Thought It Was A Drought

Noname - Telefone

Forget the past three years of missed connections, Noname’s Telefone is real and finally here. The Chicago rapper brings her crafted verses and knotty lyricism – first heard on Chance the Rapper’s Lost – to a beautiful and low key set of songs all of her own. Although just 10 cuts deep, there’s plenty here to unpack.

Noname writes about love and childhood with warmth and ambivalence, all too wrapped up in death, the past and the tragic blurring of it all; babies in suits; close friends looking casket pretty. This isn’t a simple nostalgia. In Noname’s world, even the Diddy Bop and a pair of K-Swiss are laced with a certain sadness – a happy snapshot of the neighbourhood where nobody’s safe. Through memories and telephone wires she shares her stories, and hears from others too – be it the voice of her straight-talking late grannie or the verses of friends. The telephone is just a symbol. Like hennessey and cigarette smoke it flows throughout this project but offers no guarantees.

Gucci Mane – Everybody Looking

Gucci Mane has been missed. Although technically he’s released more than 20 rap records since the summer of 2014, the mushmouthed Atlantan was behind bars for every one of them. His absence weighed heavily on those recordings – cobbled together as they were from studio odds and ends – but it left a bigger hole in the Atlanta rap scene he helped to build. Now, he’s finally home – and he looks leaner, cleaner and happier than we’ve ever seen him.

New album Everybody Looking is a strong return, owing in part to the collaboration of two of rap’s best current producers. Zaytoven and Mike Will throw their collective weight behind almost every song here, weaving nimble melodies between clattering drums and walls of distorted sub bass. Gucci himself shows signs of his sharpest material. He sounds effortless on the bright and brilliant pop rap of Waybach and Guwop Home, but he still finds comfort in the shadows. Best of all are the times he balances light and dark. “Don’t think I don’t know that they wish I was on death row,” he raps on Pop Music, before concluding with a grin: “But imagine how these crackers feel that I moved next door.”

Welcome home, Gucci.

Dreezy – No Hard Feelings

Another key member of Gucci’s welcoming party is Dreezy. Dreezy became one of the rapper’s first collaborators after being released this May. It was an unlikely choice – Gucci has no shortage of old friends in Atlanta waiting to reconnect – but then he always was one of rap’s best A&R men.

You don’t need to be Gucci Mane to recognise Dreezy’s potential; she got her break out-rapping Nicki Minaj on the best of many Chiraq remixes, and has since developed so she can switch seamlessly between trap rap and R&B ballads. Debut album No Hard Feelings leans more towards the latter, led by the T-Pain-featuring Close To You and Jeremih-featuring Body, which remains one of the year’s best songs. The Chicago rapper-singer has assembled an all-star team behind her – from Terrace Martin and Cardo to Southside and TM88 – and the results are seriously slick, if occasionally a little anonymous. With Dreezy’s debut done and dusted, next time out she could have something special.

YP - Dear Life

Rap narratives are rarely as complex as reality. If you’re a new artist then you’ve either got next or fallen off, and one bad project – even one bad song – can be enough to kill your momentum dead. Take Chicago’s YP, a gritty storyteller signed to Universal just ahead of drill’s first wave, who was then left in limbo as every label scrambled around looking for the next Chief Keef. He was subsequently dropped, and for all but the most dedicated blogs and fans, that was that. Except it wasn’t, and on Dear Life, YP spills five years of journal pages into a four minute rap masterclass. The narrative is tired, but the reality is heartbreaking.

Cam & China – Cam & China

Back in May’s column I wrote about the very real need for a full Cam & China project; two months later the Inglewood duo have obliged. This 7-song mini album sticks to the formula they’ve been winning with since their high school jerkin’ group, Pink Dollaz. That means the verses are lean and unapologetic. The beats might be different, but they’re still just as sparse and hard-as-concrete. What I wasn’t expecting is the sung chorus on the loved-up In My Feelings, or the Meek Mill-ish motivational anthem We Gon’ Make It. But If these sound like compromises, don’t get it twisted. Their sound may be expanding, but Cam and China are just inventing new ways to kill it.

3T Brax – 4AM

Not a huge amount is known about 3T Brax so I’ll keep this brief. At 22 years-old, the Baton Rouge rapper has a few EPs to his name, but this loose single 4AM is far and away his best song yet. Brax sounds in his element over a bright and tuneful beat, and the song has this jittery energy that probably comes with the territory when you’re up cooking drugs in the early hours. His Twitter indicates he’s working on an EP with Zaytoven, which is a great look, and if there are any more songs like this one he could be onto something.