On the whole it works more often than not though, as Morello and Riley have a genuine and unforced chemistry.

While O.N.I.F.C. doesn't break new ground musically for Wiz, certainly not lyrically at least, his flight won't be grounded any time soon.

Last 2 Walk is recommended for those who can get past their banal lyricism, because between the beats and the guest stars on this album they've got a winning combination anyway.

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.

She manages to not get completely steamrolled in her duets with YG and Lil Yachty and even interlocks tightly with Asian Doll on "Affiliated." The problem with the Bhad Bhabie project, of course, was never to teach her how to rap, it was negotiating an acceptable approach to appropriating the cultural codes of rap. And in that regard 15 is the expected embarrassment.

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

It's counter-productive to analyze Keith's verses too carefully, because at some point they're just well constructed and well delivered jabberwocky.

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

With beats provided largely by newcomer Oren Yoel that are more hit than miss, Asleep in the Bread Aisle is that new kind of 2009 hip-hop you either have to learn to live with or jump off the bandwagon altogether.

The problem is that it's just too light on hip-hop, and too close to the other experimental work they've already done in other side projects.

If this was pop music with terrible lyrics and shitty beats that hurt my ears, you know I'd tell you so (see Soulja Boy) but nothing on Only One Flo (Part 1) would make me want to change the station if I heard it on the radio.

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.

It’s the definition of “it’s fine.”

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.

This is, quite handily, so much of precisely "what is wrong with hip hop today"--tidily sequenced into an hour of mind numbing idiocy.

The problem here is that the near single-mindedness of his subject matter on Look What You Made Me shows EXACTLY what he's been made by one too many music videos with jiggling booty and coochie--a nymphomaniac.

It’s a good album. ... Emo rappers often tend to release short albums with even shorter tracks, and this one is suspiciously long and incredibly overloaded with talent.

All of these guests can be distracting, but Ghostface’s performances are as you’d expect. It’s not quite as precise with the abstract vocabulary, a bit diet-Ghost if you will, but his flow remains sharp and his energy levels are high for a 54-year-old. .... The frustrating thing about “Set the Tone” is I have no idea who it is even aimed at.

In terms of their long career of certified bangers it comes as a slight disappointment.

There's no mistaking or denying what you get on this CD--the same thing you got each time out before.

Littered with ignorance, braggadocio and uninspired production, French Montana's debut release is less about him and more about the guests that his label have brought in to help hide his lack of skills.

What may be the most shocking about "Shock Value" is how Timbaland continually manages to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Buy it, enjoy it, and forget it. It's a fun bit of fluff.

Hurricane Chris built on the strengths of "51/50 Ratchet" and did not repeat his previous mistakes, thus improving musically and lyrically as an artist.

He's a little bit Twista, a little bit Trick Daddy, and a whole lot Nelly. None of those things are negative, but the fact he can't distinguish himself from any of them isn't a positive.

Godfather Buried Alive is a worthy listen, showcasing Shyne's unfiltered honesty in its uncompromising form.

But make no mistake, it's an album that displays growth, maturity and improvement in almost every respect - he's certainly becoming a versatile and engaging artist.

It's the beats, the cameos and the sheer momentum of Maybach Music that propels Hood Billionaire forward.

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.

As with every Kanye album, there’s some magnificent production on a majority of “Jesus Is King” courtesy of Pi’erre Bourne, Timbaland and Boogz, among others. ... Kanye just seems like he’s in his own world; disregarding what’s going on around him. Other times, Ye’s writing delves into eyerolling contradictions and ego-driven intentions.

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

Boy tries to stretch his simple repetitive beat production style across an entire album and it fails miserably.

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

It’s too slick and polished for a posthumous album.

In nearly every way, it is downright unremarkable. The Toronto superstar has once again delivered a tiresome and inflated LP composed of 23 tracks, the bulk of which are only successful thanks to the guest features that aid them.

Even though The Voice starts off a little slow with 'Swagger Right' and 'Houston Oilers,' once the album hits a groove it keeps it all the way through to the Mike Dean produced 'Grandma II' finale.

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'".

[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.

