By now, Rihanna’s early days as an innocent teen idol have long been forgotten, both due to a series of real-life scandals that need not be recapped and a series of deliberate choices as an artist and public figure. Nevertheless, Rihanna was groomed to be a star from a very young age and that process has created an artist who seems to be less in charge of her art than anyone else involved, including the consumers. There’s nothing wrong with that, really—the world needs pop idols and this is where they come from—but after five albums, we still haven’t seen Rihanna inhabit may be her own.

 

On his sophomore album Take Care, Drake perfects what we've known him to do all too well: luxuriate, lament, and lose footing in the life of a star in a woe-is-me fashion - oh no, too much money and too many girls! - that somehow still manages to be admirable. 

Who: Kendrick Lamar

From: Compton, California

Why You Should Get To Know Him: Because he's the new Doctor's Advocate.  

Despite the fact that he’s approaching 1.2 million followers on Twitter, you could be forgiven for never having heard of Mac Miller. His large fan-base of suburban teens has generally been the saving grace of the music business for the last decade or so, but anyone not in that age group has at least once seen a name on top of the Billboard charts and thought “who?” It’s easy to condescend to “kids stuff,” but not everything that’s popular among teens is necessarily juvenile and you could easily miss out on a lot of great music by ignoring the Justin Biebers and Wolf Gangs in favor of the hot new indie band your friends like. That said, you could be forgiven for skipping Blue Side Park—sorry, Mac.

 

I have to say I was more than shocked when I heard about the untimely passing of Heavy D yesterday (November 8). Reading the flood of tweets and Facebook posts, I realized that while Hev might not have reached the levels of success and legend of some of the other MCs that came after him, his influence on hip-hop was massive. And more importantly, he was just a good guy -- which sometimes seems impossible to be in this business.  

The unmistakable peppy piano key-playing of the ice cream truck jingle only incites bursts of childlike joy until you've gotten your frozen fix, which is when it simply becomes a mind-numbing, torture-like itch you can't scratch (or get out of your head). VV Brown's new song "Children," which samples the folksy 19-century tune, has the same effects - for better or worse.  

Who: A$AP Rocky

From: Harlem, NY

Why You Should Get To Know Him: Because he sounds like Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and is worth $3 million (we think).  

No, you didn’t download the wrong album. Wale’s Ambition does in fact open with a sound-byte you’re used to hearing elsewhere—that lady from the Rick Ross songs declaring a state of Maybach Music. That might have seemed like a wild improbability earlier in Wale’s career, but it turns out that, just like with Wale’s new Bawse, the drop signals that something pretty good is about to come on. Those worried that Wale wasn’t a proper fit with The Maybach Music Group should be able to put those fears aside because his first outing with the label is among his best work to date.