Like most other Armand Hammer albums, trying to piece together the themes and song meanings of We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is like putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle with no reference image. It’s a journey you embark on expecting to never reach the end because there’s clearly related pieces here and there and a few 15-piece chunks you managed to group, but you struggle to see how each of them fit into the bigger picture. This album, as confusing as it might be, is able to give the illusion of it being put together. But as always, it shows off the versatility in billy wood’s and ELUCID’s flows and their triple-layered songwriting.

The album opens with “Landlines,” where ELUCID choses a flow that’s more “onbeat” than usual. Woods’ first line on this song is “rather be codependent than codefendants,” a simple double-entendre about a struggling relationship that lets fans know they can expect the same good-quality lyrics from him as they always do.

“The Flexible Unreliability of Time and Reality” is complex and almost meta. After ELUCID’s verse, his repeating “certainty is a circle, I don’t believe you” turns into an unforgettable chant. We get a couple of cheeky layered bars from billy woods about getting money: “I read the paper even though they tell me not to / I get the paper, don’t need no how-to.” And he continues to seamlessly walk the listener through whatever he’s talking about using double-meanings. With “a house divided, pick sides for the civil war / Like pickup ball / Half-court, four on four / Speak to me like it's a court of law,” he uses the Abraham Lincoln quote to exaggerate the stress of a domestic dispute then takes us from a basketball court to a legal one. And when he jumps from court records to vinyl records to his own records – “Strike it from the record if it's not something you did or saw / My records spin like a band saw / My record speak for itself, don't try to add-on” – music journalists are put on edge.

Of course, ELUCID has plenty of standout lyrics on this project, too. In the more comical song “Niggardly (Blocked Call),” he talks briefly about the unpleasantries of getting contacted by people you don’t want to speak to. Here, he paints a clear picture of what it feels like when that person sends him a voicemail: “Blocked call, voicemail still hit ya / Like building walls / And throwing dead pigeons over / I need a bigger ladder and a blowgun for the floaters.”

Like always, the beats are diverse and showcase the ability of the duo to rap on anything from ominous looped samples to deconstructed experimental noise. Instead of sticking with one producer like they did on their most recent album Haram with The Alchemist, Armand Hammer returned to their typical practice of having nearly 10 different producers contributing to the album. JPEGMAFIA lent four different beats to this project and it’s not only obvious from the familiar “I like jpegs” tag, but also with the atmospheric sounds and glitches across each of his tracks. El-P produces “The Gods Must Be Crazy” which is high-energy and a head-bumper that’s clearly influenced by traditional hip-hop and the general noise of New York City. “I Keep A Mirror in My Back Pocket,” which pays homage to E’40’s song “Practice Lookin’ Hard,” is produced by Preservation, someone who’s worked with woods on plenty of projects. The song matches its lyrical content which is playful, driven, and riddled with suspense through the disordered xylophone notes and a very swingy loop of a jazzy drummer.

This album is also visited by plenty of the duo’s rapper friends, and each of them fit onto their tracks perfectly, changing their tones slightly to match the beats and create harmony with the other flows. Their verses may seem unrelated, but even ELUCID and woods’ own lyrics tend to combat and contrast each other on their own songs. On “Y’all Can’t Stand Right Here,” New York rapper Junglepussy gives us “why fuck him? I’m a better writer (rider).” In “I Keep A Mirror in My Pocket,” Cavalier catches the swing of the instrumental in his cadence on this verse and follows it with a catchy chorus—rare in an Armand Hammer song but done perfectly here. In it, he seemingly flips the the use of “mirror mirror” from the E-40 song back into a fairy tale reference and trails it with a quote from the wolf in “The Little Red Riding Hood” to talk about his skepticism and dislike of cops: “Eye on these pigs, empty advice is hollow tips / You ask me why I'm like, ‘the better to see you with.’”

Currently, it’s easier to appreciate these songs more on an individual-level than as an album as a whole, but that's no different from how it typically feels to sit with an Armand Hammer album for less than one week. Many Armand Hammer fans don’t listen to their music with a full understanding of everything ELUCID and woods say. Part of the fun and appeal to their music is understanding the more you listen and getting excited to fit a couple more puzzle pieces into the mysterious end product. And after some more time with the album, hopefully you can start to fit some of these parts together.


