AKAI SOLO should be getting mentioned in the same breath as the peers who already co-sign him, like billy woods, ELUCID, Earl, Navy Blue, and MIKE, and yet, he keeps working hard to be heard. When you Google the search term “AKAI SOLO review,” these pages come up as the second hit, with only a Pitchfork review above it. That’s a bewildering result, and is proof positive how the music world at large isn’t giving the Brooklyn rapper his rightful laurels for being one of the best of the higher conscious wordsmiths rhyming wisdom right now for those who prefer their beats with ample thought bubbles to consider squeezed in between each and every one of them.

Following last year’s late-dropping double header of LPs in Only The Strong Remain and Verticality///Singularity, he’s making a go before 2024 ends to get a proper rub with his latest offering, DREAMDROPDRAGON. For those still uninitiated, allow AKAI to show you what he does best in his style of flow — and perhaps is at his best here all-around. He’s a master of tapping into the human psyche and using that to explore the inner workings of a mind. And he very much has plenty of words to spill into the clutter of a haze-smattered soundboard, too.

It’s amazing to hear how with each new release, AKAI somehow is able to pack even more particles in by volume over a subconsciously seismic rupture of hip-hop psychedelia curated by a small handful of producers from his surroundings including Wavy Bagels, TwentyFifthNight, and August Fanon. There’s plenty of talk of Freud, and death. It’s all interconnected with AKAI’s brainwaves rendering in real time as he ponders relationships and gets all turned up on the grand scheme of life in a big question existentialism kind of way.

Maybe it’s his blunt honesty in owning up to his fucks ups and the-fuck-I-knows about what it all means when it comes to those highs and lows (even if they arrive when he’s very high,) but the lack of a filter makes him one of the most genuine voices speaking their truth in the hip-hop universe. You don’t need to be the biggest star to do that when your tiny corner continues to expand infinitely.

Highlights: “Who’s Up Next???”, “Post Dark”, “Bleeding Black”

AKAI SOLO’s DREAMDROPDRAGON is available now on Break All Records.

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