Friday Afternoon Rap Roundup: '89 The Brainchild

In an effort to continue CABBAGES' overarching mission of independent hip-hop/rap music discovery, I'm trialing this new weekly series to let readers know about new releases from artists grinding and thriving outside of the major label system. Each installment of 'Friday Afternoon Rap Roundup' will feature one highlighted album review/recommendation, plus a short selection of new or recently dropped projects for your weekend listening consideration.

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Release Highlight of the Week:

'89 The Brainchild, Night Lives (buy it / stream it)

Forgive the oldhead framing here, but mixtapes nowadays don't hit like they used to. Now that major labels have so savagely coopted the term itself that every rapper's half-hearted and subpar album attempt gets proactive branding as a lower stakes effort, those who remember the DatPiff era of shouty DJs and uncleared samples have reason to get wistful. '89 The Brainchild, thankfully, feels the way I do, as his Night Lives celebrates the form in all its anarchic glory. The Rahway artiste's debut for Steel Tipped Dove's Fused Arrow imprint deliberately treks into the Jersey nocturne, probing the sonically diverse scene with fingers and phalluses.

The (un)official Gen Z response to both Jadakiss' "Why" and 50 Cent's "21 Questions," his call-and-response single "Get A Bag" makes for an inclusivity-minded bonanza of late capitalist hedonism. He channels Houston's promethazine haze on the screwy "Let Pimp C Down" and transmutes the personal into political into the pornographic on "All My Opps" / "ON GOD." Even when the beats come from Detroiters Dream Beach and Raphy, cuts like "Guestlist @ Mi Sabor" succeed by keeping the lyrics local. All the while, hosts Fatboi Sharif and DJ Boogaveli oversee the after-midnight mayhem as co-conspirators.

Here are some other new albums, EPs, and mixtapes from independent hip-hop/rap artists and labels worth your time this weekend:

Larry June, Doing It For Me (buy it/stream it)

ØKSE, s/t (buy it / stream it)

OldBoy Rhymes, The Sane Asylum (buy it / stream it)

MAVI, shadowbox (buy it / stream it)

Phonte, Pacific Time 2 (buy it / stream it)