Finally, New

For anyone who’s been feeling suffocated by the sameness that’s been afflicting hip-hop and pop—where a small handful of ideas gets recycled endlessly, and a spin through the big new-release playlists quickly devolves into a blur—They Hate Change’s Jagjaguwar debut, Finally, New lives up to its name.

Finally, a record that can satisfy the geeky headphone trainspotters and the hedonistic ass-shakers, too. Finally, producers who refuse to settle for making drag-and-drop beats. Finally, rappers who aren’t afraid of actually sticking out from the crowd and saying something new, and who embody the classic quote from Run of Run-DMC that, “The only thing rap music is—there is no music to rap. We just rap over whatever we want.”

Finally, New is what a truly post-genre musical landscape is supposed to be: building deep connections that transcend outdated distinctions between them, spilling over with the joy of exploration and possibility, and daring other artists to think broader, go deeper, take bigger risks.