"This past year has been extremely hard for me," Kamaiyah wrote in an Instagram caption on the day that she released her new Before I Wake mixtape. In an unpunctuated rush, she continued: "I lost my brother to cancer and went through a extreme depression and creatively I felt trapped with my project being held up due to samples I lost my way." Kamiayah's major-label debut Don't Ever Get It Twisted was supposed to come out in April, and in the months since then, Kamaiyah's only put out the odd song here and there. To hear her tell it, then, Before I Wake took serious resolve. She had to pull herself through loss and hardship and depression, finally cranking out her first full-length since A Good Night In The Ghetto, the 2016 mixtape that landed her on the map. But the great thing about Before I Wake is that it doesn't sound like that product of the kind of personal hell she describes. In fact, it's been a long minute since I've heard a rap record this breezy and effortless.