Statik Selektah Serves Up ‘Expensive Taste’
Producer and DJ Statik Selektah released his new album, Expensive Taste, on Friday, November 6, 2026, through Mass Appeal. The 21-track project runs one hour and 12 minutes, and it is built the way Statik’s producer albums have long been built: one trusted set of ears behind the boards, and a long line of MCs stepping up to the microphone. Apple Music puts it plainly in its description of the album, calling Statik a longtime Boston DJ and producer who knows good hip-hop, and describing Expensive Taste as a collection of rap’s best from across various regions, eras and styles.
If one collaboration was always going to draw the first listens, it is “Champagne Wishes.” The album’s fourth track puts Freddie Gibbs alongside Ab-Soul and Raekwon, a pairing of three very different rap voices over Statik’s production, and at five minutes and 39 seconds it is given room to breathe as a full posse cut rather than a quick cameo. The track was also released ahead of the album as a single, with an official visualizer from Statik’s Showoff Radio channel, and it is the natural starting point for anyone coming to the project for the first time.
The guest list is the album’s argument in itself. “Generational” opens the project with Jadakiss, Styles P and Sheek Louch, while Joey Bada$$ takes “Growing Pains,” 2 Chainz takes “No Time Soon,” and Busta Rhymes teams with Smif-N-Wessun and Nina Sky on “Eye Shine.” Elsewhere, Killer Mike and TiaCorine share “365,” Logic and Lord Sko share “Globetrotters,” G-Eazy takes “Choose Life,” Westside Gunn takes “Grubhub,” and A$AP Ferg takes “On God.” It is a lineup that moves between New York, the South, the West Coast and the Midwest without ever sounding like a playlist assembled by committee.
That range continues into the album’s second half. “Food Chain” gathers Ransom, Flee Lord and Stove God Cooks, “Bigger Things” pairs REASON with Mavi, and “Survival” brings together Kalan.FrFr, Larry June and Grxzzly. Yasiin Bey appears on “Veterans,” and the closing run reaches “New Wordsmiths,” which puts Method Man, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, U-God and Masta Killa on one track with Integral, before “Role Model” closes the album with Its Opti. Across 21 tracks, the throughline is not a single sound or a single city, but Statik’s ear for which voices belong together.
Statik marked the release with a party in New York, sharing footage from the night at Hidden Tiger on his Instagram, and the album’s 21 tracks arrived on streaming on November 6 as one of that Friday’s notable releases, as The Hype Magazine noted in its roundup of the week’s new music. It is, in that sense, a record made to be heard in full rather than skimmed: 21 tracks is a lot of room, and Statik uses it to let each pairing settle instead of rushing to the next name on the list.
Expensive Taste does not need a concept to justify it. The title fits a producer who has spent his career collecting the rappers he rates most highly and putting them in the same room, and this album is the most expansive version of that idea yet. For listeners, the test is simple: start with “Champagne Wishes,” then let the rest of the guest list do its work. If the first two decades of Statik’s run were about proving his taste, Expensive Taste is the record where he stops proving it and simply shows it.