Lest you are to be led astray, this is not a map of some of the hottest season’s worthy drinking establishments in a city near you. No, this thing basically wrote itself on the heels of an impressive string of new exceptional hip-hop exploits, all released within short succession as we enter everyone’s favorite time of the year. The list is limited to eight selections dropped between May and July (yes, there’s a bit of a season’s cheat in there). It’s eight because that is also New York Knicks‘s small forward OG Anunoby’s official jersey number, whom a day after the uprising Manhattan franchise acquired Mikal Bridges from across the East River—reuniting La Cosa Nova from their Villanova Wildcats college heydays—reportedly came to terms with the pending free agent on a five-year contract worth more than $210 million.

So as June winds down, and Spike Lee celebrates the 35th anniversary of his critically-acclaimed joint Do The Right Thing via a block party on the very same street the film was shot in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, we would have been remiss not to elevate these superlative rap records. Kicking this whole thing off with marquee Detroit rap group Slum Village’s first new album in almost a decade, F.U.N. The J Dilla-surviving outfit’s tenth studio LP came out at the very beginning of May, but might in fact be the most true blue summer record of all in this batch. Faithful to its titling acronym—admittedly containing multitudes—the 12-track project packs a slew of sticky and immediate killers, no fillers; most of them disguising conscious lyrical urgency with disco dancey flows, as well as uplifting beats in earnest. F.U.N. is immaculately produced, its sound lavish and glossy, and if one’s to pass judgement on substance, nearly all of the songs hold quite a lot of compositional water too.

A tastefully handpicked line up of guests—including Larry June, Cordae, Karriem Riggins, and Robert Glasper—carefully elevates the sonic palette across the half hour of unhinged slappers on the project, without ever taking the boat out too far for the exploit to not have the usual Slum Village trademark stamp on it. Yes, the cover art is inexplicably ghastly and boyish, something you’d rather expect landing on a crestfallen young adult book sleeve, than on the Michigan veterans’s long awaiting comeback joint—but hey, it’s not like Slum Village have anything left to prove to anyone in the game at this point. This summer, expect to hear some of these numbers on the airwaves of any hip-hop stations that do the right thing.

Moving on, just a week after F.U.N., on the 10th of May 54-year-old rap game statesman Ghostface Killah saw fit to grace us with his twelfth solo studio project, Set the Tone (Guns & Roses): and boy it’s an adorned banquet ready for feast. Earmarked and distributed by Nas‘s influential imprint Mass Appeal, the album features co-sign appearances from fellow Wu Tang Clan peers Method Man and Raekwon, as well as Busta Rhymes, Kanye West, and the label boss himself—amongst many others. Unlike Slum Village’s neatly packed and focused thirty minutes of new material, Set the Tone is more bloated, pushing a full hour of runtime across its nineteen records (although four are interludes). Yet, its highlights are infectiously undeniable, like the New York City meeting of the mob minds on “Scar Tissue“, the gentle and sultry “Plan B” (featuring a standout vocal performance by Harl3y), or the silk sonic achieved on “Touch You“—tastefully interpolating the classic 00s R&B benchmark “Let Me Love You” by Mario.

Shamefully, the project seems to have flown a tad bit under the radar of most, and has left critics and mainstream fans alike largely unfazed. But not around here. This thing is a bona fide flawless exercise in feel good hit of the summer hedonism and excess. Stuffed with optimism, charisma, and flamboyance for good measure. Do not let this slip by you just because it’s not on your TikTok For You Page. Speaking of music that isn’t on your FYP, but definitely should, our third rec takes the impressionistic painting brushes and its inherent conceptualism up a few notches, courtesy of North Carolina-native Rapsody. Issued seven days after Ghostface’s exploit—yes, early May was stacked fam—Please Don’t Cry is the Roc Nation recording artist’s fourth full length offering. It’s as rich and textured as rap albums come: more and more a rarity in today’s commercial hip-hop climate, this is the album people wanted Rapsody to make, and now the dog has caught the car on this one.

