So much rap music comes out all the time, and especially with frequent surprise releases, it can be hard to keep track of it all. So, as a way to help keep up with all of it, here’s a roundup of the 9 rap albums from November 2024 that stood out to us most. We also probably still missed or haven’t spent enough time with some great November rap albums that aren’t on this list. What were some of your favorites of last month? Let us know, and read on for the list (unranked, in no particular order).
Kendrick Lamar – GNX (pgLang/Interscope)
In the midst of what might be his biggest year yet, Kendrick surprised the world with a new album. It’s got more where ”Not Like Us” came from, two songs with SZA, and a whole lot of other tricks.
In a weird way, do we kind of have to thank Drake for this? Drake poked the bear, and Kendrick didn’t stop firing back until he released the biggest rap song in recent memory with “Not Like Us,” a song that it’s hard to imagine GNX existing without.
At 44 minutes and 20 seconds, it’s his shortest album by a pretty significant margin, and it’s one of his only albums that doesn’t seem to have a long, drawn-out narrative arc throughout. It leaves an impact right away, just like “Not Like Us.” It sounds like he went with his gut and rarely overthought things, just like he did on “Not Like Us.” It also has a few other “Not Like Us”-esque bangers that Kendrick might not have ever written if things went a different way and he spent 2024 hard at work on another sprawling album like Mr. Morale. “Squabble Up” and “TV Off,” the latter of which is one of two Mustard-produced songs on here, sound like direct sequels to “Not Like Us” and they sound just as ready to light up a stadium. Mustard also produced “Hey Now,” a song that’s a little darker but still powered by that unmistakable Mustard bounce. “Peekabo” has some of that same energy too. And just like “Not Like Us” did, these songs remind the world that Kendrick hasn’t let his high brow art side get to his head. His bangers are still better than everybody else’s bangers too.
But GNX is not just a Drake diss album and it’s not just an album-length version of “Not Like Us.” It has no lack of the kinds of vast, immersive moments that Kendrick includes on albums like Mr. Morale and To Pimp A Butterfly, including two sentimental ballads that feature SZA, the climactic slow-burner “Man In The Garden” and the Tupac homage “Reincarnated.” It’s also a love letter to the West Coast, and most of its non-SZA guests are lesser-known West Coast rappers like Peysoh, YoungThreat, Hitta J3, Dody6, and AzChike. It’s an album like no Kendrick album before it. He’s given us so many epic, cinematic albums that it’s kind of refreshing to hear him bang out something a little more down-to-earth. Even DAMN., which felt like the closest thing that Kendrick had made to a traditional rap album since his pre-good kid, m.A.A.d city days, still feels more sprawling than GNX. I’m glad Kendrick can do both. I’m glad he can give us a fired-up album like this one, and I won’t be surprised if his next album attempts to get even more ambitious than the self-reflective, therapeutic concept album he released in 2022 or the hip hop/jazz odyssey he released in 2015. It’s an intentionally smaller-scale album but it doesn’t feel small because Kendrick is the one doing it. The claim that Kendrick made that ruffled Drake and J. Cole’s feathers this year (“Motherfuck the big three, it’s just big me”) was something that most of us didn’t even blink at. GNX is a reminder of why.
Maxo Kream – Personification (Stomp Down)
The remarkably consistent Texas rapper gives us another offering of storyteller rap-infused bangers with help from Tyler the Creator, Denzel Curry, BigXthaPlug, and more
I get the sense that too many people are sleeping on Maxo Kream. He parted ways with his major label, he hasn’t really had a big breakthrough hit. But you know who isn’t sleeping on Maxo Kream? Tyler, the Creator. The two teamed up for one of the biggest highlights from Maxo’s 2021 album Weight of the World (“Big Persona”), and again earlier this year on “Cracc Era.” It helped set the stage for Tyler to make his big return on his massive new album CHROMAKOPIA, which “Cracc Era” would fit perfectly on, but instead the song appears on Maxo’s new album, Personification, which comes out quickly on the heels of CHROMAKOPIA‘s release via Maxo’s own Stomp Down label. Maybe the major label world couldn’t propel him to the heights he deserves, but Tyler might be able to.
