New Rap Releases This Week: Lil Yachty, Concrete Boys, Boldy James & Rome Streetz | Friday to Friday

This is Friday to Friday, your weekly rap wrap-up going through the releases in rap and hip-hop from Friday, July 27th to Friday, March 6th. I have with me today producer Gav, aka Lunar G. Say hello.

What up? What up? What's going on?

And we have artist manager and producer Matt. Say hello.

Yo, what's up?

And we got a good amount of releases this week. Some interesting and exciting stuff. We have Lil Yachty and Concrete Boys, It's All Us Volume 2, Boldy James and Rome Streetz with the Manhunt EP, The Gorillaz, The Mountain. Chase B with Be Very Afraid Volume 1. La Russell produced by Lil Jon with Something in the Water. RJD2 and Superstition with According To. Babytron with Out on Bond Again. Wiz Khalifa with Girls Love Horses. Sosso Camo with Big Country, Ryder with Riderhood Too, Foggy Raw with With No Due Respect, Toby Lou with Crazy Boots, Chromau with 35 Nights, and last but not least, Joey Valence and Brae with the deluxe edition of their 2025 Hyper Youth Project. So this one's called Hyper Youth After Party.

That's the full rundown. So let's go ahead and get into it. Matt, what's your first pick for this week?

So I'll dive in right away to the Gorillaz album, which was a trip of an album to listen to. Obviously I know like the big Gorillaz hits, but I hadn't been checking out their last albums. This album made me want to do that. It's very weird. It's very at first very uncomfortable because you're hearing a lot of new sounds. There's a lot of weird flutes in there. The verses kind of feel like coming out of nowhere, but it kind of works all beautifully. The song with Proof, Posdnuos' verse, I really recommend checking out. It's a crazy beat switch up. Just completely unexpected. Every beat was just again wild and weird. I don't know that I'll go back to it a lot because it's better to listen as a project, I'd say. But the song with Proof I'm definitely going to be going back to, and Black Thought, a couple verses from Black Thought too, which he just of course sounds good on everything. Slid on those really really weird beats, but it was cohesive. Just a lot to take in, but—

Mhm.

—it was a fun album.

Yeah, the Black Thought verses were over some pretty untraditional hip-hop beats, whereas the Proof verse I found to be kind of like the most just straight up hip-hop moment of the whole album, cuz you're not really getting the classic Gorillaz formula of like the bridge breaks down into a hip-hop beat that's perfect for like a Deltron or something like that. It's—

Totally different vibe, but still at the same time feels very Gorillaz. And with Proof, the buildup that they gave him, because often I find again Posdnuos' verses are a bit eerie to listen to sometimes. They gave him a really epic introduction.

Yeah. Personally, I felt like this was a really really cool direction for Damon Albarn and like the Gorillaz as a whole, just cuz I have kind of been keeping up with them. And I totally agree with what you said, Matt, that this kind of caught me off guard at first with some of the sounds, but I thought that it kind of reminded me of the same musical exploration they did with Plastic Beach, how there was just kind of some different sounds sonically in there.

I really liked Orange County. That was probably one of my favorite songs. I know it wasn't like traditionally a hip-hop track, but it did give me kind of like LCD Soundsystem kind of feeling. Had that Middle Eastern flavor in there with some of the instrument choices and, like you said, the Black Thought stuff was really really good too. Like the Empty Dream Machine. I thought the production was really really cool on that.

Yeah, I agree. The only thing I would say is, if you're coming to it for the features, if you're just a hip-hop fan coming to it for the features, you're probably going to be like, "This is a bit odd." But if you're a Gorillaz fan and you're into their direction, then you're going to have fun with the features on this for sure.

Yeah, this one was sweet. Especially me being from Detroit, it was cool seeing them do an homage to Proof. Thought it was really cool that just to kind of acknowledge like they've always been tapped into hip-hop. Thought they did it really really well too.

100%. All right, Gav, what's your next pick for this week?

