“Everybody’s Everything” reflects Peep’s short but impactful catalogue by deviating little from the things that made him viral — his hazy wavy style, his emotional delivery, and his apparently complete lack of control over his demons.

You can never really get a sense of what Q is or what he wants to be.

When push comes to shove, there are only about three songs here that merit that kind of mindshare--and none of those come close to his best singles. By his standards, Mastermind is technically a good album, but neither timely nor memorable.

As action-packed as beats and rhymes are, CZARFACE was a quick read I soon found myself putting back on the shelf.

It may be hard to take Mac Miller seriously at times, but it's just as hard to dredge up any overwhelmingly negative feelings about Watching Movies save for two [the cover art and the deluxe edition feels like there's some filler material ].

The album is too long and too filled with tired tropes, but through the layers of sediment and rock I can still see specks of gold splashing around in the pan.

Whether it is a product of being stuck in mixtape territory for so long or having to work on a limited budget, The Nacerima Dream is neither dream nor nightmare.

This is not a bad album – on the contrary, I like it. Drake is a clever guy, sure – but he will look back on this with disappointment at the imbalance of it, the intermittent connection, the lack of boldness.

You know what you’re getting with Benny the Butcher, which is reliability, authenticity, and tough beats, but it rarely surprises, inspires, or leaves a lasting impression.

There is no doubt that the first half of the album is where the "money" is – a top-heavy reflection of pop-muscle tracks where Lupe is generally playing second fiddle to the beats/choruses. That would have fine if the Chicago native had been allowed to go all out and express himself on the other six tracks, more akin to "All Black Everything" so you may well find yourself stalling after "The Show Goes On."

It's not that the album isn't good, it's that it pails in comparison to "Jackpot."

Kid Ink hasn't so much found his own lane, but taken the well-worn stretch of road that's littered with empty beer bottles and discarded condoms; a road frequented by beautiful video-models and catchy hooks. Despite this, My Own Lane is tasteful, smooth and if taken at face value, an enjoyable example of radio-friendly hip hop.

You can’t examine Young Thug’s music too closely or think about it too carefully if you want to enjoy it, because the casual misogyny of throwing around “Pussy” as an insult reminds you he’s not exactly progressive. If you’re looking for bass to shake the concrete and singing so modulated as to nearly be R&B, tracks like “Jumped Out the Window” and “Boy Back” featuring NAV will definitely fit the bill.

He still has a lot of talent, he just needs to reign in his creative impulses (along with a few others) to make a better album next time.

I can listen to “Mansion Musik” for 76 minutes and it’s fine as background music, but if I start paying attention to tracks like “WITCHCRAFT” the bars are so relentlessly negative it accidentally becomes a turnoff.

In the end though it’s all just a little too polished, like a hip hop manicure after a rap spa day, one that leaves everything radiant and glossy but says nothing about what’s underneath.

Rebelution will leave you shaken, but not stirred.

His technique has a strong propensity towards predictable stream-of-consciousness rhyming.

Unfortunately the haste to produce and release the album shows when listening; the thing is clearly rushed and even feels a tad opportunistic after the surprise critical resurgence of the Wu after the Raekwon-directed "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II."

Radioactive is a mixed bag that has some outstanding tracks, while others fail from a lack of execution particularly in the production and hook department.

It's cotton candy hip-hop that's enjoyable to consume but has no real substance.

He can clearly still spit elite bars, at more or less the same rate he could over twenty years ago. “The Lost Tapes 2” may be marketed as a sequel, but it’s a selection of largely forgettable album cuts that didn’t make Nas’ last few albums.

The best thing about “Save Me” may be that it’s a very small bite to digest, clocking in at just barely over 20 minutes after the conclusion of “Love Thy Enemies.”

In the City offers good production, excellent melodies, and - of course - the same song, idea(s), and kinds of guest appearances many times over.

Much of Love Story is tepid, but there are moments where Yela nails the singing/rapping combination.

This album feels like “how do you do fellow kids” in rap form. It’s trying so hard to be slutty that it’s transparent in its aims and it robs Latto of the power she once had.

For the moment, we are treated to a promising if frustrating record that remarkably lacks a hit single itself.

Sullivan herself is certainly an artist that doesn’t follow the rules, which is why it’s mildly disappointing to hear her sound like Post Malone or Juice WRLD on tracks. For a woman with as much power and agency as she clearly has, she let too much of this release be shaped by what other people sound like in terms of the production of her vocals and her instrumentals.

Rag'n'Bone Man needs to think more thoroughly about what exact story he wants to tell. Until then, Human is a heartwarming, mature pop album. Maybe it's been a wise decision to tone down the artist's hip-hop and rap background for now. But just the same, it could also have played a credible role.

