Eminem — Encore

Eminem's fifth LP, announcing his retirement, as can be seen from the title and cover, this is destined to be his last album. The production is equally divided between Dr. Dre, often joined by Mike Elizondo, and a duo composed of Eminem and Luis Resto. Mark Batson is credited with two beats. The rhythms are combined with live production by Steve King (mainly on guitar, but also on bass, keyboards and mandolin), Mark Batson and Luis Resto on keyboards and Mike Elizondo, who takes care of keyboards, guitar and sitar. 50 Cent is the main guest of the product, together with Nate Dogg, Obie Trice, Stat Quo, D12 and Dr. Dre. In his fifth LP, after completing a painful trilogy, Eminem announces his retirement, as can be seen from the title and cover, the boy bids farewell to the public with what is destined to be his last album.

Westside Gunn — Riots on Fashion Avenue EP

Born as a common, typical EP. Four tracks, eleven minutes. But what would that have been, huh? Westside Gunn diligently lengthens it with two remixes and six instrumental versions. The production is realized by French hip-hop beatmaker Mil Beats aka Mil, [there are] no guest.

Eminem — 8 Mile: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture

At the end of 2002, Eminem releases the official soundtrack album to the 2002 film of the same name. He's the main producer of the disk along with Jeff Bass, Luis Resto, Red Spyda, Denaun Porter, Dante Ross, John Gamble, Mike Elizondo, Chucky Thompson of the Hitmen, John "J-Praize" Freeman, Sha Money XL, Nas, Kellin Manning, Martin Pradler e DJ Premier. The CD is performed by several artists: Mathers, Obie Trice, 50 Cent, D12, Jay-Z, Freeway, Xzibit, Macy Gray, Nas, Boomkat, Rakim, Young Zee and Gang Starr.

Teraban — Operation: Bloody Valentine (The Lost Weapons)

The General Dom Pachino Presents Teraban, "Operation: Bloody Valentine (The Lost Weapons Mixtape)", a collaborative project created together with his friend Bugsy da God. The tape consists of 22 tracks made mainly by two rappers under the name Teraban, with exceptions represented by solo tracks performed by Dom Pachino and Bugsy da God. The production is mainly created by Falling Down, which provides beats for half of the mixtape, as well as Lord Beatjitzu (7 beats), Fascist Beats, Bugsy da God and 140 Productions, the latter with one beat each. The guests are Chapelz aka Chapel of 140 Productions and of Dom Pachino's Team Napalm, which gets a solo track, Ninth Prince aka 9th Prince of Killarmy, Dezert Eagle aka Desert Eagle of Hillside Scramblers, Bugotti Bomb and Eliana. The whole set of rhythms developed by the producers may not thrill you and not completely convince you, even though it's one of the nicest productions you can hear on a Dom Pachino record and there's practically no wrong beat out of twenty-two. Killarmy rapper and Bugsy da God deliver well together and show discreet mic proficiency, the most satisfying results come in the finale, with the "NYC Housing" and "Teraban, Teraban" highlights. It's an interesting starting point for listening to Dom Pachino, not essential in going to the warm core of the best products related to Wu-Tang.

Snoop Dogg — Paid tha Cost to Be da Bo$$

Sixth studio album by Snoop Dogg. The rhythm set is signed by some of the best producers on the circuit, such as Battlecat, E-Swift, Just Blaze, Hi-Tek and DJ Premier. In addition to them, Fredwreck, Jelly Roll, Meech Wells, The Neptunes, Keith Clizark, L.T. Hutton and Josef Leimberg. Daz Dillinger produces the bonus track. Guests are Lady of Rage, RBX, Nate Dogg, Warren G, Lil' Half Dead, Soopafly, Jay-Z, Redman, Pharrell Williams, Charlie Wilson, Traci Nelson, LaToiya Williams, Mr. Kane, Goldie Loc, E-White, and Ludacris. On the cover, Broadus breaks away from the gang symbolism that had marked his latest LPs with No Limit and decides for black and white.

It's a quite curious album, the author completes the thematic transition started in the previous projects by permanently switching from gangster to pimpin' topics. Like all four previous LPs, the index veers towards production because it's the one who puts down this effort: the "Nas formula" (en: more producers sparse in the LP) doesn't reward him even this time, on these rhythms, the boy doesn't carve any song worthy of note or memorable.

Coolio — It Takes a Thief

Debut album by Artis "Coolio" Ivey, former member of WC and The Maad Circle. Production, sometimes paired with live instrumentation, is mainly provided by Brian "Wino" Dobbs, along with Rashad Coles, Billy Boy, Brian G, WC and his brother DJ Crazy Toones, Doug Rasheed, Clyde "Spoony" Colen (who with Coolio was part of the Nu-Skool), Architect and by Coolio himself. The MC doesn't need guests, practically never, because it leaves a lot of space for excellent samples that refresh the disc with each track, allowing him to perform alone for almost an hour, before the final song with J-Ro of Tha Alkaholiks and Billy Boy.