Armand Hammer stays abstract on We Buy Diabetic Test Strips

People are drawn to Freddie Gibbs for a few but very specific set of things: his charismatic humor flashing through adlibs and double entendres; and the contrast of his low-pitched, aggressive voice on smooth soul and jazz samples produced by Madlib or The Alchemist. Given this very specific reputation, I was worried about the quality of a Gibbs project that deviates from this formula.

Let me explain: between his last project 

, Freddie Gibbs kept his fans fed with scattered singles. “Gang Signs” is a summertime song where Gibbs and ScHoolboy Q rap about crime and their gangsta pasts. With old flows and flat wordplay, the song wasn’t new for Gibbs, but it was consistent and got fans excited for 

. Then “Big Boss Rabbit” dropped. Gibbs rapped fast on some uninteresting trap drums about the same things he usually does: women, crime, and wealth. The next two singles were basically the same, but the scary commonality between these songs was a lack of sampling. Again, Gibbs is famous for rapping over smooth jazzy beats, not some stale trap drums. None of those songs appeared on the tracklist for 

, but I saw them as a hint of what was to come: was he experimenting with different sounds, or just gunning for a Grammy with a palatable and mainstream album?

The answer: it’s a little bit of both. To understand the album, we must first address the cover. A quick glance reveals its silliness: it’s the forehead and ears of the pink rabbit Gibbs has been aligning with his brand for a couple years posted in front of a UFO that has crashed and burned in the ground. It actually embodies the album very well: it’s a mess. Some serious songs paired with some lax and braggadocious ones, a couple of drunk voicemails from Joe Rogan, and a production style he hasn’t embraced before. Gibbs usually has something driving him to finish his music, and that drive improves his quality. Before 

, for example, Gibbs was almost imprisoned for a serious crime he didn’t commit, so he memorized some of Madlib’s beats and wrote the lyrics in his cell. On 

, however, Gibbs is hungry for a Grammy, and there is no real theme except for “I’m back and better, watch what I can do.”

And maybe he can do a little more than his usual smooth and silky jazz raps. The album opens with “Couldn’t Be Done,” and while the song is a little awkward due to its unfamiliar style, it has strong intro energy. Gibbs is bragging and rapping on a loud brassy beat to create a triumphant beginning.

Fortunately, this strong introduction previews some quality records later on. Most of the tracks are at least slightly above average, but one that stands out is “Blackest in the Room,” a comforting visit from the Alchemist with an unexpected beat switch. It’s good old Gibbs: rapping on sampled hums, “oohs” and “aahs” about rising from jail to a rapper of GOAT status, but without sounding like something straight off 

. “Space Rabbit” has an eerie yet mellow piano loop that Gibbs uses to rap about his rise as a rapper. “Zipper Bagz” features the same lyrical content as always, but with melody and a bass that isn’t 

 heavy – resulting in a refreshing advancement of his usual sound. “Rabbit Vision” employs a brash old-school beat and a relaxed flow to create the same allure as a Jay-Z song from the early 2000’s.

But there are a few tracks where Gibbs tries melodic trap and falls flat on his face. None of the songs are bad, per se – it’s just that when I hear them, I think about how much better a YSL crewmember would sound on the same beat. I can’t take “Dark Hearted” seriously because it’s too trap and not melodic enough for Gibbs. For once, he uses a different flow, but it ends up awkward, like he heard the beat and forced his flow to match the melody to a T. On “Pain & Strife,” despite a mediocre and boneless verse, Offset still manages to wash Gibbs. Everything about it is too much: the bass, Gibbs’s rapid fire rapping, and the overwhelming lyrical content dumped on listeners. There’s no balance to it, rendering the track completely forgettable. “Too Much” gives the listener absolutely nothing: it’s boring and stale, as Gibbs once again fails to bridge singing and rapping onto one track successfully. This isn’t to say Gibbs hasn’t sung well before: there’s a lot of it on his 2017 project 

. On these, he sings his heart out in a way so bold and unexpected that it’s amazing. On “Too Much,” though, Gibbs seemingly does everything possible to alter his rap cadence to fit the beat – and it just doesn’t work.

