Kendrick Lamar

In case you haven't heard, Kendrick Lamar can rap like there's no tomorrow. In the span of one year he's gone from a blip on my personal musical radar to a staple of my existence. And what has earned him this unbelievably esteemed position is really two things. First, he perfectly paints broad societal and generational critiques with seemingly minimal detail. Secondly, I think if I were talented enough to be a rapper, I would be like Kendrick Lamar. Broadly scoped songs with a persona that appears detached and calm.

Anyways check out 'Ignorance Is Bliss' which is a phenomenal video portraying Kendrick's going from the grave of his friend to exact revenge with perfect Malcolm X sample at the end. And 'A.D.H.D.' is possibly my favorite song of this year with Section80 being one of my favorite albums of the year.

Drake's 'Take Care' and the Hype Machine

Drake's sophomore album Take Care has been released and overall the reviews have been pretty positive from all sorts of publications. Pitchfork included in it's completely meaningless 'Best New Music' album category, Rolling Stone gave it 4 out of 5 stars, XXL Magazine gave it an XL (also known as 4 out of 5 stars, get a real rating system XXL). Overall, but particularly from publications that are not exclusively about hip-hop, the reviews have been real solid. But I'm not sold.

Hip-hop has long been a genre focused on boasting, a form of lyrical competition. With its foundation rooted in taking old records and cutting them up to create a backdrop for that lyrical virtuosity, it has been a unique genre that has been famous for its lack of musicality in the traditional sense. To this day, you will find a large population that believes that hip-hop is not music because it lacks the traditional markers of the art form; there often is no melody, no instruments, just lyrics and countless variations of lyrical styling. Of course the beat played an important role, but it is usually supplementary to the lyrics where the artist's expression created the listeners impression.

However, this has started to change and it began in earnest with Kanye West's 808's and Heartbreak. It was one of the first albums where lyricism took a backstage to musicality and was able to pull it off to some degree. I distinctly remember upon first listening to the album thinking that I hadn't heard an album where the lyrics in itself weren't so much descriptive but instead were simply a part of the overall mood that was set up by the production. The overall mood, of course, was one that was not boastful and exuberant but sentimental and introspective. Of course, the single on Drake's new album is none of these things and Drake crooning about how someone talking trash about him will make him 'catch a body like that' is something that might not ring very resonantly and perhaps why it's mainly left out of any discussion of the album overall.

Drake ~ Headlines (Official Video) from OctobersVeryOwn on Vimeo.

In many ways, hip-hop needs some degree of sentiment and could be more introspective. But what many review heralding Take Care have failed to realize is traditional hip-hop albums have accomplished this feat without compromising lyrical content. The perfect example is Nas' Illmatic and it has been held in such high-regard because of its ability to be introspective without being over-dramatized and self-involved. Further, Nas was able to encapsulate mood on songs like 'N.Y. State of Mind' without ever making his lyrics secondary. Instead, he uses his lyrics not for punchlines so much as a way to create a portrait of the world he is attempting to convey. This is something that is and has always been a halmark of a great rapper but it is also something that has become very rare as it is both hard to do as an artist and had to market as a record label.

Lucky for the modern day rapper, they have been given another avenue to greatness. Rappers have been infatuated with indie rock (and rock in general) for some time now. Jay-Z claims to love every indie-rock band of the moment, Big Boi said he can't get enough of Mumford and Sons (the banjo, specifically) and wants to collaborate with them, and Kanye West featured Bon Iver prevalently on what was perhaps the greatest rap album of the past few years. When Kanye collaborated with Jon Brion for for the production of Late Registration, it was groundbreaking and the influence has only spread from there.

But there is a reason 808's and Heartbreak is pretty much unanimously considered Kanye's worst album. It's just not as interesting as his other work. The problem in making hip-hop a sonically centered genre is that it is trying to shove a square peg into a round hole; it just wasn't meant to be.

And this is the overall problem with Take Care. It's incredibly shallow. There isn't the joy that you get with other great hip-hop albums where you discover new things about it weeks, months, even years after it was first released. It is what it is, and what it is more often than not is over-sensitized drivel and no where is this more apparent than in the most overrated song on the album, 'Marvin's Room'. Never has a song where a forlorn twenty something male croons about a lost love while drunk been so over-hyped.

And herein lies the problem. No one ever questioned that a drunk dial to an ex-girlfriend couldn't be, on some level, entertainingly visceral. But this isn't a genre where such an act can carry an album on its own and being viscerally self-exposing only gets you so far in hip-hop unless you have some lyrical talent behind it to provide the backbone. Take Care is sorely lacking in this regard. It should be noted that the greatest lines on the album are the lines in which Drake pays homage to other great rappers by using some of their famous quotables.

This isn't even to say I don't like the album really because on the first listen or too it sounds great. I think it has it's time and place, albeit that time and place is very limited. But to pretend this is something that is forward-looking that will remain interesting even weeks from now is erroneous. Pitchfork even took the monumental step of comparing the current Drake album to Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear which is beyond hyperbolic.

In the end its not that Drake doesn't come off as genuine, because he does, and it's not that the album is completely terrible because it's not. It simply lacks substance. Other artists have done what Drake attempts to do in Take Care in making a brooding, introspective album focused on the insecurities of the album's creator. The only problem is many others have done it much better.

