I was just listening to a recent EP from suicideyear, who has worked with Yung Lean, and outthepound, a producer from New Orleans who plays with trap and bounce. Listening to the spare collection of beats on Brothers, the skeletal percussion and hazy vaporwave soundscapes, it occurred to me that 21 Savage could rap over this. Could sound great over this, in fact. His 2016 full-length project with Metro Boomin, Savage Mode, makes a disorienting but beguiling case for meditative violence. It also makes the case that you could put 21 on some seriously weird beats and he could pull it off. His new album likely won't sound like vaporwave trap. But he's probably the only rapper on this list who could make that record slap if he did. —Ross Scarano

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