He’s a fine producer, a middling singer, and a very forgettable lyricist. The album’s title banks on his name being the sole draw, but if it has been titled “Featuring Kanye West, Quavo, Kid Cudi, Young Thug, Big Sean and Future” it would be a whole lot more accurate.

At 10 songs and nearly an hour long the "Back to Reality" album packs a lot of bang for the buck, and if you're in the mood to go retro this is the perfect album to fire up when you put on your Michael Jackson glove, fire up the Coleco, play Donkey Kong 'til your hands get sore then go party at Studio 54.

The Return of Mr. Zone 6 is the best and worst of Gucci Mane in almost equal measure, though it's enough of the best to pull up to an acceptable level.

York is an interesting and often times bizarre album.

ye is an average album with some good songs, some bad songs, and some songs that will clearly be spun millions of times. The problem is that "average" has never been good enough for Kanye West nor should it be.

No Love Lost is too inconsistent to leave a lasting impression, and falls short of greatness.

There are some other strong tracks on this album, including Santigold's guest spot on "Car Song," and "Energy," which sounds like a lost Talking Heads song. There are also several that are either forgettable or downright bad.

Where a lack of rhymes fail them, the hip-rock-electronica music carries them forward into music that's passable even when it's not profound. So long as you get it, LMFAO may not change the world, but it's a fun way to kill time. Just don't drink like they do or you'll kill brain cells too.

This two-hour epic may not be his best work, but it’s his most Game album yet.

The stakes were so high, the pressure was on and what makes him interesting was ironed out in favour of low risk, high percentage choruses. Couple that with a mixed bag of lyrics from the rapper himself, and you get a curiously crafted mess that contains a few great songs that you'll end up loving, and lot of numbers that just weren't bold enough or executed with confidence.

The inspiring message that is clearly part of the appeal is still buried under too much empty rap rhetoric.

The problem Ludacris faces is that both sides of him are great to listen to but it inevitably restricts him from making the cohesive magnum opus his career deserves.

They offer a positive, upbeat take on hip-hop with heavy doses of melody. While it didn't totally win me over, there are enough bright points, and it is done with enough skill and passion that I recommend it to anyone nostalgic for the days of b-boys and beatboxes.

The whole of the self-titled Fetty Wap album is remarkably inoffensive and uninspired.

The "Issa Album" was a full course meal while "Without Warning" ends up being more of a snack.

He sounds positively dated.

The danger though is that The King & I turns into a new version of the "Duets" album, simply rebranded as a Faith Evans album featuring snippets of her late husband. This is exacerbated on the second half of the album by one rap all-star cameo after another.

You'll keep looking for songs with more depth than "Ba Bump," only to find that they're basically all at that level.

Drake's Views is him lying on a therapist's couch whining for large chunks of time and the album drags as a result. Yet, if you took the best dozen tracks, you'd have a perfectly enjoyable, listenable LP.

It's a decent but underwhelming album, and one that inspires apathy more than adoration or disgust.

Despite his years away acting, LL hasn't really lost his touch rapping. What he has lost is a sense of focus and direction.

A third of the songs are about hooking up with ladies, a third are heartfelt ballads to lovers, and a third are break-up songs. It's the lifecycle of a relationship, over and over. I'm not convinced by it, but it's working for him.

The problem for Wiley on 100% Publishing is that things just vary too wildly from song to song.

While the beats are mostly good, it feels like Macklemore missed out on an opportunity to really set his solo career apart from Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

Like the core message of Everything Is Borrowed, this album will, unfortunately, come and go soon enough, little trace left behind.

Unfortunately, the rhythm of the album is constantly interrupted by cacophonous dirges which makes it feel unsettled.

If you can get into the fantasy and ignore the reality then DS2 might be good escapist music for a little while.

Neva Left is unfortunately, yet predictably, another mixed bag. The good tracks are effectively updates to proven formulas, which when matched to more imposing beats, show Snoop hasn't lost his touch.

There is very little humour and some of the production is flat out boring.

I’m glad he found a lane, stuck to it, and rode the hell out of it until he had to go to the clinic for a shot. On the other hand “Play Cash Cobain” is nearly one straight hour of listening to another dude read me the letters he wrote to Playboy. I prefer that to a rapper bragging about how many people they’ve killed, but an hour straight of either one with no variance is monotonous. He’s a solid producer, and while pitch corrected rap singing isn’t my favorite thing, he’s better than average at that too.

It's no secret the Twins get gully. Fortunately for listeners, it's very contagious. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of lyrical content.

As it stands, the album has some decent songs but doesn't hold together as an album.

He clearly cares about his output, but “Music To Be Murdered By” is, unfortunately, another mixed bag of tricks, propped up by lyrical acrobatics and underwhelming production.

If you can focus more on the beats and not so much on the words the overall experience improves, but even then it still tends to be monotonous.