Another issue is the feature selection: most are just decorations. On “Gold Rings,” Pusha T sounds a lot more interesting than Gibbs without even trying. Moneybagg Yo, meanwhile, presents too little on “Too Much.” Musiq Soulchild’s verse on “Grandma’s Stove” just felt like filler. You may leave “Lobster Omelette” thinking “Wow, another good Rick Ross verse,” but that’s also nothing new.

At least this project gave us a whole new layer of Gibb’s signature humor. Gibbs rebrands “CIA” to stand for “Crack, Instagram, and AIDS.” The song has some very light social commentary on how those things have harmed the community, and then at the end we hear Gibbs and others laughing at his new take on the acronym as he keeps repeating it. In another song, a drunk Joe Rogan asks “Why do you love rabbits so much? Is it ‘cuz you’re always hopping out of your child support?”

 is a decent album. Gibbs’s albums never have a singular main idea, but this album doesn’t have much of anything holding it together, with such a wide range of sounds paired with repetitive lyrics. All in all, though, it’s an entertaining and refreshing record that deserves a listen from all Freddie fans.

Freddie Gibbs shows us all sides of Cocaine Rabbit on "$oul $old $eparately"

 had one of the sloppiest rollouts I’ve witnessed. It was first announced to be released on September 24, 2021. About a month later, members Olu and WowGr8 posted an album trailer saying the album would drop on January 28. That day came and went with no new album. A member of the duo’s team tweeted, “it’s still dropping today, just only live” to clear any confusion. Fans were angry, with many of them saying, “y’all aren’t Kanye.” A few days later, the group had no control over the long-promised album’s delays, and that they felt so bad that they’d do a few free shows around the U.S. Then, they posted the tracklist. Of course, JID, J. Cole, and Ari Lennox — Dreamville labelmates — would be on the album. But the only thing most of these other featured artists have in common is being from Atlanta. Baby Tate and Future are on two opposite ends of the gendered toxicity spectrum, and Nick Cannon is also here for some reason? Everything about this process and the feature list scared me, but finally, after such a messy rollout, EARTHGANG released their fourth studio album 

Every aspect of this rollout killed a tiny bit more of the hype I had for 

, but to my shock, the album wasn’t weak in the areas I anticipated. The worst thing about EARTHGANG’s weaker songs is that they’re boring. Not objectively bad, just boring. This was true for every single they released for the project. “AMEN” disappointed me by bringing in a basic trap beat, when I hoped for something more unique. “ALL EYES ON ME” was slightly better, but could be easily duplicated by many other rappers. “AMERICAN HORROR STORY,” the leading single, was five minutes of “just okay.” I’d hoped they’d go over the top like they do at their best. “Tequila,” off of their previous album 

, is a loud, brassy Latin-flavored song, where they switch between rapping and singing about a glass of tequila taking stress away.

One good thing that came out of the sloppy drop is that it couldn’t have been more timely, dropping with only a few days left in Black History Month. From that perspective, the theme of the album is an oxymoron — between celebration and praise of Black people and practices that may be deemed “ghetto.” In a more general sense, these songs have a pattern of finding a god in oneself. This message is attempted in most songs, whether they’re focused on romance, working hard, or money. In some songs, they nail it, and other times, they’re thrown off the rails, for a multitude of reasons.

Songs at the beginning of the album, like “BILLI,” have the fun pop-y southern rap sound that EARTHGANG is known for. “BILLI” keeps another pretty basic trap beat rhythm, but there’s still some kookiness added to it. WowGr8 freestyles the first verse and the lyrics aren’t too special, but it’s still a head bopper. The beat then switches to something much more mellow, and Future enters the song gloriously, with “I feel like a god on this earth, lil’ nigga,” spitting brag after brag. “WATERBOYZ” is a dream come true to Dreamville fanatics, because despite all being on the same label, there’s only a handful of songs with verses from JID, J. Cole, 

 EARTHGANG. It’s another brag song, but it’s great.

