For instance, tomorrow, we will be getting a debut EP from North West. Meanwhile, Isaiah Rashad is gearing up to release It’s Been Awful on Friday. Two weeks later, Drake will be dropping ICEMAN. Artists like JPEGMAFIA, Lucki, Black Milk, BNYX, and many others are expected to drop as well.

Thankfully, Kurrco came through with an extensive list last night, detailing all of the upcoming releases throughout the month of May. While their may be some surprises along the way, below, you will find everything that has been announced.

Read More: “Views” Was The Moment Drake Stopped Trying To Be The Greatest Rapper Alive

A Big Month For Hip-Hop

If all of these albums drop on time, then there is no denying that May is going to be a very special month for rap music. Hopefully, the biggest albums are able to deliver what’s been promised.

Full List:

• Drake — ICEMAN
• LUCKI — Drgs R Bad + DaysB4Bad
• Isaiah Rashad — IT’S BEEN AWFUL
• A$AP Rocky — DON’T BE DUMB: DISC 2 (?)
• JPEGMAFIA — EXPERIMENTAL RAP
• BNYX® — GENESIS FM
• Latto — Big Mama
• Chris Brown — BROWN
• 6LACK — Love is the New Gangsta
• North West — n0rth4evr
• GIVĒON — BELOVED: ACT II
• prettifun — Pretti Loves U 2
• Thaiboy Digital & swedm® — Paradise
• Lil Tjay — They Just Ain’t You
• Edward Skeletrix — Body of Work
• PlaqueBoyMax — Crash Dummy
• PARTYOF2 — AMERIKA’S NEXT TOP PARTY! (EXTENDED CUT)
• French Montana & Max B — Wave Gods 2: Cosmos Brothers
• Lord Sko & Statik Selektah — Elevator Music
• Mach-Hommy — 5786 AM: Easy Listen (?)
• Luh Tyler — Destined For Greatness
• Boldy James & Real Bad Man — Adu 3 (Vinyl excl.)
• Black Milk — CEREMONIAL
• Kenny Mason — BULLDAWG
• Skrilla — Z
• Jay Montana — Montana 3
• AZ — Doe Or Die III
• Nick Grant — Smile
• B.o.B. — The Morning Bang
• Lucy Bedroque — c
• ApolloRed1 — DEMON HEART RADIO
• bleood — k*ll your idols (?)

Read More: Ranking Every Drake Album From Worst To Best

The post Every Hip-Hop Album Dropping In May 2026 appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Release Date: April 30, 2026

Genre: Experimental Rap

Album: EXPERIMENTAL RAP

Quotable Lyrics from babygirl

Crackers be slow, they still don’t get the message
They shoot up a school ’cause nobody will mention ’em
How you this pussy? Some people need lead in ‘еm
We got sedatives (Unbеlievable)

The post babygirl – Song by JPEGMAFIA appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

But the aftermath of If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is what made Views possible and necessary. Drake had already shown the potential of becoming the next heir to the throne. His pen was as sharp as ever. The consistency of each record he dropped, whether R&B or rap, held weight from headphones to clubs to car stereos. He was ubiquitous, pushing rap to new heights. IYRTITL is the last project where Drake could credibly claim “best rapper alive” without an asterisk.

That trajectory stalled the moment Meek Mill questioned his pen. It shifted things drastically for Drake. It’s not like he bowed out of rap—“Back To Back” had the summer on lock, proving the competitive spirit of an MC still lived inside him. Just when doubt crept in, he doubled back with a diss track that arguably ranks among the best. The hunger that carried from So Far Gone to Nothing Was The Same, peaking on If You’re Reading This, remained potent across loosies, singles, and features from that era.

But the damage was done. Even after a Grammy nod for “Back To Back,” it was difficult for Drake to argue he was the greatest MC alive when he’d been credibly accused of outsourcing the fundamental act of writing. He could frame it as collaboration or point to industry norms, but people still cared about bars then. When you’re responsible for shifting rap toward pop accessibility while becoming its face—and then violating a cardinal rule—there’s bound to be pushback on where you belong.

Views became an inevitable pivot we’ve seen many rappers make once the creative fuel starts to dwindle while demand remains high. Because of everything that preceded it, it also marked the moment Drake abandoned the pursuit of being the greatest rapper alive and reoriented toward becoming the biggest artist alive. He didn’t abandon greatness out of necessity, but he recognized that scale offered more power than purity. And if we’re being honest, Meek Mill’s crash-out may have backfired for him professionally and personally. However, it had a clear, under-discussed impact on Drake’s trajectory. It made him bigger, sure. It also cost him credibility, something that still lingers in other battles.