Suprême NTM — 1993... J'appuie sur la gâchette

Two years after their debut "Authentik", the group Suprême NTM released their second studio album. Recorded between April 1992 and February 1993, the album saw the entrance into rap by Yazid, until then a dancer of the group, while the presence of JoeyStarr was limited to seven tracks out of seventeen. The music was curated by DJ S, Tahar, with a beat by the Beatnuts and two rhythms created by The LG Experience, the younger brother of Easy Mo Bee. Big Red and AL.X were the guests of the project.

Eminem — The Eminem Show

Eminem's fourth LP. It forms a trinity with "The Slim Shady LP" (1999) and "The Marshall Mathers LP" (2000), representing respectively the albums of the alter-ego of the rapper Slim Shady, of the boy Marshall Mathers and of the rapper Eminem. It's almost entirely self-produced, the set is completed by five rhythms by Dr. Dre, while Jeff Bass of FTB joins the author several times behind the keyboards. The guests are Dr. Dre, Nate Dogg, D12, Obie Trice, Dina Rae and her daughter.

Eminem — The Marshall Mathers LP

The success of the album "The Slim Shady LP" takes the boy from being an unknown local underground rapper to a global mainstream rap star. Interscope finances a national tour and allows him to create his own record label, Shady Records, and the young man decides to sign his friend Proof. Eminem promotes his album on tour and the notoriety distances his friends, doubts those who remain and leads to several lawsuits filed against him. A few months after the album's release, the young man marries Kim Scott and flies to Amsterdam where, through excessive drug use, he finds inspiration for the lyrics of his new album. Production is divided between Dr. Dre, Mel-Man, Eminem and the Bass Brothers now known as FBT. The 45 King produces one track. The guests are Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Xzibit, RBX, Sticky Fingaz, D12, Bizarre and, last but not least, Dido.

Ghost & DOOM — Swift and Craftable EP

BlendsCrafters offers this short six-track EP that combines verses from Ghostface Killah and MF DOOM. The production is credited to Mr. Green, Force of Nature, BlendsCrafters, Tom Dice and Scruffnuk Dust. The very poor audio quality immediately destroys the project and nullifies any effort. "Double 0 Bubblin Bandits" ft. Polite of American Cream Team & Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan is one of the few accessible songs together with "The Champ (Remix)", the rest have such a bad audio as to be almost incomprehensible. Disappointing tape. 4/10.

Snoop Dogg — R&G: Rhythm & Gangsta

The latest LP kept Calvin "Snoop Dogg" Broadus off the charts, sensationally. How is it possible? Wow, I just don't know. Look at that cover, it's tough there. He put the "$" in place of the "s" in the title. He put DJ Premier into production. He put Pharrell into production. He put Pharrell to sing. He put Kokane to sing. He put Nate Dogg to sing. Everyone is singing. Hell, there is Jay-Z, Ludacris, Redman, Warren G, Lady of Rage. The cream of the cream of the cream of the decade in rap. If you don't have two of those names among your top five, then maybe you know hip-hop too well and, in that case, you're in the wrong place. There are samples, club tracks, dissing tracks, rnb tracks, hardcore tracks, everything is there. Music critics cannot afford to say absolutely anything about this album, despite it being actually terrible. No commercial mistakes were made.

Solomon Childs — Funeral Talk (The Eulogy)

Solomon Childs effort released by ChamberMusik Special Products and Yalloppin Entertainment, labels of G-Clef, one of the guests on the tape together with Ashanti, Cappadonna and RZA (Ghostface and Popa Wu are sometimes uncredited, for the intro of "Breaks Upz Ta Make Upz" and the outro of "Fallin' in Love", respectively). Neither the music nor the lyrics are particularly noteworthy, the Staten Island rapper spins around hardcore and thug themes for over an hour, freaking out a bit on "Pimp Talk", and with songs dedicated to women ("Fallin' in LIve"), single mothers ("Girls Havin' Babies on Their Own") and personal tracks ("Home for Good"). The beats aren't good and boom bap is in short supply. The guests are as if they're not there, Cappadonna spits appreciably, as if he has to prove something, despite a wack beat (the next one is even worse, in "Dinero"). The whole drive is quite a long and bumpy journey to go through, not worth it.

