New Music Friday: 9 essential albums from Tyler, The Creator, Freddie Gibbs, Mabel & more (July 25, 2025)

New Music Friday delivers nine essential albums this week, featuring headline releases from Tyler, The Creator, Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist, and breakthrough projects from Mádè Kuti and Mabel. This week’s new music releases span hip-hop, R&B, Afrobeat, experimental electronics and avant-garde jazz, showcasing an eclectic range of sounds and stories. From inventive rap pairings to remastered free-jazz epics, these are the best new albums this week you need to add to your playlist this Friday. Stream these must-hear releases now

This week’s essential New Music Friday picks include:

Hip-Hop

• Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist – Alfredo 2 (ALC/ESGN)
• Tyler, The Creator – Don’t Tap The Glass (Columbia)
• Public Enemy – Black Sky Over The Projects: Apartment 2025 (Enemy Records)
• Homeboy Sandman & Sonnyjim – Soli Deo Gloria (Copper King)

R&B / Pop

• Mabel – Mabel (Mixtape) (Polydor)

Experimental & Global

• Mádè Kuti – Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From? (Knitting Factory)
• Farhot – RAQS (105-118 BPM) (Kabul Fire)

Jazz

• Art Ensemble of Chicago – Reese and The Smooth Ones (BYG, remastered)
• Samantha Schmütz & Adrian Younge – Samantha e Adrian

Best New Hip-Hop Albums This Week

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist – Alfredo 2

Alfredo 2 is the formal sequel to the pair’s Grammy-nominated 2020 album Alfredo. Entirely helmed by The Alchemist’s sample-rich production, the project finds Gibbs delivering tightly wound narratives over soul and jazz loops. The tracklist includes “Mar-a-Lago,” “Lemon Pepper Steppers,” and “Ensalada,” the latter featuring Anderson .Paak. The album arrives five years after the original and three years after Gibbs’s solo LP $oul $old $eparately, reaffirming the duo’s chemistry while adding new collaborators to the mix.

Tyler, The Creator – Don’t Tap The Glass

Clocking in at 28 minutes, Tyler’s ninth album darts from ’80s funk licks to orchestral disco and frenetic drum-and-bass. Self-produced as usual, it balances braggadocio with introspection on standouts “Big Poe” (featuring a playful Pharrell cameo) and “Sucka Free.” Tyler’s fearless arrangement choices—like the abrupt key changes on the title track—prove why he remains one of hip-hop’s foremost sonic architects.

Public Enemy – Black Sky Over The Projects: Apartment 2025

Chuck D and Flavor Flav return with a 12-track broadside that critiques AI displacement, climate chaos and political complacency. Bomb-squad-style breakbeats power “Siick,” while the martial “Confusion (Here Come The Drums)” re-centres Flav’s hype-man energy. PE’s trademark urgency meets live-instrument flourishes, reasserting their place in politically charged rap and offering some of the best new music in conscious hip-hop this month.

Homeboy Sandman & Sonnyjim – Soli Deo Gloria

Queens-born wordsmith Homeboy Sandman teams with UK producer-MC Sonnyjim for a head-nod suite steeped in dusty jazz loops and virtuosic rhyme schemes. Tracks like “Books,” “Nothing Less,” and the cinematic “Sound and Fury” showcase razor-sharp lyricism over crackling MPC chops. Their trans-Atlantic collaboration exudes underground authenticity, positioning the LP alongside other standout hip-hop albums this week.

Essential R&B and Pop Releases

Mabel – Mabel (Mixtape)

The BRIT-winning singer’s 9-track mixtape is a raw reintroduction steeped in early-2000s R&B grooves. Opener “January 19” glides over plush synth pads; “Benz” recruits UK rapper Clavish for a kinetic club-ready hook, while “Love Me Gentle” leans into sultry slow-jam territory. With production from Oscar Scheller and Arthur Bean, the project finds Mabel embracing creative independence and candid storytelling—perfect weekend listening for R&B fans seeking new songs to stream.

Global & Genre-Bending Music

Mádè Kuti – Chapter 1: Where Does Happiness Come From?

Carrying the Kuti legacy forward, Fela’s grandson delivers a 13-track Afrobeat opus rich with horns, call-and-response vocals and socially conscious lyrics. Standouts “Take It All In Before The Lights Go Out,” “Find My Way” and the seven-minute “I Won’t Run Away” fuse jazz harmonies with traditional Yoruba rhythms. Kuti’s formal training at Trinity Laban conservatory shines through his intricate arrangements, making this a pivotal release in 21st-century Afrobeat.

Farhot – RAQS (105-118 BPM)

Hamburg-based, Afghan-born producer Farhot weaves Middle-Eastern samples, house pulses and hip-hop swagger into an EP whose title means “dance” in Dari and Arabic. Early singles “MARS,” “HOOYOO” and “YA SAGHIRA” bridge Mogadishu and Beirut via infectious 4/4 grooves, reclaiming club-culture narratives often filtered through Western lenses.

Must-Hear Jazz Releases This Week

Art Ensemble of Chicago – Reese and The Smooth Ones (Remastered)

Recorded in Paris, 1969, the avant-garde collective’s two-part, 40-minute odyssey gets a deluxe BYG reissue. Remastered from original tapes, the album captures the Ensemble’s peak “great Black music” ethos—roaring percussion, pocket trumpets and spontaneous group improvisations that still sound boldly modern. New liner notes contextualise its historical significance, making this reissue essential for jazz explorers and archival collectors alike.

Samantha Schmütz & Adrian Younge – Samantha e Adrian

Brazilian actress-singer Samantha Schmütz teams with Los Angeles composer-producer Adrian Younge for a lush, all-analog song-cycle that bridges MPB, ’70s soul and post-bop jazz. Tracked at Younge’s Linear Labs studio, the nine originals—led by singles “Depois do Amor” and “Nossa Cor”—feature sweeping string arrangements, flute flourishes and a full horn section that recall classic Azymuth while feeling unmistakably modern. Younge’s orchestral touch and Schmütz’s bilingual storytelling explore themes of self-reflection and Afro-Brazilian identity, yielding an album that sits comfortably alongside contemporary jazz-soul peers yet carries the warm patina of a rediscovered ‘70s treasure.