Monolith Cocktail Blog

Matt Oliver’s Choice Hip-Hop Releases of 2025

Armand Hammer & The Alchemist ‘Mercy’ (Backwoodz Studioz)

Armand Hammer = uncommon carnage and luxuriously slow violence, where “everything justified when you’re starving, right?” Challenging Alchemist time signatures give the MPC twisted blood, finding the unfazed ELUCID and billy woods counteracting with formidable, structurally-dismissive street riddles and artisan rambling from beyond off-the-top. In a game of who’ll blink first, a band of drizzly soft rock head nodders (‘Peshawar’ and ‘Calypso Gene’ reflecting ALC’s work on Evidence’s ‘Unlearning Vol.2’), turn the page in a surreal, open-ended world filtering between pure, “aura matte black” menace, Alchemist looping on his merry way and a kind of spectral connection/disconnect (‘Nil By Mouth’ and the magnificently dead of night ‘Crisis Phone’), as if ELUCID and billy woods are occupying disembodied mid-regeneration. Riding designer gangsterisms into town with bulletooth brainteasers where “every story tell a story that’s already been told” and barely allowing any breathing space, Mercy is a tour de force, probably reaching unexpected new levels of notoriety.

Batsauce ‘Echolocation’ (Full Plate)

Apollo Brown ‘Elevator Music’ (Escapism)

Lord Finesse ‘The SP 1200 Project: Sounds & Frequencies in Technicolor’ (Coalmine)

Leading the instrumental set this year, classy head nods and hip-hop time-outs from Florida’s bespoke Mexico-crossing beat director Batsauce red-carpets an instrumental set waiting for a soundtrack call-up. Echolocation darts between suited-and-booted scenarios, that even with the wind in its hair and its cufflinks checked, like the casting of a retro Bond who wants a Blaxploitation assignment via some folky replenishment, doesn’t forget the requisite thump of the breaks.
 
‘Elevator Music’ doesn’t do the creamy, calming creations of Apollo Brown any disservice; it’s his long established craftsmanship and detail, politely shushing vocals (few would be worthy of having the mic passed to them anyway – Bronze Nazareth a worthy accomplice on July’s collaborative LP ‘Funeral for a Dream’). Summoning the fading of summer with autumn leaves paving the way, whispered realisations of it being better to have loved and lost than not at all, and palm tree flutters found in finessed keys, this is a resplendently solemn, Michigan state of mind.
 
Legendary Bronx boardsmith and Diggin in the Crates PhD Lord Finesse keeps the boom bap simple and uncluttered with his weapon of choice, not forgetting the omnipotent sleigh-bell and horn stab combo that any emcee worth their salt sought out in the 90s. The SP1200 Project lets its warm elements breathe in the fresh air of the streets, creating smooth joints and vibes that cliques will want to huddle around and call their own, and whose exclamation points snap on instrumentals for cold calculations and dramatic entrances. Both a preservation and cracking open of a boom bap time capsule.

BlackLiq & Dub Sonata ‘Much Given Much Tested’ (Dub Sonata)

Blackliq has got prime previous with Monolith Cocktail after 2023’s Choice Is A Chance and The Lie, that mercilessly intelligent cackle-drawl from Virginia (‘I’m not a musician, I’m a conduit’) pulling New York’s Dub Sonata into his orbit. Production regularly resembles a marching orchestra bundled down the wrong side of the tracks, thrust down mystical rabbit holes. While ’10 Black Commandments’ is a smart re-up of Biggie’s classic shopping list to live by, the key here is the ferocity of rhymes that are comfortable in loosening the armour. ‘Traumatized’, ‘Me Too’ and ‘The Ride’ put everyone on an even footing, and ‘Rockwood’, with a combustible mixture of pride, defiance and bitterness, reminisces on the crest of sweeping black & white movie strings. Rugged, ruthless (the title track issues the mother of all bruises) and with rich trains of thought, Blackliq going for self ends up as catharsis everyone can tap into.