Views was a more defining moment in Drake’s career than being exposed for using ghostwriters, largely because rap’s purists represented a niche demographic as streaming rose on the back of hip-hop’s mixtape era. Drake understood the assignment early, which is why Views was initially released as an Apple Music exclusive.

It was clear a shift was happening when “Hotline Bling” became culturally pervasive, producing memes and influencing aesthetics through its video. The real turning point came when he dropped two singles, “Pop Style” ft. The Throne (Jay-Z and Ye) and “One Dance.” Ten years later, only one remains in rotation, and the audience had already chosen which version of Drake mattered more.

The globalization of rap depended on how Drake navigated the commercial landscape. “One Dance” ft. WizKid and Kyla marked the onset of Afrobeats dominance in America—a trend that still holds. For Drake, a song like this translates globally, from Toronto to Lagos, Los Angeles to London, and beyond. It was an infectious anthem that defined that summer. Alongside the dancehall-tinged “Controlla” and the tropical R&B inflections of the Rihanna-assisted “Too Good,” Drake capitalized on a global shift in sound he’d seen forming in places like the UK and scaled it up. The biggest songs off Views didn’t feature him rapping at all. That itself underscored how he turned a reputational loss into a victory lap.

That isn’t to downplay the moments where he does rap, because those remain standout entries in his catalog. The first half of the album holds some of his strongest work, where his pen as both songwriter and lyricist is unfuckwittable. “Weston Road Flows” offers regional storytelling rooted in childhood memories of Toronto, punctuated by 40 and Stwo’s lush flip of Mary J. Blige. “U With Me?” lets Drake’s quintessential romanticism flourish in a way that feels absent today, where past relationships carried longing, not just possession. It shows in the writing: the millennial-coded dissection of feelings through texting habits, once organic to his brand but now closer to a meme. Across these moments, from “Hype” to “Still Here,” he proved the ability never left. The unfortunate realization about it is that it stopped being the focus.

Ultimately, Drake as a rapper became secondary to the project itself. He wasn’t pushing boundaries like before, but refining a formula he’d spent the previous decade building. It’s clear on songs like “Grammys” ft. Future, which can’t hold a candle to anything on What A Time To Be Alive. Even “Fire & Desire,” despite being a cherished R&B cut, doesn’t feel like it’s trying to do anything new. Still, they worked. Views had strong rap records, but they didn’t define it the way his melodic output did. 

Views embodied what Drake has been for the past decade: a global enterprise that resists being boxed in. Whether that’s a gift or a curse depends on who you ask. Upon release, one of the biggest criticisms was its length, 19 songs plus a bonus. But it also set a template for dominance, where long tracklists became a streaming strategy, often at the expense of cohesion. While Views captured seasonal shifts in Toronto with interludes of wind and water tying it together, later projects lacked that focus. They became smorgasbords of the sounds Drake experimented with. He leaned further into being a cultural chameleon, blurring the line between homage and appropriation depending on perspective—Atlanta one day, Jamaica the next—while still representing Toronto’s melting pot. Views showed he could be the most adaptable artist if he wasn’t accepted as the purest rapper.

The reality is, when you try to fit all these influences into one album, cohesion suffers. What doesn’t is the commercial appeal that’s made him the biggest rapper on Earth. This is the same artist whose album rollouts became reference points for multi-billion-dollar corporations across the globe.

Ten years later, Drake’s place in rap feels as contested as it did when Views dropped. While he defeated Meek and emerged victorious, the circumstances heading into Iceman are different. Views isn’t where Drake peaked as a rapper, but it is where he redefined what winning in hip-hop looks like. The ghostwriting claims didn’t hurt his pockets by any means. Unfortunately, they became a narrative nuisance that has stuck since. Regardless, he changed the rules of success in a genre where fans are fickle, and built a model that still hasn’t failed him.

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“I took that as an honor,” he said. “I took that as an honor and respect and a blessing. A$AP, I’ve watched that young man just become who he is. I met him when he was younger. He actually said something that I was really impressed by, he was like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna be the next you.’ He was coming with the whole A$AP Mob. He said that right in my eyes, and I was like, ‘Yo, rock the world.’ And he did it. But I was so honored by that. It’s not just a name, it’s a title… I am honored that that name has fallen upon their child.”

From there, Lee called up A$AP Rocky to bring him in on the conversation. “I’m named after one of the greatest rappers [Rakim], and my son, he’s named after one of the greatest producers and artists. So we had to carry on tradition,” he said. Before hopping off the phone, he added: “Your blessing means a lot. You gotta meet little RZA though.”

