Just been laying low. Nothing to add to convo really.

Yeah, it's not the best year for hip-hop.

Oh, by the way, the 33⅓ book in MBDTF is fucking terrible. Just ... wow. I know I said it was fun to read for Kanye fans, but that's only true to a point. The author made absolutely no contact with anyone who worked on the album in any capacity, and most of the book is just a Princeton dude waxing philosophical about the world in which Kanye West exists.

To be honest, I didn't even finish it.

I'll happily read about the recording techniques of that or any album any time, but I don't need to read about Facebook and Steve Jobs and blah blah blah blah blah. Fucking hell.

Damn. That sucks.

I'm not shocked. I've read a few of those 33 1/3 books and had trouble finishing any of them.

Yeah no hip hop has grabbed me yet this year. Really the only 2017 I love so far as the new Ryan Adams.

I'm completely drawing a blank on good new albums right now. I know I liked the new Lios, but only listened to it for a week or so. Sleater-Kinney live was cool, but we all knew it would be. No new hip-hop has even made me turn my head unless I'm forgetting something.

Electronic (particularly underground weird ass shit) is kinda tearing it up. New Visible Cloaks is fucking incredible. And Blanck Mass just leaked their new album and it's ... wow.

I would love to hear a new rap artist that got made the old brain feel good, but there's just nothing happening.

It's like... last year, with Kanye, Kendrick, Tribe, etc., hip-hop just blew its load for a while. Now it's just lying in bed smoking cigarettes not talking to it's partner (the new Future album is like this ... I like it, but there is absolutely nothing to love about it. It's just ... y'know... not offensively bad like that Fucking J. Cole record, and it's not Drake, so I'll bump it, but it knows I'm thinking about someone else).

Early 2017 is quiet. Hopefully eye of the storm.

HNDRXX is definitely different. Not even a trap album, but more along the lines of pop/R&B. Wow.

Y'all really need to hear that new Thundercat album though..

Sampha dropped an incredible album too and no one here cared.

I just streamed a bit of it, and I ... think I like it quite a bit!

I've actually been listening to Honest a bit in the last few days since our last discussion about this. I didn't think it was worth believing that HNDRXX would sound anything like it, but ... god dammit, it kinda does!

Liking the sample in that track with Rihanna.

I got that lined up to listen to soon.

I'm actually super excited for Ronald Bruner Jr.'s album dropping next week.

Forreal man. I'm so glad it's a non-trap project. I just hope it'll be a commercial success so Future will make more music like this!

The Thundercat album is good!

So is the Frank Ocean/Migos/Calvin Harris song. I didn't think it would be... Fucking Calvin Harris? But it's really a Frank track, and it's dope.

Y'all heard?

It amazes me how consistently terrible the 33 1/3 books are, and that another publisher hasn't capitalised on an obvious gap in the market by starting a series of their own.

I knew it would be good from the jump. Simply because Frank has a good ear, he wouldn't've hopped on a wack beat.

I gotta catch up with all the solo albums by the members of The Internet too..

Well this is the only one I've had any experience with, and I honestly am starting to wonder if it wasn't the aurhor's thesis project. That's how it reads. Like a Princeton dude's thesis. Undergrad.

What the hell, Remy Ma absolutely obliterated Nicki in a diss track:

Listen to ShETHER.

HNDRXX is so good. Sooooo fucking good.

Yeah it's pretty good. Way better than everything else he's churned out lately. Very emotional, if not necessarily emotionally resonant... still, if adds adds a layer or two.

I haven't heard it all the way through yet, but the fact that I'm interested in hearing it all the way through really says something. Song with Rihanna is good.

Rob, what are your thoughts?