The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Cardi B, Flo Milli, Tierra Whack, and more.
Guys, it’s finally happened: A Best New Hip-Hop column in which I could literally get away with ONLY writing about women. That it comes in the middle of Women’s History Month is icing on the cake. Obviously, the menfolk put some stuff out this week as well, and I GUESS we’ll get to that, but let’s all just take a moment to Truffle Shuffle on Joe Budden’s po-faced (and — let’s face it — sexist, sycophantic, and downright incorrect) doomsaying.
It was a solid end to a week that frankly, got off to a pretty trash start in the “women in hip-hop” department. It’d be remiss not to adknowledge the passing of a a true pioneer in the space, Boss, whose death was announced on Monday by a gang of her peers. From there, it only got better.
Fortunately, things picked up thanks to the announcement that Rapsody is making her long-awaited return with a new album in May.
Flo Milli revealed that Cardi B would be joining her on the highly anticipated “Never Lose Me” remix.
Cardi herself dropped her own new single, “Enough (Miami),” debuting new looks and a sharper pen game than ever.
Sexyy Red teamed up with Tay Keith and had the whole internet yelling “Bow, bow, bow, bow!” with “Get It Sexyy.”
And, of course, a slew of women, from Bktherula to Tierra Whack also released new albums.
Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending March 15, 2024.
Bktherula — LVL5 P2
Bktherula’s distorted thrash rap has been a staple of the Rolling Loud crowd’s rotation for some years, so it’s fitting that she drops her latest on the first day of the festival’s latest California iteration. She raps the way Shaggy and Scooby run while being chased by the latest monster of the week, and the beats are fittingly menacing.
Bossman Dlow — Mr. Beat The Road
I wrote about Bossman Dlow about a month ago and my colleague Wongo interviewed him a week later. Talk about striking while the iron is hot. The Florida rapper certainly benefitted from signing to the lithe Sony imprint Alamo, which was able to get his latest out the door while his viral track “Get In With Me” is still baking hot on TikTok.
Chuck Strangers — A Forsaken Lover’s Plea
While much of the attention and praise for the erstwhile members of Pro Era has rightfully been focused on Joey Badass, his old crewmates aren’t exactly sitting around doing nothing. Where Joey adjusted his style to suit the mainstream attention, Chuck Strangers went the other way, becoming more cerebral, dense, and mysterious (think fellow New York underground mainstays like Mike and Navy Blue). There’s a lot of J Dilla influence on his latest along with sprinkles of Griselda. It’s a great combo for fans of wordy, stream-of-consciousness backpack rap.
Flo Milli — Fine Ho, Stay
Of the modern wave of “girl rap” artists, Flo might be the one I’m rooting for the hardest. It’s pretty clear she focuses on barwork as much as the most dextrous backpacker while keeping things accessible. She’s a fan of the art, from hanging with Benny The Butcher to releasing the catchy, singsong brat raps that first made her a star. She splits the difference on her third album, leaning heavily on bangers and 106 & Park-ready pop ditties that show a lot of range.
Jay Critch — Humble Giant
A staple of the SoundCloud Rap boom era who has stuck around largely by virtue of a gift for consistency and a prolific work ethic, Jay Critch has proved to be remarkably adaptable. Case in point, he sounds as comfortable on drill beats here as he has on his Cloud rap production, coolly sauntering from one to the other for the duration of an easy-to-consume 13 tracks.
Kenny Mason — 9
I put Kenny Mason in this year’s Most Anticipated Hip-Hop Albums Of Spring feature earlier this week for two reasons. One: He’s got a ton of co-signs from rappers I really respect and enjoy. Two: My best friend Drew won’t shut up about him. Generally, this behavior is unbelievably grating — but it’s never inaccurate (for reference, he does the same thing with Curren$y and Larry June, two staples of this here column). “Luminous” probably won’t leave my personal rotation for at least three months.
Tierra Whack — World Wide Whack
Whew. I hope Whack has people around her to hug her. She’s always hinted at the rougher aspects of life but Vulture’s feature on the personal growth and struggle she’s undergone since dropping her last project — 2018’s groundbreaking EP(?) Whack World — makes the expansive and varied material here more poignant by entire orders of magnitude. She’s always been impressive. World Wide Whack is just transcendent.
Big Sean — “Clarity”
The Detroit icon missed 313 Day by 48 hours, but you know what? That’s okay. He’s back. This isn’t really a “song,” per se, but a five-minute therapy session with Sean, who’s certainly seen his fair share of ups and downs. I’m not sure what it says that makes his comeback this way while Lil Jon is doing meditation albums and André 3000 is dropping projects made of entirely woodwind instruments, but if hip-hop is entering its health girlie phase… I’m actually really proud of everybody. It’s been a rough couple of years, we need it.
Guapdad4000 — “I’d Rather Be With You Freestyle”
I’d rather listen to Guapdad’s freestyles than a lot of rappers’ entire albums. His commitment to this rollout is commendable; lots of artists do the weekly single release thing, but very few make sure to have a whole new music video ready to go with each one. The Bay Area rapper is dead set on proving doubters wrong — but if there are any left at this point, I “doubt” they’re listening.
Grouptherapy — “Pull Up!”
Yikes! Another one of those times I accidentally missed a full-length release I had been looking forward to. Grouptherapy is a rap trio made up of former child actors (including Tyrel J. Williams, the younger brother of Tyler James Williams of Abbott Elementary fame) who turned their disillusionment with the entertainment industry into fodder for their wildly experimental and introspective music. This one is a great example, but by no means emblematic of their output, as its way chiller than, say, “1stRoundDraftPickDEMO.mp3.” They’re incredibly versatile and entertaining in their own way, and that the project (THE ADDENDUM – IWMFMABIWSAC) is so personal tells me they’re going to find a very enthusiastic fanbase. Flog Gnaw worthy, for sure.
Zack Bia — “DAMN!” Feat. Teezo Touchdown
Teezo can do anything. The Houston(-ish) rapper — which seems like an inadequate descriptor, at this point — lights up every project he touches, and in this case, makes a strong case for the continued combination of hip-hop and EDM along with Field Trip Recordings producer Bia, who is responsible for advancing the careers of other like-minded genre-benders like SSGKobe, Slump6s, and Yeat.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.