Murs & 9th Wonder — The Final Adventure

The fifth studio album, released by Jamla Records, coincides with the final adventure for the duo Murs & 9th Wonder. Five albums in eight years, two a year from 2004 to 2012, it's right to close their firm. The boys remain faithful to the formula of ten songs without skits, thirty-seven minutes, and internal guests, with Rapsody the only rapper to perform: she kills the cut on a boom bap with fresh drum and chopped and looped chipmunk soul sample, obscuring the other performer. Murs is working here in order to close the pentalogy, however, the difference with respect to the records in which he doesn't commit isn't felt and this is a big problem of the project. 9th Wonder sounds better than two years ago, here he also guesses numerous rhythms ("Get Together", "Dance With Me", "Tale of Two Cities", "Wherever You Are"), maintaining its typical soulful production and several good-level chipmunk soul extracts: with a competent rapper an interesting album would have come out, while Murs instead spits dull, weak, with a soporific flow worth of a retired, anchored to his favorite topic. Among the best rhythms, "Tale of Two Cities" stands out: soulful production, dusty elegant piano, poor drum, short light smooth sax that intrudes into the beat. 5/10.

Akhenaton — Métèque et mat

Debut studio album by Philippe "Akhenaton" Fagione, French rapper born in Marseille by a family of Italian origins, that choose as a moniker the name of the Egyptian pharaoh. Passionate about soccer, growing up he approached hip-hop through break-dancing after taking a journey to New York. After being the founder and one of the main rapper of the seminal group IAM, in 1995 Akhenaton starts a career as a solo artist. The production is handled by Akh and Nicholas Sansano, while there's only a guest, Fonky Family.

Kids See Ghosts — Kids See Ghosts

A ghostly white figure rides a white monster floating in the air, nearby a child is sitting on what appears to be the monstrous representation of the child himself. Behind them, a forest and Mount Fuji in the background. The work, wonderfully designed by the master Takashi Murakami, already engaged by Kanye West for his cover of "Graduation" (2007), draws inspiration from one of Hokusai's paintings from his artwork "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" (1826-33), which pays homage to, where Mount Fuji is reflected in Lake Kawaguchi. Masterpiece. The entire pastel color palette is represented on the cover, which starts from the cold colors at the bottom and ramps up to warm colors at the top. The title is represented in blue in the lower left in what looks like Japanese, but is actually Chinese.

The genesis of the project is crucial and complex. Since 2008, Kanye West has started collaborating frequently with Kid Cudi, starting with "Welcome to Heartbreak" from West's record "808s & Heartbreak". Kid Cudi was featured on West's next six albums, and the Chicago rapper guested on Kid Cudi's first two records. After five years, in 2013 Kid Cudi left the West label GOOD Music and the two separated for a few years before returning to collaborate in 2016. Both artists have had drug addictions and have been suffering from major mental health problems for many years, Kid Cudi was checked into rehab and West was also hospitalized in November 2016, a short time after briefly falling out with Kid Cudi and having reconciled with him during a concert that goes down in history because Kanye expresses his support for Donald Trump for the first time. In addition to these problems, the two artists received harsh negative reviews, one for his controversial statements, the other for his music. In the following December, after the release of Kid Cudi's sixth album, much appreciated by Kanye West, the two begin work on a collaborative album and some parts of the disc are recorded in the summer of 2017 during sessions between Japan and China.

Eminem — The Slim Shady LP

The release of "Slim Shady EP" received some critical acclaim and sold a couple hundred more copies than "Infinite", but it did not help Eminem out of his precarious financial situation and he was fired and evicted from his home. The boy traveled to Los Angeles to participate in the Rap Olympics, a nationwide battle rap competition where he placed second, attracting the attention of an Interscope Records intern, Dean Geistlinger, who asked him for a copy of his EP. The copy reached Jimmy Iovine and the tape was also listened to by Dr. Dre, who went crazy. Despite the resistance of the executives towards Mathers, Dr. Dre insisted on wanting to work with him and they both began to build Eminem's second studio album, which he signed with Dre's Interscope Records.

E-40 & Too $hort — History: Mob Music

"Mob Music" is one of two collaborative CDs released by E-40 & Too Short in 2012 together with "Function Music". Of "mob" there's only the name because it cannot be labeled as an album of the mafia rap genre, a crime rap sub-genre forgotten for years in the period in which the double LP is released. Kurupt and B-Legit are some of the guests, the rhythms are provided by beatmakers such as ShonuFF, Droop-E, Rick Rock (these all also present in the other CD), DJ Battlecat, Studio Tone and Sam Bostic. The set sounds much more pleasant than the twin disc, the beats are darker and more melodic, there are more ordered drum patterns and the production is finally able to breathe. The effort presents a first part more robust and coherent than the second half, managing to hold up well for over half an hour before falling physiologically, welcoming almost seventy minutes of music. As in "Function Music", E-40 easily overtake Too Short to the point that the latter looks like one of the other guests on the tape. The end result is a discreet effort that might appeal to Bay Area fans, but not the casual listeners. 6/10.

