Hello, all! There’s been much great music released in the past few weeks, I can’t fit nearly everything into one mixtape! Two of my favorite rappers, Vince Staples and Isaiah Rashad, released my two favorite rap albums of the year.

John Mayer released a new album. Brittany Howard, lead singer of the great Alabama Shakes, released an album of remixes to her solo album, including remixes by Childish Gambino, Bon Iver, Little Dragon, 9th Wonder, Jungle, to just name a few!

Power duo, Big Red Machine (Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner) released an EP with some other superstars collborators like Fleet Foxes and Taylor Swift. Then Billie Eilish, Clairo, Leon Bridges, and Logic released an album. And don’t forget about Inhaler, a young Irish band who are writing some catchy rock songs.

So this is bordering on a ridiculous amount of music I have to listen to, and all I’ve had on repeat the past few weeks is Vince Staples (on this week’s mitxtape) and Isaiah' Rashad’s new album released on Friday (which will be featured on next week’s mixtape). Rashad hasn’t released an album in five years, and I’ve been loving him since his phenomenal 2014 debut, Cilvia Demo.

But today’s mixtape is more about Vince, a rapper I’ve been writing about for years. He’s one of few introverted rappers, a guy who, album after album, seems unhappy and consumed with rawness of the world before his eyes in his hometown, Long Beach, California.

Each of his six albums, starting with his debut in 2014 (like Rashad), are unusually short (4 of his albums are 21-23 minutes!), which I love, and unusually different, which I love even more!

I’ve been blown away by his latest album, Vince Staples, because he shifted his cadences, his beats, his sound, his whole palate. Many times the mark of a great song is when you say to yourself, “No other artist could have made this song what it is.” Staples does this numerous times, specifically in “ARE YOU WITH THAT” (maybe the most familiar sounding track to his older stuff) “TAKING TRIPS,” “LIL FADE,” “TAKE ME HOME.”

I still have a lot more to study on this album, but he and Rashad are at the top of my albums of the year list so far.