HOW TF IS THIS A MIXTAPE?

Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024

When it comes to addressing controversy, DaBaby has repeatedly shown himself to be more than willing to respond on record. After onstage remarks in front of a music festival crowd back in 2021 led to considerable national backlash, the Charlotte, North Carolina, rapper spoke on the matter and the impact on his own life and livelihood that same year on Kanye West’s “Jail pt 2” as well as on subsequent projects of his own. Coming two years after his last album Baby on Baby 2, this relatively brisk 14-track effort finds him boasting of resilience as he once again draws upon the skill set that brought him fame and success in the first place.

Opening HOW TF IS THIS A MIXTAPE? with the defiant “In a Minute,” an introduction that curiously doubles as one of its longest songs, he essentially shrugs off the past couple years while embracing his family and explicitly promising a return to chart glory. On “Gimme a Reason,” he offers a blunt explanation as to why this isn’t an album despite its runtime similarities with his chart-topping full-lengths BLAME IT ON BABY and KIRK. Still, with returning producers including Sean Da Firzt and Charlie Heat behind the boards, songs like “I’m Outside” and the clubbier “PHAT” nonetheless feel like prime DaBaby material.

All the while, he thematically maintains a defensively righteous stance, his man-against-the-world mindset wholly evident on “Carry It On.” He directs no small amount of his ire at the media, but reserves some of the tape’s most pointed criticism at those in his circle that didn’t stand by him, via “Ain’t That a Bitch.” Elsewhere, he shifts his focus towards the ladies he desires, making his proclivities known on “Hate a Nice Chick” and “Hollywood Freak.”

What Do You Believe In? (Deluxe)

What Do You Believe In? (Deluxe) Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Rag'n'Bone Man Rag’n’Bone Man wanted his third album to bring the joy. The Sussex-born singer-songwriter, aka Rory Charles Graham, came into the writing process in a good place and wanted to share that sense of jubilation. “I thought, ‘I need to make something that makes people smile,’” he tells Apple Music. “Even if I’ve got some deep and strong things to say on this record, I still want the backdrop to be something that’s uplifting.” It’s an approach that has resulted in Graham’s most euphoric collection of songs yet, blending soulful pop, stirring R&B, and stark ballads—with his rich, aching croon lifting these tracks to exhilarating heights. The sense of celebration, he says, is a reflection of how he’s feeling. “I’m not a very introspective writer,” he says. “I give it to you on a plate, it’s always very representative of where I’m at in life at the time.” Let Rag’n’Bone Man take you deeper into What Do You Believe

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Whiplash - The 5th Mini Album - EP

Whiplash - The 5th Mini Album - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 aespa Five months after the release of their first studio album Armageddon , which included the megahit “Supernova,” aespa returned with Whiplash . The six-track EP is the girl group’s fifth mini album since their explosive debut on the K-pop scene in 2020, and it continues their reign as the queens of hyperpop hooks. “One look, give ’em whiplash/Beat drop with a big flash,” cool girls Giselle, Karina, Ningning, and Winter express on the title track, an EDM-driven dance track about aespa’s ability to make everyone look twice. Elsewhere on the album, the intentionally abrasive hip-hop dance song “Kill It” is simultaneously a declaration of K-pop dominance and a warning to any haters in the audience (“I’ma shine as I watch the bodies drop”), while the R&B track “Flights, Not Feelings” slows things down to confess a commitment to letting go of negative feelings (“I'm not tryna hurt myself, tryna burn myself”). “Pink Hoodi

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Meanwhile

Meanwhile Album ∙ Rock ∙ 2024 Eric Clapton The guitar legend brings an electric mix of bluesy grit and acoustic warmth.