There’s a clear transition to the more romantically focused part of the album. In “AMEN,” Olu sings, “Get down on your knees for me / If you really love me, if you really need me,” making himself a metaphor for a “god” in a strange way. “ALL EYES ON ME” and “LIE TO ME” go somewhat unnoticed, then comes the weirdest song on the album, “BLACK PEARLS.” Olu and WowGr8 can’t decide if they want to make this song a shout-out to black women or just their curvy partners, so they just talk about that all at once. The abruptness between them saying “shawty got a new body” over and over, then “The leader of movements / Don’t get the credit we owe you, that shit ain’t right” will give you whiplash. Baby Tate as an individual sounds great on this song, but the content of her verse is very out of place.

The duo immediately redeems themselves with “AMERICAN HORROR STORY,” and the album picks up a lot in the second half in general. I didn’t get it when it only dropped as a single, but this is the best song on the album. It starts with a short monologue where a woman talks about how scary it is being Black, then EARTHGANG transitions into rapping about growing up in tough circumstances. Everything about it—from the lyrics to its title and beat—makes it very cohesive.While this album deviates somewhat from the appeal to 

, the album most people know EARTHGANG for, it clearly shows Olu and WowGr8 stepping further into the style they’ve been developing for a while. With this album, they got better with lyrics and slightly worse at coherence. However, while a couple of these songs may be weak, I can’t say a lot of it was boring. Maybe if they hadn’t felt so much pressure to drop the album as soon as possible after disappointing their fans, the duds in the first half of the album wouldn’t be there at all.

EARTHGANG attempts to find a god in themselves on "GHETTO GODS"

 has been plaguing trap music ever since its release. Both rising and popular trap artists like Unotheactivist and Trippie Redd have bit off Carti’s entire style, copying his beats, delivery, and even adlibs. Only a few have managed to take Carti as inspiration without losing their own style, and even fewer have been able to capture 

’s scattered nature. But U.K. rapper Lancey Foux, with his bassy rage beats, slight baby voice, and a style of music nearing American trap music, succeeds. A playthrough of his most recent project, 

 shows the range of sounds on a project, versatility, and experimental trap beats that his fans can only go to him for.

The single “BIG SWAG,” featuring pop rapper 24kGoldn, was the only taste listeners had of the mixtape before its release. It’s a simple trap song with boastful lyrics – the chorus repeats, “I’m on a big big big type of swag.” It’s a fun little song, and it’s fortunately one of the worst songs off the project.

The first song “LIVE.EVIL!¡” immerses the listener into the project, with sounds like thunder, a baby crying, maniacal laughter, and ambulance sirens muffled over intergalactic-sounding synths to make the atmosphere of some sort of dystopian setting. You hear a man’s distorted voice talking about morals, evil, and human nature. To show the “evil” side, Lancey Foux starts off with songs like “RESPECT,” where he aggressively raps about his extravagant lifestyle and tendency to fight over a beat with very heavy 808s. Another track called “OUTTAMYMIND!” has the same lyrical content, less 808s, and a darker beat to create similar energy.

The song “tellyafriends !¡” changes the album’s atmosphere, and he longingly asks his partner if they can take further steps in their relationship. The beat creates a sound of vulnerability and a hopeful mind. On “COLLECTION,” he shows his Nigerian roots by singing to this love interest over an Afropop-like beat.

In “I KNOW,” Lancey Foux raps over a beat with bubbly tones about his struggle to make the right choices. This is one of the best songs on the album, and one of the most meaningful, but it’s crowded by an overwhelming amount of songs about his self-proclaimed swag. 

 is a mixtape, not an album, so by definition it’s less carefully curated. But the intro track declared this an ambitiously themed mixtape.

A huge disappointment on this album was the song “Wait in Miami.” At first, this seems like one of the most beautiful songs he has ever put out. The beat, reminiscent of an ‘80s R&B love song, is some of the prettiest production Lancey Foux has ever used, and the soft violin in the background will make a listener float. He talks of a girl he calls Miami, because that’s where he wants to be. Then, as the music slowly fades out, we hear who we assume to be Miami talk about how she’s tired of waiting for Lancey Foux, and with absolutely zero warnings or transitions, there’s a short pause and another dark beat with heavy 808s. He starts to rap about how he actually doesn’t have time to see this woman, all the different types of swag he has, and how he has too many baddies to choose one out of. The purpose of the sudden change in this song fits the theme of the mixtape, succumbing to the “evil” and temptations surrounding him, but something about the execution of the song is lazy.

 is an enjoyable compilation of unique trap bangers. Lancey Foux matches the energy of 

 while making this mixtape original to him and distinctive from Carti and his many copycats.