Please Don’t Cry follows five years after the 41-year-old MC’s treaty on gender studies waxed on Eve (2019), and it’s our deep and bold storyteller time tip of note in the bunch. Conceding the heavy and costly comparison to drop, similarly to Kendrick Lamar‘s To Pimp a Butterfly, singling out individual standout tracks on here is somewhat of a fool’s errand. Instead, this is a wholesale course meal meant to be savored in vulnerable confluence. On the one hand, there’s a meta fourth wall to the project that couches the blood, sweat, and tears of Marlanna Evans amidst a cathartic macro concert arrangement of hip-hop, R&B, neo-soul, and jazz. In the same breath, each tune is a microcosm of emotional states and styles in and of itself—bookended by the narration-centric thematic centerpiece of “She’s Expecting You” and the sugary keys of the epic spoken word plea of “Forget Me Not” (featuring a deliciously warped sample of BROCKHAMPTON‘s “SUMMER“). In between, there’s a formidable tale as old as time, one of self-discovery through exposure, through fearless expression for the first time. Please Don’t Cry finds Rapsody at her best, not holding back: it’s not for the faint of heart.

Similarly not suitable for the faint of heart is the reckoning of what is going down in the God-forsaken Caribbean country of Haiti right now. Just as the umpteenth forced foreign intervention is settling into the land in the hopes to stabilize it amidst a political vacuum and a guerrilla ruling through warlords, native transplant via New Jersey Mach-Hommy is riding on the coattails of his definitive homeland tetralogy installment, #RICHAXXHAITIAN. Out the same day as Please Don’t Cry, 17th May, one day before Haitian Flag Day—we weren’t kidding about May being stacked…—the album is Mach’s fourteenth to date. It’s a gesamtkunstwerk of insurrectionary socio-political vignettes, simultaneously doubling as the Haitian-American rapper’s most catchy and accessible. The oeuvre is a multi-lingual, multi-genre, and multi-cultural affair, cross-pollinating autochthonous Haitian traditions with gritty posse street rhymes, typically associated with the New York Tri-state area.

The Griselda Records-affiliate keeps it grimy throughout the seventeen tracks sequenced on the digital version of the album, clocking in at just shy of fifty minutes of runtime, but goes particularly hard on cuts such as “SONJE“, “COPY COLD” (amplified by a superlative tell-all verse by Black Thought), and “GUGGENHEIM JEUNE“. Elsewhere, he attains higher levels of earworminess—not exactly something we’d have thought we’d use to describe Mach-Hommy’s music—on “SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON” and the titular lead single, aptly produced by fellow Haitian descendant KAYTRANADA (who is out with an impressive new tape of his own, just not strictly speaking a rap one to land on this list. Also no Knick wears #9 at the moment). Regardless, #RICHAXXHAITIAN is another full body of work experience for you, no cherry-picked finger food. It demands above-average listening prowess and command, but its rewards are so fulfilling that one might find themselves leaving the tape both spiritually and cerebrally re-aligned.

We sound like a broken record at this point, but the month of May shockingly managed to squeeze in one final musical coup de grâce before turning the calendar page. Long Beach rap laureate Vince Staples returned with his Def Jam swan song offering Dark Times on Friday the 24th, marking his sixth LP, a couple years after his double dipping with Vince Staples and Ramona Park Broke My Heart (2022). Perhaps the most singular and forlorn recommendation in this summer batch, the 35-minute statement comes as yet another reflective and contemplative series of essays. Less a cohesive concept album than a string of powerful short stories, the collection ventures in what’s arguably the vastest sonic range ever touched by the former Odd Future syndicate. While for all intents and purposes still filing this under a loud West Coast hip-hop file cabinet, it’s worth noting how numbers like “Shame on the Devil” flirts with jangly alt-pop instrumentals, while “Freeman” pushes experimental garage guitar licks way past the point one’d expect on a mainstream rap record.

Fair warning, if Slum Village’s F.U.N. is the most summer record on this list, Vince’s Dark Times is the least sunny one of the crop. I guess one could’ve figured that much from looking at their, album titles? Sometimes the proof really is in the pudding. However, fret not argonauts, since Vince’s got you and your feet covered with hot bops such as “Étouffée” and “Little Homies“—coincidentally the best, gnarliest, and most well rounded tunes on the whole record. In promoting the album, the 30-year-old LA-native asked fans not to overthink his songs, all to aware that is easier said than done when you happen to be one of the sharpest and critically acute pens of this generation’s rap cohort. Yet, that’s what makes this project a wicked collection of summer bars, too—aside from being Vince’s greatest, it’s also unassuming and easy listening to the ears, without sacrificing the usual poignancy and street wit folks have grown accustomed to expect from him.

