New Music Friday is always an exciting time for Hip Hop fans, but it’s extra special when it features the return of a legend. That’s exactly the case when it comes to this week’s releases, which are highlighted by a new album from Nas.
Other notable projects include Mulatto’s major label debut, a Vic Mensa EP and Lecrae’s latest LP. This week was also supposed to contain Armani Caesar’s Griselda Records debut, but her project got postponed following the death of DJ Shay.
Check out all of the noteworthy streams below.
Nas – King’s Disease
Nas has reemerged with King’s Disease, a 13-track LP executive produced by Hit-Boy. The veteran MC’s 13th album features a reunion of The Firm supergroup as AZ, Foxy Brown and Cormega join him on the appropriately titled track “Full Circle.”
Mulatto – Queen Of Da Souf
Mulatto looks to prove her breakthrough single “Bitch From Da Souf” was no fluke on her RCA Records debut Queen Of Da Souf. The Atlanta-bred rapper’s first studio LP includes collaborations with Gucci Mane, City Girls, 21 Savage, Saweetie and Trina.
DJ Shay's Death Puts Armani Caesar's Griselda Debut On Hold
Vic Mensa – V TAPE
After venturing into the world of punk rock on 2019’s 93Punx album, Vic Mensa gets back to his Hip Hop roots on the V TAPE EP. Snoh Aalegra, BJ The Chicago Kid, SAINt JHN and more contribute to the Roc Nation artist’s seven-track set.
Lecrae – Restoration
Lecrae has recruited guests such as Kirk Franklin, YK Osiris and John Legend for his ninth album Restoration. The 14-track project is the follow-up to 2018’s Let The Trap Say Amen with Zaytoven and his first solo LP since 2017’s All Things Work Together.
firm biz baby…lol nature didn’t make it….get nature on the remix yo
Dre is there!
Nas album kinda boring but still good to hear him again. The Firm joint was a nice touch.
Nas album is fire
Nas album is shit, really disappointed. Some tracks are literally like a minute and half long.
He may have bars but once again proved his beat selection is wack. He should have asked preemo, large professor, Pete rock to produce instead of Hit-Boy
No tracks are literally a minute and a half long, but way to pay attention.
1:42 , 1:51, 2:01, 2:21 are pretty close…
nas what are you doing.
Making a classic
NaS album straight fire. Focused. Gems. Beats top quality. Wasn’t feeling the feature list but they all brought their A-game. Very solid release.
There’s also a new Buckwild album called Music is my religion, yo
fuck you talking about
This is Nas best project since 2012 LIFE IS GOOD
LOL no sh-t. That proves nothing considering it is his ONLY project since LIG apart from the half baked EP he did with Kanye
Vic mensa shouldve written for nas. Mans is washed ??♂️
Whether you like the album or not, Nas was snapping on 10 points. Remember too, regardless of producer, Nas is always gonna pick his type of beat, whatever that is at the moment. Whoever in the credits really don’t matter, Nas gonna do Nas every time…
Nas album classic
Buying it today
Smartenupnas. The album was bad. Dont let the fact that hitboy produced it get you gassed. And none of those features should be with Nas except Firm but even that was lackluster
Vic Mensa dropped a 2015 Drake/Tory Lanez album in 2020 ?♂️
What did I tell y’all? King HOV is stealing the spotlight from Nas by dropping something on the same day this broke ass bum dropped an album. For the third time in a row! His song with Pharrell is gonna be way better than King’s Garbage. Only dumb peasants (probably more broke Nas stans) on Twitter are getting upset and don’t understand King HOV’s message, but all the real niggas know what he’s talking about and think the song is another classic in King HOV’s discography.
Oh yeah, it’s the ROC in here!
Supertrolllll…(Pharell‘s Superthug voice out)
I think we call them classics when you don’t have to skip a track. Damn. Nas brought the heat, lol. G.O.A.T.
