That's My Dad.

Top 50 Songs of 2012: #44, Battles - White Electric (Shabazz Palaces Remix)

Reaganomics, Bushonomics, Obamanomics.

We didn’t get much of hip-hop experimentalists Shabazz Palaces this year, after their mind-bending 2011 debut LP: “Black Up”. Alas, they blessed us with their presence early this year on the Battles remix compilation “Dross Glop” with their most psychedelic entry to date: a hip-hop rendition of “White Electric”. The bass is out to drown your ears in bouncy lows, the vocals are slathered with an electric reverb and Shabazz’s Ishmael Butler spits some of catchier abstract verses to date. 

(Source: Spotify)

Nas - Illmatic

Show us your pain and everything else will fall into place.

While it certainly shames me to admit that I’m listening to Nas for the first time now in my life, it being as old as I am, “Illmatic” undoubtedly stands up strong as one of the most innovative, defining records of all time for its unbeatable authenticity, progressive existentialist concern and gutsy focus of substance-over-style and less-is-more artistic virtues. (9/10) 

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Run-DMC - Raising Hell

26 years after it’s release, “Raising Hell” is a defiant reality check to us now and how complicated our consumption and ideas of entertainment have progressed into. Hip-hop pioneers Run-DMC undoubtedly achieved the trifecta in ’80s hip-hop with B-boy styled musicianship along with crafting some of the most defiant singles like “Walk This Way” and title track “Raising Hell”; but what struck deepest to a first-time listener in a post-modern music world came in how unbeatably simple every single aspect of their craft played out. I guess that’s why nobody tells rappers that ‘less is more’ anymore, because Run-DMC were the three dukes of that castle. (9/10) 

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Schoolboy Q - Habits & Contradictions

Equally styled (or swagged) out, broodingly dark and particularly paranoid, Black Hippy member Schoolboy Q comes to his 2012 release, “Habits & Contradictions”, with the laundry list of swag-rap components fully checked off and delivered with a discerning dose of eccentricity; consisting of material that’d make folk like A$AP Rocky sound mundane, provides Schoolboy Q to be an unusually appealing listen. (7/10) 

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Ab-Soul - Control System

It may initially come off heavy-handed to snippy hip-hop listeners, but Black Hippy (east coast super-group of west coast rappers feat. Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar) member Ab-Soul performs on high gear through his multi-dimensional cerebral manifesto: “Control System”. Much like his fellow Black Hippies Lamar and Schoolboy, Ab-Soul’s “Control System” makes for engaging, introspective hip-hop packed with wide-ranged style and subject matter, detailed production and profoundly unique personality. (8/10)

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Billy Woods - History Will Absolve Me

Eight years after his last album, old-school rapper Billy Woods returns with his ferocious, thunder-bolt of an album: “History Will Absolve Me”. Now, in a new-school era, independent hip-hop have continually toned back the grit to a trivial embellishment. But much like Death Grips’ “The Money Store” though, “History Will Absolve Me” is a tremendous slap in the face to a genre that fell asleep way past its alarm clock, alerting its senses with urgent and tense material. As a full-fledged work of abstract hardcore hip-hop spanning eighteen songs, Billy Woods is out with no mercy and “History Will Absolve Me” is his aberrant, massive criticism of postmodern hip-hop culture. (8/10)

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Pepe Deluxe - Queen of the Wave

While it suffers of having the repeat value of an episode of a shitty soap opera, Pepe Deluxe’s Queen of the Wave earns full marks as a bombastic psychedelic baroque pop opera gone absolutely fucking nuts. If melismatic, esoteric or eclectic music is your style; put away those prog-rock records and meet your new best friend. (9/10)

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THEESatisfaction - awE naturalE

Like Shabazz Palaces was to hip-hop, THEESatisfaction is an experimental R&B group that offers the same verve and innovation to their genre. Hell, the two groups have more ties together than you’d think. THEESatisfaction featured on Shabazz’s 2011 LP “Black Up” and Shabazz is found on this album too. So think of “awE naturalE” as a sequel to “Black Up” in a slightly different genre, a different set of tools and respective intentions.  a restrained, undeniably peppy and devious serving of neo-soul. From the killer jam, “Queens,” to the brooding “Enchantruss,” if there isn’t a moment on “awE naturalE” that makes you ache for more progressive to happen with R&B, you probably skipped over it. (8/10)

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The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde

The Pharcyde’s 1992 debut release, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, is one the zaniest, free-ranging, most influential old-school hip-hop albums out there that works its magic without breaking a sweat. (8/10)

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A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory

Between all the jazz and hip-hop fusion, the legendary artistic confidence and technical ability, rap legends A Tribe Called Quest were on the top of their game with The Low End Theory; which after countless spins, is considerably the hippest and most influential alternative album of the 90’s. (10/10)

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Death Grips - Ex Military 

Get scared. Get really scared. This is Death Grips.