Wale, The Iraq War, and the Art of Deception

The Iraq War is so old even its protests are dated.

A lot of jokes were made when President Obama announced that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year. The game goes like this. Think of one of your favorite things from the year 2003 and revel in the manic depression that arises when you realize how dated everything else from 2003 has become. The Ipod was fresh and new (without a click wheel) and the Detroit Tigers were busy attempting to avoid being immortalized for baseball ineptitude, Jay-Z released The Black Album as his walk-out music, and T.I. was still rapping about the trap with his album Trap Muzik before he became a mega-star, stopped rapping about the trap, and THEN got locked up twice for guns and drugs. Needless to say, times have changed since 2003 and it's depressing to think one of the more constant presences of my life has been the Iraq War.

While plenty of things have come, gone, and been completely forgotten in the time it took America to fight the Iraq War, some things have just changed shape, and one of the perfect examples of this in hip-hop is the transformation of Wale from a hyped member of XXL's Freshman Class in 2009 to a disappointing debut album to a member of the Maybach Music Group.

In 2007, Wale released The Mixtape About Nothing and to this day it's one of my favorite mixtapes. Everything about it made Wale stand out. It was lyrical while avoiding the pitfall of appearing to try to hard and it was conscious but in a way that was truly genuine and creative. I still believe 'The Kramer' is a masterpiece that many rappers would be hard pressed to match. In essence, I thought Wale was J. Cole before J. Cole.

Wale "Nike Boots" video (Directed by Chris Robinson) from Elitaste on Vimeo.

On 'The Roc Boys Freestyle' Wale showed off all of his capabilities and rapped about everything under the sun, but for the purposes of this topic one line always stood out.

And they never going to leave like the troops in Iraq.

Burying a line speaking out against the Iraq War is nothing particularly special in hip-hop for this time period. Even Jay-Z was questioning it as early as 2003 in 'Beware of the Boys'. But the stretch of tracks on Mixtape About Nothing that spans from 'The Freestyle' to 'The Kramer' perfectly encapsulated why I was sure Wale was destined to be one of my favorite rappers of the next decade.

But when you're wrong you're wrong. Attention Deficit, all label missteps aside, was a disappointment. It wasn't 28,000 sold in the first week terrible, but let's just say I hadn't given it much of a listen outside of the week it was released until I wrote this.

Many, myself included, thought Wale would drift into obscurity. More About Nothing failed to recapture the exuberance and freshness of its predecessor, and Wale sounded more intent on telling everyone they were failing to recognize his talent than actually displaying that talent that everyone knew was there. And in comes Rick Ross.

If there is anyone who knows something about fabrication, it's Rick Ross. When Wale signed to Maybach Music, it signaled the end of the Wale that many of his early fans were interested in and ushered in a Bawse'd version. This version has become more focused on telling everyone how great he is rather than creating evidence to back that claim.

The title of Wale's new album and it's subsequent content is a perfect description of what kind of rapper he has become. Wale certainly thinks he's fantastic. I know this because he keeps telling me. Like I told George Bush and Dick Cheney, you can't just keep telling me something and expect me to believe it. At some point you have to actually prove what you claim. You're either good at rapping, or you're not. Iraq either has weapons of mass destruction or they don't. Same thing, right?

As is par with course of Wale in the past few years since he joined the self-aggrandizing universe that is the Maybach Music Group, Wale keeps telling everyone how great he is and at times he's right. 'DC Or Nothing' is actually one of my current favorite songs. The line: 'Seen it over a dollar/Got him under a flower' is a gem. And its no coincidence that the strongest song on the album is a song where Wale turns the lens away from himself and points it outward. What was great about Wale was that his personality was strong enough that he didn't need to be the focus of his music to give it a stamp that was unquestionably his. This certainly isn't the rapper I saw in 2007 at The Shelter in Detroit who made a joke about how all the light-skinned girls were at another venue for a Drake performance nearby.

It's clear that Wale still has the potential to be great and to be fair on Mixtape About Nothing, he was cocky. But he was also bent on proving why he was cocky. Today, Wale seems more bitter that with Attention Deficit he took a shot and missed. In many ways he's still trying to escape that failure and his attempt to completely reinvent himself with Ambition proves just that.

But at least now we know a hip-hop career can rise, fall, reinvent itself, and rise again in the course of half the time it takes to fight an unpopular war with false justification.

A$AP, The Three Million Dollar Man

Remember when Drake released So Far Gone? If you don't what are you reading for? Whether you do or don't it was considered groundbreaking at the time because here comes this guy from Toronto who used to be on Degrassi (DEGRASSI!), who released So Far Gone as his third official mixtape which managed 2,000 downloads in 2 hours and two legitimate hit singles while somehow managing to be something sonically unique in a hip-hop scene that has been decried for becoming far too formulaic. Not to mention this was free. What resulted was what Billboard called 'a massive bidding war' that resulted in Drake getting a $2 Million advance. No one had seen anything like it in a long time, if ever.

Enter A$AP Rocky, who has become one of the most discussed figures in hip-hop in the matter of two weeks thanks to this revelation. A Three Million Dollar Record Deal and unlike Drake, he hadn't released a mixtape (although he has now, which I'll get to soon) and he isn't exactly groomed for success as Drake was, who is listed as an 'entertainer' (because let's be honest he's not truly a rapper) on his wikipedia page. Three Million with no mixtape and videos like the one below? Now THAT'S unheard of.

