Fair Exchange No Robbery

This Detroit rapper has found a really convincing and clean way out of the numbing “boom bap is back” cycle—not be a revivalist. Which is not a knock on Griselda and all of Action Bronson’s weed carriers, because I love them all. James and Craven made one of the cleanest rap records I’ve heard recently—every rhyme and loop is surrounded by space and every single word is intelligible. It sounds like someone said to the engineer, “Please make this the opposite of mumble rap.” Immaculate rap with lines about stepping on drugs in Prada (“Designer Drugs” geddit) and treating police like “mall cops.” And: so so many samples.