Mac Lethal North Korean BBQ (Black Clover)

Two tracks on this baker’s dozen of a mix are classic Mac. The wordy rapper spits pop-culture cartwheels on “My Favorite Song,” doling out party lines over energetic, Seven-produced synth: I get dressed, show the world what fresh is/And then I have a bar of Xanax for breakfast. The next track, “Little Mac,” is a deliciously hostile diss in which Lethal goes nuclear on a soured protégé with battle-tested, I-fucked-your-mom lyrics set to an unabashedly 1980s-sounding beat by Whodini. But Mac can’t sustain that clever-crude momentum, and no wonder: He recently suffered a breakup of epic proportions, so the best stuff here is sandwiched between wallowing dirges that obsess over angels and death, self-loathing and bitter pills, turncoat friends and the enemy in the mirror. It’s enough to foster a whole new appreciation for the bluesman’s simplicity: My baby left me. But even the least poetic among us find solace and inspiration in heartbreak. And as Mac himself must know, his fans still hang on his every word.