Exile might be the best producer to drop a mixtape this month, but he’s far from the most famous.
Next month, perennial rap-rookie-of-the-year contender J. Cole will finally drop his major label debut.
Blockbuster rap albums belong to the summer just as surely as FX-stuffed action flicks.
If rap critics had their way, Jean Grae would be the queen of conscious hip-hop.
Mixtapes are often low-risk, low-reward affairs, but every now and then an MC exploits the format in the name of some rep-making (or rep-breaking) stunt.
A rhymer no less gifted than T.S. Eliot once said that April is the cruelest month.
Similarly on-trend via the increasingly prominent underground R&B movement, the Weeknd takes the genre to even rawer places.