Death Grips is a California hip-hop group who’ve put themselves out there with minimum information and a lot of underground hype. The disclaimer that goes with this artist is of its over-bearing…loudness. Much like Sleigh Bells or Odd Future, these guys approach a genre with wildness. But where Sleigh Bells translate volume into style and Odd Future mold social commentary out of abrasive attitudes, Death Grips is much more grizzly with their agenda. 

With their debut release, Ex Military, there is a bold proposition both in a philosophical and contemporary context presented. On a first interpretation, Death Grips can feel like a radical group of anarchists at a music festival, waving their violent and freakish flag in a corner whilst the majority walks right by it with no serious regard. But there’s much more relevancy and meaning to what may just seem like a gimmicky ‘shock value’ artist.

The album can be represented, as a whole, through three of its most pivotal tracks. The first, Guillotine (It Goes Yah), is a dense and heavily abstract track that tips the scale back and forth between spoken word and hip-hop. The most prominent feature of the song is its basic yet unforgettable beat that sounds like God stomping its foot on the world and you hearing it thousands of miles away. It’s a viciously dark track that suffocates you with its claustrophobic production and themes of suicide, not to mention, a terrifying music video to boot. The next is Ex Military’s main single: Takyon (Death Yon), a monumental track for the album and Death Grips’ uncontrollable style. It follows closely to Guillotine, yet it packs all the punches you wouldn’t think it dared to. This is seriously as close as hip-hop will get to punk while placing both attitudes on full throttle. Towards the end of Ex Military is where Death Grips averts from the obtuse abstractness and makes sense of their motives more on the track, I Want It I Need It (Death Heated). The song works as a work of prose about our generation’s filthy urges for pleasure; sex, drugs and repeat until you die. It helps to place the entire album in a certain perspective in our minds. 

Ex Military is an album that needs to be talked about. From any possible interpretation made, this is a release that will definitely leave a mark on your psyche; some harder than others. If you’re in need of a defibrillator doused in gasoline charged to your forehead, Death Grips might be your musical match. This is not for the faint of heart, but for anyone else, Ex Military is a seriously urgent piece of art that’ll knock you out cold.   

This album was my dad. (9/10)

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The Roots’s Undun -

“Undun” is the anticipated hip-hop concept album by The Roots about a man’s life played backwards; an artistic interpretation of what a sonic equivalent of a man’s life from death to birth (the hustler’s equivalent to Benjamin Button) sounds like. In its fundaments, “Undun” is admirable for it’s ambitious ideas, technical ability and overall structure. Unfortunately, the album is riddled with flaws: cheesy choruses that break from and weaken great verses, lack of interesting subject matter and an overall sense of conservativeness that make The Roots seem like they have nothing new to challenge (musically or socially) or commentate on, something The Roots are explicitly known for. (7/10)

If anything took 2011’s music scene by storm, it was undeniably Odd Future.

Frank Ocean is OFWGKTA’s emotional relief. Unlike Tyler, the Creator and Earl, Frank Ocean is based on R&B, social commentary, nostalgic homages and tenderness. This is the album if Bastard is too abrasive or unsuitable for your taste.

Nostalgia, Ultra is just perfect. It’s a mix-tape that does everything within its format’s limitations and does it humbly with immense confidence, creativity and talent. Jumping between remixes of classic pop songs (Coldplay’s Strawberry Swing, The Eagles’ Hotel California, MGMT’s Electric Feel, to name a few) and original tracks that feel fueled by past generation’s creations all while creating something very brand new entirely.

What sets Nostalgia, Ultra apart from getting legitimately labelled as “hipster propaganda” is how sincere Ocean’s skill of reminiscence and lack of pretension he has, as an artist. Throughout the album, Ocean places many half-minute tracks of a cassette being paused and rewinded and labels them under classic video game titles (Street Fighter, Soul Caliber). He doesn’t do this to impress or attract a certain crowd, he does it so the continuity of the album actually sounds like a cassette and frankly, he does it just for fun.