Black Milk & Fat Ray ‘Food of the Gods’ (Computer Ugly)

Detroit dream team business overdue a re-up after 2008’s The Set Up, Food of the Gods is ripe for metaphors about being a feast of beats and rhymes. And rightly so, with that Fat Ray stare down, fuck-around-and-find-out flow, and Black Milk’s production that’s customarily funk & soul-rich. An anxious patina runs through the LP’s early stages, before the Gods open the throttle (literally, on the road-ready ‘CANE’) and pop the cork so that swirls of colour mingle with record crate dust catching the light. Milk’s expressiveness and Ray’s staunch stance, elevated further (while inversely feeling looser) during the album’s latter stages, brokers a laser-like focus, as if every 16 is a business deal, reflected in the short 11-track time. Therefore, there’s no need for overcooking – just know the recipe and let it set, with Guilty Simpson, Danny Brown and Bruiser Wolf passing through a prize pick-me-up for your palette.

Buck 65 ‘Keep Moving’ (Bandcamp)

Packing 31 tracks into 50 minutes, prolific Canadian vet Buck 65 acts as someone whose thumb is constantly hovering above the pause button in the hope his mixtape can become local currency. Dressed in old skool garb (more a Beastie Boys tracksuit than a gold chain and fat laces) and where keeping it real reflects the joy of receiving a Bandcamp payment – also seeing his leftfield standing way off into the distance – it’s no problem that some of the samples and breaks you’d have heard umpteen times before. The craft of Buck’s transitions is twofold: there’s the undeniable funkiness of his sub two-minutes throwdowns, and his unphased, Ugly Duckling-meets-Paul Barman nerdiness (“hip but I’m not pelvic…I’m Robin Hood giving the nerds their lunch money back”), knowing when rhymes need a natural full stop and pause for thought after racking up rat-a-tat word associations. Always engaging, Keep Moving does indeed make you wonder where’s he gonna turn next.

Cappo ‘Houses’ (Plague)

Cappo’s subtle advancement of the art continues. In the aftermath of STARVE and Canon, Houses has Nottingham’s elite kitchen sink dramatist rhyming, daft as it sounds, more from A to B (though no less expressively or bloody-mindedly, as he does on the bit-between-teeth follow-up ‘ITO’), rather than going off on name-dropping tangents. Understandably so perhaps, given the gravity of the subject matter in this ode to domesticity and its surrounding killjoys. Sleepless nights, debt collectors, personal loss, striving to defeat stacked odds, provider’s pride and just ‘being’, and where the overlapping of all of these activates the closing in of walls – the ghosts seem to talk back on the greasily uneasy ‘Will We’. Ultimately, the need to have backbone and staying power to see things through is never in doubt, over suitably pensive, wary production. Coupled with some excellent HMRC-themed packaging and promo from Plague, Cappo continues to preserve his national treasure status.

Confucius MC & Bastien Keb ‘Songs for Lost Travellers’ (Native Tribe)

A definite hip-hop outlier in this list but all the better for it, a folky; lute-plucking, through-the-looking-glass rumination whose deep sighs and woodwind washes nullify outside noise while relaying being burdened and battered by it. Confucius MC’s always nice, levelheaded South London pen game allows the cradle-rocking narration of gentle lullabies (‘Little Man’) to become easily transferable to the grit of the screen-burnt real world (‘Fairytale’ finding itself “taught between the lines and the margins: life really is quite a sentence”; ‘Question Or Consume’ finding idylls pulled from under). Midlands Midas Bastien Keb sends you to catch Zs (‘It Would Speak’), his fantastical micro concertos and sub-Tolkien worlds conversely challenging you to a spiritual, danger-laden quest attached to “the burden of a heavy chain, the urgency of heavy shame”. The cocooned hush slowly develops into a more of a jazzy, beat-lead murmur, without the pretention of a poetry slam or coffee house special, as the pair craft a precious sonic compass.

