Co-hosted by Editor-in-Chief Puja Patel and Reviews Editor Jeremy D. Larson, and featuring guest critics and contributors, our weekly podcast includes in-depth analysis of the new albums we find extraordinary, exciting, and just plain terrible. This week, Contributing Editor Dylan Green and Staff Writer and rap columnist Alphonse Pierre chat about Kendrick Lamar’s messy major statement, Drake’s exhausting trend-surfing, and the regional scenes and rising stars—many of them women—responsible for much of the year’s most vital and exciting music.
Listen to this week’s episode below, and follow The Pitchfork Review here. You can also check out an excerpt of the podcast’s transcript below.
Puja Patel: Isn’t part of what’s so exciting is that we’re back in a place where there are people popping up from all these spots around the country, and there’s not a monopoly of a scene?
Dylan Green: I’m with you, 100 percent. It’s just really dope to see people who are from where they’re from, and proud of that, and really steep themselves in that tradition, whatever it might be. Glorilla and Ice Spice are two great examples of that.
Alphonse Pierre: The New York-ness is a good point about Ice Spice, because she has that larger-than-life charisma. But also, I’m from New York, and she sounds like somebody you would probably grow up knowing. And I feel like that’s an important two-hander to have.
Patel: It sounds like the thing that’s so appealing about sounding like where you’re from is that it gives it this authentic confidence, right? You’re just talking about your real shit, instead of—I feel like a lot of the Drakes of the world are cosplaying, you know?
Green: Absolutely.
