Berner - Hempire (2016)

This laid-back but ambitious San Francisco rapper—the “empire” is the important part of that album title—brings a mixtape-filled decade of cheerfully gritty excellence to this full-length under Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang umbrella. “When I die, smoke my ashes,” he proposes on “Burn One,” over gentle piano, trunk-rattling bass, and ghostly R&B moans, with a smoky, sleepy-voiced charisma that balances pop hedonism and stoner-rap melancholy. Fellow Bay Area luminary Mistah F.A.B. shines on the strikingly vulnerable “Changes”; Wiz himself guests on four tracks, hitting hardest on the strident, celebratory “All We Do.”