People have tried comparing A$AP Rocky to Tyler the Creator and I can see the comparison. Both are very young, seem very outrageous, and have a tight knit clique that provides fantastic production. But I think the comparisons stop there. Tyler the Creator seems to live in the vacuum of his own world, where as A$AP Rocky wears his many influences on his sleeve. At times, its easy to think you're listening to a Houston rapper with the ubiquitous to syrup and slow, drawn out beats. But then the next verse he raps with the sped up flow trademarked by Cleveland's Bone Thugs N Harmony. And you can't forget the omnipresent Harlem cockiness that pervades every syllable.

But right now, it's that last influence that's going to be the most important. To take on the expectations of a $3 Million record deal and deliver isn't easy (although it may be one of those good problems) and with his mixtape released this week, LiveLoveA$AP, he's off to a good start.

The Life And Death Of 'Lasers'

If you've been any sort of a self-respecting hip-hop fan, you couldn't help but follow the drama that was Lupe Fiasco versus Atlantic. For three years Lupe Fiasco and his fans waited for his third release, Lasers, with numerous reports of Atlantic shelving the album leading to dedicated Lupe fans (of which there are many) to protest outside of Atlantic. Drama indeed.

And all that drama ended when Atlantic finally released Lasers. There was just one problem, and that was maybe Atlantic was right. The album has been widely panned and rightly so. Aside from a few decent efforts, most of the album is incredibly frustrating. 'Out Of My Head' and 'State Run Radio' are songs I waited three years for? Even the better songs, such as 'Coming Up', leave something to be desired. Specifically with 'Coming Up', think of Tupac's 'Keep Ya Head Up' with a club-centric focus. Bummer.

But all is not lost! Since the release of this abomination of an album, Lupe has bemoaned the process of this album himself, claiming all the squabbling with Atlantic (he was told to not rap too deep on the album's single) left him less than fully invested in the project. For most hip-hop fans, this album was dead upon first listen.

And while Lupe and many of his fans may be less than satisfied with his project, there are clearly others that this album is reaching. The album has officially became Lupe's more commercially successful, blowing away his previous two efforts, both critically acclaimed. And it's fairly easy to see how this came about. Lupe has often been criticized for being inaccessible, a hip-hop intellectual of sorts. But this album is more characterized by pop beats and vapid rhymes. I guess Lupe followed his own advice.

But we all knew complex rhyming didn't sell. Atlantic knew it too. And while the fact remains that major record labels continue to mess up great hip-hop, Atlantic may have managed to expand Lupe's audience after all and turned out a successful hit of an album.

But that still leaves the rest of us asking what about that other Lupe? What about the the one that released this song or this song or this song? Or even what about the Lupe that released the rather awesome 'I'm Beaming' and 'Shining Down'? All of these songs would have been the best track on Lasers!

Oh wait, here he is.

Lupe Fiasco, Pharrell Williams, Travis Barker - If You Want To

It turns out, Lupe fans should have no fear. He's been releasing music and a pretty steady pace and is even rumored to have already finished his next album, Food and Liquor 2, which may even see a 2011 release. Just hope Atlantic doesn't get their hands on it first.

Goin' In For The Kill

Every once in a while, a song comes along that seems to be created to be sampled to death by hip-hop artists. I'm not talking about a drum sample that has been cut out of James Brown's 'Funky Drummer' or The Honeydripper's 'Impeach the President' as those are part of an era of hip-hop in which the samples were free. But now, samples cost money, and no one is going to pay for a James Brown drum beat that could instead be duplicated.

Instead, samples are often used as a way to replace a chorus (Nas' 'Get Down') or to make the song recognizable to a sought after demographic (Lupe Fiasco 'Show Goes On'). The latest sample to be passed around is from La Roux's 'In For The Kill'.




It's pretty easy to see how the chorus of this song is easily translatable to hip-hop. One could take it literally and use it as a chorus for a gangster rap anthem or one could use it to set the tone for a song focused on lyrical braggadocio. And it has been used in all of these ways. The Game used it as a potential single for his upcoming album, Swollen Members made a video, even Jim Jones got in on it. The list goes on and on. But by far my favorite has been the gangster rap rendition from Chicago's L.E.P. Bogus Boyz, and it has this awesome video to match.

Old English D

Detroit has been getting all kinds of shine in different ways these days. It makes sense after all, America loves the underdog, and there is no city that more represents the underdog (not exactly by choice) than Detroit. Home of American organized labor, Motown, the greatest baseball team known to human kind. The arsenal of democracy! What's not to love! Of course, there are the underlying racial tensions that continue to dominate an outsiders perception of the Motor City, not to mention the politics of the city itself, but to say that's not typical of modern America as well would be erroneous.

The most ubiquitous view of Detroit recently has been the recent Chrysler ad that debuted during that Super Bowl that I didn't watch. Without a doubt, the commercial is awesome. Nothing says grizzled like a commercial filmed in the Detroit winter (ask anyone). Sadly, it doesn't address many of the issues facing the industrial metropolis in the 21st century, most notably outsourcing, which Chrysler is no stranger to. Post-industrial life is rough in the Motor City, but at least this commercial is awesome (sarcasm unintended).



