The 20 Best Rap Albums of 2024

As the year comes to an end, we’re paying tribute to our favorite albums and songs released across our favorite genres. This week, we tackled the very best K-pop songs of 2024, and today we’ve assembled a comprehensive list of, what we believe to be, the strongest rap albums from 2024. Whether it was the surprise return of Kendrick Lamar, the unexpected swan song of Ka, the long-awaited follow-up to CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST by Tyler, the Creator, the break-out masterclass from Doechii, or the career-best efforts from genre greats like E L U C I D, JPEGMAFIA, Chief Keef, ScHoolboy Q and Vince Staples, this was a terrific year for hip-hop. So, I am pleased to present Paste‘s ranking of the best rap albums of 2024. There’s also a Spotify playlist linked at the bottom, in case you’d like to listen to a mix of these records. —Matt Mitchell, Music Editor

A Very Good Album That Has Rap Elements But Also Has a Lot of Shoegaze: Fax Gang & Parannoul’s Scattersun

In an exciting power move, Fax Gang and Parannoul came together for an album, Scattersun, that further demonstrated why asking what shoegaze “is” in this decade is a useless question; instead, we should ask what shoegaze can do in a world where genre boundaries aren’t the constraints they once were. “Lullaby for a Memory” exemplifies Fax Gang and Parannoul’s eagerness to dismantle limitations. Over a liquid drum and bass foundation, Auto-Tuned vocals launch from understated to bold while competing with melodic cacophony. Peaceful and contemplative live right alongside boisterous and adversarial; that tension is the sight of the finest breakthroughs. Album opener “Quiet” is similarly cinematic, entering gently with mounting tension, piano, guitar and panoply of alternating sounds, some fuzzy, some twinkly. After introducing Scattersun, the track bursts open with crashing percussion and soaring, warbling vocals. It’s a precision mess, commanding attention with contradictory elements and impressive stature rather than flashiness. As if the power of Fax Gang and Parannoul together aren’t enough, they call upon the talents of collaborators in their network. The pummeling “Wrong Signal” features Mudd the Student, the eclectic, Seoul-based rapper and TV contestant, and the dreamy coaster “Ascension” features the Rio Grande Valley-based artist agatka. “Ascension” starts with all the hallmarks of shoegaze: an avalanche of guitars, vocals barely understood but easily sensed, percussion that keeps everything tethered to reality. Eventually, the track evaporates, leaving a cloud of noise that bursts like a psychedelic sonic boom to close. “Double Bind” is as compelling as it is deep fried, bit-crushed into smithereens as flashes of rock and electro-pop crawl out of the rubble and reform into something brilliantly smooth over toe-tapping two-step. —Devon Chodzin [Topshelf]

20. Little Simz: Drop 7 EP

Little Simz’s long-running Drop EP series reached its seventh iteration this year, arriving two years after her under-the-radar fifth studio album, No Thank You. It’s her first entry in the series in four years, but Drop 6 was firmly tethered to the pandemic-era climate it was released in. Drop 7 is Simz at her freest in a minute. “Nothing left to prove, ‘cause I done enough,” she declares on “Torch,” setting the tone for what these 15 minutes of song are meant to represent. She sings about snakes talking behind her back (“Fever”), real estate in outer space (“Torch”) and channeling perspective through music (“Power”) through scapes of Brazilian funk (“SOS”), synth-pop (“Mood Swings”) and ensemble rap (“I Ain’t Feelin It”). If the back-to-back excellence of Sometimes I Might Be Introvert and No Thank You capture Little Simz sitting on the throne of hip-hop, then Drop 7 is the Mercury Prize winner’s reluctance to relinquish one shred of herself. —Matt Mitchell [Forever Living Originals/AWAL]

