Vince Staples, Regular Genius
Jeff Weiss | The Fader
“He strips away the glorification of gangsta rap and reminds listeners that their entertainment doesn’t come without a body count and other brutal consequences. Staples has transcended comparisons, but if you needed to make one: He’s the closest heir to the Ice Cube of Death Certificate crossed with the Ice Cube of Friday.”
40 Is the New 40
Sean Fennessey | The Ringer
“His investments — not just a professional sports team, but alcohol, nightclubs, clothing brands, a website — and his family had become interwoven. His pirouette across the tightrope of American success was near-complete. ‘If you escaped what I’ve escaped,’ he raps on the album, ‘you’d be in Paris getting fucked up, too.’ He could have disappeared forever that night with a life well lived.”
The 1975: Talking Fandom and Philosophy With Pop’s Most Daring Radicals
Meaghan Garvey | MTV News
“It wasn’t that they’d found their lane so much as realized how to effectively swerve between all of them. Flashes of perfect ’80s-inspired pop-rock were bookended by wordless ambient experiments. None of this could have entirely predicted the dense, uncategorizable glory of their latest record, but at least they tried to warn us.”