“JackBoys 2” isn’t a bad JackBoys album or a bad Travis Scott album — it’s just repetitive and monotonous.

Unfortunately the drama turns out to be more interesting than the album itself, with Yayo offering little lyrically, Banks seemingly phoning in his performances, and 50 trying to hold the whole thing together on the strength of his star power alone

Ultimately I have two complaints about Blue Slide Park which in the grand scheme of things may be minor.

So long as you don't expect Shakespeare and don't presume this to be a rap album, you won't be mad. It's pure pop done the way Pharrell does it.

In Bad Boys, Smith was cool. In Hitch he was funny. In Twelve Pounds, he was vulnerable. He doesn’t seem to retain any of these qualities in his raps, instead opting for a smorgasbord of soundscapes designed to mask what could have been a revealing, emotionally interesting rap album.

The problem here is that not only is no progress made, Weekend at Burnie's might just be an artistic regress.

You're Dead loses momentum after "Never Catch Me." Much of the later two-thirds of the album is more atmospheric, reminiscent of 2012's more contemplative "When the Quiet Comes."

If you can get past some of the dumb lines and the often blunt nature of Big Sean's approach to seduction, there's enough solid, modern R&B here to satisfy those craving something a bit more direct than Drake, but it could have been so much more.

Rather than staying true to political and social roots that got him signed in the first place, David Banner has chosen to mimic what's popular.

Freedom will be a disappointment, and a predictable one at that.

There’s so much that could be done with a Northern UK emcee to celebrate a part of England that has numerous industrial cities with interesting stories, but Aitch’s message doesn’t register as well as it should thanks to production akin to a box-ticking exercise.

It is an LP with one hit single, some solid album cuts and the rest is genuinely quite forgettable.

You see, the first 5 songs set the album up to be a pure party album - which actually would have worked a lot better, with the last track being a comedown moment. But then, delusions of adequacy spring up and the LP ends up shooting off in different tangents, where musically it is solid (if entirely unchallenging), but lyrically/conceptually it do nothing for you.

The Pinkprint is let down by some basic conceptual flaws, lackadaisical decision-making and even placing too much faith in bonus tracks to appease the masses

We got what feels like a very quickly thrown together product that lacks the depth and introspection of his previous projects.

The biggest fault of Cruel Summer may be that it lacks a unifying voice or vision.

Weed rap is fine, but if Hill is looking to subvert the dominant paradigm, they should probably find a harder drug.

A missed opportunity to progress.

I Am Not a Human Being II flashes moments of brilliance, but it's far from his best work.

The problem with Full Speed is that Kid Ink is often lost within his own album, as the listener anticipates the next song that's defined by its guest feature.

Despite being billed as his fifth album, it's nowhere near the level of his strong, yet largely overrated debut "Get Rich or Die Tryin'".

He’s not quite a great artist. He simply exists, but to those who want more of what XXXTENTACION offered without having to buy 50 posthumous releases, he’ll do.

There are enough songs with worthwhile beats and guests to hold this album together to some degree, and depending on whether or not you like Flocka's lyrical style will be the degree.

While it may churn out a few hits, The Hard Way ultimately is a letdown.

Simply in musical and vocal terms, it feels too limited, mainly due to him over-thinking things.

[comon] managed to record a whole ten scenes, I mean tracks, over the course of the year, and at least three of them are listenable.

Very little is going on lyrically above but Smoke’s energy is priceless. That same energy is only marginally filtered through these swift-moving tracks. The entire album is more of an elongated intro to the Cactus Jack brand.

It's good to know Ma$e hasn't lost his knack for perverting classics by other artists.

03 Greedo’s lack of depth and highly AutoTuned delivery along with Mustard’s highly listenable production are a Icee for a hot summer day — something cool and refreshing that quickly melts and is easily forgotten.

The beats are solid enough, if not as universally banging as circa Luda '01. The album flows well, has some replay value and tries a few little tricks here and there.

While the beats are relatively mediocre and not at all unusual for this brand of hip hop, they do a decent job matching the dark picture Gucci paints. Unfortunately, that picture is more of a rough sketch as Gucci steers more toward unrefined flows and bland, mechanically arching vocals rather than a more thought out approach.

Your patience will be especially tested during the closing trio of songs that could have been better had they been a couple minutes shorter and/or delivered with more zest musically.

Even though there's little to nothing of intellectual nourishment for the majority of "Jungle Rules," there are slick songs like the Beat Billionaire produced Young Thug feature "Black Out" that you can literally do just that to.

There's simply not enough substance and individuality for me to call this a good rap album. But at the intersection of rap and pop it doesn't embarrass either side.

It feels like the audio version of Madonna releasing a coffee table art book of her sexual exploits, and I’m not in any way judging you if you get off on that, but it’s just not my thing.