God Forgives, I Don't can't top Rick Ross' last album, 2010's Teflon Don, in audacity and pomposity. But the Boss tries his hardest. He whips out the pocketbook for cameos from Andre 3000 ("Sixteen"), Jay-Z and Dr. Dre ("3 Kings"), Usher ("Touch 'N You") and even former Def Jam CEO LA Reid, who marvels "It takes a boss to know a boss" on "Maybach Music IV." But there are no breakout hits from Lex Luger, who lit up 2010's classic "BMF" with jackhammer bass. Here, it's the usual mellow grooves from J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League and others that help Ross construct his empire of luxury rap.
On the cover for Life is Good, Nas drapes a green dress on his knee -- the same dress his ex-wife Kelis wore at their wedding. Save for "Bye Baby," the album isn't about her; instead, he addresses how the world perceives him. He notes his disdain for interviews on "Back When," and how some believe he "overthinks the songs he writing," and rues his teenage daughter's Twitter account on the lovely "Daughters." The melodic production from Salaam Remi and No I.D. is strong yet restrained; it leaves space for Nas' torrents of rhymes, the key to his status as one of hip-hop's best rappers.
2 Chainz's solo debut is modest for someone that's benefited from a lot of hype. He's not one to reflect on life beyond the grind of a former crack dealer turned rap star. He has some witty lyrics, like "Let me slow it down fo I get a ticket/ N*gg* want a verse from me it's gonna cost a chicken" on "Crack." But more talented rappers outshine him: His big hit "No Lie" is a Drake song, "Extremely Blessed" is a The-Dream track, and Nicki Minaj takes over "I Luv Dem Strippers." He's at his best on "Crack," "Dope Peddler" and "Money Machine," all standard trap-rap numbers that rattle the speakers.
Feel free to be skeptical that a group so proud of being "lyrical" can make a listenable album. Our House isn't a train wreck like its lead single, the Cee Lo-assisted "My Life." The quartet relies on others for decent hooks, from Skylar Grey on "Rescue Me" to Busta Rhymes on "Coffin." They're best at spitting bars and doing the "Hammer Dance," an AraabMuzik track that comes closest to their goal of reviving '90s hardcore boom bap. Yet the airy, pop-baiting beats are a drag on Slaughterhouse's rap attack. Even purists have commercial constraints these days.
With a title and cover art that pays homage to his dead cat Whiskers, Aesop Rock's first solo album in five years is a deep dive into Kerouac-like prose. He stacks tracks like "ZZZ Top," "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Ruby '81" with stray details. The former, a view of teen self-righteousness by carving "Zulu" on "Chucks," becomes "A 3-D frame of exploding brick/ And whiz lines for the locally motion sick." His self-produced beats, a funk-rock squall akin to El-P and Blockhead, don't add much, but it's just as well: Aesop Rock is a vivacious soloist who only needs spare accompaniment to shine.
By now, Khaled's histrionic and self-congratulatory smorgasbords have grown familiar, as are the complaints that Khaled doesn't actually do much besides "executive produce" (assemble the talent) and scream out "DJ Khaled!" The worst that can be said about Kiss the Ring is that it lacks a sequel to 2011's big Drake-assisted hit, "I'm On One." "Hip-Hop," where Nas calls his beloved genre "a whore/ you can have her," is a nastily implicit critique of this album; more entertaining, if less relevant, is Kanye West doing his angry rich-man bit on "I Wish You Would."
Beanie Sigel, who dropped this album before reporting to prison for tax evasion, falls into a trap that ensnares so many former major leaguers: He tries to make a mainstream rap album on a small budget. Would-be R&B crossover tracks like "This Time," where he seems to apologize for the mess he's made of his life, just don't bang the way his Def Jam epics used to. This Time improves near the end when he joins his State Property crew for "The Reunion," brags how he was "conceived to the Isley Brothers" on the battle rap "No Hook," and evokes 2Pac's scandal-laden career on "Dangerous."
Prodigy is in a pleasant mood for someone just released from prison after three years. He brags about networking with millionaires and stunting on the red carpet on "Award Show Life," and lavishing his woman with attention on "Pretty Thug" and "Let Me Show You." He also reunites with longtime producer the Alchemist for the excellent "Live," and the Young L-produced "Get Money" is a punchy electro-rap. Mostly solid, H.N.I.C. 3 has a few off moments: Prodigy flips Illuminati metaphors Rick Ross-style on the weird "Skull & Bones," and his collabs with Esther are weak.
This surprisingly mature release by one-half of Memphis pioneers 8Ball & MJG covers the usual Dirty South territory, from "paper planin'" on the Big K.R.I.T.-produced "We Buy Gold" to "poppin' the pink bottles" with 2 Chainz on "Don't Bring Me Down." Yet he also delivers "Lucky's Theme Song," where a drug dealer is tortured by his enemies while his girl is raped, and "The Price," with its two short stories about two kids who take the street life to an early grave. 8Ball may have been a gangster earlier in life, but he's not one now, and he's smart enough not to pretend otherwise on Life's Quest.
With his soundtrack to his directorial debut, the film Ill Manors, Ben "Plan B" Drew is evolving into one of the best dramatists of U.K. urban life since The Streets. But whereas The Streets' Mike Skinner was irrepressibly funny, Plan B allows just a sliver of optimism into his grimy kitchen-sink tales. Ill Manors packs a hard punch: "I Am the Narrator" sets the stage for a dystopia of hellish conditions, and "Great Day for a Murder" is a frightening tale of a child forced to commit homicide. The deluxe edition includes moody instrumental snippets from the movie and a bonus song, "Michelle."
"Catch a throat full from the fire vocal," promises MF Doom on "Guv'nor." But JJ Doom don't mesh. Jneiro Jarel is an iconoclast who sings and raps over his electronic beats, but save for the instrumental "Viberian Twilight II," he's restrained by Doom's inexorably deadpan rhymes. And Doom is his erratic self, conjuring images of demonic rap zombies on "Rhymin' Slang" amid cameos from Beth Gibbons (on "GMO") and Damon Albarn ("Bite the Thong"). Jneiro and Doom synchronize on "Retarded Fren" and "Borin' Convo," but those are fleeting moments on the disjointed Key to the Kuffs.
At 30 tracks, Russian Roulette looks like an Alchemist beat tape, except it's not. The best way to describe it is beatless, as the L.A. producer weaves orchestral tracks and spoken voices into a strangely inviting tapestry. It's not clear what Al's up to, but there are some great instrumental loops to latch onto, like "Learned By Listening" and "Live from Dynamo Stadium 2." Meanwhile, his street-rapping guests offer no clarity, and their grumpy threats seem out of place amid the stoned abstractions. However, Guilty Simpson, Roc Marciano and Danny Brown deliver nice verses.