Crimeapple & DJ Skizz ‘Rose Gold’ (Different Worlds Music Group)

After collaborative albums Wet Dirt and Breakfast In Hradec (both referenced on the track ‘Trifecta’), this latest, consummate gangster experience from Skizz and the never static Crimeapple is beautifully tailored as an NYC’s kingpin day-to-day – heads will roll, and stylishly so, with conviction always trumping the ostentatious. With the audacity to interpolate R Kelly (‘Taste Like Butter’) Lisa Stanfield-Notorious BIG (‘Congratulations’) and what we’re pretty sure is Skizz messing about with Wings’ ‘Jet’ on ’97 Tape Master’ – and steadfastly meaning it – Rose Gold represents cold-veined composure when there’s panic in the streets, but where there’s always time for a punchline for that extra chef’s kiss of respect. ‘Paradigms’ runs rampant, hook-less rhymes to destroy ciphers like drug rings, crystallising that subhuman/beyond emotion strand of focus that won’t stutter, but project the voice. As both promote the quiet storm ethic amidst the Blaxploitation resets, the pair then take it to the church on ‘The Pastor’s Whip’ as Rose Gold racks up the carats.

Defcee & Parallel Thought ‘Other Blues’ (Parallel Thought LTD)

One of the coolest sounding albums of 2025 – deferred from 2022 – Other Blues humbly never sets out to achieve such Holy Grail status of electric relaxation. New Jersey duo Parallel Thought achieve this by glossy funk and soul that learns to see past the red carpet light bulb flashes with reverent mastery of the MPC. The conversational grown man rhymes and down to earth done goodness of Illinois 9-to-5er Defcee (‘You Still Rap?’ downplaying status by being “not even Chicago famous”) develop into lore without ever yelling at any clouds, getting front rows straining to reach out in appreciation of his clarity and pragmatism. ‘Graduation Picture’ is a storytelling what-might-have-been highlight, while ‘Beasts’ emerges from the happy-to-be-here dwelling to apply a sabre prefix to being long in the tooth. A road trip of carefree origins before home truths start hanging heavier in the air (nothing realer than ‘Big Sisters’), Other Blues is everything that the beats-and-rhymes bedrock should be.

doseone & Steel Tipped Dove ‘All Portrait, No Chorus’ (Backwoodz Studioz)

2025’s grungiest, most super-villainous flow belongs to doseone; but those who know their Anticon archives will understand how these things work. Seemingly burying his hissing, cackle-cracked flow under bedcovers by torchlight and then capable of twisting his jowls double-time, in a Hanna-Barbera-meets-death metal fashion, doseone has long perfected the classic of sermons being at their most haywire when all seems hushed (‘Went Off’), bending the leftfield to his will (“semantics steadily setting these idiots free”) and leaving nothing to chance on the eye-popping ‘Inner Animal’, sustaining a Busta Rhymes-Sticky Fingaz hybrid.  With the shakiness of a Blair Witch camcorder, Steel Tipped Dove’s production dares to dream, strikes out with forked teeth, holds its ground, and recognises every variable is fair game in keeping up with/goading doseone’s mindstates. The mad scientist writ large on ‘Epinephrine Pen’, it’s uneasy listening, but All Portrait, No Chorus will definitely prise ears open, by fair means or foul.

Farma G ‘How to Kill a Butterfly’ (High Focus)

Still posing one of the most potent, be-careful-what-you-wish-for flows, Task Force’s Farma G challenges himself on the mic after a prolonged spell producing underground heaters and artefacts, making a bold call for album of the year in January. How To Kill A Butterfly is an enjoyably bruising experience, the UK hip-hop legend shrouding himself in a fog weighing the world down which turns everything on the brink of lopsided, while muscle memory maintains the straight and narrow (‘Bearskin Coats’, ‘Classic Tech’). A technician, of the mould seemingly rubbing his eyes from slumber but whose survivor instinct never dulls, is always enlightening in staring down struggles and close-to-home tribulations (“the all consuming battle between happy and sad”). The likes of ‘Say It How You See It’ encompass Farma’s rounding up of weary troops to offer a sense of rain-lashed, underdog belonging; and his way of floating like a ‘Butterfly’ is to swarm opposition into suffocation.

Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals ‘A City Drowned in God’s Black Tears’ (Phantom Limb)

The axis of provocation and punishment – but then you shouldn’t expect anything else from a title screaming that this is not a drill. Maryland duo and Kneecap-supporters Infinity Knives and Brian Ennals are pourer of fuel on fire with the sort of rhymes that are done tolerating the world mark 2025 (“the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million – is a statistic”). Conspiracy quashing and intense namedrops are all part of the game, but their loose canon nature (“alcoholic househusband, I was made for that”) is actually heightened by genuine moments of calm, sometimes pastoral reflection/dysfunction. Quieten the vocals, and you’re subject to a warped, cut-n-shut jukebox of clppng-like static and metal blackouts, with glossy R&B, psychedelic Bond themes, OutKast-like groove and folk acoustics. Showing moments of universal appeal on the theoreticals of ‘Sometimes, Papi Chulo’, the pair pleasingly offers as much intrigue and complexity as the obvious DGAF shock value on display.

Jansport J ‘West Covina Prayer’ (All Attraction No Chasin)

Hard at work as ever through 2025 with ‘The Weight of the World’ and ‘Hard 2 Hate’ bookending this ode to California, the evergreen Jansport J pushes a local feelgood factor bathed in West Coast warmth and well, coasting, as only the Golden State knows. J’s mixboard smoothness, where cruise control supplants hydraulics, throws in a handful of 80s throwbacks stark (‘T-Top’), glossy (‘Brown Suga’) and with water pistols cocked (EDF running the cook-out of ‘$100 Soup’), and works with a juxtaposition of swaggy emcees that won’t retreat to the shade – the heat only makes them work harder (West Covina’s motto is “live, work, play”, so it checks out). It also comes with a touch of danger when the LA temperature turns slightly redder and mistier, exemplified by album highlight ‘It’s A Game’ featuring AJ Snow & Polyester The Saint. Just over half an hour long, but well worth the visit.

Lee Reed ‘Pitchforks & Torches’ (Strange Famous)

“I don’t know who needs to hear this – but you’ve been warned”. Armed with the baying mob’s titular weapons of choice, veteran Canadian Lee Reed is the classic antagonist elect going against the world’s current negative, vegetative, corrupted and fat cat-rewarding state – from cost of living to the declaration that “this ain’t rap, this is class war” and then directing the placards on ‘This Economy’ – with an outlaw status sipping liquor neat and done taking no for an answer. The sound of vengeance from producer ripple-eh-hex is rock-n-roll brawl, bang-your-head ready with a little voodoo seeping in, and it’s easy to imagine Reed marching from town to town in a swirl of backwater dust and scorched vocals, pistols cocked and movement mobilised to the jangle of cowboy spurs. No pauses for thought or reflection, this is undiluted and unapologetic: just as the world likes it right now.

LMNO & D-Styles ‘Three Mimes & An Elephant’ (Perpetual Stew)

This starts with slightly American gothic/folky backwater production from Beat Junkies associate D-Styles, immediately putting this 10-track album down in the trenches. With an elephant’s turn of speed it then moves into funk delivered on the low, then into super catchy stripped back loopage, and then back again to tread on eggshells. Underground Cali stalwart and Visionaries alumni LMNO is the tale-teller whose solemn, soft-edged delivery doesn’t mean it should be taken lightly (‘Hip-Hop AF’ knows the ledge, issuing a notice to turn the screw). For when the backpack starts to weigh heavy – eyes of innocence or a thousand yard stare? – ‘Three Mimes’, featuring an appearance from the ubiquitous Blu, is an ideal after-hours soundtrack bursting into life and making the shadows dance. The lane drifts, continuing with ‘Bloody White Flags’, ‘Garlic Braid’ and its line of “diarrhoea of the mouth, it’s a vowel movement”, are unexpected sneak attacks beyond the first listen. Such more-than-meets-the-ear stage management creates an absolutely rock solid, cult listen for 2025 that’s “a masterpiece born out of catastrophe”.

miles cooke ‘ceci n’est pas un portrait’ (Rucksack Records)

2025’s slurpiest, most rottonous flow belongs to miles cooke; from the first bar the Brooklynite is great at plugging ears with cranky-to-put-it-mildly disdain on the Company Flow-themed ‘negus’, a flow baptised in dirty water or birthed in Oscar the Grouch’s trashcan. Beats get lighter and varied over the course of the LP, but cooke is not a horses for courses emcee, consequently creating a savage contradiction never skimping on syllables, as an antihero not in the business of sympathy (“just trying to keep the roof over my head daily”). The refusal to budge from his wallowing, worn down by his environs and American dreamisms so that his sneer becomes unadjustable, weaponise ‘sangria’ and ‘dismiss the fear of being you’ as two of 2025’s bleakest landscapes. It’s safe to say that you shouldn’t look at ‘…portrait’ the wrong way when cooke declares “I’m half altruistic, half horrible/but you won’t find me resting on my laurels”.