Maxo took corners of the rap world by storm with his 2018 debut album Punken, and since then, he’s continued to do what he does best, regardless of outside trends. Personification is no exception. Like its three predecessors, it proves the choice between trauma-unpacking storyteller rap and subwoofer-shaking bangers is a false binary. He’s so often doing both at once, weaving in-depth personal tales in and out of hooks you can hum and beats you can dance to. Maxo is a commanding force on his own but he also knows the power of a good guest verse and Personification is loaded with them. In addition to Tyler, it’s got verses from Denzel Curry, BigXthaPlug, That Mexican OT, Rob49, Skilla Baby, Z-Ro, and Maxo’s brother Josh Kream, and every single one pops out and adds something that makes the album even better. Just as much of a standout is the pitched-up sample of Frou Frou’s “Let Go” that powers the penultimate track “Bang The Bus.” It’s just as fun and just as emotionally heavy as every Maxo Kream album before it, and the way Maxo sticks to a formula without losing an ounce of his urgency is pretty remarkable.
Ferg – Darold (RCA)
The rapper formerly known as A$AP Ferg is back with his most deeply personal album yet, and also one of his most fun
“I wanna be like Future and drop every month, but if it ain’t the vision, God holding my tongue,” Ferg (fka A$AP Ferg) raps on his first full-length project in over four years. It’s on a song called “Alive,” which comes after a song called “Thought I Was Dead” and before a song featuring Future. The premise is clear; Ferg knows that you risk being left out of the conversation if you’re less prolific, but if you thought his career was over, you thought wrong. He’s taken the time to craft a deep, multi-faceted, filler-less new album, and it’s one of his best. Its earth-shaking trap bangers, braggadocio raps, Harlem pride, and a spitfire Denzel Curry verse make it one of the most fun rap albums in recent memory, but it’s the albums’s more pensive side that takes it to the next level. Ferg balances out the bangers with jazz, soul, and gospel-infused songs that explore mental health, trauma, and growth with the kind of vulnerable honesty we heard on the latest Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator albums. The most show-stopping moment of all comes on “Pool,” a bittersweet soul/rap hybrid about a topic that Ferg says “took a whole lifetime” to open up about. During its goosebump-inducing midsection, Ferg reveals that, at 10 years old, he was drowned and sexually abused in a swimming pool by an older male, and he wrestles with the toxic masculinity and unhealthy coping mechanisms he developed as a result of keeping it a secret for so long. When the uplifting gospel vocals come in at the end, it’s as if you can feel the weight being lifted off of Ferg’s chest. It’s a moment in which Ferg carefully turns trauma into impactful art, and he does it with the same attention-grabbing prowess that he brings to his biggest party-starters.
El Cousteau – Merci, Non Merci (self-released)
A viral Earl Sweatshirt verse set the stage for underground DC rapper El Cousteau’s new album, and the end result delivers
El Cousteau‘s “Words2LiveBy” song and video recently went semi-viral for Earl Sweatshirt‘s “Free Gaza, we on the corner like Israelites” verse, and now the DC rapper follows up that surprise hit with a new album, Merci, Non Merci, featuring that song and 16 others and clocking in at 35 and a half minutes. The only other guest besides Earl on the album is MIKE, and though Earl’s verse drew a lot of attention to the album, Cousteau himself has no trouble holding your attention throughout all of the album’s twists and turns. It ranges from chill jazzy moments to trap bangers to melodic/soulful songs and beyond, and it’s catchy but also a defiantly underground record.
Pa Salieu – Afrikan Alien (Warner)
The Pan-African UK rapper is out of prison and back with a vital followup to his breakthrough 2020 debut
Coventry rapper Pa Salieu left a big impact with his 2020 debut album Send Them To Coventry, but his rise was cut short when he was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2022 after being convicted of possessing a bottle as an offensive weapon and violent disorder in connection to a 2018 incident in which one of Pa’s friends, Fidel Glasgow (grandson of Coventry music legend and Specials member) Neville Staple), was stabbed to death. He was released this past September after serving 21 months, and while he was incarcerated, he began writing his sophomore album Afrikan Alien. In a statement announcing the album last week, he says it was built on “real reflections and real experiences [he] processed while [he] was away.”
Like Send Them To Coventry, Afrikan Alien seamlessly fuses together the sounds of the African diaspora. The title track channels jazzy New York rap with a hook from Ghanaian singer Black Sherif. “Soda” embraces Afrobeats with help from dancehall singer Byron Messia. “Dece (Heavy)” and “Regular” are UK drill bangers with hints of Afroswing. Pa bridges the gaps between all the regions, eras, and subgenres that he pulls from so well that they start to not even sound like gaps at all. And that ties directly into the theme of the album; the album artwork features the Pan-African flag, which, along with the crowns and the tribal marks, Pa calls “symbols of where I come from and who I am.” It’s a very personal album, and it’s a reminder that macro ideas and personal experiences often if not always go hand in hand.
