''Royalty'' is the fifth EP by American

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

duo EarthGang, and the third of the trilogy with '' Rags'' and ''

Robots" \n\n\n\n\n\n\nrobots.txt is the filename used for implementing the Robots Exclusion Protocol, a standard used by websites to indicate to visiting web crawlers and other web robots which portions of the website they are allowed to visit.\n\nThe sta ...

''. It was released on February 16, 2018 by Spillage Village and distributed by

Empire Distribution Empire Distribution, Records and Publishing Inc. (stylized as EMPIRE) is an independent American record label, distribution and publishing company founded in 2010 by Ghazi Shami. Based in San Francisco, EMPIRE has offices in New York, London, ...

. The EP includes production by Childish Major, and guest appearances from Dreamville's singer Ari Lennox and Spillage Village's Mereba.

Background

EarthGang initially met J. Cole in 2014 while touring with Ab-Soul and was told by their manager that "Cole was feelin' them". Shortly after the release of their 2015 album ''Strays with Rabies'' and while touring with Bas in 2016, Dot and Venus began recording a "deconstructed album" which would form the three EP's, leading up to their major-label debut album, '' Mirrorland''.

Singles and promotion

On February 20, 2018, "Nothing was the Best" featuring Ari Lennox was released as they announced the release date of the EP.

Critical reception

Upon its release, ''Royalty'' received acclaim from critics. Yoh Phillips of ''DJBooth'' said "EarthGang's bar for lyricism has always been high, but it’s refreshing to hear more of their personal stories. On '' Rags'' and ''

'', the duo began to open up to listeners, but on ''Royalty'', they appear as their most transparent selves." Riley Wallace of ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...

'' said "the thick Dirty South production lends to a cohesive project that plays out even better as a solid listen top to bottom than it does as individual tracks. At times it feels as though Chance the Rapper, young

Outkast Outkast (sometimes written as OutKast) was an American hip-hop duo formed in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1992, consisting of Big Boi (Antwan Patton) and André 3000 (André Benjamin, formerly known as Dré). Widely regarded as one of the greatest an ...

, UGK, and Organized Noise melded together in a melting pot, resulting in the jazzy, laid-back concoctions." Richard Bryan of ''HotNewHipHop'' praised the project saying: "Musical experimentation and the technical prowess aside, the complete sense of intentionality and effortlessness exuded throughout is probably the most exciting thing about the EP," and "EarthGang is here to stay, and only time will tell how their styles will continue to evolve. Bring on ''Mirrorland''."

Track listing

References

{{EarthGang 2018 EPs Southern hip-hop EPs EarthGang albums Empire Distribution EPs