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3AM (LA LA LA)

3AM (LA LA LA) Album ∙ Dance ∙ 2024 Confidence Man “We’re very lucky to move here and we’ve been loving it,” Confidence Man’s Sugar Bones—Aidan Moore—tells Apple Music, reflecting on the act’s relocation to London. “[We’re] figuring it out and just having lots of fun in a new place. And it really rubbed off on this album.” Energetically co-fronted by Moore and fellow vocalist Janet Planet (Grace Stephenson) over dynamic, nostalgic backing from producers Reggie Goodchild and Clarence McGuffie, Confidence Man taps into that fresh thrill of exploring a new place on its third album. From the nocturnal headiness of the title track to the bratty festival fun of “BREAKBEAT”—on which Planet announces that she’s not dropping the pill in her pocket until she hears the titular rhythmic flourish—the record celebrates partying at any hour in any setting. Read on as Moore takes us behind the scenes on five extra-playful tracks in particular. “WHO KNOWS WHAT YOU’LL FIND?” “This song took a while to p

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LYFESTYLE

LYFESTYLE Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Yeat The enigma born Noah Olivier Smith—better known as Yeat, to use the word “known” loosely—broke through in 2021 as a maverick of rage-rap. These days, the 24-year-old exists in his own orbit entirely, recording and engineering his own songs that are possibly informed by extraterrestrial wisdom and rife with bizarro ad-lib soundscapes, dystopian-sounding beats, and non sequiturs that could either be profound or total nonsense. (And umlauts inserted where no one has ever dared to insert umlauts before, naturally.) The songs across his deep, curious catalog sound like World War 16 battle cries, or the moment a UFO beam makes contact with a cornfield, or the sound of an old world being replaced with a new one. Yeat’s known (again, loosely) for his strange preoccupations: sui generis slang terms, face-shielding headgear, bells and flutes. LYFESTYLE , his fifth studio album, shows off a handful of new obsessions: telling lies, gazing with wonderment

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Hustle Muzik

Hustle Muzik Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Payroll Giovanni

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TYLA +

TYLA + Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2024 Tyla “I've always wanted to be a pop star, but beyond that, I wanted to be an African pop star,” Tyla tells Apple Music. “The roots of my sound are in amapiano music, in South African and African music.” Though the megaviral 2023 single “Water” may have put the South African singer-songwriter on the proverbial map—first as a social media sensation, then as the highest-charting African female soloist ever on Billboard’s Hot 100, earning her the inaugural Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance—she’s been carefully plotting her path to the top for years. “Since I started experimenting with amapiano, I just feel like it's really helped me get to this point where I created something that is fresh and new, but still familiar and comes from home,” she says. “It's a sound of Africa, and it's something that I couldn't be more proud about.” She weaves through a blend of pop, R&B, amapiano, and Afrobeats (“pop-piano sounds cute,” she admi

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I'LL LIKE YOU - EP

I'LL LIKE YOU - EP Album ∙ K-Pop ∙ 2024 ILLIT Girl-group rookies ILLIT returned in late 2024 with I’LL LIKE YOU , a five-track follow-up to their debut EP SUPER REAL ME . The latter included the fleet-footed pop magic of “Magnetic,” one of the breakout K-pop singles of 2024, and I’LL LIKE YOU is constructed to continue the TikTok virality while also building the young group’s dreamy discography of bubbly young-love songs. In a debut year where ILLIT’s debut single perhaps broke out more than the group itself, single “I’ll Like You” explicitly calls to mind the group’s name, a moniker that is constructed for fans to choose their own verb to place between “I’ll” and “it.” A slight track in both length and construction, “I’ll Like You” invites listeners into the teen girls’ pop-youth perspective on innocent attraction: “When I look at you/The world is in a moment, filter mode on.” In “Cherish (My Love),” the theme of a willful young love continues, starting with the lulling de

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GLORIOUS

GLORIOUS Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 GloRilla The scrappy Memphis rapper has been on a two-year victory lap since her 2022 breakthrough hit “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” established her as one of rap’s most promising new voices. Since then, GloRilla’s dropped an EP (2022’s Anyways, Life’s Great... ) and her first studio mixtape (2024’s Ehhthang Ehhthang ), scored a Grammy nomination, and sold out arenas alongside Megan Thee Stallion for the Hot Girl Summer Tour. The glow-up is real on GLORIOUS , her official debut album, but let it be known that the reigning queen of crunk is still hanging out the window with her ratchet-ass friends when the opportunity arises. “It’s 7 pm Friday/It’s 95 degrees/I ain’t got no n***a and no n***a ain’t got me,” she declares in the opening bars of “TGIF,” a worthy “F.N.F.” follow-up made for blasting at max volume. There’s plenty of the rowdy girl-power anthems fans have come to expect from Big Glo, among them the bad-bitch motivational “PROCEDURE” with Latto

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Pyramide 2

Pyramide 2 Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2024 Werenoi

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