Our sixth suggestion dropped halfway through June, a month that usually does not mess around when it comes to raising the mercury bar. In keeping with the sweltering heat brought by the official calendar kick off of the summer season, NxWorries’s highly-anticipated sophomore project Why Lawd? keeps us sweating from all pores. The American hip-hop super duo comprised of singer, rapper, and record producer Anderson .Paak and producer/songwriter Knxwledge followed up their critically acclaimed cult debut Yes Lawd! eight years later with an ultra crafty helping of 19 new joints. Released under legendary underground hip-hop label Stones Throw Records, the project manages to top its lauded predecessor, doubling down on quality songwriting, impeccable deliveries, and a trademark vintage sound that somehow still reverberates as fresh and unique, in spite of how deeply influential it’s been throughout the past decade.

Slowly rolled out throughout the past two years—lead single “Where I Go” featuring H.E.R. originally debuted as early as October 2022 (!)—and teased for even longer than that, the studio effort from the talented hip-hop duo was well worth the wait. Coasting through 45 minutes of runtime with the swagger and effortlessness of an off-season mixtape, this thing is extremely front-loaded, with one gorgeous slapper after another clocking in from second cut “86Sentra” through track number nine “FromHere“. A-list guests such as Charlie Wilson, Rae Khalil, and Earl Sweatshirt, as well as upheld catchiness make Why Lawd?‘s side B still well worth sticking around, in spite of a few dubs hinting at an even stronger record in there with a more focused editing. Nonetheless, cue this up if you’re in the market for some sexy, irreverent, and unhinged fun, all while summoning the Lord.

Lupe Fiasco‘s ninth studio LP Samurai is our penultimate tip off. Released just fresh outta the oven at the time of writing, this is a different kind of half hour to spend this summer. According to the groundbreaking Chicago MC, the project is “a loving & living portrait to and of one of my favorite artists, Amy Winehouse“. Because, sure, why not? The American rapper, record producer, and university professor’s successor to his otherworldly Drill Music in Zion (2022) has been highly anticipated—safe to say he did not phone it in. Once again entirely executive-produced by Drill Music chief sound orchestrator Soundtrakk, the concept for the record was grown from a voicemail left by the late English R&B singer for her producer Salaam Remi before her passing. In the note, the London-born singer/songwriter expressed her penchant for coming up with little, beautifully alliterated battle raps at the time, even likening herself to a Wu Tang Clan-inspired samurai.

Channelling all of the above, Lupe allowed for the story and album to take on a life of their own, kicking dances off with the title track as lead single halfway through May, before teasing the full project one more time with the infectious victory lap of “Cake“. The LP masterfully couches blistering highs and crushing lows all within eight records and half an hour of material, condensing subaltern scenarios and sketches of what a spitting Winehouse could have sounded like. Cuts such as “Palaces” at number four on the tracklist prove how easily the 42-year old alternative hip-hop pioneer can pen tunes so gorgeous they almost hurt, while “No. 1 Headband” acts as little reminder that he’s not forgotten how to have self-reflective fun, either. If you’re only sampling one project from this list of eight, and hinge on intellectually stimulating wordsmiths, make it this one.

Actually, maybe, make it Common and Pete Rock’s The Auditorium, Vol. 1. The only catch is that it’s not out yet, so don’t take our full word for it (methodical purity has left us long ago…). What is certain though, is that if we are to trust the first three teasers unearthed hitherto, “Wise Up“, “Dreamin’” and “All Kind of Ideas“, this is poised to be the signature hip-hop album of the summer, probably year. Marking the fifteenth solo studio LP for the Chicago conscious rap extraordinaire, The Auditorium, Vol. 1 is lucky enough to be enjoying Pete Rock’s unparalleled production chops throughout its projected fifteen cuts. A golden age East Coast hip-hop meeting of the minds, chopped and screwed in heaven. The full album is just mere days away, slated to drop everywhere on Friday 12th July. Here’s what we know for sure: it’s the summer, and there will be bars—guess the whole write up could’ve just been that verse.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV