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Sheldon Pearce
[Copyright 2024 NPR]
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Three survivors of a chaotic moment in hip-hop conjure its best qualities, a decade and a few major career twists later, for three new albums released on the same day.
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The two veteran rappers read as comic inversions of one another on their new albums, by turns renewed and restrained by the instincts that defined them at the start of their careers.
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Megan Thee Stallion's post-traumatic reset, a left-field Lil Yachty collab, the raunchy return of cupcaKKe: June 28 delivered a truckload of major albums, and a portrait of modern rap's main tension.
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New albums by Don Toliver and LUCKI take opposite paths to the same calling, an understanding of rap as texture rather than text.
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Lamar's blowout Juneteenth concert, held at the Forum in Los Angeles and live-streamed on Amazon Music, planted flags for the future of LA rap, while uniting in hate for a certain Toronto titan.
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Canon-making is a core part of rap fandom, the subject of endless barbershop parleys and message-board battles. But something curdles when the companies that control the music business enter the chat.
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Released in a span of three months, the new albums by Ayra Starr, Tems and Tyla are not merely career-making for the artists, but ground-shifting for the pop music of the continent.
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Staples has always lived in a few worlds: art-rap hero, hall-of-fame interviewee, and a homebody whose inner life is none of our business. On Dark Times, his worlds finally converge.
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Only days after the mogul apologized for a leaked surveillance video showing him attacking his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura, he faces new allegations of drugging and assaulting another woman.
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The rapper slipped free from the legal mess that swallowed his label and his mentor Young Thug — but on his new album, he's still in the grip of an unending image crisis.