Fan of a Fan reads like a mimicking of that, missing a key ingredient in the Pop-Rap alchemy it takes to create something truly ingenius and infectious.

A purported concept album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) is in fact a disjointed and incoherent clump of non-sequiturs, loosely held together by infantile wordplay, forced goading and desperate attempts at one final hurrah in celebration of a past that seems suspiciously indistinguishable from the present.

Unfortunately, Authentic suffers the same fate as LL’s other late-career missteps: too many features and a superficial brand of R&B bog down another release from one of rap’s earliest superstars.

Other than polished vocals and drastically better mixing, Lil Pump sounds the exact same as he did when he dropped Lil Pump; zooted on Xans, lean, and without a care in the world. The rapping is simple, the concepts are easy to grasp as he pretty much gets straight to the point on all 16 tracks (said point being the drugs and money he bathes in excessively).

The Gold Album is underscored by its poor creative choices.

On a sonic level, much of this album is strong but the identity and continuity are lackluster.

It’s an unexpectedly, confusingly good collection of rap songs.

Nobody expected Azalea to come back super talented and with an entirely new shtick. Nonetheless, In My Defense could have been a tad bit more introspective or at the very least, fun.

In its own perverse way, Vultures 2 is emblematic of 2024 — it is loud, brash, utterly devoid of substance and almost certain to be lauded as Kanye West’s latest masterpiece by his rabid legions of stans.

Although songs like “BEBE” kindly pay tribute to 6ix9ine’s Puerto Rican roots, his rapping quickly proves to be tolerable in tiny, almost microscopic doses, while the album closer “DUMMY” is like a carbon copy of the homogenized sound currently infiltrating mainstream rap.

Overall, Fortune further indicates a changing of the guard in urban music, as Chris Brown's feel good songs find his most staunch advocates willing to overlook his lowered standards of musical content.

Short but sweet, Disrupted Ads chalks up another win towards Oh No's already prolific legacy as one of the present underground's consistently effective studio rats.

The sequel to his 2018 two-pack ranges from “just OK, I guess” to “pretty damn impressive” — in a smooth 3-song sonic gradient.

The Love Album is at its best when Diddy creatively assembles unexpected collaborations, chooses inspired beats, and lets his co-stars lead the show.