Aside from this album’s superb technical ability, Ocean should be recognized as a damn good lyricist. His single (not to mention, one of my favorite tracks of the year), Novacane, tells this cool, transgressive story about meeting this porn star/dentist at a concert and getting high in an unexpected way. Ocean tells this story all while sounding cute, vulnerable, sexy, smart and even funny. This is how the whole album plays: filled with a very honest personality and delivered with great storytelling skills. His best songs are his best written: tracks like We All Try, Ocean’s personal statement that’s delivered with style and poignance, and Lovecrimes, which puts a spin on classic sayings like “Murder, She Wrote” in a delivery Animal Collective would be familiar with. This is not to say that certain songs are composed better than others; Nostalgia, Ultra is a consistent work of clever, thoughtful and worthwhile music that aims to achieve its own maximum potential.

In the current hip-hop based scene, one overloaded with self-righteousness and disturbingly abundant amounts of boasting and insults, being humble as an artist or a person can be like finding a feminist eating at a Hooters; almost impossible. Nostalgia, Ultra may not only be one of the best releases of 2011, but also the debut of the hardest-working and most under-rated guy in the industry right now.

This album is my dad. (10/10)

Let’s not even deal with this fucking album cover.

Lil Wayne is a rapper. A prominent figure in the modern contemporary pop genre; hailed and praised as Weezy for his style and flow. However, he is a lazy artist too shallow for his own good; a man who doesn’t bother to try for anything cannot declare his laziness as his original approach.

Tha Carter IV falls in the massive pool of forgettable pop-based albums, loaded with a majority of flat songs that serve no ultimate purpose but to merely exist and fill in sound. Even if there was attention given to Tha Carter IV as a whole album, it didn’t seem to care enough to produce a quality product.

Here’s a list of Tha Carter IV’s ingredients: poppy, basic beats that serve as an obnoxious base for Wayne’s lyricism to work off of. It’s a lazy dynamic that plays it so safe to the point where it brings listeners to question his core talent. Lyricism, while rampant and enjoyably energetic, results in string after string of forgettable punch-lines. It’s going in one ear and out the other, I’m fucking serious. The all too familiar flaw of densely commercial pop-based albums is the focus on its hit singles.

The majority of the album fails due to a mucky and poor effort that only wants to serve as a base for a few expensively-produced tracks destined to rake in the majority of the profits. This builds up a certain disrespect amongst close listeners against Wayne; the irony is that this is his style and also strictly his appeal.

This is a lazy album with plenty of energy from Wayne that comes off as the only saving point for Tha Carter IV; Wayne unfortunately has no ambition to show and nothing to say at all. Frankly, you only need one of those things to polish your record with; refer to the recent work of Kanye West and Jay-Z on Watch the Throne (an ambitious yet unnecessary rap album.) The only aspect of Tha Carter IV worth speculating over is whether this is a low point or disappointment in Wayne’s career or if this is the new standard of his efforts and his massive commercialized genre.

This album wasn’t my dad, but an annoying street promoter handing out free albums for his best friend. (1/5)

“I guess I got my swagger back.” - Jay-Z. My question is, did he ever lose it?

The Throne is a collaboration of two aficionados of the current hip-hop business. It’s a glamorous and glossily polished continuation of what feels like an artistic legacy. Respective of your personal preferences, Kanye West and Jay-Z are two of the most iconic rappers of the generation and The Throne is their ultimate testimony.

What are possible questions you could possibly ask for this album? Is this a masterpiece? Not at all; and frankly, it’s not even designed like that. All that Watch the Throne desires is to have loads of fun and look fantastic while at it. It’s certainly not hip-hop based pop, nearly all of the content here presents itself very seriously and succeeds in what it sets out for. However, the attitude of pop is prevalent; the celebration of having pure fun. What The Throne does well is not make any of the pop elements feel shallow, instead letting them accent the overall sound.

What purpose does this collaboration serve in the current hip-hop industry? None. Jay-Z and West certainly have nothing to lose and the evermore to gain. With features ranging from Frank Ocean to Beyoncé, there’s no talent left to be established. Everything here is very obvious and assured as the best of the best.

Well, we haven’t even talked about the actual music now, have we? Watch the Throne is an array from some of the year’s best in hip-hop to some failed concepts. Songs like Otis and No Church In the Wild present smart sophistication and undeniable heaps of fun. Much of the album runs like this, like eating a box of rich Godiva chocolates in one sitting. In this metaphor as well, there will be pieces that’ll disagree with your taste and standards. Songs like Lift Up and HAM fall right on their face with an embarrassing set of aggressive lyrics that poke and prod you with something that cannot be taken seriously. It’s just a hit or miss, that’s what this album honestly comes down to. Give it a spin though, you might feel fancy for a while. 

This album was that loaded uncle who bought you stuff when you were young because he was just that cool.