A$AP Rocky, Don’t Be Dumb: The Harlem rapper’s first album in over seven years finds him at ease amid digital hardcore (courtesy of Slay Squad and “STFU”), cool jazz-rap (“Robbery” with Doechii), and alt-pop experiments as well as the usual swag boasts, a valentine to his partner Rihanna, and a surprising foray into doom times prophecy alongside will.i.am and Jessica Pratt (“In the End”). Collaborations with the likes of Damon Albarn from Gorillaz and Tyler, the Creator confirm his superstar status. But a handful of shots at frenemies like Drake (“Stole Ya Flow”) doesn’t change the reality that the Hollywood-bound 37-year-old no longer shapes the culture, even as he refuses to settle on his laurels.

Baby Keem, Ca$ino: After delighting listeners with his zippy 2021 debut The Melodic Blue, Keem’s long-awaited follow-up attempts to exorcise personal demons. Numerous tracks center on his fraught relationship with his largely absent mother and a youth spent in poverty and deprivation that inspires him to claim that he’s “a child with the wolves.” Now largely known as a protégé of his cousin Kendrick Lamar, Keem has a light and breezy voice, and a producer’s mindset of layering tracks. That mentality serves him well during a transitional project that finds him trying to add thematic depth to his pop-inflected sound, with mixed results.

89 the Brainchild, Not Who I Thought I Was: the evil who brought us joy: 89 the Brainchild’s debut long-player jumps all over the place, from warm electro-bass and house vibes (the standout “Venues”) to jungle rhythms on “Apocalype Edition.” He works with a cast of dozens, including DJ Haram, Fatboi Sharif and, improbably, the late Memphis rap heroine Gangsta Boo (who closes “Fuck U Like”). With a plodding flow, he isn’t a great vocal stylist, and his surplus of ideas often outpace his ability to execute them. But it’s hard not to admire his panache on the droning “1^st Rule of Boxing,” and how he sings “Found Love” over throbbing synthwave. Meanwhile, Ghais Guevera kills his guest verse on “The Psycho Boom Arc”: “Put the barrel to his brain if this shit don’t sell.”

J. Cole, The Fall-Off: “Now I’m headed home, my dear/And I brought a poem to share,” sings J. Cole on the final track of The Fall-Off, which he has claimed will be his last album. It’s an ambitious bow that spans two sections marked Disc 29 and Disc 39, nearly two hours, and prominent guests like Future, Erykah Badu, Tems, Morray and, in a nod to an earlier North Carolina star, Petey Pablo of “Raise Up” fame, illustrating themes of Cole returning to his Fayetteville hometown and taking stock of his life and career. “I fear that the best days I’ve had are not ahead of me,” he worries. Indeed, The Fall-Off isn’t necessarily his best work, yet it still reveals the multiplatinum rapper’s noted penchant for lyrical introspection and boorish swagger, for better or worse.

Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon, As of Now: “Just told an underground rapper I’m not in that circle no more,” claims Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon on “Instagram Highlights.” A neutral observer might say otherwise – the Charlotte, North Carolina rapper is signed to UK independent Lex Records, not a mainstream behemoth like Roc Nation and 300 Entertainment. But Ogbon is a natural woofer, the type who’ll claim, “All we know is trap talk” on “360 Photo Booth,” then state plainly that he’s “big-headed with the thoughts of Marcus Garvey” on “Tia Mowry.” He doesn’t back any of this up with dense lyrics, but he has a sharply affirmative voice, and he sequences As of Now in an ad-hoc, Madlib Invazion-like flow that keeps things entertainingly off-kilter.

MC Paul Barman & Kenny Segal, Antinomian Pandemonium: When MC Paul Barman emerged back in 2000 with help from De La Soul macher Prince Paul, his style felt aggressively zany, like Kool Keith without the B-boy panache. With Antinomian Pandemonium, he’s found another sympathetic collaborator in “art rap” specialist Kenny Segal. Segal’s whirligig loops fuel Barman’s various personae, like pretending he’s Dr. Spock on “Congrats on Your Firstborn,” shouting with Noo Yawk bluster on “Train Basics,” and woofing like a lawnmower on “Rumrumrumrum.” The final track, “Somebody Say Hooo,” finds him offering thoughts such as “When you own labor, you can be cash poor” and “I’ve got 10 rhymes for every stolen girl.”

Roc Marciano, 656: “Pimp status” declares Roc Marciano at the opening of “Trick Bag.” The 48-year-old rapper has kept his fans satiated with variations on this theme for nearly two decades by delivering his goods in precise, simile-laden bars with a silky voice. The qualities that distinguish one from the other can feel minor. To his credit, 656 has strong production, courtesy of himself. It doesn’t sound as flimsy as the middling fan service of The Coldest Profession, last year’s EP-length collaboration with DJ Premier. He gifts an avalanche of well-crafted lines to the listener, though few of them reveal any pathos beyond “I was skin and bones when I made my bones” on “Easy Bake Oven.” Amusingly, he praises himself on “Vanity” by asserting, “Beauty isn’t gender specific.”

Yeat, ADL: Yeat’s latest album likely won’t change minds about him, despite his gestures toward the kind of middlebrow emotions that define arena rap (“No More Ghosts” with Kid Cudi) and stabs at pop balladry (“Back Home” with Joji). He’s admirably tried to expand his palette beyond the digitally distorted rage anthems that made him a star and intrigued the likes of Drake and Gunna. His unique tone can’t hide the fact that there’s not much under the hood, with most of his songs settling into a variety of “geeked up” and “bustin’ a nut” boasts, with little to distinguish them lyrically. The cast here includes Swizz Beatz (album standout “My Time”), Youngboy Never Broke Again, Don Tolliver and, uh, “King Kylie” Jenner.