Cavalier & Child Actor – CINE (Backwoodz Studioz)
Brooklyn-raised, New Orleans-based rapper Cavalier paints a vivid picture of his former neighborhood on his third project of 2024
Cavalier already released one of this year’s most beloved underground rap records with April’s Different Type Time, followed by the second installment of his Death Tape series with Quelle Chris, and now he’s released another new album, with a cover photo that seems to be recreating a 1975 Jean-Paul Goude picture, and which was entirely produced by Different Type Time contributor Child Actor. Quelle Chris appears on two songs on this album, one of which also features ELUCID, whose Armand Hammer partner billy woods released it on his Backwoodz Studioz label and helped plant the seeds for a collaboration between Cavalier and Child Actor in the first place; the pair met at the pop-up release show for Armand Hammer’s 2023 album We Buy Diabetic Test Strips and started talking about doing a project together that night. In Backwoodz’s bio for this album, they draw a parallel to Spike Lee and make the claim that if Different Type Time is Cav’s Do The Right Thing, then CINE is his Crooklyn, Lee’s semi-autobiographical film set in the borough he was raised in. Similarly, Cav–who grew up in Brooklyn but now lives in New Orleans–drops you right in the middle of his former neighborhood and paints vivid pictures with his deeply personal tales. Child Actor sets Cav’s stories to a genre-bending backdrop that embraces jazzy boom bap at one moment and something much more far-out and psychedelic the next. With Cav already releasing one high watermark of his discography this year, it’s no small feat that he’s already got another album that’s this cinematic and immersive.
Freddie Gibbs – You Only Die 1nce (ESGN/AWAL)
Gary, Indiana’s finest is back with a semi-surprise project that finds him in his smoky, chilled-out, post-boom bap comfort zone
Last we heard from Freddie Gibbs, he was rolling out $oul $old $eparately, his long-overdue major label debut that seemed designed to capitalize on the new opportunity, even if the title of the album poked fun at it. But now he’s back with a quick 13-song project that he only announced 12 hours before releasing it, and it feels like classic Gibbs. The production is in the smoky, chilled-out, post-boom bap mode that suits him best, and his rapping sounds as effortlessly in the pocket as ever. No guest verses, no crossover attempts, just Freddie hitting the booth and rapping his ass off. It really speaks to his artistry that even his seemingly lower-stakes projects like this one feel like a reason to stop the presses.
Boldy James & Harry Fraud – The Bricktionary (self-released)
The Detroit rapper does what he does best on his fourth LP of 2024
Boldy James is one of those most prolific and consistently-reliable rappers around and this year has been no exception for the Detroit native. He’s released three projects since January, each with a different producer (Penalty of Leadership with Nicholas Craven, 1LB with Your Boy Posca, and Across The Tracks with Conductor Williams), and now he releases a fourth, The Bricktionary, produced entirely by Harry Fraud. If you’ve listened to any of the several great Boldy James projects, you probably know what to expect–calm, cool, and quietly devastating bars over chill, smoky, post-boom bap production–and Boldy always knows how to suck you in, even at his most predictable. Helping him out on this one are guest verses by Benny the Butcher (who also has at least 4 releases out this year), Tee Grizzley, and Babyface Ray.
Fimiguerrero, Len, & Lancey Foux – Conglomerate
Three rising, futuristic UK rappers come together for an attention-grabbing collab album
I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know a lot about underground UK rappers Fimiguerrero, Len, and Lancey Foux, but this album caught my attention and I had to end this list by giving it more than an honorable mention. They’ve all separately been on the rise, employing niche subgenres with names like “dream rage” and “hyperjerk,” and as you might be able to deduce from the names along, that means a lot of atmosphere, moody vibes, electronic beats, and moshy energy. Conglomerate is their first album together, and it sounds like exactly what it is: three futuristic, hungry rappers coming together to prove there’s strength in numbers.
Honorable Mentions
Ab-Soul – Soul Burger
Cordae – The Crossroads
G Perico – Crip James
Ice Cube – Man Down
Lil Uzi Vert – Eternal Atake 2
SahBabii – Saaheem
Skyzoo – Keep Me Company
Westside Gunn & DJ Drama – Still Praying