April 5, 2013 – 1. Mykki Blanco Live @ the Metro Gallery, Baltimore, MD 3/30: At this point, the only reason why Mykki Blanco isn't getting all-over-the-Internet love for picking up where Lil Wayne left off in 2008 or so is because of, well, you know why. That's a shame. Witnessing Mykki live at the Metro Gallery in Baltimore last Saturday was like a flash-forward to hip-hop's wonderfully freaked-out, outsider-inviting afterfuture. The show began with audio clips from the X-Men cartoon and Mykki raced to a fogged-up glass window and began scratching at it, acting out the mutant unleashed steez all up inside his songs. When "Wavvy" dropped, the whole crowd was asked to jump on the stage, and when the mic went out, Mykki kept rapping, staying on beat, just in case the mic decided to work again. It did for a few seconds.

April 3, 2013 – This week's five songs are all over the place. We've got a bass remix, a #BASED club song, a rappin'-ass hero and problematic human being owning a dubstep beat, post-screw Tumblr rap from Texas, and a sober cautionary tale to bring you back down to earth. Enjoy.Ciara "Body Party (Remix by Kutcorners & Marvel)"With the Mike Will Made It-produced, Future co-written "Body Party," Ciara finally gets the type of song she deserves. See, it's been a rocky few years for the mid-2000s Crunk&B singer, and though her last two albums had some highlights (Fantasy Ride's black-out drunk anthem "I Don't Remember"; Basic Instinct's too-club-for-the-club "Gimme Dat"), both albums were pretty much subsumed by the unsubtle anti-ballad moves of EDM. "Body Party," however, is a tender, inviting, doin'-it song that matches the attitude and vulnerability found on 2004's Goodies.

April 3, 2013 – Which beat from producer Childish Major first grabbed your ears? It was presumably the stunning work he did on Rocko's "U.O.E.N.O." — a slowly molting Basinski-like loop of decaying synths — which was subsequently overwhelmed by two lunkheaded lines from Rick Ross. Or maybe it was the production he did for fellow New ATLien (and SPIN Best New Artist for April) Rome Fortune, on the mixtape Beautiful Pimp. Just to name a few from that low-key highlight of this young year: There's "Balcony," a rising and falling loop of squeaks, stutters, and grunts; the space-age then underwater Ennio Morricone take on "Art of Art"; and the Atari glitch riff on Art of Noise, "Small VVorld."Well, add another quietly avant production to that list of favorites. "Rights For Wrongs" is the first single from Childish Major's upcoming mixtape of the same name.

April 2, 2013 – Named after a track from Austin rapper Western Tink's 2011 album Hard to Keel Vol. 1, the new mixtape Mobbin' No Sobbin' has been almost two years in the making. Perhaps, producer Beautiful Lou's slowly rising profile — two tracks on A$AP Rocky's breakout mixtape Live.Love.ASAP ("Trilla" and "Kissin' Pink"), work for Kitty Pryde (“Okay Cupid”), and Heems (“Running Thru the Jungle”) — is to blame.

April 1, 2013 – Abdu Ali, InvictosHighlights: "Banjee Musick," "I'mma Leaf," "360"RIYL: Baltimore Club; Death Comet Crew; Le1fA bit of a cheat because Invictos was actually released towards the end of 2012. However, this debut from a quivering, confident Baltimore poet/vocalist/rapper (in that order) takes a little time to stick in your craw. Produced by frequent Issue collaborator Schwarz, it's a bugged-out blur of vogue beats, Waka Flocka ad-libs, Lyn Collins “Think” break contortions, and art-rap interludes (hear Quentin Crisp and Nina Simone weigh in on being an outsider). Mindblowing, cleverly curated stuff.Download Abdu Ali's Invictos here.Mindless Behavior, All Around the WorldHighlights: "Keep Her on the Low," "I'm Falling," "Forever"RIYL: Chris Brown minus the listener guilt; Pretty Ricky; When boy bands ruledYeah, they are a boy band.

April 1, 2013 – Just in time for spring, Sean Falyon perversely puts out DECEMBER, a dark and foreboding EP that ties together a series of hyper-literate rap vignettes about things falling apart. In the style of good kid, m.A.A.d city, this deeply personal release is kept moving along via hard-assed, warm-hearted answering-machine advice from his moms. "All The Paper," a dark-night-of-the-soul trap track, is prefaced by a warning from mom to avoid a troubled cousin, who's just out of jail. The title track is fueled by novelistic details like "Another funeral, the usual/ Shedding tears and teddy bears." And all of it is delivered in Falyon's simultaneously heady and visceral style.A message from Sean Falyon about DECEMBER: "Being an artist, I like to use my music to tell my story. With that being said, DECEMBER is an eight-song EP of situations pertaining to my life.

March 28, 2013 – This week, we've got some emotions (Future bemoaning the end of a relationship, Shady Blaze mourning the loss of his child) and a whole lot of questionable taste (raps over TV-show theme songs and yacht rock, Lil Wayne riding a wannabe movie-musical piano epic).Fiend, feat. Smoke DZA "The Price Is Right"In which Fiend, a.k.a., International Jones, who has rapped over Washed Out's "Feel It All Around," the Specials' "Ghost Town," and Chicago's "Street Player" (just to name a few Dipset-absurd samples he's hopped on the past couple years), struts up and down to the theme song from The Price is Right.

March 22, 2013 – Rap things worth caring about. Ranked!1. Lil Wayne Isn't Dead: So, that didn't happen. Great, right? Of course it's great. Next week, we've got I Am Not a Human Being 2 coming out. It will inevitably be painted as another dip in quality and Wayne skateboards a lot now and blah blah blah. Listen, it ain't 2008 for any of us. But step back and reacquaint yourself with just how outsider artist bizarre Lil Wayne remains even when he's lost the map in a bad way. A cursory listen through IANAHB2 reveals at least two highlights: The title track, a "November Rain" piano pounder opener that may top Meek Mill's similarly unhinged and freestyle-like "Dreams & Nightmares"; and a histrionic dubstep rap featuring Gunplay. Even the album-ending, album-ruining butt rock banger "Hello," should just make sense at this point. What do y'all expect?2.

March 21, 2013 – This week's picks are all rappers doing what they do very well. Nothing ambitious or out-of-the-box really, just a varied group of rappers occupying their respective lanes, expertly.Durty Kash feat. Z-Ro & Yo Gotti - "Just a Playa"Smoothed-out Mannie Fresh disciples Beanz & Kornbread have worked closely with raps' number one depressive sing-rapper (Drake, who?) Z-Ro, but they really outdid themselves with "Just a Playa," a rolling loop of Zapp-ian synth-fart bass and Atlantic Starr sexy slow-jam keyboards. It's technically fellow Houstonian Durty Kash's track, and Yo Gotti grunts pretty well on the thing (also, some guy named Young Lace appears), but it's Z-Ro's song, all the way. The space for rapping between this luxurious, long-form hook is pretty negligible.

March 19, 2013 – What happened to the black boy band? New Edition, Dru Hill, B2K, Pretty Ricky, and then, what? There's also a notable dearth of black pop right now. Consider, too, that the boy band was the last place where the slowed-down, all-out R&B ballad got to breathe. The Backstreet Boys' catalog is dominated by slow jams; 'N Sync worked closely with Babyface. Justin Timberlake began his solo career chasing Michael Jackson and just released a new album that aims for Maxwell's soulful sprawl. Well, enter Mindless Behavior, a foursome from Los Angeles, mining the same boy-band novelty and unabashedly melodramatic, lovey-dovey intensity as One Direction.