2023 has been a very diverse year for the rap industry, as they all seem to be trying new things. These are the albums I believe definitely deserve more notice, and why? Most people only love artists until they change their sound and style of music, but even after these artists experience new things, they just know how to make it work.
Funeral
By DC The Don
Daijon Davis better known as DC The Don has had an eventful year after this drop. This album itself was more of an experimental album and trying out new music but it proves his talent has no limits. The diversity of other artists and how he can combine such different genres makes his music so good. DC had his first Rolling Loud performance this year and many other big festival venues like Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash. After almost 7 years since he officially released his first single, DC is starting to get the recognition he deserves.
If Looks Could Kill
By Destroy Lonely
Along with Destroy Lonely's newest album (real name: Bobby Wardell Sandimanie III), he released a YouTube short film. This short film titled "Look Killa" promotes the album in so many ways. It was honestly so creative and very smart, seeing as not many artists you see put this much effort into advertising their work. The new album definitely introduced new instruments to his music, like guitars in his beats, rather than the pluggnb music he had going before, and he's definitely succeeded with both. By this, I mean that the title track on the album, also named "if looks could kill," has now become his third most streamed song on Spotify, reaching 60 million streams, for this only being his first professional studio-made album.
A Great Chaos (AGC)
By Ken Carson
Ken Carson's drop of "A Great Chaos" was mostly leaked by fans before the official release. This displays how desperate his fans were for this album, and after officially dropping the whole album, you can tell the hype was well deserved. Ken captures the perfect mix of grunge and heavy metal music with trap and hip-hop. These mixtures of sounds aren't just across the album but across songs too; he really knew how to balance the genres perfectly. The songs were very inspiring to the TikTok platform too, causing the official release to gain numbers exponentially.
Tec
Lil Tecca
It's an ongoing tradition that Tecca saves the summer every year. Tyler-Justin Anthony Sharpe, AKA Lil Tecca, recently dropped his 16-song album "TEC" with a re-release of his newest and most trendy hit, "500lbs," and alongside that is his brand new "HVN ON EARTH," featuring Kodak Black, which has also grown very popular. This saying that "Tecca saves the summer" was made as a joke because Tecca usually drops around every summer, and each time it's hit after hit, the way his music perfectly catches the summer vibe. This album proves that he's not ending this tradition anytime soon.