Fuck Jay Z. I’m black and so over this black pandering shit. This has nothing to do with the “black twitter” line either. I’m just so sick of our race playing victims like it isn’t our own people hurting us 95% of the time. NBA players wearing Black Lives Matter on their jersey like they’re not paid millions and millions of dollars….then they cry like they’re held back in life. Someone tell these black people EQUALITY doesn’t mean “black is king” it means we’re all fucking equal. Fucking idiots. But ZERO news coverage when a black dude shoots a white child in the head.
You’re an idiot. A lot of the problems we have as a people stems from self hate and and a lack of ownership. Who perpetuated the the genocide and self hate in the black community. America has always wanted Blacks to be a permanent underclass.All of our movements that focused on economic independence have always been destroyed. When Lincoln Freed the slaves he proposed 40 acres and a mule but that was crushed. . When Dr. King started the poor people movement he was assassinated. The reason why blacks were allowed to integrate was for economic reasons. They wanted the black dollar to go into the majority economy. Just because a couple of negros have trinkets doesn’t mean anything. That’s a pindrop compared to the amount of white billionaries. The wealth gap between blacks in Whites is by 100 years and there’s a reason for that. If black people had a better self image overcame our inferiority complexes and unified we would of been out of the situation we’re in. If your a Black man read more books and get your knowledge game up.
Wow. You’re a moron. Who perpetrated the genocide and set hate in the continent of AFRICA? Dumbass. Average YEARLY salaries in that continent are at US$2000 YEARLY! Who is responsible for holding people back there? Every nation in Africa has a higher per capita crime, disease and poverty rate than the U.S.. All of the first recorder civilizations are African. 98%+ of slaves exported from Africa were captured and sold by OTHER AFRICANS. So… who is doing WHAT now? The (obvious) problem facing the black community is single parent homes. I don’t see anyone addressing that ANYWHERE.
Uh We’re not talking about Africa. So now the argument is that Africans are inferior and that they don’t deserve self determination. . Which is a commendeflection tactic of certain people. Your a light weight bitch I know more history than you. Africa was colonised and puppet leaders were instilled by Western nation’s while corporations exploit the resources. Why was Patriece Lamumba killed. Why do African nation’s have to pay former colonizers. What did the original argument have to do with slavery. Singles family homes was a trickle down effect from other things that have happened. That’s not the biggest issue. Like I said self hate and no unity I know your not a black man by your reply.
It seems like everyone on here is a troll or a d-rider, so let me give an objective take on that Nas album. It definitely isn’t great. It’s not consistent enough to be great. It’s hit and miss the whole way through. The only consistent thing about it is it’s inconsistency. Nas is like an aged boxer that can string together beautiful combination for about 40 seconds at a time, then he gets gassed. He doesn’t know what he wants to rap about so he never really goes in on anything. He dips a toe in, then backs off. Goes ankle deep, backs off. There’s at least 3 songs on there where half the song is fire, then it devolves into something weird or wack. It felt like listening to Kool Keith. These bursts of dopeness abruptly ended by something cringy that doesn’t fit. Except Keith does it on purpose. I feel like Nas writes in small increments, and it effects his flow. He gets lost on some of these beats. He also punching in A LOT. That AZ verse sounded so clean among the ugliness of the album, honestly. Even though that song was also disappointing. 10 Points is dope. Car 84 is dope. The second half of the outro is dope. The first half of the intro is dope. The first half of Blue Benz is dope. There’s about 4 weak songs in a row in the middle or the album that are tough to get through. The production is hit and miss just like the lyrics. The engineering is bad. Sounds clashing, stuff not balanced right, Nas sounding both loud and muffled at the same time. It doesn’t take a studio engineer to hear those mistakes. It’s sloppy. It’s always good to hear Nas, even if the greatness only comes in short bursts and are increasingly fleeting. I give the album 3 mics. Peace.
Opinions are like assholes, everybody got one. For the most part, Nas stock to who he is. A lyrical MC with great story telling ability.
