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2022 was a great year for music. Many amazing albums were released last year: Gemini Rights by Steve Lacy rocked social media for the better part of the year. Wasteland by Brent Faiyaz, Dawn FM by The Weeknd, S.O.S. by SZA, Midnights by Taylor Swift, and numerous other albums had a grip on teenagers throughout the world during the year. With so many quality albums, 2023 has a mountain to climb to match up. That being said, let’s take a look into what music will look like in 2023.
To start off, one of the biggest rappers teens listen to today is expected to release an album in 2023. With over 21 million monthly streams on Spotify, Tyler the Creator is a huge name. Tyler’s fans notice a pattern in his album release years: Tyler releases an album every odd year. In 2011, Tyler dropped his first album called Goblin. Since then he has dropped an album every other year (Wolf in 2013, Cherry Bomb in 2015, Flower Boy in 2017, IGOR in 2019, and Call Me If You Get Lost in 2021). Welcome To The Disco is expected to come out sometime this year.
If you are a hip-hop fan, there is one artist you have been waiting at the edge of your seat to release an album, and that is Travis Scott with Utopia. It’s going to be very interesting to see this album actually pan out, because there have been many questions over this release after the Astroworld Festival tragedy. It will be interesting how he navigates the situation. Will he go on tour? Will he address the event in the lyrics? Musically speaking, Travis is a master creator when you’re looking at what he is able to do in terms of crafting sonic playgrounds with multi-layered beats. Utopia will be Travis Scott’s fourth studio album, released by Cactus Jack Records and Epic Records. Hazel Jung, a class of 2026 member of the WHS girl’s basketball team, is excited for this album. She says, “I am very excited for Travis to drop this album because we all know how ‘ASTROWORLD’ affected some people. I am intrigued to see how he will release the album regarding the mishap.”
It was Christmas Eve of 2022, and Esean Johnson, a quarterback on the WHS varsity football team and c/o 2025 point guard on our varsity basketball team, was spending time with family and friends, when all of the sudden Twitter started to blow up. Esean was very confused but when he checked the app, he saw that Playboi Carti tweeted, “Love all my supporters it’s time” which implies that he may release a new album. Esean thought that Carti would drop the album on Christmas day and was excited for the album release the whole day. Esean thought that since Playboi Carti released his album Whole Lotta Red on Christmas day in 2020, that Carti would put his album out the day after the tweet. When the album did not drop, Esean was “disappointed but he still has hope [that the album will be released in 2023].”
On January 11th of 2023, rumors of Lil’ Durk and Future’s joint album began setting the internet ablaze. These whispers first began after Lil’ Durk posted a photo with Future on the set of their music video for their track, “Mad Max,” a song that landed on the December compilation Loyal Bros 2. On Jan. 9, DJ Akademiks posted a photo of a wide-eyed Durk that had been going viral, to which Durk jokingly commented underneath saying “I seen who I’m doing my collaboration tape with.” The next day, Durk’s official DJ, DJ Bandz, reposted an Instagram post proclaiming “the culture need(s) this” in reference to the coveted Durk-Future collab. This album has listeners very excited, including Lilyana Guerra. Lilyana is a member of the cheer team and is a part of the freshman class of 2026. She says, “I really hope these rumors are true because I have been waiting since March to hear Durk drop a new and better album than his last.”
In spite of the rumors of albums being released this year, it is up to all of the artists and creators to release these albums, but 2023 should be a very good year for music.
Rylee Milnes is a freshman at Washington High School. She grew up in Fremont, California and this is her first year at the Hatchet. Rylee is very social and likes to interview people. Rylee's hobbies include, skating, surfing, snowboarding and any other outdoor activity. Rylee is the head captain of Washington’s JV cheerleading team, while healing from knee surgery. This recovery prevents her from playing sports that she enjoys such as basketball, soccer, volleyball, and softball, but is determined to get back at it. Rylee plans on getting a degree in kinesiology to become a physical therapist.