Music Reviews

LG Malique is having a moment—and it’s the right moment. The Arkansas-bred rapper is all about sharing positivity and encouraging uplift, vibes that permeate all 22 minutes of his new eight-song mixtape EP, Carved in Gold. A sequel of sorts to the 2024 Living Gold EP that featured his fast-flow (and occasionally strings-drenched) reinterpretation of Danish pop band Lukas Graham’s 2015 international chart-topping hit, “7 Years,” Carved in Gold dropped on all major streaming platforms via Warner Records on April 4, 2025.

Carved picks up the mantle right where Living left off, with tracks like “Explaining How It Is”—featuring stark narrative counters from Jacksonville rapper Yungeen Ace—hitting home as viscerally as can be. In a press statement, Malique observed, “This song is raw, unfiltered truth, no sugarcoating [. . .] This isn’t just music for me; it’s survival, therapy, and breaking the cycle.” Transcending a genre overloaded with so much empty boasting, Malique’s approach on Carved in Gold is fresh and true. It all comes across even better in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music—and a pair of the best tracks on Carved in Gold, “Don’t Come Closer” and “Give It to God,” are the focus of my Atmos review spotlight this week.

As is my wont, I tend to listen to Atmos mixes in a variety of ways—earbuds, headphones, and open-air speakers alike—before deciding which way best serves the 360-degree music at-hand/in-ear. In LG Malique’s case, while I certainly dug being encircled in the Gold Atmos sessions that I undertook with a) my AirPod Pros, and b) my floorstanding GoldenEar Technology Triton One loudspeakers serving as the fronts, a pair of GoldenEar Triton Sevens as the rears, and my current Sony Atmos speakers for the height channels, it was c) my ever-trusty House of Marley Liberate XLBT headphones that took the ultimate Gold playback pole position.

That said, for added comparison, I also listened to the Lossless mix of Gold on a brand-new pair of Fosi Audio i5 planar magnetic headphones to get a bass line—er, I mean a baseline, and I was quite impressed with how the i5’s handled the stereo mix. Considering how clean and detailed the Gold Lossless mixes sounded with these new phones, I decided that I’m going to add the Fosi Audio i5’s to my regular reviewing rotation moving forward—so expect to hear more about them/from them in this space.

For the record, you can also cue up LG Malique’s Carved in Gold in Ultra HD on Amazon Music, 24-bit/48kHz FLAC on Tidal, 24-bit/88.2kHz and MQA on HDTracks, and, uh, let’s just call it “basic” on Spotify.

But now, let’s get immersed in Atmos Gold on Apple Music. First up is the lead track, “Don’t Come Closer.” Malique starts his flow fast and furious right up the middle for the first 25 seconds before the slinky, sampled percussion kicks in right behind him ahead of the chorus, which is where his vocals then split wide and full across the soundstage. You should catch some vocal reverb on the lines “I don’t mean to push you / Just wanted to save you” filtering slightly up into the ether.

“I’ve been trying to work on my behavior,” Malique admits as a wailing female vocal counter nestles in the center-right heights, then gets more centralized throughout the verse. Malique’s vocal is doubled on the next chorus, as if to reinforce his self-aware mantra. When he steps back from the story to drop out of the track, that wailing vocal recurs and piano chords enter to carry “Closer” to the fade—and I also like how the brief, burbling bass that’s slightly back in the mix during the last 10 seconds act as low-end buoying.

Looking even more toward the divine next, “Give It to God” reaches for the heavens. Malique begins with a knowing laugh/sneer that enters in the lower center right quadrant before ping-ponging across the stage higher in the soundfield with an effect on his voice that—ever so briefly—recalls the chucka-chucka at the outset to “Have You Ever Been (to Electric Ladyland),” the ostensible title track of Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 double opus Electric Ladyland. Then Malique intones, “Fell out with the ones from the sandbox”—a helluva first line, I have to say (and I admittedly do so, in a secular way)—before repeat-reassuring himself “That’s alright / That’s alright” with center-left piano chords behind him in support. The reverb/echo on his voice continues forcefully—and the snicker returns too, one that may now also remind you of Prince—and no other instrumentation is needed until the percussion arrives 50 seconds into it. Malique is a flow-tempo maestro—fast when he needs to get his confession out, slower when he reflects on his amends.

The percussion takes on a ticking-clock timekeeping style as Malique rolls across the stage carefully, with the vocal echo spiraling subtly out from the middle. “Wrap me in your arms as I go to sleep,” he prays before invoking the title phrase that’s punctuated with “or whoever’s watching over me.” He begins repeating “Give it to God” up into the clouds during the last 25 seconds, and then another nice postscript—some concise keyboard chordal figures, a la George Duke—closes his sermon.

So, is LG Malique as good as Gold? Good God, y’all—here in Atmos, he’s pure unadulterated platinum, and I for one am ready for him to carve out the plans for his next set of immersive accomplishments.

“Don’t Come Closer” and “Give It to God” can both be listened to in Dolby Atmos here on LG Malique’s Carved in Gold mixtape EP on Apple Music.