IN THESE days, months, or years even, when everything has been dominated by viruses, or at least one in particular, there have been many earnest releases focusing on the despair, isolation and loneliness that these have caused us all. There’s nothing wrong with that at all; after all art reflects life (or near enough anyway) …
Mixtape: Digga D overcomes censorship with unapologetic ‘Made In The Pyrex’ mixtape
Dubbed as UK drill’s golden boy, and never far from controversy, Digga D’s rise to fame over the past 3-years-or-so has been nothing short of notorious. ‘Made In The Pyrex’ was absolutely needed to bookmark this period adequately. His ‘Next Up’ freestyle in 2017 stopped everyone in their tracks and the success of ‘Woi’ and ‘Chingy’ commercially …
Mixtape: Digga D overcomes censorship with unapologetic ‘Made In The Pyrex’ mixtape
Dubbed as UK drill’s golden boy, and never far from controversy, Digga D’s rise to fame over the past 3-years-or-so has been nothing short of notorious. ‘Made In The Pyrex’ was absolutely needed to bookmark this period adequately. His ‘Next Up’ freestyle in 2017 stopped everyone in their tracks and the success of ‘Woi’ and ‘Chingy’ commercially …
Album Review: Various Artists – Judas And The Black Messiah: The Inspired Album
As a standalone album – which is how I’m viewing it, having not seen the film – it’s a good album. Sometimes that’s all you need to know, but you can also see the scaffolding for it to be more than that, and that’s something to look forward to. Having the blanks filled in. Without that context, maybe a 7.5 with room to grow
Album Review: nothing,nowhere. – Trauma Factory
Massachusetts-born rapper and singer Joe Mulherin (professionally known as nothing,nowhere.) opens a new chapter with Trauma Factory, his fourth studio album and second for Fueled by Ramen. This 15-song long outpouring of emotion is his deepest emotional venture to date. Battling ideas of pain, anxiety and heartbreak, Trauma Factory digs deep into the psyche of …
Album Review: Action Bronson – Only For Dolphins
At some point, someone must have told Action Bronson that words have multiple meanings. This isn’t something I know for sure, but you can intuit it from his lyrics. Keeping in theme, then, he must have learned that it is perfectly okay for things to contain multitudes. As he puts it on ‘C12H16N2’, Action Bronson …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Streets – None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive
When The Streets burst onto the scene in 2002 with ‘Original Pirate Material’, it really was exhilarating zeitgeist-moment stuff. Mike Skinner was a much-needed, refreshing and relevant voice, and his musical portrayal of a loved-up rave-night experience will never be bettered. On subsequent albums however, his social commentator side became increasingly subservient to the “geezer” …
Droppin’ Knowledge: Run The Jewels – RTJ4 Review
Unless you decamped to a cave atop a mountain or were attending a month-long, silent meditation retreat, you surely know that Run The Jewels released their latest spectacle, also know as an album, RTJ4. The musical and commercial hip hop juggernaut, composed of El-P and Killer Mike, graciously allowed the album to be downloaded for …
Album Review: R.A. The Rugged Man – All my heroes are dead
R.A. The Rugged Man, the rap moniker and alter-ego of Long Island, New York native R.A. Thorburn, is the kind of guy who arrives early to a party, and leaves late. He drinks too much and pukes in the bathroom. When no one is looking, he jerks off in the punch and then giggles in …
Album Review: Everything is Recorded – Friday Forever
I tend to view concept albums with suspicion so when XL chief Richard Russell’s Everything is Recorded project landed in our inbox, complete with explanation that here was an exploration of Friday nights (the songs even have timings of the evening as part of their timings) my eyes slanted and in a Clint Eastwood way, …