Of the nineteen tracks on offer here, there are just too many skippables for a Busta Rhymes album. It may not be a proper Busta album, and it may be Busta’s way of sharing the flame, rather than passing the torch (as he so eloquently describes it), but in the context of Busta’s catalog, and the rest of 2023’s hip-hop releases, it frequently disappoints.

If you're willing to put up with the headaches of finding and acquiring the right version though, 5.0 is a worthy follow-up to "Brass Knuckles" that should keep his millions of fans well satisfied.

He'll never win any of those freestyle battles but he can damn sure make a record that you'll enjoy listening to multiple times.

Rebelution will leave you shaken, but not stirred.

Not so much a victim of his own success, but an unwillingness to take risks in the name of music.

Make no mistake about it, this is a formulaic album.

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

Amalgamating these with pop choruses makes the listening experience too scattered and ultimately leads A Moving Picture to stutter from frame to frame, and it doesn't help that the experience bows down to every chart formula around.

Jack Harlow’s attempts at grandiose appeal ultimately fall short on “Come Home The Kids Miss You”. The young rapper fails to inspire or interest and his attempts at grand standing charm are without merit.

Quite honestly, Ke$ha is just more fun to listen to, even though Jessie J may ultimately have more career longevity. It's a decent enough album for the teenage dance set though.

G-Unit fans and Lloyd Banks fans in particular will be satisfied with "Rotten Apple."

The flow is intact, the rhymes are well written, and even though Smith hasn't crossed that line from pop friendly into hardcore gangsta... he's definitely a bit more rugged this time out.

An album that feels more akin to an oddly shaped misfire of a satirical take than it does the latest installation of an ultra-successful series of rap albums.

At least a third of the tracks are songs I could do without. The other two-thirds show that whether you love or hate the modern day Marshall Mathers, he's still as relevant as he ever was.

This one won't dissapoint Eminem, Shady or G-Unit fans, but it also won't blow them away.

The sound's still high quality on "Shock Value II," it's just not 100% his own any more - maybe 50%, maybe 75%, all depending on what the co-credits really mean.

Flash and his collaborators provide good beats and rhymes so if this is what a "studio album" is for Flash in 2009 let's just hope there are plenty more on the way.

Hotel California fails to deliver on any of the hype it had leading up to its release.

It's hip, it's slick, it's polished, and it's an utter waste of time.

Despite having all of the right elements, this album seems far more forgettable than the aforementioned "The Last Kiss."

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.

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

Foxy's ability to be honest about her trials and tribulations is refreshing, and the album is mostly successful regardless of her extra-long absence from store shelves.

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.

It's nothing we've not heard before.

It’s evident that his pen game remains sharp, but the aforementioned polarization causes Eminem to also remain as an acquired taste even now: You either like him or you don’t.

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

The result is simply not up to par.

The beautiful mess of Mos Def makes for a bumpy listen.

We get predictable rock-rap joints like "I Need Church" and "Dead Man's Shoes"; embarrassing skits involving Robbie Williams; abysmal jokes at other celebrity targets; saccharin singles like "Lullaby" (which retreads most of "Read All About It") and "Little Secrets"; getting outshone on your own song by the Rizzle Kicks ("Name In Lights"); ripping off The Streets' old shit ("Fast Life"); a surprisingly soulful joint that clearly ended up on the wrong album ("Not Your Man"); the sound of a rapper all but giving up ("Shadow of the Sun") and subsequently ruining dope instrumentals like the title track.

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

It's not your mother's, father's, sister's or brother's cup of tea, but for fans of D12 and/or Hunter S. Thompson, "Hannicap Circus" is one crazy trip through the mind of a lunatic.

Every single cliche held dear with the English language appears to have been right-click-Synonymed here.

Your best bet is to find a website you can listen to snippets of this album on and if one or two tracks strike your fancy, buy those. A whole album of SB's idiotic raps is still too much for one man or woman to take no matter how much better the beats are.

There's Something 'Bout Kreay is the sound of a record company trying to turn 15 minutes of fame into a career, and spending way too much money in the process.

He still comes across much of the time like a less charismatic Nelly.

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 production on Dummy Boy is amazing. Tay Keith, Scott Storch, Murda Beatz and Ronny J among others lace 6 with some beats that match his "wavy" sound and style perfectly. The tracks are heavy on the bottom and have lots of room for 6 to flex his sing-song melodic flow.