Yeah, I was most excited, I'm not going to lie, about the Hyper Youth After Party. Not because it was a deluxe edition, but because I kind of missed it the first time around. So this really was like a totally fresh release for me. Which is kind of crazy because I love JVB. I don't know what happened. I didn't even see that this came out. But I could probably list every track on this album. Like I really really liked it a lot. I thought that some of the standout songs were like Bust a Move. I like This Changes, Party's Over. I thought Changes was probably like the most unique just for the production on the track. Like it gave me kind of like a recession pop vibe mixed with like early 2010s EDM. And it was kind of like an introspective song and on the emotional side, which I always kind of find myself being drawn to and just kind of appreciating in music.

Yeah, same. Agreed. To me, I find JVB, like every album, it's one of those rare groups that I could listen to the entire album from the first track to the end. Like most albums nowadays in the last couple years, it's hard to do from A to Z, but I can put on any JVB album and it's just the vibes are always there. And this one was again more of the same vibes but different, if that makes sense, where like it's still them. It's still their sound, but just somehow still sounds new and fresh. Even though it's kind of like a sound from the 90s that is just again repolished and just sounds so good. It doesn't sound nostalgic. It sounds new. And that's what I really like about them. And this album too.

Nice. I didn't check that out, but I did hear the original from last year. But I found it interesting that they added all of the new songs at the beginning. So there was like six songs new at the beginning and then just the rest of the album plays out as last year. You prefer that? Interesting. Okay. That's kind of what I was wondering.

I mean, I had never experienced it. It was my first time, but it's kind of annoying sometimes to have to go all the way till the end just to see what the songs are. Is there any features? What's the name of the song? Which one am I going to check?

This one was just like just dive in, you know, and then you hear the rest of the album after, which is not a problem, right?

Yeah.

But yeah, I prefer that format.

Yeah. The worst is when they put some at the start and some at the end and then I'm having to go back to the original and like try to figure out, cuz if I'm not that familiar with the original, then I'm going to be like, which ones are the new ones? Just make it easy for me.

This is news to me that the new songs were at the beginning. So, like I said, I totally missed it the first time around and I'm not mad about it. I thought it was really cool. Like just immediately I was like, "Oh yeah, now I'm going to like this whole album."

Mhm. Yeah. JVB, very good duo there. I want to go into my next pick here. It's RJD2 and Superstition with the According To album. This is some real ass hip-hop. If you like sampled beats, intricate pen, advanced lyrics, like this [expletive] is crazy. If you like that kind of thing, this is for you. You have like two veterans coming together to make advanced level old school hip-hop. That's what's interesting about it.

Yeah. They're so far into it, but they're still making that old school sound.

And Superstition, he just writes these great concept songs where every track has a super strong, clear, concise concept. You get like a song about needing better friends, a song about not making enough money, a song about there being no expiration date on being a rapper. My lyric of the week has to go to Superstition with this one. He said, "Y'all stay on demon time. I'd be on God's watch, but I'm drawing chalk outlines. Y'all playing hopscotch." He said, "I'm with God, not the devil, but I'm still going to kill you." Thought that was pretty great.

It's a holy war.

Yeah. So that's RJD2 and Superstition with According To. Matt, what's your next pick?

The new Concrete Boys album. It's All Us Volume 2. I really like the first one a lot. The second one was definitely different. I think I was expecting the same vibes from the first one. To me it's completely different. Of course, you have one less member, Karrahbooo, that was replaced by Honest. It was good. It was good. It was just very— it was different, you know. I keep going back to it trying to kind of see like, you know, which song I'm going to save, which one I'm going to keep. I found that there was a lot more of a Michigan vibe to it than I was expecting. The kind of like Detroit style beats.

Two, I like features on here.

Yeah, which I don't mind. It was just it was different, you know, than what I was expecting. And the real verse, of course, you know, that that always—

Yeah.

But yeah, no, it was different. I liked it. I'm still going back to the first one, I think, a little bit more, but sometimes like this kind of album to me, I think, is going to take a little bit of time to see what I'm going back to. But overall, yeah, it was a good listen.

Oh yeah. Hearing that it's got a lot of Detroit beats and just like Flint vibes to it, I'm not mad about that, cuz he spent some time, I want to say like four or five years ago now, in Flint. Like he was just rolling around with Rio, RMC Mike, YN Jay, all those dudes.

He has a song too, um, TeeGrizzley, I think, too. No.

Yeah. Yep. Dude, he's got so many ties to Michigan for no reason. All the dudes from Flint took him around and he was out here for a while. But yeah, he did a whole project around that time that was on like Detroit and Flint beats.

And I forget what it was, something like Michigan Boy Boat or something like that.

The name of the album.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll find it and share a song. But yeah, that one's hard. So I'm definitely going to check this out.

I'm kind of bummed about Karrahbooo not being in the group. I remember there was some drama. I don't remember the details, but—

She had a couple songs on the first project that I liked, like bars, just standout bars, I felt like, but—

Yeah. No, I'll check this one out.

And I think it's important to go into it without thinking of the first one. I think that was my problem, was I really went in kind of expecting like the more sample-heavy, a bit less like rap kind of aggressive jumping in kind of rap. Not that the new one is that exactly. It's just it's very Detroit, which again, nothing wrong with. It's just it wasn't what I was expecting. Overall though, good album, good sound. Lil Yachty knows what he's doing. And there was a lot of also voice changing too. Artists that kind of I had to go back and check the feature to kind of know who it was. A lot of experimentation too with the hooks.

But yeah, it's a fun album.

Some Travis Scott stuff. You have no idea who's saying what. Let me see. Genius. Uh, if anyone's figured this out yet. And I didn't know much about Honest, which is the newest member. So I kind of had to like double check. And then he changes his voice a little bit too. So it was kind of really having to piece together features.

Yeah.

Yeah. Honest is cool. I was like, to be honest, a little disappointed they didn't replace Karrahbooo with another female rapper. I just thought that would have been more a more interesting dynamic.

Mhm.

Yeah.

And yeah, so besides Yachty in the group, Draft Day, DC2Trill, Camo, and Honest, there are definitely some standout tracks on here. Copy. Okay, cool. Just like I thought somebody just pissed off Yachty. I don't know what happened on that one, but it's a pretty cool beat switch. It starts out with a rage beat by Sad Pony and then it does a beat switch into Cardo Got Wings. Got to love Cardo. Three Syrups. That one had a ill hook and some good passbacks. That—

Yeah, he went crazy on that one.

Yeah, the passback energy on this was really what kept me interested. So because I didn't know the previous Concrete Boys project, for me I was just more comparing this to other Yachty projects. And the group aspect kept me way more entertained than a solo Yachty project. The voices jumping around, the different styles, like I was very entertained the whole time. Even though on repeat listen there's some skips on here, but some stuff that I'll definitely be playlisting on here as well.

I was happy to get more Camo too. Like on the first album, Camo stood out a lot to me on certain songs, and I found on this one, they kind of give him a bit more room to shine. Gav, I don't know if you remember this one, but there's the Point Me It song from the first album, which is kind of like heavy, and it's a bit more like sample and just kind of uplifting. I saw a lot of people online kind of wanting that kind of vibe, but again, just completely different. So I would have loved to have heard this album not having heard the first. Definitely going back to it. And again, like I said, excited that Camo got more time on it. I still love the album that Yachty put out in 2023, the Let's Start Here, the like really trippy kind of just crazy. Whenever we talk about like old Yachty stuff or past projects, like that one totally stands out from the others.

Yeah, I agree about that.

And I remember that one too kind of again giving the feeling of, oh, this is— which now I'm realizing might just be what the Yachty album magic is, where every new album you kind of get shocked by the new vibes that are brought, kind of forgetting what the previous vibes were. That one too was a surprise too.

Yeah. No, he's sick as an artist. He's cool performing too. I've seen him a couple times live.

Oh, nice.

Fun. Fun.

Yeah, I saw Yachty once before I was even really a fan of him in 2019. He's playing on the same stage as Billie Eilish and Brockhampton. Just weird to think about those three being like the same level at that time.

Yeah.

Uh, Gav, do you have any more picks from this week?

The third album I really dove into was the Manhunt EP.

Yes.

I thought this was a great release. It's real short and sweet, which I thought was nice because with the volume that Boldy James has been putting out, I feel like that's really important.

Mhm.

To just not kind of oversaturate. It's cool if he wants to have a ton a ton of songs out, but as long as the projects are kind of like concise and focused, I feel like that's awesome. There were a couple standout tracks on here for me. I really really liked Tricky, which I know is pretty much just Rome Streetz the whole time, but I thought that the production on it was just really really sick. There was so much space on the track and just ambient sounds kind of in the background. Just really filled everything out really nicely, I felt like.

Yeah, this was like classic and it's just exactly what you expect it to be. It's nothing more, nothing less, but I mean that in the best way possible. Like I am not sick of either Rome Streetz or Boldy James at the moment. So even with as often as they drop together—

Yeah, they're perfect together. Their flows and the way they jump back and forth was really impressive. And they're just they're like the exact same font of rapper. Like they just—

Yeah.

Yeah.

They just make sense on the same track.

Yeah. And that's exactly what I was going to say. Like for me, I guess it's a big difference going from the Yachty album to this, where this is exactly what I was expecting. It's consistent. It's exactly what I was picturing in my mind and I'm not mad at all about it. And a good point to it with it being an EP. I'm sure they could have made it an album. I'm sure Boldy has computers and computers full of songs and thousands, but keep it short, especially with the amount of quantity, the amount he's putting out. Like it's a really good idea to kind of keep your quality, you know, up and it's just going to look better in his catalog in the future. Great addition. Loved it. Nothing else to say really.

So Nicholas Craven produced two of these. Other producers on this project, we have Demi Laflair, Dirt Work, Wavy Da Ghawd, and Chuck Strangers. So couple— yeah, couple new faces, couple familiar faces for me.

Yeah, I think I picked out mostly like Cheat the Grind, Tricky, and Only One were the tracks that really stood out to me.

And the Craven production definitely sticks out. Like it's definitely one that you kind of instantly recognize.

What's your next pick, Matt?

You know, I'll bring up the— I guess this is probably your pick too, but the Babytron album, which I wasn't going to listen to.

I did.

Good. Good.

I'm not going to say anything good or bad. I thought that there were a couple really good songs. Babytron is really playing heavy on one sound right now that I think is pretty niche. I don't think it's bad by any means, but I think it's just really niche. So I think there were a couple songs that I liked on there a lot. Couple that I was just kind of like meh, you know, not great, not terrible.

Yeah. Yeah. No, same. Like to me, that's exactly why originally I wasn't going to listen to it, because I know the sound that he gives and I knew what to expect and it was that. But then Jacob told me that there was some really weird beats. So of course, you know, I had that. So there's a song called JJ, which made me— so I went to check the sample. I had never heard of this group called Planet Patrol and it's like electro hip-hop-ish from like the 80s and they only dropped one album.

Yeah.

And I was like, "Okay, I'm happy I found a new group, you know. Thank you, Babytron." But that flow on that beat, like I like the beat. It was very like, you know, my kind of style, like a little electro, whatever. But the flow was so restrictive on the beat. It was so not in any of the pockets that were there.

Yeah.

Yes.

And he could rap. The thing is like, you know, he has bars, like he's not saying nothing, like it was all good rapping. It's just it didn't fit the cadence of the beat really.

Yeah.

I feel the same.

That's the one thing when you stick to a flow, you know, it kind of— you can't just copy paste it on everything.

Yeah.

Um, this niche sound that you were talking about that Babytron is on right now, it's kind of this weird 80s pop synth sampling mixed with the Detroit rap sound. And to be honest, like it's confusing for me. It's confusing for my ears. I don't understand.

It's hard for me cuz I love that style of production. I like disco— like my second or third favorite genre and then everything surrounding it.

Yeah. Yeah.

So to me it's hard cuz I'm like I love—

And you still didn't like it. Cuz I don't like disco and 80s synth like at all. Sonically it's just uninteresting to me. So it was like a double miss for me.

It's tough. It was tough, I think, is the only way I can put it just for that reason. Not cuz I don't like it. There have been projects that he's put out that I really like. And the production is similar. Like Jesus Shuttlesworth reminds me of this one a lot. And I totally agree. It's definitely like pop synth heavy. Kind of sounds like a like an 80s action movie that he's rapping over.

That's the best way I can put it, which in theory I should love, right? But I feel like he would be able to kind of switch up the flow and go in another pocket. It just kind of feels like he doesn't want to, which I respect, you know? I really respect it. But, like you said before, I can't really talk bad about it because again, he could rap. He has bars. He's not just saying nonsense. He has a good flow. It's just it's with the production. It sounds forced together a little bit.

But I do love the trying something unique, trying something new. I hate to even like down trying something like new sonically. I think it's a great idea to try new things, but this was just not it for me. But also, my problem was that it was almost like a weird just every other song. It's like you go to these like regular Detroit beats and then back to like these weird 80s synth beats. And that was really made it not feel like a cohesive project. It just kind of felt like a mixtape a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I would have preferred all those just on their own project. The standout tracks for me, IDK, 911 featuring Rio, USA, Golden.

911. I like Golden. I liked— like a couple stood out to me.

I just realized that Rio has been on quite a few projects that came out on Friday.

Rio is out and about.

He's been busy.

JJ, the one that I like the lyrics on, same kind of thing. I was like, this is weird. Like, I like it, but I don't know why. I was like, I think I just like what he's saying.

I was like, do I save it? Do I— like I kind of what I like to do is I like to see if the next day if I still think of the song, if it's still in my head, then I'll go back and like save it. Honestly, today it's been kind of coming back a lot.

That's the only one that's— I remember 911. My mind until you said the couple, Jacob— you said 911. I did also want to shout out the track called USA because on just some rapidity rap [expletive], he names every single state and he goes through all 50 states in like a crazy like rap. It's really impressive.

You guys listen to 100 Bars?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Yeah. That's the thing. Like—

He has this thing. I don't know what it is. He just— I think he just does this [expletive] for fun honestly. Like I don't think he takes it super seriously. Like he's not worried about commercial value. Bars is— he's like, well, he raps.

Oh, he does the numbers one through 100 and incorporates them into a bar.

That's so interesting cuz that's such a like old school rap style thing to flex your lyrics.

Yeah. Which is not what I think.

You don't see that now. The guy could rap like he really could. It really feels like he is choosing to specifically stay with that flow, which like—

Definitely purposeful.

You know, 100 Bars is crazy. Like you were saying on JJ, like he's actually he's saying things like the bars are hitting.

Production was— for me on it, but I was just like the bars are hard. So I can't hate it cuz I'm like this is pretty good, to be honest. It's just not what I would listen to for the music.

In his shoes, like he's probably the kind of guy where it's just you can feed him any beat. Just throw him, you know, 100 beats. He'll rap on every single one of the beats and you'll rap well, but like he'll deliver, you know, hundreds of songs just kind of with the same flow that way, you know?

Very old school like— and not in a bad way.

Mhm.

Very like this is my flow, you can identify me from it type [expletive].

Mhm.