19. Previous Industries: Service Merchandise

Previous Industries, the all-star rap group of Open Mike Eagle, Still Rift and Video Dave, dropped their debut album this year via the titanic Merge Records. As months have passed, I’ve continued to return to songs like “Braids,” “Pliers” and “Showbiz,” but it’s the great “Zayre” that keeps me hooked. It’s a track that continues the group’s intent of having every track named after a now-defunct retail brand (“Roebuck” is another gem, to be honest), and it’s loose, freestyling rap affair where Mike, Rift and Dave all take turns dropping dimes on top of a scorched, fragmented melody. Previous Industries sounds good at every turn, and it’s the kind of rap gem that you can bliss out to. It sounds like three dudes having a good time kicking it with each other. It’s the best friendship LP of 2024. —Matt Mitchell [Merge]

18. Cadence Weapon: Rollercoaster

Canadian rapper and producer Cadence Weapon’s album Rollercoaster arrived in April via MNRK Music, and the project features contributions from Austra, Joe Goddard, Jacques Greene and Loraine James, among others. Lead single “Press Eject” was one of my favorite tracks of 2024’s first quarter, a Grandtheft-produced, glitchy and sputtering agenda that didn’t sacrifice the sun-soaked melody rippling beneath Cadence Weapon’s surface flow about inequity, unpaid labor, colonization and corruption: “Can’t afford the rent on earth or online, yeah,” he raps. “Everything is going up, I’m out of time, yeah. Going with the program made me lose my mind, extort me for my audience should be a crime.” It was a great introduction to this chapter of Cadence Weapon’s career, and Rollercoaster confirms that he’s one of the most exciting MCs on the up-and-up. “Exceptional,” “My Computer,” “Surreal” and “Wormhole” are great records, too, but the Bartees Strange-assisted “You Are Special to Me” might very well be one of the most underrated collaborations of the year. —Matt Mitchell [MNRK]

17. Sexyy Red: In Sexyy We Trust

2023 was huge for Sexyy Red, as her Hood Hottest Princess mixtape shot the St. Louis rapper out of a cannon with dirty, chaotic and freaky flows. It was a true landmark of the type of songwriting that is as evocative as it is empowering. Sexyy is a boastful MC, and her verse on Tyler, the Creator’s “STICKY” remains one of my favorite efforts of the year. But 2024 kept on going for her, as In Sexyy We Trust became the follow-up we all dreamed of. It’s crude yet unbothered, packed with guest spots from Drake, Lil Baby, Mike WiLL Made-It and VonOff1700. But the focus is, rightfully, on Sexyy, whose shadow is so immense that no feature could ever one-up her. Songs like “Boss Me Up,” “Lick Me” and “Awesome Jawsome” are just some of the funnest rap showings of the year, while Tay Keith’s production will have you hypnotized. These are the songs that will sound great at festivals for years to come, and Sexyy Red continues to be one of the Midwest’s very best just by being unequivocally herself. —Matt Mitchell [Open Shift/gamma]

16. Bladee: Cold Visions

Being a fan of Swedish rapper Bladee often feels like constantly asking yourself the question: Am I in too deep yet? Between his seven studio albums—to say nothing of three more full-length mixtapes, six collaborative records, six EPs and dozens of additional singles—constant collaborations with other Drain Gang and adjacent artists (Yung Lean, Ecco2k, Thaiboy Digital and co.), Bladee has spent the past 10 years creating a vocabulary of reference and self-reference through icy synths and laptop beeps. On Cold Visions, he gets to fully use it, calling back to snippets and lyrics of his old songs and records. It’s not just a pastiche of the Bladee lore, no, he’s got something new here. Bladee’s music has been glassy before, wrapped in bubble plastic, even, but on Cold Visions, everything shatters; we’re left falling down his hour-long fragmented rabbit hole and there’s no such thing as too deep. We’re there with him the whole way. “Only God Is Made Perfect,” arrives, announcing “drain gang” before he starts singing, “I used to sell—” and all of a sudden the beat drops out, and to replace whatever it is he was selling, the album title cuts in a cunning redaction. For all its overlaid parts, though, Cold Visions might just be Bladee’s most cohesive project to date, huddled under F1lthy’s dark, distorted production. He’s fighting through the haze of F1lthy’s manipulation, and the tension flaunts him at his most energized. That’s the thing about Cold Visions: It collapses the ironic distance that permeates most of Bladee’s music, but it doesn’t forsake the jokes. It’s always a tricky dance with him, and it’s impossible to take him any more seriously than he takes himself. But on this 2024 love letter to his Drain Gang, his persona and his mode of music-making, Bladee cements himself as a genuine artist. —Madelyn Dawson [Trash Island]