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A$AP Rocky & Rihanna’s Children

A$AP Rocky and Rihanna named their first son RZA Athelaston Mayers. He was born on May 19, 2022. They welcomed their second child, Riot, on Aug. 1, 2023, and their third child, Rocki, on Sept. 13, 2025. They began dating back in 2020, shortly after the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Rihanna recently posed alongside her daughter, Rocki, on the cover of W Magazine‘s latest issue. For the story, Rocky told the outlet about their favorite activities to do together. “We have so many of the same interests,” he said. “We were addicted to watching documentaries, like the Bob Marley one. Watching films together is so fun. We must’ve watched El Cantante 15 times.”

Read More: Ranking Every Drake Album From Worst To Best

The post RZA Says A$AP Rocky & Rihanna Naming Their Son After Him Is An “Honor” appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

“I hate to see that,” he said of the femcee’s breakup, as seen in a clip shared by The Shade Room. “I’m not ever rooting for that, but that’s why I can’t be in that situation. If you get into a situation like that, look what happens when it don’t work out. How many times have I told y’all that? How many times have I come on here and said, ‘Nah, I don’t want that.'”

“That’s why I just don’t ever sign up, you got me?” he continued. “So now you understand where I be coming from when I say what I say, right? Now you get it.”

Social media users have some opinions on Slim Thug’s announcement. While some see where he’s coming from, others wonder why he’s speaking on Meg’s split in the first place. “He talking like he was an option ,” one Instagram commenter writes. “Sir How you gone hate from outside the club ,” another wonders. Someone else asks, “Can we wrap this conversation up by midnight??!!”

Read More: Meek Mill Can’t Escape His Own Digital Footprint

Megan Thee Stallion & Klay Thompson’s Breakup

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Meg confirmed that she and Thompson went their separate ways over the weekend, accusing the athlete of being unfaithful.

“Cheating, had me around your whole family playing house,” she wrote on her Instagram Story. “Got ‘cold feet.’ Holding you down through all your HORRIBLE mood swings and treatment towards me during your basketball season now you don’t know if you can be ‘monogamous’???? b***h I need a REAL break after this one .. bye yall.”

Meg went on to release a statement to TMZ, noting how “trust, fidelity and respect” are non-negotiables for her when it comes to relationships.

Read More: Ranking Every Drake Album From Worst To Best

The post Slim Thug Reveals Why He Won’t Date Megan Thee Stallion appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

“Ross got the better catalog and is the better rapper . Ross is going to be the clear winner especially after the new verzuz format live on stage . French got hits but isn’t good live performer,” one Twitter/X user claims. “Well French has a couple hits too, won’t be so easy for rozay,” another argues. Someone else says, “Love both they discography I will enjoy this.”

The face-off will follow Tyrese and Tank’s Verzuz battle, which took place in Los Angeles late last month. It earned big reactions from viewers, as Tyrese walked off mid-battle, argued with Trey Songz, and more.

Read More: Meek Mill Can’t Escape His Own Digital Footprint

Tyrese & Tank’s Verzuz Battle

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As reactions to the match-up continued to roll in, Ray J even hopped online to share his unfiltered take on it, making his feelings abundantly clear. “TYRESE IS TRAsh – I was trash too on [Verzuz]! – but this was worse!” he declared.

“I ain’t seen the whole Verzuz, but I know Tyrese was trash,” Ray J continued. “Tyrese was worse than I was on Verzuz. I can just feel the turtleneck and the anxiety in his voice and in his mood… I think Tank won. And that’s before I even finish watching it. But I can feel the anxiety and the insecurity in Tyrese’s voice and his look and his mannerisms.”

“Tyrese is completely trash,” he concluded. “He always has been. I didn’t just say it, the Roc said it as well. Even though he’s from Watts, there’s much more talented people from Watts that should’ve got a chance to drink the Coca-Cola bottle and experience love and life.”

Read More: Ranking Every Drake Album From Worst To Best

The post Rick Ross & French Montana To Face Off In “Verzuz” Battle appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

“People always ask if we’re going to tone down the violent rhetoric toward Trump,” Charlamagne said. “Stop it. I’m sick of that narrative. I need every media personality to direct that energy and that question to one person and one person only: Donald J. Trump. At what point do people simply say, ‘Hey Trump, you’re the drama?’”

