The long-time legendary hip hop producer Metro Boomin returned to the scene after 2 years with his long-awaited album Heros and Villians on December 2nd, 2022.

Metro Boomin’s success has shaped many artists’ careers. Metro and Future’s “Mask Off” to this day is one of the most well-known songs of the modern-day rap era with an outstanding 1.3 billion streams on Spotify. 21 Savage and Metro created not one but 2 collaboration albums Savage Mode and its sequel SAVAGE MODE II. Metro Boomin showed off when he dropped “NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES” where he played director and showed off how creative and his ability to show his wide vision for a complete record.

Metro Boomin carries over the superhero themes from his previous project and is able to keep focus on his records that provides a more clean listen which many recent rap albums lack.

Producer Metro Boomin featured many artists across the 14-track album with top artists  like Future, 21 Savage, and The Weeknd, who he has previously worked with.

He also includes artists like John Legend, Chris Brown, Don Toliver, Young Thug, A$AP Rocky, Takeoff, Young Nuddy, and Gunna. With a large variety of artists, the album provides a wide variety of ranges.

Long-time fans of Metro know that he has worked on many projects with Travis Scott and is known for explosive hooks and 21 Savage’s strong verses and excels whenever he and Metro combine on a track.

Metro Boomin opened the album with “On Time” (with John Legend) a strong cinematic opening that includes samples from Morgan Freeman along with one from Homelander a character in The Boys. After Homelander’s sample it perfectly transitions into one of my personal favorites off the album, Superheroes (Heroes and Villians) with Future & 21 Savage.

Don Toliver delivered great vocal performances early on in “Too Many Nights” and “Around Me” but Young Thug has one of the best outings on the album with his performance on “Metro Spider” which might be the most underrated track on the record.

“Raindrops(Insane)” was lackluster with a performance from Travis Scott which was very weak and dry which provided a boring hook and weak vocals. Travis Scott in himself had quite a few features on the album and out of the 3 big voices between him, Future, and 21 Savage he by far has the weakest outing. On the other end 21 Savage delivers on most if not all of his features especially on “Creepin” and “Niagara Falls”.

This album delivers far more strong tracks like “Creepin” (with The Weeknd & 21 Savage) where both delivered as The Weeknd rarely disappoints with his unique vocals on the chorus, a song that had the biggest hit potential and  as it stands right now it is the most streamed song on the album and it currently sits 4th on the Billboard’s Top 100.

2022 saw many tracks release with the likes of “Her Loss” a collaboration between Drake & 21 Savage, it also saw the release of Kendrick Lamar’s long awaited, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Even with big name artists, this doesn’t mean they produce high end content and that was the case in 2022. Out of all the albums Metro Boomin’s Heroes and Villains keeps a strong track list that provides a theme and keeps the listener invested into not just the lyrics and vocals but Metro’s production.

By no means is this a perfect album personally I’d give it a solid 8/10 but with what has been released this past year Metro Boomin once again showed how talented he is as a producer and created the best Rap Album of 2022.