But Detroit's shine does not stop there! After all, a big commercial spot during the Super Bowl can hardly represent a city as unglamorous as Detroit. A more accurate representative is the up and coming rapper Danny Brown whose penchant for out of control rhyming and widely varying subject matter have made him one of the top young rappers to watch in the upcoming young year.

And he represents Detroit almost too well, often rapping about the ugliest parts of urban decay. In fact, it's hard to listen to his critically-acclaimed The Hybrid and not get a little depressed. But so is life in the D, and he represents it well when he raps on the song 'White Stripes' :

Roll deep like the roaches in my kitchen
Dawg I ain't trippin'
But they never gone
They don't even run when I cut the lights on

While much of The Hybrid shines light on Detroit, what has bee on constant rotation lately as a start to get ready for my return to Motor City is Danny Brown's 'New Era'. Assuredly, 'Black and Yellow' this is not. And in the many Detroit anthems that have come out of the most 'underestimated plus underrated city in this hip-hop game', none are as catchy as Wiz Khalifa's smash. But they shouldn't be. Undoubtedly, this is a song that can only be truly enjoyed by Detroiters. And this is Detroit's charm, and why Chrysler's ad claims 'Imported from Detroit'. Detroit, whether it's for better or worse, has become one of the most unique cities this country has ever seen. And while it would certainly be nice to revel in the big city feel of a more traditional metropolis, artists like Danny Brown makes one revel in that uniqueness, even if that uniqueness is slightly depressing.

Danny Brown - New Era

A Pair Of Air Jordans...

And a muthafuckin' attidue. So spits Freddie Gibbs on the recently released song titled 'In' which he shares with Blu and Homeboy Sandman. And while Homeboy Sandman's finishing verse leaves a little to be desired, the smooth, heavy bass and the rhymes of Blu and flow of Freddie Gibbs is enough to keep this song on heavy rotation. Gibbs verse utilizes hip-hop realist language at it's best. The line 'A pair of Air Jordans and a muthafuckin' attitude...' is an impeccable opening line and one that I wish more represented my daily existence. Instead it's more a pair of Air Jordan's and a sunny disposition. Regardless, Freddie Gibbs flow on this song is enough to make even the meekest feel tough.

Blu, Freddie Gibbs, Homebody Sandman - In

The Hip-Hop Generation and the Politics of Disconnect

My first (and more than likely only) Utah Christmas has come and gone. What does this have to do with hip-hop you say. Ah, only everything. One of gifts this year was Jay-Z's new memoir titled 'Decoded', which purports to break down the story behind the songs. I was a little skeptical at first, but the book is very insightful (whether he wrote it or not) and the layout is real nice. But I digress.

A major theme of the book is the role hip-hop has played in defining this generation of African-American males and just how terrifying that definition is to most of America. Jay quotes a famous Biggie line that concisely displays this them:

Look at our parents, they even fuckin' scared of us...

Jay-Z's life is undoubtedly worthy of a memoir. The story of the rise of a young black man from the Marcy projects to being in Forbes magazine is enough, and really Jay-Z's entire career has been centered on telling that story from start to finish. But what has always made Jay-Z's music special is that his story is incredibly normal despite it's exaggerated nature. While he may tell it eloquently, the theme has always been the struggles of what has come to be known as the hip-hop generation

But even the label of hip-hop generation is misleading, for the message of the hip-hop generation is omnipresent, but it is one white America is often hesitant to confront. Go to any urban center and you will see the same problems. You will see the dilapidated public schools, corrupt local governments, police brutalizing, and the ever-increasing amount of young black people being put into the prison system. Despite this, there seems to be a consensus from white America: we have done enough.

It is no secret that America's discussion of race has stalled. And what this has led to is a view of African-Americans that is still defined by a homogenization of stereotypes. This can be said for hip-hop as well, and it is something that Jay-Z indirectly addresses throughout his memoir. He often complains that there is much more to his music than many have given him credit for, and this is a statement that applies on a much broader scale. In his book Decoded he writes:

To tell the story of the kid with the gun without telling the story of why he has it is to tell a kind of lie. To tell the story of the pain without telling the story of the rewards is...a different kind of evasion. To talk about killing niggas dead without talking about waking up int he middle of the night from a dream about the friend you watched die, or not getting to sleep in the first place because you're so paranoid from the work you're doing, is a lie so deep it's criminal.


Jay-Z tells the story of the hip-hop generation with this statement: there are more complexities existing within the hip-hop generation than many care to admit. And this gets to a much deeper point. Not only do many not want to examine these complexities and lend a critical thought to what it means to be black in America in the present day, but there still exists a deep, visceral fear of African-Americans that many refuse to confront.

And this applies very much to my rather liberal Utah community. There seems to be a notion that most will vote for a black president and espouse liberal ideals, but for most people's comfort levels concerning race ends. Jay-Z once wrote on The Black Album that he had '...demons deep inside that would raise when confronted'. This is an incredibly telling statement for the hip-hop generation. And while Jay-Z has made a career from speaking for the hip-hop generation, is a message that still hasn't been heard by most.

#1: Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

For this selection, there was no doubt. Kanye West may have created not only the best hip-hop album this year, but the best album period. As the release date for this album approached, people were expecting big things. Kanye was on a roll with his G.O.O.D. Friday series and even went to the lengths of creating a short-film to promote the album. We all knew that RZA, Pete Rock, Pusha, No I.D., and Q-Tip were hanging out with Kanye in Hawaii as he was putting the finishes touches on the album, and we all struggled to predict what would be the result of an album they all said was incredible. But even with all these factors that pointed towards My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy being all sorts of fantastic, I don't think anyone expected anything like this.