15. E L U C I D: REVELATOR

E L U C I D has been everyone this year, making appearances on Shabaka songs and even churning out the Armand Hammer masterpiece “Doves” with Benjamin Booker. But his shining moment was REVELATOR, a proper follow-up to the back-to-back onslaught of I Told Bessie and Sway, Masses—projects that all but confirmed E L U C I D to be the king of New York rap. The songs of REVELATOR are imaginative and punky, and E L U C I D’s longtime affection for wordy flows is substituted with economical, powerful bars draped around verses from billy woods, Skech185 and Creature. You get everything here, whether it’s industrial, ambient, noise or all of the above. E L U C I D’s penchant for making rap records into these cross-genre, challenging portraits of chopped-up, resistant, working-class cityscapes. REVELATOR is an album about being a Black New Yorker, a world where landlords are Zionists, flippant, “Blue Lives Matter”-toting flags wave in white suburban front yards and curses run amok but joy lingers among the horrors. E L U C I D’s storytelling remains second-to-none. —Matt Mitchell [Fat Possum]

14. JPEGMAFIA: I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU

If you love Peggy for his abrasive and confrontational work, then you are going to love every second of I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU. “JPEG-motherfuckin’-MAFIA,” he raps, “making grown men emotional since 2008, at least”—it’s the thesis statement of the record, as Peggy zeroes in on everything he does well: flows, feelings, noise and satire. Calling upon Vince Staples, Buzzy Lee and Denzel Curry, he keeps the focus on his own phrases. He’s the star of the show and you better not look away. “I’ll Be Right There” is already a career highlight, while “New Black History” and the five-minute Death Grips-homage “Exmilitary” will hit your rotation quickly. After putting out one of the best rap records of 2023, Scaring the Hoes, with Danny Brown, JPEGMAFIA returned in 2024 with a crash-course of genre-agnostic, inventive and relentless tracks that are bound to be regarded as some of his all-time best when the decade is all said and done. —Matt Mitchell [AWAL]

13. Chief Keef: Almighty So 2

Though it has a certain polish that his breakout work shirked, Chief Keef’s Almighty So 2 has still got all the bluster of the 14-year-old kid who put out the UF Overload tape and the bombast of 18-year-old Keef who changed the game, maybe forever, rapping “This bitch just blew my high,” on the original Almighty So back in 2013. Put more simply: Chief Keef’s still got it. You can tell right from the intro track, the sample of Carl O’s classical choral “O Fortuna” wailing under the rolling snares, voices back and forth “I’m not putting up with this anymore,” “Putting up with what, huh?,” before Keef comes in, assured as ever, to tear it up. It’s grandiose as hell, but still with that irreverent rawness he’s always had. He goes bar for bar and growl for growl with Tierra Whack on “Banded Up,” an impossible feat for anyone besides Keef, it seems, as he’s effortlessly going “Give Chief So’ five hunnid thousand.” Doing the impossible seems to be Almighty So 2’s M.O., and so its madness. Who would have thought that 2024 would be the perfect time for Keef’s visionary drill reimagined under his own crisp and meticulous production? He has always had foresight for days, and a near supernatural awareness of his own necessity. Almighty So 2 is all the proof that even in his blunders, nothing that Chief Keef has done has ever been a fluke. He’s a restless legend—bouncing from Womack samples to bars about Fruit Loops—with a lucid consciousness of his still boundless potential. —Madelyn Dawson [Glo Gang]

12. Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal

On “BOOM BAP,” the track at the center of Doechii’s latest project Alligator Bites Never Heal, the Tampa rapper yells the line “Get Top on the phone.” “Get ‘em on the phone!” she repeats, through Auto-Tune. Doechii isn’t messing around. She references Kendrick Lamar’s “untitled 02,” asserting herself as a part of the former TDE rapper’s lineage. It takes guts to align yourself as a descendant to Lamar so explicitly and confidently. But with Alligator Bites Never Heal, she pulls it off. The mixtape traverses pop-rap hits-in-waiting, house-infused struts, boom-bap, trap. You can hear Doechii’s hunger to prove herself. She’s sexy, goofy, confident, frustrated, clever, always three steps ahead. Trust her when she yells, “It’s everything / I’m everything!” On Alligator Bites Never Heal, Doechii comes into her own. There’s no one else more deserving of the TDE legacy. —Andy Steiner [TDE/Capitol Records]

11. ScHoolboy Q: BLUE LIPS

BLUE LIPS, plain and simple, is living proof that Top Dawg’s ScHoolboy Q still has something to say. Though the title conjures a face frightened into silence, Q can’t keep his mouth shut—and thank God for that. He came back for his first record since 2017’s CrasH Talk with a project that is brilliantly brash and adventurous, in both its influences and its delivery. He matches Rico Nasty’s drum ’n’ bass vitriol on “Pop,” Freddie Gibbs’s bravado on “oHio,” and still leaves room for his own introspection, as shrill-tongued and acerbic as it is. “I was twenty-plus young when this shit got real,” he raps on “Yeern 101.” “Made a livin’ off game you should get it on film.” And his flow is crystal, looking at his career with the clarity of a critic—and of those, he’s got plenty. BLUE LIPS gets angry, but never falls into a fury, can be jazzy, but steers far from the lane of sentimental. Because Q is driving the car, and when he stays too long on one street, he knows well enough that he can just turn down a new one. Whether it’s time in the business or something else that’s lending its maturity to Q’s classic stream of consciousness, I’m not sure, but the ScHoolboy Q on BLUE LIPS is at the top of his game, making concessions to no one but himself. —Madelyn Dawson [TDE/Interscope]

10. Cavalier: Different Type Time

Cavalier’s breezy and meditative Different Type Time has been my go-to each time I’ve returned to my—and his—hometown of Brooklyn since the record dropped in the spring. The New York-born rapper has been based out of New Orleans for most of his career, but the first of his two 2024 LPs (the second being CINE, an excellent collab album with producer Child Actor) feels like a homecoming, each song a walk down a familiar block turned unfamiliar where certain touchpoints have been replaced with new ones, punctuated by run-ins with old friends and neighbors. Cav’s pen balances bravado and humility, contemplation and levity, weaving clever bars into old jazz and soul samples and interpolations from Ol’ Dirty Bastard, A Tribe Called Quest, and a viral Youtube video titled “My longest yeah boy ever.” Cavalier’s got cosigns and collabs with heavy-hitters like Armand Hammer and Quelle Chris, but on the almost entirely featureless Different Type Time he proves countless times over that he’s a generational talent, documenting the past and speaking the future into existence. —Grace Robins-Somerville [Backwoodz Studios]

9. DORIS: Ultimate Love Songs Collection

One of the most fascinating releases of 2024, Ultimate Love Songs Collection is exactly that—a 50-song, 49-minute brain-dump of cosmic SoundCloud rap and hypnotic dream-pop markings. “Hennessy&CandyCane” is one of my favorite tracks of 2024, yet it’s barely 90 seconds long. We always joke about “posting our drafts,” but Ultimate Love Songs Collection makes the argument that brilliance doesn’t need to be epic—that brevity is a form of epicness in its own right, and the Jersey-based DORIS wants you to flourish under his spell. At first glance, the sheer density of Ultimate Love Songs Collection’s tracklist might feel daunting—but it is perfectly-paced, half-thought ideas and well-cut samples littered across an auspicious, self-recorded landscape that spans lifetimes. I would try to compare this record to someone else’s, but DORIS’s opus exists in a league of its own. The best any of us can do is linger in it. —Matt Mitchell [JANINE]

8. Ka: The Thief Next to Jesus

Kaseem Ryan, the 54-year-old Brownsville, Brooklyn rapper and producer known as Ka, passed away in October—two months after releasing his eleventh album, The Thief Next to Jesus. Before his death, the record resonated as a drumless opus on the limits of faith and its worldly institutions (namely the Christian church and its historical role in the oppression of Black Americans) robed in solemn gospel samples. Now, it also reads as self-eulogy. “When I part, they grieve / Pray the mark I leave…” he raps, and a looping choir finishes the thought: “Beautiful.” Full of soft prayers and blessings alongside confessions of shaken faith, The Thief Next to Jesus lands like a benediction at the end of a lifelong sermon, delivered with the prophetic gravitas that defined Ka’s irreplaceable career in underground hip-hop. “I pray every cross you bear is gold”; “May you live a nice, long life / hope it’s beautiful”; and finally, over the screaming instrumental of “True Holy Water”: “I’m here for you / I sweat, bled, and shed a tear for you.” —Taylor Ruckle [Iron Works]

7. Angry Blackmen: The Legend of ABM

The Legend of ABM is a punishing listen, if only because Angry Blackmen—the Chicago duo of Quentin Branch and Brian Warren—push the boundaries of what a great rap record can sound like. It’s crunchy and ferocious, embracing industrial hip-hop with open arms and becoming one of the strongest post-Money Store albums yet. Take a song like “Sabotage”: It’s not a Beastie Boys cover, instead arriving as this noise-soaked collage of sensations and energy packed with a sample of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. The track is a critique of the love-hate relationship we all have with capitalism, while Branch and Warren also include musings on mental health and how the system neglects people who are hurting. It’s one of the most arresting and stirring rap tracks I’ve heard in a minute, and The Legend of ABM lives up to exactly that in full. With assists from the likes of Fatboi Sharif, Nordra, Skech185 and Abbie from Mars, you’d be hard-pressed to find a record of any genre as complicated yet rewarding as The Legend of ABM. “Fna,” “Stanley Kubrick” and “F**k Off” are all belt-to-ass material that put me in a tailspin every time I press play. I’m obsessed with the world Angry Blackmen have given us on their second LP. —Matt Mitchell [Deathbomb Arc]

6. Tyler, the Creator: CHROMAKOPIA

Tyler, the Creator’s story inside of those sepia-toned cardboard walls of CHROMAKOPIA bursts with color and, miraculously, shows us more of him than all of his previous albums combined. And yet, Tyler’s seventh album still ends without resolution, only contradiction, shit-talking and gang politics lost to middle class autoclaves. He’s strapped with grandeur and growth to the gills. Age is catching up with him, but he’s not slowing down anytime soon. The mask stays on—good luck locking down just who Tyler Okonma is. The guest list on CHROMAKOPIA is extensive and impressive. Along with Caesar featuring on two tracks and Teezo filling out the shape of “Darling, I,” “Sticky” is an “Oldie”-style cypher featuring verses from Sexyy Red, Lil Wayne and GloRilla. Childish Gambino, fresh off his “final” album Bando Stone & the New World, appears on “I Killed You” and, potentially, “Judge Judy.” Schoolboy Q and Santigold hop on the mike on “Thought I Was Dead,” while Doechii carries on “Balloon” (“I air this bitch out like a queef / I’ll send your ass back to the streets”). No two songs on this record sound alike, offering a kind of sonic whiplash that’ll surely be revered by some and bemoaned by others. There is no musical throughline present; consistency is a matter of singular, track-by-track excellence folded into a collection of oneness. Tyler won a Best Rap Album Grammy for CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST and the cord between it and his heart is still too short. So, he’s turned toward celebrity culture, parasociality, fatherhood (both absent and impending), desire, excess and monogamy. With industry praise comes irreversible loneliness; distance turns into a requisite. When schedules get claustrophobic, grief grows thicker. Tyler, the Creator has a lot to get off his chest, but he’ll probably still keep all of his cars in the meantime. It’s taken him 33 years to figure this much out, that fame has a caveat: with finesse comes sacrifice. You might as well make your suffering look good. —Matt Mitchell [Columbia]

