Shatter the Standards

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Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar Made the Decade’s Rap Anthem
Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar released “family ties” on Keem’s debut album in 2021. It won a Grammy, went platinum, ran through the Big Steppers Tour’s…
 • Blackpolitan and Phil
Album Review: Peace to Make by Ruth B.
The daughter of Ethiopian immigrants in Edmonton wrote a Peter Pan ballad that went 2x Platinum, disappeared for five years, came back to her parents…
 • Shatter the Standards and Amaya🎀
Album Review: The Documentary III by The Game
Hip-hop has spent twenty-one years agreeing that The Game can rap. The Documentary III is what it sounds like when agreement and investment never meet.
 • Shatter the Standards and Miles Everette
Album Review: PAELLA! by Stoic
A type-beat maker from Staten Island quit nursing school, won a Grammy for Doechii, and gathered various guests for his masterful solo debut.
 • Shatter the Standards and DeShawn Ellis
Booking a Flight to Say What a Text Can’t
Lucky Daye and Leon Thomas fly someone out, Coco Jones counts her grievances, and Dani Offline can’t explain it.
 • Soulpolitan
Album Review: ROADRUNNER by Destin Conrad
An LGBTQ artist from the Jamaican diaspora made a full dancehall record inside a tradition that has called for violence against people like him, and he…
 • Shatter the Standards and Darryl Keyes
Album Review: Portrait of a Boy on Fire by Houston Kendrick
On his second album, a singer from the Birmingham suburbs puts American bravado in drag, takes Adderall to keep the costume from slipping, and writes…
 • Shatter the Standards and Aicha Odilia
Album Review: Eric Bellinger by Eric Bellinger
After more than forty independent releases, the Compton singer signed to a revived Motown imprint and delivered his best album with one voice, one…
 • Shatter the Standards and Tori Hammond
Album Review: God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops by Rapsody
With a masterpiece of her fifth album, Rapsody went to Ghana and Johannesburg last year, and Mr. Porter gave her tempos from five directions, three…
 • Shatter the Standards and Phil
Album Review: The Price of Fame by Skilla Baby
Skilla Baby survived a shooting, made a record with Nas as executive producer, and the autobiography is stronger than the gun talk.
 • Shatter the Standards and Ivy Mensah
New Music Drops: August 21, 2026
As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of August 21st. We know it can…
 • Shatter the Standards
Album Review: ii by Denzel Curry & Kenneth Blume
Working on an SP-404 and a cheap microphone, Curry and Blume strip their follow-up to UNLOCKED down to nine aggressive, densely rapped songs.
 • Shatter the Standards and Tariq Belson
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