Mr Muthafuckin eXquire ‘Vol 2: The Y.O.UPrint’ (Old Soul Music)

While we’ll probably never get the sleeve to Kismet out of our head and some of the barbs on the self-titled 2019 album won’t ever be safe for work, Mr eXquire continues to quell the rage of moral panickers by continuing as an older and wiser Brooklyn headhunter. Not to say he’s downgraded to a PG13 status of adult situations, but as a leader (‘It IzwWhat it iZ’) rather than a pure troublemaker (living the most opulent gangster life on ‘Y.O.Utopia’), eXquire as ghetto Sherpa (‘The Magician’ might surprise you) hits upon one of the year’s most consistent albums in terms of no skips from first track to last. In a 43 minute ball of sweat, muscle and no little wit (the pure show and prove of ‘The Soloist’) over a funky clatter of beats from KRILL, MonkeyRad7, Griff Spex, Enoch and EV – with some bars still beyond pardoning – do as the man says: “if you want some understanding, then humbly, listen to me”.

Nacho Picasso & TELEVANGEL ‘Séance Musique’ (Last Epoch Records)

Put your hands together for Séance Musique’ Woozy with a capital ‘ooh’, Portland’s TELEVANGEL, who also came correct with Lord OLO on Demon Slayer 2 in 2025, absorbs the energy of irrepressible supersonic Nacho Picasso, whose husky wisps and horizontal, Lyrics Born-meets Mr Eon flow with a mouthful of munchies, delivers zingers by the dozen. Séance is cloud-sent, undoubtedly chill and will make your lights flicker, but through the smoke there are moments of vigilance (‘Skylar’), and Nacho’s snaking through the nooks and crannies with a preference for simple structures, is a stoner style you can still follow word for word despite sitting below the mix. ‘Toast to the Chaos’ typifies both Nacho working the axis of slack and locked on, and TELEVANGEL’s intelligent lacing of the psychedelic with sufficient anxiety. The burning of incense as a perilous pursuit is hammered home on the VHS imbalance of ‘Fly Ritchie’, featuring a surprising guest hook from Mayhem SAS.

PremRock ‘Did You Enjoy Your Time Here?’ (Backwoodz Studioz)

Of an arid drawl that barely looks up from the mic – engaging in eye contact is asking for a hiding to nothing lest he loom over you – New York’s PremRock would probably dismiss adjectives such as enigmatic and scoff at being labelled leftfield. Production from ELUCID, YUNGMORPHEUS, Blockhead, Controller 7 and more elevate their target, coming in off the beaten track with a degree of admiring lo-fi mystique smuggling a reserve of trip wires (‘Aim’s True’ sounds like Pandora’s Box being jacked open). PremRock perpetuates a recluse (“complicated man, simple needs” / “up Schitt’s creek without an either/or” / “hello darkness my old homie…you’re lucky I’m so low-key”) who won’t beckon you to come closer: so listen very carefully when he starts piling up syllables while barely giving himself a run-up (and usually within a three minute timeframe). The title may be rhetorical, but you’ll get lost in this one quickly as Backwoodz Studioz chalk up another victory.

R.A.P. Ferreira & Kenny Segal ‘The Night Green Side Of It’ (Ruby Yacht/Alpha Pup)

Aboard the good ship Ruby Yacht out of Nashville, Green represents the smoothness and disruption of jazz, a rash and a methodical finding of notes, partnered with chatting where the beats don’t go and the exacting precision of line and length. Segal’s clatter of free-jazz spitballing and the sheer fucking around of ‘Blood Quantum’, is embraced with a cocksure rebuttal of “can you find the difficulty in this style?” – the atonal and off-kilter deserving of Ferreira’s acute turns of phrase (“I emailed God once, reply came back from a Mailer-Daemon”). Showing-and-proving between feeling himself and look-what-I-can-rhyme-over, Ferreira owns the double bass dope of ‘Dazzle on the Casual’ and thoroughbred jazz hop of ‘Defense Attorney’, and has the underground pluck to chronicle the ultimate triumph in adversity of ‘The Night Dreamer’s Flu Game’. All shades of green are game when he poses conundrums and reveals fleeting vulnerability, detailing that “I’ve been everything from a poet to a punching bag, an inspiration to a coulda-had” on ‘Credentials’.

