The Best New Hip-Hop This Week includes albums, videos, and songs from Lola Brooke, Lil Baby, and Quavo.
While it’s not the busiest week, there’s plenty to get into for fans of pretty much every kind of hip-hop around.
Regarding Quavo and Lil Baby, they’re both on “Legends,” Quavo’s return to form after a slew of genre experiments over the past year.
For fans of the more abstract, Dada-ist rage rap favored by Quavo and Baby’s fellow Atlanta natives, there’s Ken Carson’s “Off The Meter” with his Opium cohorts Playboi Carti and Destroy Lonely from Carson’s new album, More Chaos.
If you’re a bit more bookish, preferring obtuse, verbose lyricism, Billy Woods has the menacing “Blk Zmby” for you from his upcoming project, Golliwog.
And hey, Kendrick Lamar and SZA finally released a video for their blockbuster hit, “Luther.”
Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending April 11, 2025.
Albums/EPs/Mixtapes
Deante’ Hitchcock — Good Things Take Time
Like many of our pandemic-era faves, things got complicated for Atlanta native Deante’ Hitchcock after he released his major-label debut Better (which I called one of the best albums of 2020 and still believe is one of the best albums from an Atlanta rapper in the past five years). COVID derailed his momentum and brought about one hell of a sophomore slump for his 2023 follow-upOnce Upon A Time. But like so many of that cohort, he’s landed back on his feet, releasing his first independent project in half a decade. He’s worn, and weary, but he’s grown into himself, and his flow is as sharp as ever — but now, the storytelling matches his prodigious rap skills.
Ken Carson — More Chaos
On the other side of the Peach State rap spectrum, you’ve got the distorted, psychedelic approach embraced by the likes of Playboi Carti and his artists like Destroy Lonely and Ken Carson. Ken’s fourth studio album picks up where his last one, A Great Chaos, left off in 2023, with a similar, highly digitized sound and monstrous, overwhelming bass. This Gen-Z rap is controversial, to be sure, but it’s the logical endpoint of a dozen different threads of hip-hop, from a love of low end to a futuristic outlook on technology and its applications in music. It ain’t for everybody, but it makes a twisted kind of sense.
LaRussell & Mike G Beatz — Make Hip-Hop Fun Again!
From the title alone, I’m all-in on the prolific Vallejo native’s latest project, his fifth in 2025 alone. This time around, Mike G Beatz gives Russ a ton of sparse throwback-leaning beats (horn hits, piano stabs, and loose kick-snare patterns abound), harkening back to the mid-80s era when rap was still new, mind-blowingly fresh, and primarily geared toward entertaining hyperactive high school students (the more things change, right?). LaRussell racks up even more rap legend co-signs here, including Busta Rhymes, Snoop Doog, and Wiz Khalifa.
Onyx — Lower East Side
Speaking of rap legends… I’ve been making the joke that Playboi Carti’s rage music is fight music for the generation who didn’t get to grow up on M.O.P. and Onyx. And wouldn’t you know it, rap’s original ragers return this week for a vintage homage to the 1990s mean-mugging, street-stomping boom-bap that first with which they menaced the industry 30 years ago. Age may have mellowed the sound, but the overall vibe is still belligerent, nodding to a time when you kept your head on a swivel because stick-up kids were out to tax.
Singles/Videos
Big Boss Vette — “I Look Like”
Big Boss Vette is a master of crafting affirmative anthems, from her breakout hit “Pretty Girls Walk” to her latest single. The poppy sample might throw you off at first, but give it a second, and those huge drums and Vette’s signature bark of a flow reassert the hip-hop vibes.
Chuckyy — “We Got Buttons”
The Chicago rapper throws it back to the Lex Luger production era with his latest, a haunting drill military march that really underlines why he’s gotten so strong of a local buzz lately. Watch out for this kid, he’s going places.
Flipp Dinero — “What You Want”
“Leave Me Alone” rapper Flipp Dinero is still out here doing his thing, and “What You Want” is a strong reminder of all the attributes that gave him his first hit: An instinctual grasp of the interplay between melodic crooning and compelling rap rhythms, all over an insistent beat that demands movement.
Lola Brooke — “Disgusted”
Lola has been quietly, consistently pumping out enjoyable rap that has hovered just under the radar since 2021 breakout with “Don’t Play With It.” She’s also proven to be quite versatile; her latest employs the disco-pop format that served many of her peers well over the past few years, and she turns out to be equally adept at commanding the dancey vibes.