What Kanye has created with his latest album may very well be his masterpiece; his album that helps redefine what rap music is, and this is due to multiple factors. As with every Kanye album, the production is unparalleled. From the triumphant 'All of the Lights' to the more understated 'Blame Game' and 'Runaway', Kanye seems to be able to combine where hip-hop has been to where hip-hop should go. But one of the most common knocks against Kanye is that his rapping skills would keep him from creating that era defining album. And then he created 'Gorgeous', a song that may be the lyrical song of the year:

I was lookin' at my resume
Feelin' real fresh today
They rewrite history I don't believe in yesterday
And what's a black beetle anyway? A fucking roach?
I guess that's why they got me sittin' in fuckin' coach

But this album is more than just the epic beats and Kanye's best rhymes to date. This album is something only Kanye West could have created. From the moments of unrelenting bravado on 'Power' to the self-deprecating moments on 'Runaway', the album shows the power hip-hop (an all music) can have when raw emotion is channeled through a talented vessel.

Almost a decade ago, Jay-Z created the now legendary Blueprint and it's supposed theme was that it would be what all hip-hop artists would try to emulate going forward. People did try to emulate it, but what made it so special is that no one truly could recreate it. When listening to Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, this realization comes back even stronger. It's easy to see that this album, hyperbole aside, will be the benchmark for the coming decade. It is, in essence, the next decades blueprint. But it's also easy to see that it will be a blueprint that all will fall hopelessly short of, perhaps even the creator himself. This is a testament to the completely uncompromising work Kanye West has created, and it certainly is not only the best album of this past year, but an album many will be trying to catch up to for years to come.

#2: Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

In many ways, Big Boi's long delayed album Sir Lucious Left Foot represents the state of modern hip-hop in it's current retrofuturism movement as it is attempted to be molded by the record label forces that be. Big Boi's album had become as famous as Dr. Dre's Detox for it's seemingly never ending delays. But while listening to this album there is one question that pops into one's mind: Who in there right mind would delay the release of this album?




Big Boi has often been thought of as the other guy in Outkast, and when many heard that his solo album was finally going to see the light of day, many were skeptical. It was possible to think of Andre without Big Boi but impossible to think of Big Boi without Andre. It's now fair to say that there is no 'other member' in Outkast as Big Boi has proven that he was more than a passenger in creating Outkast's funked out southern beats that have come to define the Atlanta duo. That same sound that defined Outkast is in full force on Sir Lucious Left Foot.

However, to say this album was just a throwback to the Outkast days would be missing the other half of it's greatness. On songs like 'Follow Us', Big Boi succeeds where many have failed in creating a hip-hop song crossed with a dash of indie rock as Vonnegut makes a guest appearance. But the theme of this album is there is always more, and while the unbelievable sound of this album is enough to wow the listener, the lyrics are what elevate it to the next level.

Big Boi celebrates the past while reminding us all that he is still one of the best rappers in the present. He plays the part of street connoisseur, conscious rapper, disgruntled veteran, and the sweet talker. What it all combines to make is one of the most refreshing albums in hip-hop. It is neither revolutionary nor formulaic. It has the songs that are clearly meant for mainstream play (like Shutterbug and Tangerine), but they still have a certain twist that Big Boi throws in to make them a little more unique, whether it's the thumping bass on Tangerine or the funked out Shutterbug. It's just one of the best albums of the year, choke full of great songs from start to finish, that never seems to get boring to listen to. And all from one of the most unappreciated artist in hip-hop.

Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

#3: Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer

Ok, I know, it's not a hip-hop album. But Cee-Lo is perhaps the greatest dual threat when it comes to singing and rapping. From his days with the legendary Goodie Mobb to his more recent works as the singing member of Gnarls Barkley, it's fair to say that Cee Lo's talents are diverse. And for that reason, coupled with the fact that Cee Lo's newest solo album titled The Lady Killer is irresistibly great, Cee Lo finds himself on this list.




Of course, when most people think of Cee Lo these days they think of the smash 'Fuck You' which is most definitely one of my favorite songs of 2010. But Cee-Lo's album is so much more than the one hit. Cee-Lo's gift, whether he is rapping or singing, has always been his soulful voice and it is on full display here as he creates an album that immediately transports the listener to the time of Motown and soul.

In an interview conducted in the midst of the the 'Fuck You' madness that swept across the country, Cee Lo said that the song was about the music industry, and on closer examination this makes perfect sense. The music industry has been notorious for it's mishandling of a talent such as Cee-Lo. And you have to wonder if 'Fuck You' wasn't a demand by the label in order to have an easily marketable single.Of course, in true Cee-Lo style, 'Fuck You' is not your normal single. It's still musically glorious and, of course, has the profane chorus that is undoubtedly directed at the music industry. But despite the enigma that is Cee-Lo, he has managed to create what is not only one of the most unique albums of this year, but one of the albums that is simply the most fun to listen to. And, for once, people are finally realizing his talents.

