The quality of rap music in a given year can be measured in Alchemist releases. His 2016 output in 2016 so far includes an album with Havoc, a pair of 7-inch singles featuring West Coast legends ands scions, a stylish period drama with Curren$y, and some fine loosies with Meyhem Lauren..

Kitchens & Choppas 2 is a sequel to probably my favorite album of 2014. It’s an economical eight songs with threadbare beats and Ca$h Out’s distinctive quavering, pimpish delivery. Calling the sound sparse is like calling money green. The stove, the strippers, and the scale float in endless space. It’s..

Atlanta’s Johnny Cinco goes exotic with his beat selection on his newest mixtape, Trap Religious, especially on the first two tracks. “Virtual Trapping” uses the sound palette of a dystopian sci-fi flick. Cinco still sounds like he grew up on dancehall until graduating to lean and Gucci Mane tapes, so Trap Religious takes..

Maxo Kream of Houston delivers the year’s first great gangster rap album and serves fiends and 90s babies alike with street shit and Nickelodeon/wrestling references. If you want it without DJ drops, hit up iTunes/Spotify/etc. Sphere: Related Content

Problem is savvy enough to foster ties in Atlanta, where rap’s creative mojo is strongest. The California rapper’s OT: Outta Town mixtape features everybody from Young Thug to T.I. to Jermaine Dupri. The strongest cuts are the 90s inflected opener and the song with Ca$h Out, who is low-key my favorite rapper..

Amid years of fruitless attempts to regain New York hip-hop’s former glory, luddites’ endeavors to reinstate “real” hip-hop, and embarrassing overtures by yesterday’s greats — most recently, the Wu-Tang Clan’s painful and perverse new album — amid all of that, Raekwon alone seems to have noticed that the provenance of every golden..

L.A. by way of Chicago producer Salva went and got all your favorite rappers for his mixtape. Download it at his website and listen to choice cuts featuring Freddie Gibbs, Kurupt, E-40, and Schoolboy Q below. Sphere: Related Content