E-40 & Too $hort — History: Function Music

E-40 & Too Short are expected to release a collaborative project in the wake of Method Man & Redman's overwhelming success in the late 1990s, yet their idea is stopped by Jive. Their efforts materialized a decade later, with the release of both from the label: "The History Channel" was born, over time transformed into a collaborative double disc. "Function Music" is one of the two LPs, full of guests, including Tyga, Jeremih, Wiz Khalifa and Ice Cube, and of producers, where the name of DecadeZ is repeated more times than the others by scrolling through the credits.

Over the course of these long sixty-five minutes, E-40 is fine, Too Short is fine, the others do little and bad. You can guess the respective lyrical paths that the two emcees intend to undertake, while the music makes the record much more cumbersome: the set is built for a club crowd, there's not a beat that remains in the memory, and in particular there's a whole series of shoddy and similar drum machines. The first track deceives you that this can be a good record, nothing in the following minutes leads you to validate this thesis. A song with E-40, Too Short and Ice Cube is theoretically a highlight on any album, nevertheless apparently it's not here, and it goes away normally without leaving anything like almost any other song. There's nothing to discuss when it comes to E-40 and Too Short, they're two giants of the game, this work simply doesn't represent at best the quality to which their listeners have become accustomed in their heyday. 4/10.

9th Wonder — Zion VII

Seventh installment in seven years of the record series created by hip-hop producer 9th Wonder, "Zion". The author reduces the number of songs by half compared to the previous chapter and the length of listening increased from almost two hours to an hour and a quarter, approximately. King Draft & Swank, rappers from 9th Wonder's label Jamla Records, guested on the first seven tracks, the rest of the tape is entirely instrumental. The Jack Moves, Jalisa and Datsunn are the other credited guests on some of those seven songs. Sometimes the author guesses the melody and finds fresh samples, but the drum is often bad or weak and the rhythm never takes off. "Remain" is a rare exception, 9th Wonder creates a splendid beat, with a soulful sample and a perfect drum, Swank and King Draft deliver bars with regular style. "Lust 4 U" features a sample from Free Life's "Wish You Were Here" and "Know I" has a sample from "'Cause I Love You" by Lenny Williams, but both choices are unmemorable. "BeenChanged" is one of the high points of these 76 minutes, thanks to a series of clippings and chops from the excellent "Changed" by Donald Watkins and The Gospel Music Educators Seminar Mass Choir. Then, as per a die-hard tradition by 9th Wonder, it's his shorter inserts that coincide with the best of his selection, and are scattered throughout the listening: "BeSuperStar", "MissinYouJam" and "WorldWindSoul", boasting great samples and a good melody. Everything else feels unnecessary and makes it yet another bloated effort from the artist. 5/10.

Kanye West — Ye

«When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... for 400 years? That sounds like a choice. You were there for 400 years and it's all of y'all. It's like we're mentally imprisoned.» — Kanye West in 2018.

Hospitalized for drug problems in late 2016, after also stating on stage that friend Jay-Z wanted to assassinate him, praying he didn't send his killers to murder him, Kanye West isolates himself from the world again and also stops using twitter for almost a year. In spring 2017, West calls several collaborators to a new location isolated from the rest of the world and in the middle of nowhere that becomes his new music recording venue, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. From West's recordings, known as the Wyoming Sessions, five albums by five different artists come out: Pusha-T ("Daytona"), Kanye West ("ye"), Kids See Ghosts ("Kids See Ghosts"), Nas ("Nasir") and Teyana Taylor ("K.T.S.E."). The albums each consist of seven tracks and are released within a week of each other. Pusha-T's album precedes West's by one week.

IAM — Ombre est lumière

After the release of their second album, the Marseille hip-hop group IAM embarked on an extensive tour over the next two years, building a solid audience niche and signing with the newly formed Delabel label, which allows them to work with a larger budget than in the past. The group recorded the album in two months in Aix-en-Provence together with New York producer Nick Sansano, engineer of Public Enemy and producer of Sonic Youth, and mixed the project in New York. IAM's third album contains 40 tracks (13 skits) and 2.5 hours of music, it's one of the very first double albums in hip-hop. Faf Larage and Def Bond are the only guests on the two CDs, the production is carried out entirely by the group and Nick Sansano.

AAVV — The Man With the Iron Fists: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

The soundtrack of "The Man With the Iron Fists" (2012) co-written, directed and starring Robert Diggs, also emerges as the best album made by him under the name of RZA. One of the greatest strengths of the project lies in the fact that for the most time, The Abbot contributes neither to production nor to rapping, leaving room for other performers and playing a role similar to that of DJ Khaled in his album-producer releases.