Doja Cat – Scarlet

Before announcing Scarlet, Doja Cat publicly referred to the two very popular pop-oriented albums that preceded it as “cash grabs,” and you could tell from the pre-release singles that she’s been aiming to get back to her roots in rap (“Lots of people that were sleeping say I rap now,” she asserts on “Demons”). I think she’s being too hard on those albums, which are both great and unique interpretations of pop music, but I’m also excited about her decision to get back to rapping more. The singles did a good job of setting the stage for Scarlet, a consistently strong record that does indeed lean pretty heavily in a classic late ’90s/early 2000s style rap direction. It’s also got the theatrical, in-your-face moments that only an artist as charismatic as Doja Cat can pull off, and it still has plenty of R&B songs–it’s not really as drastic a departure as it’s sometimes being painted as. It has no guests, and when you’ve got as many different rapping and singing voices as Doja does, you don’t really need any. Scarlet is a reminder that Doja can rap, but even more so than that, it’s a reminder that Doja can do so much.

Lil Peep & iLoveMakonnen – Diamonds

When Lil Peep’s life was cut short at 21 years old in 2017, he had left behind a vault of recordings that his family, collaborators, and record labels have helped bring to the world across a series of posthumous releases. One of the projects he was working on before his death was a collaborative album with iLoveMakonnen, which Peep’s estate says is the “last cohesive previously unreleased full body of work” that he left behind, and today that project sees the light of day. Peep and Makonnen had completed 15 songs together before Peep’s death, though Makonnen and the original “Diamonds Team” ended up with an additional six while putting the finishing touches on the album. Peep and Makonnen’s music never exactly sounded alike, but they both made music that blurred genre lines and favored a lot of melody, and you can really hear on Diamonds how much common ground they did have. And if it sounds remarkably fresh for an album that was largely recorded over six years ago, that’s because the world is still catching up to the music Lil Peep made during his all-too-short time on earth. His version of emo-rap continues to be massively influential on so many different types of artists, and there still hasn’t been anyone who does it quite like him.

The Alchemist, Wiki & MIKE – Faith Is A Rock

“The Alchemist is on fire right now” is a sentence you could say at almost any point in the past 15 years, and probably even longer ago than that, but: The Alchemist is on fire right now. Just a few weeks after finally releasing his long-awaited album with Earl Sweatshirt, he arrives with another collaborative album from a similar musical universe: Faith Is A Rock with NYC rappers Wiki and MIKE. Wiki goes back with Earl for nearly a decade, since he appeared on Earl’s 2015 album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside; MIKE has been a frequent inspiration to and collaborator of Earl’s ever since Earl went in a more psychedelic direction on 2018’s Some Rap Songs; and Wiki and MIKE have collaborations dating back to almost the beginning of MIKE’s career. MIKE’s on the Alchemist/Earl album and other Alc projects, and last year, MIKE, Wiki, and Alc dropped a three-song EP together called One More. The EP was full of magic, with Alchemist’s hypnotic production, MIKE’s abstract thoughts, and Wiki’s colder, harder delivery all coming together to create something genuinely greater than the sum of its parts. Those three songs and seven others now make up Faith Is A Rock, and that same magic continues all throughout this LP. All three of these artists have distinct styles, and Faith Is A Rock reminds you that all three are also very versatile. It goes from hazy to clear, from nostalgia-inducing to futuristic, from traditional to unconventional, and it makes these transitions feel seamless. It’s a triumph that stands out not just from everything these three have done in the past, but from the current landscape of underground rap in general.

Armand Hammer – We Buy Diabetic Test Strips

billy woods and ELUCID haven’t released a new album as Armand Hammer since putting out the Alchemist-produced Haram two and a half years ago, but if it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, that’s probably because they both continue to be insanely prolific on their own. ELUCID released I Told Bessie last year and woods has released two albums since Haram: last year’s Aethiopes and this year’s Kenny Segal-produced Maps. And throughout all of their near-constant output, they never lose stream creatively. Everything they do feels like another crucial piece of the puzzle, and We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is no exception. It has a familiarity that builds off of the Armand Hammer albums that came before it, and it still keeps you on your toes. Its cast of producers and guests includes a mix of usual suspects and entirely new collaborators, and even the album-making process was new for the duo. ELUCID and engineer Willie Green recruited a group of live musicians–including jazz trailblazer Shabaka Hutchings on flute–for a jam session in 2022, and those recordings ended up becoming the basis for several of the beats you hear on this album. Guests include Soul Glo’s Pierce Jordan (as Moneynicca), Junglepussy, Moor Mother, Pink Siifu, Curly Castro, and Cavalier; and producers include JPEGMAFIA, El-P, Kenny Segal, DJ Haram, Black Noi$e, Preservation, Steel Tipped Dove, August Fanon, Child Actor, and Sebb Bash. The end result is an experience that is both psychedelic and hyperfocused all at once.