The Cool Kids ‘Hi Top Fade’ (Fool’s Gold)

Generational retro from Midwest MySpace graduates Chuck Inglish and Sir Michael Rocks. From the on-point sleeve to the title to their resumption of redressing low-rider music that they’ve been doing since 2008’s The Bake Sale, the pair still have the skills to back the B-boy stances. Drum machines locked in with monster kicks for your hydraulics (the unavoidably catchy ‘Rockbox’ – an open house party invite), interplays over jazzy recliners (‘We Got Clips’, the great ‘Cinnamon Pt.2’ flipping 50 Cent), and with more than a little mining of peak era Neptunes (‘Foil Bass’), their pick-up-and-rhyme styles bearing a slight Clipse equivalency, don’t always feel they have to lock together to form a single mouthpiece. Slick and willing to knock out frauds in a second, but also in it for a summery good time with a touch of 80s electro-fied flossing, ‘Hi Top Fade’ will cause a spike in ghettoblaster sales – “this not for airpods, you gonna need good speakers”.

The Expert ‘Vivid Visions’ (Rucksack Records)

This year’s one producer-extends-invite to underground emcee roster package belongs to Ireland’s The Expert, encouraging the everyman for himself ethos while attempting to sneak a unifying headswim through each track. From humbly funky beginnings, highlights are the prescription posse cut ‘Take A Trip’, the downright nasty, leather jacketed boom bap of Buck 65’s gangster geekin’ ‘What It Looks Like’, and the cop chase ‘Acid Test’ with its scraping, TikTok-ready percussion. It’s an 18 track whole or 18 individual stand outs without a weak moment to be found, subsequently leaving you poring over the back catalogues of the album’s contributors. Playlisters can separate from the psychedelic and the flat out, the long-gamers will revel in the back and forth of the full on and easing back. ‘Running’ provides the bridge, a slide guitar loop ridden by Andrew & Defcee, who then provides a closing, slightly more caustic commentary on ‘In The Style of Bigg Juss’. A vast yet compact collection, big on discipline and the disciplines.

Von Pea & The Other Guys ‘Putcha Weight On It’ (HiPNOTT)

A collaboration well versed in hip-hop fundamentals (see 2017’s The Fiasco), there’s much to appreciate about the quality and calibration of the loops laid down by DC’s The Other Guys – on the surface there’s nothing complicated about the funk, but then there shouldn’t be with the best snare-snapping, soul/jazz refitting boom-bap. This’ll sort stiff necks immediately in one chiropractor-sacking 32 minute appointment such is their complete measure of the MPC. Von Pea’s lyrical demeanour over this rugged luxury gambols down the street, passing through (and owning) as many street corner ciphers as possible, with a little singsong in his voice (‘Slide Off With Her Homie’) and call and response prompts at all the right points adding to his too-cool-for-school knowledge (“does music even exist without wi-fi?”) that packs a deceptive amount of heft (“don’t confuse my energy with meek, I’m making chess moves as we speak”). Add spots from Che Noir, Skyzoo, Oddisee and Tanya Morgan teammate Donwill and ‘…Weight…’ represents cracking pound for pound value.

Honourable mentions:

Open Mike Eagle – Neighborhood Gods Unlimited

TELEVANGEL & Lord OLO – Demon Slayer 2

J Littles & Kong the Artisan – Furthermore

Aupheus – High Artifice

Da Fly Hooligan – Nocturnal Hooli 2.0/3

sleepingdogs – Dogstoevsky

Brother Ali – Satisfied Soul

OldBoy Rhymes – Curly Head

Verbz & Mr Slipz – The Way FWD

Jesse The Tree – Worm in Heaven

Oh No – Nodega

Extras: Matt’s essential hip-hop soundtrack to 2025; 108 tracks that represent the last year in rap.

Matt Oliver