Band Gang Lonnie Bands

If you like hard-boiled, no-frills street rap that’s heavy on straightforward tales of cooking dope and neighborhood politics, BandGang Lonnie Bands is your dude. He started out in the mid-2010s as a breakout member of BandGang, one of the most essential groups in Detroit rap history. Since then, he’s cranked out several noteworthy solo mixtapes and laid down standout verses on a few of the best posse cuts in recent memory, including 2018’s “Detroit to Inglewood” and 2020’s “Wack Jumper.”

More than anything else, he’s consistent—but we all know consistency isn’t a sexy hook. He’s not going to put you into a state of shock with uncomfortably hilarious tall tales like Rio Da Yung OG. He’s not as effortlessly cool as Babyface Ray or Veeze. He’s not upstaging Atlanta superstars on the regular like 42 Dugg, or a borderline cartoon character like BabyTron. He’s just a really good rapper, man, and in the last year or so he’s been on a hot streak, as his music has taken on a more anxious, insular feel.

Lonnie has cited Tupac’s double-disc album All Eyez on Me as a crucial influence, and this is really captured on February’s Hard 2 Kill Reloaded, the sprawling (and superior) deluxe version of last year’s Hard 2 Kill. It’s 25 tracks of bone-chilling thoughts over a stream of muddy, piano-driven, Michigan-style beats. He whispers and murmurs in his deadpan cadence, his vocals more sandpaper-rough and skittish than ever. Similar to his Pac album of choice, Hard 2 Kill Reloaded is an extremely paranoid, psychological record with fatalistic undertones. It’s made more complex by the Detroit production, which remains exciting despite the melancholic mood.