All right, so next pick I wanted to talk about Chase B, Be Very Afraid Volume 1. Like Matt has been saying recently, 2026 is looking like a more producer-led year and this project is definitely a part of that. Pretty insane list of features on this. Don Toliver, Sofaygo, Sheck Wes, Big Sean, Babyface Ray, Sway, Travis Scott, Quavo, Ty Dolla. Like it's just it's insane.

It felt like a bit of a flex.

Oh, yeah.

But I'm happy. I feel like we haven't really seen a collection of this many people in the last couple years with all the beefs and all the everyone not getting along. Like it this just felt like a nice little project.

I really want to check this one out cuz anytime I see producer-led albums that especially are like collections of features. I feel like they're just they're kind of done for fun. And it's not a long listen. It's 13 songs. So it's like it's— cuz like for example the Gorillaz album, I think each song is like 7 minutes long, you know? Like this one is a nice little digestible album.

It's always cool to see the perspective that a producer takes to put an album together too, because it's a completely different perspective than an artist putting an album together.

Oh yeah. Knowing cuz you're kind of seeing where you want to put your features. And I don't know if he knows in advance who he's getting. Like does he already have like all the favors lined up? But it was very cohesive. Sounded good.

I mean, they're all people that are like in that realm of like Cactus Jack and like Travis Scott. They're all frequent collaborators, so I'm sure like it wasn't crazy hard to get all of the features, but nice to see Sheck Wes. Like I haven't seen Sheck Wes in some time.

I [expletive] with Sheck Wes.

Yeah.

Mudboy too, baby. So happy that we got that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. What we talked about today: Lil Yachty and Concrete Boys with It's All Us Volume 2. Boldy James and Rome Streetz with Manhunt. Gorillaz with The Mountain. Chase B with Be Very Afraid. RJD2 and Superstition with According To. Babytron with Out on Bond Again, and Joey Valence and Brae with Hyper Youth After Party. Real quick, the stuff we didn't cover that came out this week. La Russell produced by Lil Jon, Something in the Water. Wiz Khalifa with Girls Love Horses. Sosso Camo with Big Country. Ryder with Riderhood Too. Foggy Raw with No Due Respect. Toby Lou with Crazy Boots. Chromau with 35 Nights. That's everything that came out this week, guys.

Let's go ahead and do what we've been working on this week. For me, got five new beats uploaded to the FO Beats YouTube channel, which are written by the main producer at Frequency Overflow, Low. Very talented producer. And just been getting into the swing of the podcast and making shorts for the podcast and editing it. Just been enjoying editing again. It's been fun. So yeah. What about you, Matt?

Musically, just been trying to catch up on music. There's been a lot of music this year, so it's a lot to catch up on. Wiz Khalifa has like three albums already this year, so that's been keeping me busy. But yeah, just mostly working and listening to music.

All right. What about you, Gav?

Musically, I've been just producing, um, helping out with this obviously, gearing up for this, listening to stuff. I have a long list to catch up on as well, so I feel you there, Matt. But today I actually started interning with an engineer and worked on a pretty cool project for a new TV show that's coming out. Excited to start working with him and just start kind of dipping my toes into the audio engineering world a little more.

Awesome.

All right. Well, releases coming up next week. I know we're all super excited about Denzel Curry and The Scythe with Strictly for the Scythe.

Yes.

Also, we got Joey Cool with Time Will Tell, NetSpend with Early Life Crisis, and Ty Dolla with Girl Music Volume 1. Thank you guys for joining us this week.

Yeah. Hopefully, we'll see if it ends up ramping up a bit more.

Now it's catch up.

Yes. Yeah, definitely. We need a slower week to catch up, man. 2026 has been on fire.

This has been Friday to Friday. To get a hold of us, you can email fridaytofripodcast@gmail.com. Our intro and outro music by Lunar G. Find him at prod.by.lunar.g on Instagram. Podcast edited by me, Jacob from Frequency Overflow. You can find me at Frequency Overflow. Join us every week to stay in tune with hip-hop releases from Friday to Friday. Peace.