5. MIKE & Tony Seltzer: Pinball

No rapper has had a recent run quite like MIKE. Starting with Beware of the Monkey in 2022, making a brief stop at Faith is a Rock, his collab with the Alchemist and Wiki, and then stretching into last year’s masterful Burning Desire, the New York City MC’s 2024 record, Pinball, continues that momentum. Working with Brooklyn producer Tony Seltzer, MIKE makes slacker rap sound high-stakes. The vibes are potent across the 11-track wonderland, with light beats and a streamlined focus on flows. With guest performances from Earl Sweatshirt (“On God”), Jay Critch (“Reminiscing”) and Niontay (“2k24 Tour”), Pinball expands and exhales in a hazy, stream-of-consciousness style that only MIKE can summon. “Skurrr” and “Lethal Weapon” are vignettes that feel sentimental, adventurous and quick through timeless sampling, while “Underground Kingz,” “Pinball” and “2k24 Tour” slowburn into these progressive, elemental ruminations on dank weed, more money than you’d know what to do with and MIKE’s own talents at the mic. It’s the kind of hubris that works because MIKE’s flaunting of riches feels prolific and worth buying into, especially when it’s presented on a 21-minute mixtape like this. MIKE has dropped at least one album a year since 2017 and he has another one on the way in early 2025; it’s clear that his apex is a marathon, not a sprint. —Matt Mitchell [10k]

4. Mach-Hommy: #RICHAXXHAITIAN

Since Mach-Hommy changed the game in 2021 with the excellent Pray For Haiti, the anonymous, oft-bandana-adorning rapper from Jersey has become a virtual triumph for the digital generation. #RICHAXXHAITIAN premiered via a virtual listening event that catered to his baked-in audience in such an affectionate, lore-building way. But it’s more about music than it is the mystique, as a record like this defies expectations simply by existing just beyond the mainstream yet rema, you could argue, far more compelling, dense and autobiographical. The Roc Marciano-assisted “ANTONOMASIA” features an incredible sample of the Calico Wall’s “I’m a Living Sickness,” while, elsewhere, he repurposes songs by the likes of Angel Pocho Gatti, Rino De Filippi, Aquarian Dream, Archie Whitewater and Katyna Ranieri; the RICHAXXHAITIAN guestlist runs deep, featuring efforts from Drea D’Nur, KAYTRANADA, 03 Greedo, Black Thought, Big Cheeko, Your Old Droog and Haitian Jack, among a couple others. This is Mach-Hommy at his best, and tracks like “SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON,” the title track, “SAME 24” and “SONJE” are instant-classic reverie. —Matt Mitchell [Self-Released]

3. Rapsody: Please Don’t Cry

There is no arguing against Rapsody’s legacy; she is simply one of the most under-appreciated names in rap. But her 2024 record Please Don’t Cry proves exactly why she deserves to be in the all-time great conversations. It’s a tour-de-force of R&B, gospel, trap and reggae—a hip-hop masterclass that relishes the multitudes of community and self-love. You don’t get to make a record with Erykah Badu, Lil Wayne, Hit-Boy and Alex Isley without being the best at your craft. There are three tracks on this record featuring the incredible Phylicia Rashad—a measurement of just how ubiquitous Rapsody art has become in the lineage of Black music-makers. “3:AM,” “Asteroids,” “Back in My Bag,” “Raw” and “A Ballad For Homegirls” are brilliant, confessional powerhouses of silky, soulful, boastful and romantic legacy. Please Don’t Cry is the record Rapsody was born to make. —Matt Mitchell [Jamla/Roc Nation]