#4: The Roots - How I Got Over

The Roots have become hip-hop's consummate professionals. Evidence of this fact can be found on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, but it has more to do with the remarkable consistency of The Roots without the benefit of a true smash hit or what one would define as a typical classic album. Still, The Roots not only perform one of the best live shows in hip-hop, but they are also able to put out a new album every so often that sounds like it's just a little bit further ahead than everything else everyone is trying, and that is certainly the feeling that their latest album, How I Got Over, presents.

The album features the same unbelievable production that seems to be formulaic for The Roots, but would be revolutionary for everyone else. It also features the rhymes of Black Thought, one of the most underrated rappers of this era. But the Roots also branch out slightly on this album, calling on the services of the Monsters of Folk and Joanna Newsome.




With all of the indie rock guest appearances and the late night show, it's easy to think The Roots have gotten complacent. That their music has perhaps become a little too business. However, on multiple listens to How I Got Over this thought is easily dispelled. For most other groups, The Roots subject matter would immediately earn them the label of conscious rap. The Roots, for the most part, escape this categorization. This is mainly because The Roots have created their own lane in rap, and there is no other musician (or group of musicians) to even compare them to. In an age where flash is one of the several defining themes, The Roots still manage to make great music and people still manage to depreciate it.






The Roots - How I Got Over

#5: Big K.R.I.T. - K.R.I.T. Wuz Here

Hip-hop is motivational music. It's hard to listen to legends such as Rakim and Jay-Z and think that you are doing enough with your life. This makes sense when one studies hip-hop and realizes that one of the defining themes in the genres history is making something out of nothing. This is why hip-hop was birthed out of the concrete jungle of the South Bronx with little other than a crate full of old disco and soul records and a speaker system.

However, with the multi-billion dollar industry that it has grown into it's tough to recognize those roots sometimes. With artists like Kanye making a short-film to help promote his own album, it's fair to say hip-hop is no longer an underground genre. However, the modern music industry presents complications. With record companies completely unwilling to take risks in an era of depleted record sales, many artists are left to fend from themselves. And where most artists flounder under such weight, Big K.R.I.T. rises with one of the best, and certainly the most motivational, hip-hop album of 2010.





In an era of hip-hop consumerism, Big K.R.I.T. stands out as an artist on his own. Complaining on the song 'Viktorious', "I'm making my own beats what the fuck!" this album displays the thoughts, ambitions, and frustrations of a young artist with the music industry that he desperately needs to break into. Even the title suggest a person anxious to leave their mark on the world whether others want him to or not. And even though he had to write insightful lyrics, produce his own beats, and ultimately distribute his own album, it's fair to say that mark has been made.

Days after his K.R.I.T. Wuz Here was released, labels came knocking at his door. They will undoubtedly be looking for the next 'Country Shit' or the next 'Children of the World', but what is on full display in the career of Big K.R.I.T. is the embodiment of hip-hop traditionalism. He is an artist that no label expected anything from, and while that is a shame and it shows the continued dysfunctional relationship between hip-hop artists and hip-hop labels, it have been for the best. In an era of hip-hop consumerism, Big K.R.I.T. was forced to return to the hip-hop tradition of making your voice heard by any means necessary and with it created one of the most unexpected hits of this year.

Big K.R.I.T. - K.R.I.T. Wuz Here

#6: Shad - TSOL

Hip-hop, like any genre, is subject to classification. Hip-hop fans obsess over categorizing what is real hip-hop and what isn't, whether something is conscious rap, cocaine rap, gangster rap or any of the other countless subgenres. This practice is hardly unique to music, it can be found in studies of literature to cinema. But every once in a while their comes along a musician, artist, or author that seems to defy classification. They seem to defy everything their genre portrays and stand out from the lineage of progression along which most others can be found.

This is certainly the case when listening to Shad's TSOL. Make no mistake, the album features your traditional hip-hop beats and it's focus is still the clever wordplay that has been the focal point of hip-hop for over two decades. But none the less something about Shad seems different. Perhaps it's that he's from London, Ontario (which is perhaps the least likely hip-hop setting of all time) but Shad seems to be outside of the hip-hop tradition yet steeped in it at the same time.

A fine example of this can be found on the song 'Keep Shining' which decries the absence of woman in hip-hop in what is the most appropriate example of self-reflection any hip-hop artist has displayed on the subject in a while. And in reality, the song not only applies to hip-hop but to American society in general. Shad pin-points a fact that few can grasp in a mere three minutes: equality has less to do with a shallow mirage of acceptance and more to do with a deep understanding of the other and this can only be gained through letting others do and speak for themselves. This lyric can truly be transformed to almost every aspect of American society:

I talk to women I just can't talk for women, that's for you
We need women for that, more women in rap


Shad will undoubtedly be labeled a 'conscious rapper', and this is truly a shame. Not only is his wordplay some of the cleverest I have heard all year, but to pigeonhole an artist like this is a mistake. Shad is so unique it's tough to make sense of him. He raps about typical conscious rap subjects but does so in his own creative way that still focuses on creative writing as well as important subject matter. He's a Kenyan born Canadian bred rapper working on his Masters in Liberal Studies. He's an artist too unique for specific categorization and that's what makes this album so uniquely great.





Shad - TSOL

#7: Freeway & Jake One - The Stimulus Package

Sometimes the familiar is best. In a new age of hip-hop where ringtones can make a rapper it's comforting, and in some ways precocious, to go back to what made hip-hop what it is. This is not to say that modern hip-hop is dead, as so many like to say, and I hope this list proves at least that. But for every album like Black Milk's Album of the Year, which strains the limits of what we thought hip-hop could do, it's important to have an album that falls back on hip-hop's traditions, a meat and potatoes album if you will.