I respect your opinion and the time you took to articulate everything. But you can’t call people dick riders just because they fuckin with the album or their opinions differs from yours. Music is subjective so some people might like it or hear what you hear. It doesn’t make them wrong, just like your not wrong for your general take on the album.I don’t think it’s as bad as you say though.
Nah, I’m not saying if you like something you’re a d-rider or if you don’t like something you’re a troll. I respect any opinion as long as it’s objective. But these days, especially regarding rap, people have their mind made up already on whether they like it or hate it based on how the feel about the rapper personally. Which I can’t lend any credence to. I grew up on Nas, so there’s a part of me that is rooting for him, but also, as a reasonable adult I realize that fans aren’t doing artists any favors by just blindly supporting their stuff whether it’s high quality or not. If a rapper you like puts out something weak, then it’s OK to admit that it’s weak. If a rapper you don’t like puts out something dope it’s OK to admit it’s dope. Peace.
Just as expected, king’s disease is wack as fuck. Nas’s first album was ok and the rest were shit. Just like this album.
dat nas album straight heat. king’s disease
Nas album is good. I’m a backpacker by nature so songs like that one with Big Sean makes me angry but it is what it is, I ain’t mad at King’s Disease. Hit-Boy did very well. Nas is Nas. But that Buckwild album is great. That Luchini song fire, my knowledge of artists featured on this album to those I hear the first time is in proportion 5:14, (on his previous lp it was 3:10) and I love it, it reminds me of when soundbombing or lyricist lounge came out (I told ya’ll I’m a backpacker as fuck) and nobody knew who these guys were but everybody loved it, got the same feeling today, thanks uncle Buck
EASILY the worst Nas album EVER IMO. His Kanye shit was 1,000,000 times better. Not one good track on the entire shits. I give up on dude. Put out an album with Preem already. Stop trying to sound woke.
This album is heat ! I was a little iffy when the tracklist first but this great merging of the 90’s to 2020’s…easily An ATOY contender so far! Easily his best since Life is Good
Yall gonna tell me this album is better than NASiR!!Adam and eve, white label, cops shot the kid, and Bonjour are way better tracks than anything on this album, if it didn’t have Kanye credits it wouldn’t be hated on..
No way is this better than Nasir (but it is a good album). I think people just hate that Nasir album because the Kanye Red hat shit made it cool to diss anything Kanye related at the time but that is one of my favorite projects from Nas. It’s one of those albums that grows on you but we all know in this internet age, people don’t have the attention span of a brick so it would never be appreciated.
I find it hilarious that people want to continue this “bad beat picker” narrative when THEY (and DJ Vlad) are the reason why Nas went with one mainstream producer for the whole album in the first place (same with “Nasir”). Do I love the beats on here?…Eh, they’re OK, but I wasn’t expecting much from Hit-Boy anyway. If Nas just kept the same vibe from “Life Is Good” it would’ve been perfect…but thanks to the mainstream fan-boys, we have this polished trap sound smh.
These aren’t trap beats. Wtf are you talking about?
Half of these beats have trap drums, can you not hear them?
None of that shit is trap beats.
Nas always been nice, but defntly last few albums been poor.. This is a good album coz it resonates with his desperate fans base (for a good album) & it resonates with the youth..
My dick resonates with your moms mouth..shut yo ass up!
King’s disease is whack. It’s cool to try out a new style but why lose all your substance to do it. I’ll go on feeling like nas hasn’t dropped an album since 2012.
Let’s try again. They delete my comment. King’s Disease is a bad album. It’s cool to try new styles but why lose all your substance to do it. I’ll just keep feeling like Nas hasn’t released an album since 2012.
I’ll say the only song I wasn’t feeling was the track with Lil Durk. Thought that was trash and out of place with him as a feature. He might as well have put Lil Nas X on there lol. Anyway, not a bad album, and Nas always come through with his storytelling skills, but Hit-Boy’s production wasn’t strong enough to really make a cohesive album for Nas. A couple of Large Pro, Dr. Dre, and Premo beats would’ve definitely rounded out the album a lot better IMO . But overall, it was a good album. 4/5