2. Kendrick Lamar: GNX

The peace and love Kendrick Lamar yearns for on GNX is mixed with “fuck you” platitudes and skyscraper-sized middle fingers. That affection, the first brick gets laid down at home. The Pirus and Crips come together on a California stage and shout “Not Like Us” together—who gives a damn about the rest of the world? This an album begging for rap’s glory days to be resurrected, a love letter to Southern California disguised as a #1 record. On “wacced out murals,” Kendrick laments the destruction of a mural of him in Compton; K.Dot only raps the hook on “gnx,” letting Los Angeles’ future (Hitta J3, Peysoh, YoungThreat) take the wheel; he name-drops Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game on “peekaboo”; “dodger blue” is a major cypher of SoCal, measuring gang rivalries like “Dreamers and the Jets” and calling bullshit on posturing locals who don’t drive on the 10: “Don’t say you hate L.A., but live in L.A. and pretend / “My neck on Tarantino, Alejandro, Spike Lee / Just know you took the scenic route if you stand by me, stupid.” Kendrick summons G-funk, mariachi and hyphy music all on one album; as Joseph Campbell once wrote: “The labyrinth is thoroughly known.” GNX is a fascinating listen that’s as flawed as any of Kendrick’s previous albums. He converses with the divine, walks the margins that separate good and evil, takes a dive but hits on the cash-out, puts his next-up disciples under the light and calls upon pop music’s most in-demand producer to make his West Coast domination legible. Coastal beefs, yesteryear-beckoning factions, victory laps coalesced with brotherhood, a vow to “live one in harmony now”—GNX contends that it’s time to fill rap music with the politicking of old, where powerful people coalesce selfishness with gain for the greater good and artists take their time with their art. —Matt Mitchell [pgLang/Interscope]

1. Vince Staples: Dark Times

In May, Vince Staples gave us only a few days to prepare for his sixth studio album, Dark Times. Not only do the 13 songs run on a perfect loop (a small, missable triumph on a record full of them), but Dark Times is the Long Beach rapper’s final Def Jam album and best work since Big Fish Theory. Even more so, tracks like “Nothing Matters” and “Little Homies” are like exclamation points on one of the greatest decades a rap star has ever had—even if Vince continues to hold court as the least-celebrity celebrity around. Featuring samples from the 2014 cut “Blue Suede” and transitions that’ll stop you in your tracks (“Children’s Song” into “Shame on the Devil,” for one), Dark Times holds a level of bombast that comes from a rapper who is at his most comfortable. Combining samples from Thee Sacred Souls’ “Weak For Your Love” and DJ Screw’s “Pimp Tha Pen,” the beat on “Black&Blue” will put you in the air. It’s clear that Vince is at his very best when he’s slowing down and letting a hook speak for itself—which takes flight through the “Weak For Your Love” sample. The mixing on Dark Times is phenomenal, too, thanks to Joe Visciano, as he adds a bit of reverb/delay to Vince’s vocals on the verses. The “in the ghetto I’m a martian, crash-landed” hook on “Étouffée” is bonkers, and the song might go down as one of his all-time best. But then there’s instant classics like “Radio” and “Government Cheese.” But what makes this part of Dark Times glow is how Vince reckons with the loss of Black loved ones and heroes, professing that not even the money and glory can patch up the holes left by his West Coast family, peers and friends who’ve passed. “Where did 2Pac and ‘nem go? Where Nipsey Hussle ‘nem go? Swavey and Drakeo? Richee and Slim Foe? I spent a lot of my time missing our kinfolk,” Vince raps on “Black&Blue.” “Put ‘em inside of a rhyme hoping they live on.” Dark Times is an archive of Blackness, making space for the work of James Baldwin, Lil’ Keke, Nikki Giovanni, D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three and Marvin Gaye in 35 minutes of cultural command. —Matt Mitchell [Def Jam]