In a statement provided to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for the White House responded: “Vile political rhetoric like this is extremely dangerous and life-threatening. It’s unhinged commentary like Charlamagne Tha God’s that inspires political violence, and he should be especially mortified of his words given this weekend’s egregious attempt against the President and others in his administration.”

Read More: Meek Mill Can’t Escape His Own Digital Footprint 

Donald Trump Assassination Attempt

Authorities arrested Cole Tomas Allen for allegedly attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. They stopped him at a security checkpoint before he could get to the hotel’s ballroom, where the event was taking place. He was allegedly in possession of a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a pistol, according to a press release from the Justice Department.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously blamed the assassination attempts on left-wing media during a press briefing on Monday. “Those who constantly falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy, and compare him to Hitler to score political points, are fueling this kind of violence,” she said. “The left-wing cult of hatred against the president and all of those who support him and work for him has gotten multiple people hurt and killed, and it almost did so again this weekend.”

Read More: Ranking Every Drake Album From Worst To Best

The post White House Accuses Charlamagne Tha God Of Inspiring “Violence” After Assassination Attempt appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Release Date: April 29, 2026

Genre: Hip-Hop

Album: Body Of Work

The post Let’s Have Some Fun – Song by Edward Skeletrix featuring North West appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Fans in the replies of the post have been sharing plenty of theories as to what he could mean. “It’ll be a mixture of scorpion & views… for some reason I think it’ll be 3-4 disc 10 songs each. Theory he’s gonna flood the market and freeze most of the charting spots. Hint .. Ben, Mal, Ak confirmed album changed 4x but did it change or a different chapter was added,” one user wrote. Another added: “First rapper to do a triple disc album would be funny.”

Other fans were more pessimistic with their expectations. “They said the same sh*t with for all the dogs,” one user noted, while another wrote, “We are expecting mid like always.”

Read More: Meek Mill Can’t Escape His Own Digital Footprint

When Is Drake’s “ICEMAN” Release Date?

The tease isn’t the first time someone connected to Drake has hinted at ICEMAN being a unique project, this week. The Toronto rapper’s frequent collaborator, Gordo, also wrote on X: “What he’s [Drake] about to do is completely unheard of in music… like nothing we’ve ever seen before. The world isn’t ready for this…”

The posts on social media come as there are just weeks remaining before fans can finally hear ICEMAN in its entirety. Drake confirmed that he’ll be releasing the project on May 15th with an elaborate art installation made of massive blocks of ice in his hometown, earlier this month.

While Drake hasn’t confirmed a tracklist for the album, he has already shared several singles, including “What Did I Miss?,” “Which One” featuring Central Cee, and “Dog House” featuring Yeat and Julia Wolf. The project will mark his first solo album since feuding with Kendrick Lamar in 2024.

Read More: Ranking Every Drake Album From Worst To Best

The post Drake Insider Hints That “ICEMAN” Will Feature A Unique Format appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

“Every morning, I wake up to a new headline lying about me,” she remarks in the clip. “I have comedians dressing up in whiteface. I have people saying I’m not fit to be CEO, and I have Candace Owens claiming I murdered my husband, and the list goes on and on and on.” 

Fans have been having mixed reactions to the remark, with many coming to Druski’s defense. “Druski didn’t even name her, and she still ran to the camera in her best serious outfit to cry about whiteface… this the most transparent clout chase i’ve seen all year,” one user wrote in response to the video on X (formerly Twitter). Another added: “Whiteface? Delusional ass ugly ass b*tch this the same ho who husband went around being a weirdo.”

Read More: Meek Mill Can’t Escape His Own Digital Footprint

Druski’s Erika Kirk Skit

Erika Kirk’s complaint refers to a skit Druski posted on social media on March 25 with the caption: “How Conservative Women in America act.” In the video, he portrays a white woman with blonde hair, and despite not mentioning Kirk by name, many fans interpreted it as a reference to the widow of Charlie Kirk. It wasn’t the first time Druski used extreme makeup to take on the appearance of a white person, having done it before in a NASCAR skit.

When the video went viral, Donald Trump weighed in, urging Kirk to file a lawsuit during an Easter lunch event at the White House. “You’re doing well, right?” Trump said at the time. “Okay. I think you should sue him. But you know what? I told her, you ought to sue some of these. They’re so jealous of Erika. I said, you ought to sue. I can say it, you’re not allowed to say this, you have to be nicer: sue their ass off.”

Read More: Ranking Every Drake Album From Worst To Best

The post Erika Kirk Breaks Silence On Druski’s “Conservative Women” Skit appeared first on HotNewHipHop.