Nemzzz was nineteen when Drake posted "8AM In Manny" in November 2023, and the Gorton rapper has spent the years since putting out records in his own name. LOCKED IN arrives Friday with seventeen tracks and a guest list that features appearances from Travis Scott, Latto, Cash Cobain, Lil Yachty and Tunde.
Friday, September 4 is a rap Friday rather than an R&B one. LOCKED IN, Karrahbooo's debut mixtape NOT DA 2, Dizzee Rascal's ninth studio album We Want Bass and Mykki Blanco's CAFE PARADISO are on the hook. The R&B side of the ledger is close to empty for the same date.
Nemzzz Spends the Guest List
Nemiah Emmanuel Simms was born in Manchester in March 2004 and raised in Gorton, in a house where his mother and uncle made beats and his father performed reggae and dancehall. He started rapping over YouTube instrumentals in 2018, and by 2021 GRM Daily had shot a video for "Elevate."
The chart record moved quickly after that. Do Not Disturb landed on March 15, 2024, entered the UK Albums Chart at number seventeen and went to number one on the UK R&B Albums Chart. Rent's Due followed on March 28, 2025 and debuted at number six. "Dilemma," his single with Central Cee, reached number thirty-nine on the Official Singles Chart and remains his highest placing song.
LOCKED IN is his fourth project in as many years, and the features are the tell. Travis Scott appears on "GASS," Latto on "OK," and Cash Cobain on "TRICK," which puts three distinct US radio lanes on a British independent release. The last Travis Scott record to rebuild a young producer's career was "Sicko Mode," built by Tay Keith, who was found dead in his Nashville apartment in June at twenty-nine, four days before a Friday release slate that carried his producer tag on Key Glock's album.
Karrahbooo Takes the Title Back
The title of Karrahbooo's mixtape is not new. "NOT DA 2" is a Concrete Boys song she recorded with Lil Yachty for It's Us Vol. 1, released April 5, 2024. She left the collective that July, after her name came off the group's Instagram bio, and in August 2024 Yachty said publicly that he had written every rap verse she had ever performed. She disputed that on Instagram and told him to stop bullying her.
Two years later she announced the project herself, in all capitals, on X: "MY FIRST MIXTAPE 'NOT DA 2' SEPTEMBER 4TH!!!!!!" The Atlanta rapper, born Karrah Schuster in 1997, has released three singles this year, and "Keep Up W Me" with Zukenee arrived August 3 through Universal Music with production from Truebeatzz. A snippet of it drew more than two million views on Instagram before the finished record existed, and the hook she chose to lead with was a warning about pity.
The mixtape is her first full-length under her own name, two years and one month after the Instagram bio came down.
Dizzee Rascal Goes Back to the Low End
We Want Bass runs fifteen tracks on Big Dirtee Records, and Dizzee Rascal has been building toward it in public since June 23, when "All Night" arrived as the lead single. A video for "C U Dance" followed, and his recent collaborations have run through Bou, Bad Boy Chiller Crew and Denon Reed, which points the record at UK club rooms rather than at American playlists.
The album lands the same week his festival run through Boardmasters, Y Not and Victorious gives way to headline dates across the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Mykki Blanco Books a Table for One
CAFE PARADISO comes out on Transgressive Records, with a lead single, "Little Feet," featuring Ian Isiah and Breakaway and production from Drew Lustman, who records as FaltyDL. Blanco described the album as "a record for artsy kids," made for "cosmopolitan aesthetes to sit alone in a café and work on crafting the life of their dreams, or just make sense of it."
Two other lines from the announcement set the terms plainly. "I love creating music but I've never liked the idea of being a one-trick pony," Blanco said, and, of the record itself, "It's an album about enjoying your own company."
The R&B World Is Quiet, the Chart Is Not
Nothing in R&B or soul carries a September 4 street date. We went through the label announcements, the streaming pages and the week's singles looking for one, and the next dates worth holding are September 18, when Jaymin's Static and Kareen Lomax's Naiji arrive, and September 25, when Jae Stephens, Leon Bridges, Tank and Tinashe all land in the same week.
What actually moved in soul this week arrived a Friday early. Tamia released "Forever and a Day" on August 28, her first solo single in eight years, co-written and produced by Louis York, the duo of Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony, who built Beautiful Surprise with her in 2012 and Love Life in 2015. Announcing it on Instagram, she wrote, "After 30 years of making music, I still love writing about relationships and love." Her last album, Passion Like Fire, came out in 2018.
The rest of the movement sits on the charts and the announcement wire. PartyNextDoor's "Some of Your Love" leads R&B streaming on this week's tallies, and Eric Bellinger has a top ten at radio. Jodeci announced anniversary tour dates for Forever My Lady on September 1, thirty-five years after the album. Tank announced Experience on August 31. Last week's slate, by contrast, carried Erykah Badu and The Alchemist, a Prince vault release and forty songs from E-40.
After Midnight
Roc Nation ran a JAY-Z listening party through jayz30.com on Thursday at 2 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. in London, with a vinyl test pressing giveaway attached and no announcement of what would be played. JAY-Z30 has run all year as a celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Reasonable Doubt, and September also marks twenty-five years since The Blueprint.
Next Friday is heavier on paper. Est Gee's Bigger Than The Devil, Hoodrich Pablo Juan's The Bloprint, Ro$ama's My Forte and Rio Da Yung OG's The World Is Yours all carry September 11 dates. HotNewHipHop counted roughly a dozen confirmed hip-hop albums for the whole month.
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