Friday, 5th June: Eight Drops Worth Your Weekend

Friday the 5th was not a normal release day. It was the kind of day where you open your library and everything you follow decided to move at once. Surprise albums, debut albums, deluxe editions that are basically second albums, and one rapper quietly hitting week 20 of a 47-week marathon. Here is everything that landed, and why each one is worth more than a single skip-through.

Skrillex, SOMA

No rollout, no warning, just a tracklist posted to Instagram Stories on Tuesday and then the whole thing live by Friday. SOMA is Skrillex's fifth album and it follows the same play as last year's "Fuck U Skrillex You Think Ur Andy Warhol But Ur Not", a surprise drop stuffed with collaborators. Thirteen tracks, a guest list that runs Nitepunk, Blawan, Randomer, MC Dricka, ISOxo, Chris Lake, Young Miko, Feid and more, and a genre map that refuses to sit still: experimental trap into UK bass into breakbeat into techno into Brazilian funk. A lot of these were unreleased IDs he has been teasing in live sets for years, so for anyone who has been catching his festival rips, this is the official home for them. It dropped the same weekend he played Primavera and launched his new CONTRA platform, so the man is clearly not resting.

Steve Lacy, "The Feeling"

Four years after "Gemini Rights", Lacy is back with the lead single from his third album "Oh yeah?", out July 17 on RCA. He wrote and produced the whole record himself and is calling it his most personal work yet. "The Feeling" is the sound of him chasing Prince through modern R&B, all smooth uncertainty and that repeated "am I your baby?" hook doing the heavy lifting. The Matthew Castellanos video opens on Lacy's head floating in pure darkness before it moves through empty rooms, sparklers and psychedelic backdrops. Small detail that connects the day: Lacy also turns up on the title track of Malcolm Todd's new album, which dropped the exact same Friday. More on that below.

Prabh Deep, "Bhogi" (feat. Raga)

This is the one that matters most for anyone tracking what is actually happening in Indian hip-hop right now. "Bhogi" is week 20 of 47 in Project Santali, Prabh's ridiculous one-track-a-week experiment where he drops a new song every single week and runs feedback with fans in real time on Discord. It is one of the most ambitious things any desi artist has attempted, full stop. The track itself is dense, switching between Hindi and Punjabi, piling karma, trauma and survival on top of a beat that keeps the tension coiled the whole way through. Raga slots in clean. Prabh produces it himself, Taner Prestholdt on the mix. Twenty down, twenty seven to go.

Malcolm Todd, "Do That Again"

Todd went from TikTok virality ("Art House", "Roommates") to a Columbia deal to sold-out rooms, and "Do That Again" is the sophomore album that has to prove it was not a fluke. Thirteen tracks, about thirty five minutes, recorded across Electric Lady in New York and Chaplin in LA over a newly single summer. It sits in that messy, smirking lane of off-kilter R&B that runs from Steve Lacy outward, lover-boy one minute ("Jean Skirt", "Obsessica", "Breathe") and quietly heartbroken the next ("I Saw Your Face", "Lonely Song"). And yes, the title track features Steve Lacy, which is why his name keeps showing up twice on the same Friday. For a 22 year old this is a genuinely confident record.

Freddie Gibbs, "You Only Die 1nce (Deluxe)"

Gibbs released the same album twice and somehow made it feel like a gift. The deluxe edition of his 2024 surprise album balloons it to twenty two tracks, adding ten on top of the original. It folds in his recent RBT EP ("Axxtion", "Rabbit Mode"), a couple of interludes, plus fresh cuts like "Immigrants", "Outside" and a "Ruthless" remix with Leon Thomas. The Gary, Indiana baritone has been on an absurd run lately, the Alchemist reunion on "Alfredo 2", the JPEGMAFIA feud, the karate lessons, and this just keeps the catalogue stacking. Production leans on unconventional percussion, hints of disco and jazz, Freddie's voice cutting straight through.

Vince Staples, "Cry Baby"

Staples is fully independent now, off Def Jam, off Netflix, and "Cry Baby" is the first thing he has made with nothing holding him back. It is his new album for Loma Vista and it is a real sonic shift: built around live instrumentation, guitar-forward, confrontational, less of the cold introspection of his last couple records and more of him turning outward at the absurdity of America. "As the world burns, I have decided to release this album," is how he announced it. The singles set the tone, "Blackberry Marmalade" shot like a first-person video game, and "Cotton" using an American flag full of holes as a canvas for Black American history. Dummies will call it punk rock. Staples already told you it all comes from people trying to be James Brown.

Joji, "Piss in the Wind (Deluxe)"

The deluxe of Joji's fourth album, which first landed in February on his own Palace Creek imprint. The original was his return to honest, personal writing after three years away, relationships and memory and trying to find meaning in soft, cinematic production, with features from Don Toliver and Yeat. The bit of lore worth knowing: across this entire album cycle Joji has been sending a look-alike, model Robert Birdsall, fans nicknamed him "Joe G", to do interviews, press and videos in his place. So even the rollout has a quiet conceptual streak to it. The deluxe extends the world rather than rebuilding it.

Prospa, "Free Your Mind"

The debut album from Leeds duo Prospa, Harvey Blumler and Gosha Smith, childhood friends who broke through in 2018 with "Prayer". It is out on CircoLoco Records and it is actually the label's first ever full-length, which makes it a moment for both sides. Eleven tracks, thirty eight minutes, no jazzy detours, no filler, just big anthemic nineties-house euphoria sitting in the mid 120s BPM and aimed straight at the floor. The title track is a link-up with Cloonee that has been a staple of their live sets, with KETTAMA, Murda Beatz and Kosmo Kint also in the mix. If you want one summer rave record off this list, it is this one.