A- Cardi B
Invasion of Privacy
KSR/Atlantic
Cardi B's breakthrough singles -- "Bodak Yellow" and "Bartier Cardi" -- posited the Bronx social media savant turned reality-TV scene-stealer turned rapper as a pugilist preaching the virtues of triumphing over difficult circumstances, the power of sexual agency and the satisfying payoff of hard work.
"Be Careful," the third single from her major-label debut, is a heady swerve. Cardi raps with ferocity, but she's stepping gingerly; the subject is her heart. She doesn't want to fracture it.
Much as Cardi B's ascent to stardom has been unconventional, so is her approach to maintaining her place. The Cardi of this concise, purposeful album is as confident on the breezy trap anthem "Drip" (with Migos) as on the power-of-positive-thinking "Best Life," featuring Chance the Rapper. "I Like It," with Puerto Rican rapper-singer Bad Bunny and Colombian lite-reggaeton star J Balvin, is undeniable for its smoothness and also its revising of Pete Rodriguez' "I Like It Like That." On "She Bad" and "I Do," she raps about sex with the assertiveness and raw detail of Lil' Kim.
Invasion of Privacy is unlike its contemporaries; a hip-hop album that is more reminiscent of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when New York rap was beginning to test its pop edges.
Cardi's path to success has been unusual. It is one way rap stars are made today -- not by triumphing over other rhymeslingers, but by arriving to the genre as a fully formed personality, and then learning how to shrink-wrap that personality around beats.
Hot tracks: "Drip," "I Like It," "Be Careful"
-- JON CARAMANICA
The New York Times
B The Weeknd
My Dear Melancholy
XO Republic
Back before he was creating music for Fifty Shades of Grey, headlining Made in America and dating Selena Gomez, The Weeknd was mysterious, spooky and weird. Specifically, with the three mixtapes the kinky Canadian love man released in 2011 that were later collected as Trilogy, he made darkly obsessive and always askew music that was massively influential on contemporary R&B.
Over the years, however, The Weeknd's music lost its subtlety as he grew unabashed in his courtship of the mainstream. My Dear Melancholy is of note because it's a breakup album rife with references to his split from Gomez, and because wearing sadness on his sleeve has nudged him back toward making music that is ultimately more pleasing precisely because it isn't so eager to please.
Another good thing about it: Like Diplo's recent refreshingly brief California, MDM is actually an EP, and at only six songs and 22 minutes, its self-pity doesn't have time to grow cloying. Expect to see more big-name acts putting out between-album, less-than-full-length works, as attention spans shrink and streaming services encourage artists to be more creative in how they release music.
Hot tracks: the pained "Privilege," the Skrillex-produced "Wasted Times"
-- DAN DELUCA
The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)
B Toni Braxton
Sex & Cigarettes
Def Jam
Twenty-five years into a career of emotive, smoky vocals caught in the whirling winds of quiet-storm soul, Toni Braxton seems to have finally outrun marital problems, weird boyfriends-turned fiances, health scares and reality television series to produce a stunning work that rivals her '90s best. As a matter of funky fact, Sex & Cigarettes sounds a lot like a sister album to 1996's Secrets, which contained the smash grand ballad, "Un-Break My Heart."
That's very often a great thing when Sex & Cigarettes' sirens come to call. The dynamics-rich chord changes and luxurious arrangements of the slow-jamming "Long as I Live," and the album's title tune sound of another era -- one where subtlety and complexity still existed on the charts. On those boisterous cuts, as with her piano ballad "FOH," Braxton is ruminative and angry, and you can hear it through every breath. What makes "FOH" different is that she's utilizing the currency of Internet slang to get her pointed ire across. Where Braxton's '90s-isms don't work -- for example -- is on smaller, more poppy songs such as "My Heart," an odd collaboration with songwriter Colbie Caillat that never truly or deeply delves into the magic of that muscle. Still, any chance to hear Braxton run through a cocky lyric such as "I wish that I could like you, my feelings are sincere/But every time I try to, it kinda disappears" is pretty cool.
Hot tracks: "Long as I Live," "FOH"
-- A.D. AMOROSI
The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)
Style on 04/17/2018