Stanisland Magazine

Review: Plagued by delays, Lonely At The Top drops, pleasing rapper’s eager fans — others, not so much

Last updated: 30th August 2025

Brooklyn’s self-proclaimed finest, Joey Badass (real name Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott), finally drops his delayed fourth studio album, Lonely At The Top, on Columbia Records. Its rollout has been a stretched canvas of summer jabs and mind games, often going viral for the wrong reasons. There was significant hype for this hip-hop album, with many sceptical of its release while others eagerly awaited it’s arrival.

Following verbal altercations with his label, the rapper launched into a diatribe on social media, outlining the reasons they held it back. Now it’s here, there’s no reason to point fingers — let the record do the talking.

Joey Badass Fails to Evolve

We’ve already heard Dark Aura, much to our dismay — a track needing to jettison its overused bars. It’s a perfectly good production, mired by tropes and repurposed musings.

Swank White picks up the matches in a gasoline-laced track as Joseph teams up with Westside Gunn. A tribute to his lifestyle, the song collars the project title: “Nobody ever told me that the top would feel this lonely”, before digging at fame and friends.

Songs like Superflee are try-hard skippable party anthems you might find yourself moving to — though it’s thalidomide at best.

So far, it’s classic Joey — that’s not a good thing — and slightly mediocre to begin with. We persist in leaning into the world he paints on a long play, hosting names such as Ty Dollar Sign on Ready to Love, where the seasoned rhymer opens up, albeit reluctantly:

“Home, it’s where the heart is, don’t get me startеd
I need a queen to match my king just like the Cartеrs”

BK’s finest is where we really get to a point of rubbing our hands together. This cut is delectably filled with exciting talents, including Rome Streetz, Kai Cash, and CJ Fly. It’s a joint where Joey tailgates his invitees, as Rome licks off metaphorical bars like: “You ain’t half as lit, when my raps is like an acid trip.”

The album’s title preps the listener for vulnerability, as on sonically anxious works like Underwater and the album’s showpiece Lonely At The Top, which introspectively conveys the importance of remaining cautious on a poignant work performed through the lens of horns and piano keys.

The Verdict

Musically, the album itself is just average, but too similar to other works on the market. Scott himself has lyrically failed to evolve, and at times, some verses sound cliché, lacking the artistic quality you’d expect from someone who believes they’re the best. Either he’s surrounded by yes men, or believes in his own hype.

While tracks like Still made the good category, Columbia Records, it seems, had legitimate concerns. Based on the overall quality at play, there’s a timid shadow of a rapper who took the scene by storm. In retrospect, that was a time when his 1999 sound rode the trends listeners clamoured for.