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.

BigXthaPlug – AMAR

“Safehouse,” the urgent single that comes halfway through BigXthaPlug’s first full-length record, AMAR, doesn’t sound exactly like the tracks that surround it. It has the Dallas rapper’s husky voice and his gift for strings of tightly wound syllables that nevertheless sound like improvised asides. What it lacks, though, is the tonal control that allows him to slide between threats and jokes with ease; to make a song like “Texas,” which should be a mere novelty but becomes a sincere evocation of what makes his state unique.

This discrepancy is understandable: “Safehouse” was originally released in 2021, which is quite literally as far back as BigX’s catalog extends. The former football recruit taught himself to write raps in solitary confinement—a fact perhaps reflected in that precision and attention to detail, but one that could be obscured by how funny, how conversational it is. Things have moved quickly; whatever learning curve may have existed has flattened into simple expertise, as seen on the delightfully conspiratorial “I Know,” where he trades expert raps with the Houston icon Sauce Walka.

AMAR, which is named after BigX’s son, is consistently funny without sacrificing any gravity. There is a song called “Badu Flow,” but also notes about doing shows for essentially no money in Tyler, Texas, and about the types of betrayal that linger on his mind for years. The emotional thread that runs through AMAR is one of exultance, best distilled on the guest turn by Ro$ama, where the joy of chest tattoos popping underneath glittering chains is positively spiritual.

Foolio – “Stranded & Abandoned”

“Stranded & Abandoned” is the type of song that padded the B-side of countless rap albums in the 1990s, when A&Rs seemed to hover in the corners of recording sessions with rubrics: four street songs, three for the club, two for the ladies, one for Mom. And to be sure, the piano on “Stranded & Abandoned,” the wrenching new song from the heinously undercovered Jacksonville rapper Foolio, is maudlin in a way that triggers memories of two and a half mics for $17.99. But beyond that superficial marker of the past, the track is wholly novel. “You know me,” Foolio croons on the phone call with his mother that precedes his first verse. “I be on drugs.”

Throughout those verses—which vary in length; each stream of thought is carried to its natural conclusion, no further—Foolio’s vocals come in cascading punch-ins, which suggest thoughts clawing over one another in his brain, desperate to get out, get air. They likely are. He raps about the people who have promised him he would become a star. He remembers learning about “the robberies, the home invasions, stealing cars.” What Foolio is able to do as adeptly as any rapper working today is to make these things seem flat: not uninteresting or two-dimensional, but existing on the same plane. Life is difficult—sometimes it seems you’re going to drag your hometown into the genre’s mainstream, and other times your friends can only call you collect.

As far back as 2019’s Never Wanted Fame, Foolio has written about fractured interpersonal relationships in ways that are shockingly vulnerable. That continues here, when he vows that a friend who betrayed him will not fall out of his good graces. “My heart too fucking big,” he raps. “I swear that’s just what love will do.” The way he croaks the two words in the song’s title will fold your stomach in half.

BigXthaPlug & Foolio: First & Fifteenth