Rapsody

A collage of astute metaphors, dexterous rhymes and humanising perspectives, Rapsody is a beacon of charming, everywoman boom bap. Born Marlanna Evans in 1983, the Snow Hill, North Carolina, native began rapping as a student at North Carolina State University. After she impressed then-emerging producer 9th Wonder in 2004, her path toward a professional rap career began to crystallise. Following the release of multiple mixtapes between 2007 and 2011, she earned critical acclaim for The Idea of Beautiful (2012), a debut album that demonstrated her penchant for candid ruminations on beauty, self-defeating behaviours and the tragedy of Black death. After appearing on Kendrick Lamar's critically acclaimed 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly, she explored those themes again on Laila's Wisdom, a piercing second LP that doubled as a tribute to her late grandmother. For her third studio album, Eve, she titled each song after a Black woman she looks up to, a poetic move for a wordsmith who, herself, is worthy of tribute.