Misery Loves Company

NorthSideBenji wasn’t mincing words when he named his third record. The Brampton, Ontario, trap&B sensation has always been upfront about the fact that your problems don’t just magically disappear once you gain access to the VIP room, but *Misery Loves Company* finds him in an especially introspective mood, dispensing self-analytical soliloquies about success and excess that flow as freely as the album’s aqueous productions. “Don’t you think shit was easier ’fore this money came through?” he asks on “Running Game,” as piano chords rain down around him like a light drizzle. But if the album doesn’t shy away from mining NorthSideBenji’s miseries—whether he’s seeking chemical cures for his mental health (“Lost My Mind”) or reckoning with his drug-dealing past (“A Life to Die For”)—he keeps good company: “A1” is a tranquil, tropical-trap track brightened by UK rapper Nafe Smallz’s playful flow, while Alabama MC NoCap seizes the spotlight on the smooth yet swaggering “Save Me.”