First & Fifteenth is a column by the Los Angeles-based critic Paul Thompson, who reviews new and notable rap music twice a month for Audiomack World.

Roddy Ricch — Feed Tha Streets III

When Roddy Ricch’s debut album, 2019’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial, was released that December, it scanned as the kind of audacious move a major label sometimes pulls with already-established stars, sliding a blockbuster in just under the wire. It worked.

Aided by his runaway hit “The Box,” Antisocial debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and eventually went double-Platinum. Since then, however, Roddy’s professional trajectory has wavered; his December 2021 release LIVE LIFE FAST was poorly received and Roddy’s focus quickly turned toward delivering a follow-up.

Roddy is still, inarguably, in close orbit of rap’s A-list. Only instead of being the polished midpoint between Young Thug and Lil Durk who was destined to be a headliner, he’s become something of a cross between Post Malone and Nate Dogg, popping up on major releases to deliver pained, straining hooks. Still just 24 years old, the Compton native who once seemed poised to dart in any direction has come to resemble a specialist.

Perhaps in an effort to combat that, his latest release Feed Tha Streets III returns to the titles of his beloved breakout mixtape series. And in doing so, a curious thing happens: Streets III makes clearer than ever the fact that Roddy works best over campfire acoustic guitars; his stabs at heavier, trappier material (“No Rest,” “Blue Cheese,” “King Size”) sound as if Roddy sleepwalked through demos and never bothered to finish them. But in confirming this narrower style, he also realizes it more fully than on his many recent guest appearances. The somber “Stop Breathing,” the pleading “Favor For a Favor,” and opener “Just Because” are among the most evocative cuts in his catalog. They display naked pain warped three, four times by fame and money, and the disillusion that comes with both.

Watch Roddy Ricch perform his biggest hits with a live orchestra for Trap Symphony

Vince Ash — "I Need A…"

As someone who was raised in the Midwest before moving to Los Angeles just over a decade ago, it wasn’t until my mid-20s that I fully appreciated the way Bone Thugs-N-Harmony had been adopted by rap fans out West. The high finesse and gentle mixes that made the Cleveland natives L.A. favorites has become, to the coasts, one of the hallmarks of Midwestern rap from the ‘90s and early 2000s. Though not of the same commercial stature, Twista bolstered this idea of the heartland as a proving ground for technical specialists. If Midwesterners weren’t teetering on the edge of formal collapse, it seemed, they were importing lo-fi laconicism from down South or making technique a secondary concern in the face of bleeding-heart introspection.

Vince Ash is in a new mold for the region, one that could be traced back to the original run of Freddie Gibbs mixtapes in the 2000s. Some parallels are so obvious as to feel superficial: Like Gibbs, Ash is from Indiana and can tap into a booming, husky voice when he needs it to cut through. But the Hammond native has more—and more important—similarities to the Gary elder statesman. Ash is able to skitter across beats in complicated patterns, bending himself into any number of contortions to make his threats or sly asides as surprising or pointed as possible. And yet this technical precision always seems a welcome backdrop for writing that is raw and unadorned.

His latest single “I Need A…” is this formula distilled down to its base elements: A ravenous hunger that swallows styles, influences, and vocal approaches whole in its pursuit of some simple catharsis. When Ash says—through doubled vocals recalling the No Limit and Cash Money mixes set up to channel 2Pac—he needs a lot, you already know.

Roddy Ricch

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