@op u might really like the new kelela album

Trying to find something new for you

Key word “FOR ME” hommie

Nothing but respect for that album

They can technically and stylistically rap. They are more sophisticated even when it comes to melody. They're more varied with their production.

They do not have the novelty of BARS. They're cornering the market on their sound and doing it to death. Anything fresh gets replicated by producers and engineers immediately. Their identity isn't in their writing or delivery or personality anymore.

Carti takes his time and pops out with a whole new style. Then look at the guys under him.

I’ll peep

Going to do my best to take all suggestions in this thread seriously

Idk why u boxed yourself in so much and expect others to be able to help u lol. Listen to more s***

Sounds like just what I need

You say “listen to more s***” like it’s so easy

It’s 2,445,675 new albums to choose from

Too many damn choices

you need to get into some obscure sub genre where the only way to keep up is joining random discord servers and downloading albums off mediafire

Never considered the waning mbdtf influence as a possible cause of rap music losing its coherence in presentation but you might be right about that.

Find a pocket nigga. Idk I do it all the time

I agree for most rappers but someone like destroy lonely has the whole package imo

He’s only 22 tho, I’d say he has three four years before a real deal opus arrives from him

I always wanted to do that but idk s*** seems to time consuming

Do any of y’all seriously do this?

yup rap is in a sad state right now. none of these new kids are doing a good job in challenging the veterans

Hip hop spent a lot of 2013-20 deconstructing rap via that melodic auto tuned and mumbleish stuff, mostly perpetuated by the trap scene but also art hoe s*** through Kanye, Yung Lean, etc. We got a lot of great music but it just went a bit too far, last few years have been overly dominated by clone artists usually doing some uninspired impression of Thug/Future/Carti/xxx. There’s definitely been blips of other stuff in that time frame (NY Drill, dancehall inspired stuff, etc) but hip hop is very much ready for a shift in sound, much like it was during the zombie days of the bling era before Take Care Drake/Kendrick/Weeknd/Chief Keef, when the music was, like, bad era of Wayne, Rick Ross, Big Sean, French Montana, etc.

Edit: Per Wikipedia the bad era of hip hop I’m referring to is like 80% of the blog era, not the end of the bling era. Gotta be the worst the genre had been in a very long time.

Listen to Lancey foux yeat and summrs

albumoftheyear.org/ratings/6-highest-rated/2023/1

i like to start here, the best reviewed albums of 2023. You can change genre, year, decade, minimum # of reviews. Gives a good place to start knowing they were already well reviewed/discussed.

It’s kinda hard to think abt where rap can go as a whole philosophically

Like production and style sure we can go anywhere, but there’s such a lack of substance that’s type can only go so far

I already be killing yeat didn’t mention bc I feel like that’s a given his newer projects don’t feel as special tho

Never really heard s*** from summrs that grabbed me

What you recommend from Lancey foux

I don’t think the direction of a musical genre is something you can really conceptualize, I think impactful art merely emerges and then you make assessments about its direction. Around 2005-2007ish hip hop sales went down, and I distinctly remember hip hop where I grew up generally going out of favor sans Kanye and Wayne. I don’t think you could’ve anticipated some kind of syncretic melodic emo trap music doing numbers in 2010 with any certainty.

I’m out of time

Elephant in the room: Ye is effectively gone, and we have no one else even close in the genre pushing boundaries the way he did. As much as I loved MMBS, Kendrick seems to be actively avoiding picking up the torch. Wayne has been coasting for years. Hov isn’t going to come back any time soon. Drake is the obvious leader of the genre currently, and he’s got zero competition pushing him to hone his sound. Imo H,N was a massive missed opportunity for a Yeezus-level career reinvention (even though I did also love that album) and Her Loss is a tacit admission that he’s going to be most rewarded by treading the same ground he largely has been since Views.

With all of the above at present, I don’t see a lot of mainstream blockbuster rap moments in the coming decade the way we had them in the 10s. Carti and Uzi are the top of their generation imo, and neither has produced the kind of genre shifting project that the above big names did. WLR is the closest thing, and frankly it still falls short. Other top names from the past like Cole, Nicki, Future, and Cudi are all coasting to varying degrees of success as effective legacy acts. Kodak and YB are successful in their lanes, but Kodak is determined to shoot himself in the foot as often as possible and YB has zero interest in a crossover. Frustratingly, all of the biggest female rappers are leaning further into pop than rap, and exceptions like Rico and Bktherula aren’t aiming for the mainstream anyway. And bluntly, everyone else who could’ve turned the tide is dead.

Rap isn’t dead, though, by any means. Hell, the Larry June x Alchemist project that just dropped is one of my favorites of the year along with Scaring The Hoes. But I think we’ve seen its mainstream peak in the current era, sadly. The blockbuster hit albums like the Carters or Blueprints are happening in other genres. OP, I’d challenge yourself to follow what’s popping elsewhere to see what other big names click with you, and at the same time challenge yourself to expand into less extravagant rap releases to meet the genre where it is. There’s plenty of great music to find, but the landscape has shifted significantly and imo it’s not going back to where it was for at least a generation.

True, especially most of the sound being derivative of chief keef of all places