In this age of hip-hop futurism, Freeway and Jake One have delivered that classic hip-hop meat and potato album that is full of all the genre's staples. Freeway's tough talk rhymes are laid perfectly against Jake One's head nodding beats full of soul samples. And if you had any doubt of what this album was going to sound like, Freeway and Jake One clear all doubts with the opener, 'Throw Your Hands Up', which just has a sound that seems to perfectly describe what a pure hip-hop should be.

And while the formula may seem simple, Freeway and Jake One prove that less can mean more. With the passing of Guru of Gang Starr it's becoming increasingly clear that the close relationship between rapper and producer is disappearing. Very rarely is an entire album produced by one person as artists increasingly focus on appealing to a wide audience and hire different producers to create the soundscape they desire. But it becomes clear that with Jake One producing the entirety of The Stimulus Package that the producer-rapper relationship is still incredibly important.




But this album is about more than simply trying to recapture the golden era of hip-hop. Upon one listen of this album, it's clear that it's not incredibly marketable. It wasn't going to get a whole lot of publicity and it wasn't going to garner much financial success. But Freeway lays out the purpose of the album later in the album when he raps:

I am not going to hate on the state of hip-hop
In fact, all I'm here to do is give you real rap

While a simple line, this type of work is becoming a scarce commodity. In an age when far too many rappers are trying to grab a piece of the seemingly boundless hip-hop market, Freeway and Jake One deliver something that many people are forgetting: real rap.

#8: Reflection Eternal - RPM

It's no secret that hip-hop receives it's fair share of criticism, and sometimes rightfully so. But one of the criticisms that I have always felt has been completely ungrounded is the argument that hip-hop is far too nihilistic; far too angry. The argument typically goes that a certain old person heard some random rap song on the radio (which usually isn't the best barometer for what most fans of the genre would consider truly good hip-hop music) and were disgusted by how angry it sounded, how in your face it was, and how it lacked any constructive message like all that great music that was released when that person was growing up in the 1960's.

It takes little immersion in the hip-hop genre to realize how ridiculous the argument that rap is hopelessly vapid is and the latest album for Reflection Eternal, comprised of Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek, sheds light on the absurdity. Rap excels at being the modern realist poetry and truly great rappers are able to rhyme about something many people are feeling but in incredibly complex and nuanced patterns. This is precisely what Talib Kweli does on the song 'Ballad of the Black Gold':





There is no other genre that could possibly display the far-reaching consequences of our societies addiction to fossil fuels in such a nuanced way as when Talib Kweli pens:


Loyalty to petroleum royalty spoiled the economy
We won't get it poppin' till we oil free
If you're oil rich then we invadin'
They call it occupation but we losin' jobs across the nation


But perhaps it isn't that hip-hop is as nihilistic as it has been portrayed. Maybe it's just proudly declaring a message that most of America doesn't want to hear. But in this fact lies hip-hop's greatest strength. At it's best, it is almost viciously unapologetic, holding up a world that most would rather ignore. When one listens to an album like RPM they can't help but notice that most hip-hop is not vapid at all, but instead irresistibly engaging.

"STRANGERS" TALIB KWELI & Hi-Tek feat. BUN B from Reset Pictures on Vimeo.

Reflection Eternal - RPM

#9: Nas & Damian Marley-Distant Relatives

Collaboration albums always seem to come out a disappointment. This may be the result of the initial collective fan freakout that inevitably follows when it is discovered that successful artist X is pairing with successful artist Y for a full length album and the resultant let down when all realize it's not an instant classic that will redefine rap. Too often concerning hip-hop collaborative albums, the whole is not greater than the sum of it's parts, but less than. Sorry Aristotle.

While collaboration albums always seem like a great idea in theory, they have proven to be incredibly difficult to numerous pairings in reality. This may be because it's difficult enough to create a coherent full length album as an individual, but once another artist with entirely different artistic visions enters the fray the album becomes disjuncted. Or it may be because collaboration requires just that, full collaboration, and without that close artistic relationship the album is doomed to mediocrity.

With all the potential pitfalls, it was understandable that when Nas and Damian Marley announced they were uniting forces for a full length album titled Distant Relatives the fan reaction was split between skeptical and anxiously anticipatory. After all, collaborations are tough enough, but uniting two artists from two different genres seemed like a daunting task. Leading up to the release it seemed fair to ask if this would be a hip-hop album, a reggae album, or both. And if both, could the two artists make it work?

However, where other collaborations fail, Distant Relatives excels as both artists feel at home at all points on the album and neither feels like they are being pulled in a certain direction. This may be due to the focused topic of the album. Most collaborations lack any unified feel and the listener leaves feeling that the two artists just went into the booth to showcase their individual talents and see what happens. This is not the case on Distant Relatives. Both Nas and Damian Marley have become famous for their ghetto stories and becoming a voice for the voiceless. In this sense, the uniting of these two artists makes perfect sense and provides the strength that brings their album onto this list. As is usually the case, Nas' lyrical verbosity is on full display throughout the album and he gives a very apt description for the entire hip-hop generation in a mere two lines when he raps on the song 'My Generation':

Can you blame a generation subject to gentrification
Depicting their frustrations over ill instrumentations

This theme of being the voice for the hip-hop nation is what makes this work so ambitious and so powerful. It goes beyond speaking simply for those in American ghettos all across the country and acknowledges the fact that all of the problems that have created our American ghettos and the racial underclass exists around the world. For over a decade now, hip-hop has been a global genre celebrated and loved around the world. This album, with two seemingly very different artists, creates a sound that may be defined as global hip-hop, and without the collaborative effort I doubt the message would have been so powerful.





