CORINIAN

TiaCorine’s breakthrough single, “Lotto,” was a necessary evolution of the DIY Soundcloud era in 2018: whimsical, danceable, and unabashedly underground. Hearing it for the first time felt like crash landing on a new planet. Since then, the North Carolina rapper's music and overall character has retained an otherworldly quality across a bevy of EP’s and a full-length mixtape that produced her first national hit and a salacious new nickname, “FreakyT.” Tia’s ever-growing grab bag of vocal effects, meandering flows, and subtle yet sudden shifts in sound has only become more potent as she’s expanded her universe.

Tia’s latest album, CORINIAN, is less experimental than 2022’s I Can’t Wait. On that mixtape, she flowed and sang over heavier production inspired by rock and electronic music, her rage seething under the surface of songs like “Rocket,” and “Rockstar.” With CORINIAN, Tia smoothes out those edges for a cleaner but still daring project that never slows down. “Buttercup,” produced by longtime collaborator Kenneth Blume (formerly known as Kenny Beats), has one of his best beats in years. It’s a fast-paced, bass-led head-nodder that could be the soundtrack to a Kill Bill spin-off. “Ironic,” and “Lotion,” with Flo Milli, are just as compelling, with “Lotion,” sounding like Tia’s attempt at making a horned-up early ’90s radio hit like “Ice Ice Baby,” or “U Can’t Touch This.”

The intergalactic bent of her early music is all over tracks like “Different Color Stones” and standout “Booty.” These dreamier moments highlight the unpredictability of her myriad flows, an ability to reinvent herself even when working with familiar building blocks inspired by DIY Atlanta luminaries like Father and his Awful Records crew. CORINIAN also aligns Tia with some of her biggest features to date, with mixed results. “High Demand” is a mostly forgettable attempt at a radio single with a phoned-in Smino verse. The Wiz Khalifa-assisted “Was Hannin” fares a little better, with Wiz referring to himself as an “industry plant” in one of his more clever recent weed puns.

One of the clumsier moments is “Backyard,” where 34-year-old rapper JID incorporates a “two in the pink, one in the stink” line and Tia yells “Put it in my butt” on the chorus. (Is that what “Backyard” means in this context?) It’s FreakyT at her freakiest, but it just slightly misses the mark. Still, the song’s sexual excess isn’t out of place on CORINIAN, which is never 60 seconds away from telling you exactly where Tia would like to be licked. The record is populated by women stunting diamond-studded grills, breakbeats and iced-out Kirby chains, and on “ATE,” Tia envisions herself as a female Robin Hood who steals from the manipulative men and fuckboys of the world and gives back to love-scorned women.

After undergoing vocal cord surgery in 2023, Tia spent months unable to record music, and she’s explained in interviews how that experience made her become more intentional and thoughtful about her vocal techniques and recording process. Her first studio album since the surgery, CORINIAN expresses newfound appreciation for her vocal prowess: a contained exercise of versatility across dance records, hard raps, and nods to the underground. For what it lacks in cohesion, it makes up for in its blissful, hard-edged attitude.