Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2024 wrap-up coverage here.
(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)
27.
Jlovely: Joyce Bailey
The British underground rap scene had a soft crossover moment in the States this year. There were tentpole records like Conglomerate, but I prefer things like Joyce Bailey, a tape of glacial, blurry mindpoems by Jlovely that seem as if they were recorded in a bunker. Heavy on flickering, minimalist beats, done by an army of producers with unpronounceable names, Jlovely’s melancholic dreaming—in the tradition of other hermetic rap of the last decade or so—usually circles back to God, hanging out, and drugs.
Listen: SoundCloud
26.
Fucksnowrr: #NotADeluxe
#NotADeluxe is like the final battle in an existential mecha anime: turbulent yet sort of majestic. The clipping, paranormal beats of Indianapolis producer Balenci02 set the tone; shimmering melodies beam in, ballistic classic drill-inspired drums rattle with the intensity of a firestorm. All of this noise would overpower most rappers, but not South Carolina’s Fucksnowrr, whose barely mixed, bulldozer voice and rambling bars make him seem perpetually pissed off in the void.
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
25.
Cuzzos: Stay Safe
During his Pop Out Concert, Kendrick should’ve passed the mic to the Cuzzos, because the clique (Teaawhy, Milly Mo, BB, Jasscole, and Big I-N-D-O) would’ve torn that shit down if they performed anything off their sizzling March mixtape Stay Safe. The slicked-tongued punchline rappers have fun, but they’re also unafraid to get busy. Across seven songs, they hot-potato the mic on fine-enough beats that pull from Michigan and the West Coast, rarely taking a break from punking whoever is talking sweet.
Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal
24.
LaRussell / P-Lo: Majorly Independent
P-Lo’s beats on Majorly Independent have so much soul that generations of uptempo Bay Area rap flash before your eyes, from the trunk-rattling pimp chronicles of Too $hort to the hyphy of Mac Dre to the block-party music of HBK Gang, the crew with which P-Lo came up with back in the late 2000s and 2010s. His thumping drums require elaborate sound systems; his basslines are shiny yet still funky; his sample flips bring new life out of throwbacks. LaRussell, the ultra-positive rapper (sometimes it’s overboard) who, through his backyard residency, has become an archivist of Bay Area hip-hop culture, is the perfect co-host, inviting MCs of all ages (the fiftysomething Oakland rapper Richie Rich improvising his “What We Doin!?” verse seconds after busting his knee on stage is one of the clips of the year) to this hysterical, cross-generational turn-up.