Nas and Damian Marley - Distant Relatives

#10: Black Milk-Album of the Year

While Black Milk's ambitiously titled album may have fallen a little short of it's namesake, it is still one of the most forward pushing albums of the year. Known for his producing more so than his rapping, Black Milk attempts to push hip-hop in a burgeoning new direction away from prototypical hip-hop beats and into something that more closely resembles a cross between soul/jazz/funk/rock/whatever else you may think of. With most hip-hop albums one listens too, it's tough to conceptualize how it would play in a live performance. However, hip-hop has grown and with it the expectations for live hip-hop has grown as well and fans are starting to require unique experiences that go past a DJ in the background waving a towel around and shouting into a microphone every fifth word to pass as musical accompaniment.

And in this sense of expanding what live hip-hop is capable of, Black Milk excels. With several big acts now touring regularly with a live band, Black Milk reaches even further and creates an album that begs for a live performance. This is the case for songs such as Keep Going and Gospel Psychedelic Rock as on the former Black Milk creates a beat that seemingly only he could create and on the latter creates a beat that is oozing with Detroit's musical heritage.

However, the album is not without it's missteps. At times, it feels Black Milk is reaching too far artistically to pioneer that brand new sound that hip-hop and it's fans are constantly searching for. But it's hard to truly be upset by the missteps. Black Milk has constantly prided himself on progressing hip-hop, particularly as a producer, and when trying something that has rarely been tried there are sure to be missteps. But overall he produces a work that few else could or would even dare to try, and even though I may be showing a slight hometown bias, I believe he deserves the credit.

Top 10 Hip Hop Albums of 2010

The year is indeed winding to an end and with that ends another year of music that has been quite amazing. While T.I. and Weezy have both seen the extended jail time that will occasionally become intertwined in the career of your favorite rapper, hip-hop is also witnessing the rise of it's next generation with stars such as Drake, and depending on who you ask, this may be the next death of hip-hop.

Whether you have love for the new stars that are emerging or not, hip-hop is strangely becoming a genre that revels in it's albeit rather recent antiquity while still striving forward, and this makes the current of era of hip-hop quite interesting. Hip-hop has always been a genre defiant of the ever-present 'establishment', but it is increasingly becoming a genre divided against itself. This may be a result of the now well-documented transition of rap from a grassroots to a commercialized genre or it may simply be a generational difference. A new generation of hip-hop fans are coming of age, and to these fans hip-hop's golden age is nothing but ancient history.

However, for every movement there is a counter-movement and as the new generation of fans have flocked to the likes of Drake and the rest of the Young Money roster, it has forced other artists not just back to the booth to attempt to redefine the greatness that was exhibited in the Golden Era of hip-hop, but also to push the genre forward. So here hip-hop stands, a genre defiant against itself, grasping at it's past while pushing itself towards the future. And I believe many of the albums I will come to describe do that incredibly well.

But before I go any further, let me stress that while I may view this as a top list, it is just that MY top list. I went by nothing other than my pure enjoyment and paid absolutely no mind to record sales, 'hotness', or whatever else you may think of that might cause disagreement.

Before I get into this sure to be epic list that I'm sure will come to define hip-hop music in the year 2010, here are some of my favorite tracks/videos/mixtapes that simply can't be ignored.





Sweet Jesus. I know Rick Ross is a huge phony. I know that the whole persona this song is based on is fabricated and I've never really been able to fully get into his music because of it. But, once again, Sweet Jesus. The best way to describe this song: HUGE.





Another enormously popular song from this past year, and for this one I can't for the life of my figure out why I love it so much. I am, admittedly, susceptible to a nice city anthem (Whatup Pittsburgh!) and the question of whether I have or have not been to that city is completely irrelevant. Or maybe it's the infectious hook and celebratory beat. Or maybe it's just that Wiz Khalifa sounds so excited about having a huge year and this sound oozes with excitement. Whatever it is, I haven't been able to tear away and haven't really wanted to. As previously mentioned, it was part of a big year for Wiz as his Kush and Orange Juice mixtape also got heavy play.





If there is one fear I have that is totally lacking in an experience, it is rural poverty. That statement is even truer concerning rural poverty in the south. It's a terrifying world that seems completely foreign. The sense of nihilism that Yelawolf portrays in 'Pop The Trunk' does nothing to alleviate these fears but rather exacerbates them.

Speaking of hip-hop trying to get back to it's roots while still striving forward, the Cool Kids manged to get away from their seemingly unceasing label drama to release one incredibly solid mixtape titled 'Tacklebox'. Chuck English really comes into his own as a producer on this.




Speaking of label troubles, it's a real same that this song wasn't on one of the albums that is one of the ten best albums of the past year because it was one of the best of 2010. Hip-hop versus hip-hop labels are one of those never ending conflicts.

Andre 3000 and Big Boi- Lookin' For Ya