Lancey Foux proves he’s more than just a Carti imitator on "LIVE.EVIL"

Fans listen to the hip-hop artist Mick Jenkins for his clever wordplay, open discussion of modern societal issues, and the relaxing atmosphere of his flow and the beats he raps on. He comes with exactly those things, plus some introspection, on his new album, 

 was all about looking at pieces of a person – their race, presentation, experiences, etc. – and not judging them by just one piece. He focused on the people around him and current social issues. 

can be thought of as the inverse of that: Jenkins writes straight from his own experiences and the listener is free to relate to it. He’s addressing things that he wasn’t initially so eager to think about and reflect on.

Ever since his childhood, Jenkins has been a close observer of the people and places around him. Throughout the course of his train rides and people-watching, the major ethnic and racial disparities across the neighborhoods of Chicago became glaring to him. When he joined the organization Young Chicago Writers, he was pushed to learn about his surroundings. He wrote poems at first, and started rapping soon after.

The song “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” opens the album. He mentions some of its themes through lines like “some of us struggling to find inner peace” that he expands on in later songs. The first verse ends strongly with “they give a fuck if you fly, we supposed to fly or sell dope / we supposed to give them the keys so they can get the door / still had to kick in the door to get in the door / he was five and we gon’ call the boy a thug for the rest of his life.”

Although it’s a recurring topic in his music, Jenkins has barely ever directly addressed the fear that comes with racism. In his song “Carefree” from his 2020 EP 

, he says he wishes he could live a life where he doesn’t have to worry about his skin color ruining his peace. He says, “damn, nigga, let me breathe / damn, nigga, let me cook,” referring to 2018’s BBQ Becky incident and the countless number of black people who have been hurt by the police. This song works as a conceptual preface to 

, but it’s also the beginning of him being vulnerable about the topic of race. He’s pointed out many different ways that racism exists in his music, but he hadn’t really expressed his own personal emotions about it. So when his objectives of talking about race and opening up come together, we get the second song: “Things You Could Die For If Doing While Black.” The song is a list of things Jenkins wants to do without worrying: “I just wanna speak my mind,” “I just wanna make mistakes,” “might wanna sleep in my car,” are just a few, and the bridge being him repeating, “I just wanna live my life,” clearly reflect sadness and show a sort of vulnerability about racism he hasn’t really shown before.

In “D.U.I.,” Jenkins talks about how he doesn’t want to be an influencer or celebrity. He’s made random comments before about not wanting to be called famous, and in this song he reveals it’s because he doesn’t like the authority that comes with fame. In the chorus of the song he asks the listener “Who you follow, who you leading?” followed by him singing “Trust me” in a coercing tone from the perspective of the common influencer. At the end of the song he asks a good question about celebrity culture: “Why niggas who don’t know me in my face sayin’ they love me?”

Even though Jenkins only directly mentions his father in a few lines, it’s clear the overarching topic of “Reflection” is his father. The song is called “Reflection” because Jenkins is making the point that a lot of men experience parental trauma that they don’t ever resolve, so when they’re forced to reflect – “put a mirror in a nigga face and he’ll run” – they don’t know how to cope or handle those feelings in a healthy way. He reflects and understands himself through rapping: “if it wasn’t for rap / This shit a mirror of sorts, got me seeing myself.”

No matter which song one’s dissecting on this album, it’ll be a fun puzzle because Mick Jenkins is truly a poet. All hip hop is poetry, but because of his poetic background, he has a thing for clever wordplay, double meanings, and metaphors that’s very unique to him. And that’s what makes this album so replayable – the fact that everytime you listen to one of these songs there’s a chance you’ll notice something new, like how he’s shouting out SZA’s hit song “Hit Different” by pronouncing “scissors” in the line, “shit hit different, I need scissors now, cutting ties” like “SZA’s.” But the laid back feeling of his songs also give the option to not think and just enjoy the sound on its own.


Temi Akinyoade