2004: Best Rap Albums

I had taken to listening to a ton of college radio in those high school days, mostly hip-hop with a substantial side order of electronic/dance stuff. It's pretty cool living in the NYC metro area, just a ton of colleges playing a ton of great stuff. Among all this came one song that immediately captured my attention and had me listening to the two or three modern indie rap college shows that came on each week...so to possibly hear it again. It was called "The Love Song", and from there came the first completely personal relationship to music I ever had, and in a sense the start of everything I've done here on RYM. So it's tough for me to judge this album like just another normal record. The level of intimacy is blinding, but it's not something that makes me think I'm delusional. No, I believe in this album and everything I feel about it. Joyful Rebellion is probably the most important record in K-os's career as well, recent as it all is. Before this was Exit, a great but somewhat flitty release that didn't quite gel into a full THING. After this he was one of Canada's most popular artists, and rightfully so. It laid down the basics of his sound firmly, proved he could really make a true genre jumping experience, and gave HIM the confidence to finally hit with all his immense power. Remember that Exit was something he considering as being his last album, he tried again in spite of that, making this maybe a sink or swim affair for him, the kind of final thrust at being the great artist he always wanted to be. No question it succeeded. And it still stands out among his work, being his most bare bones record in terms of production, his simplest record arrangement wise. Exit had lots of hip-hop style production, and the stuff he's made since has been a wonderous almost Soft Bulletin/Yoshimi Battles type wonderland of layered art-pop, a whirl of rap, electronic pop, soul, and rock. Here though...K-os stands the most in the open. Right from the first song this should be clear, with it's low key sad guitar introducing the whole record. He simply leaves more white space here than anywhere else, all being relative of course because these are not spare songs in the grand scheme of things. Another major claim to power is probably how clearly it lays out that K-os is not to be pigeonholed style wise, he is rock, he is rap, and if you even try and specify sub-genre forget it, it's not happening. Song to song here he changes things up significantly. One minute he's The Police, the next he's Michael Jackson, the next he's Eric B & Rakim. The energy of the songs changes accordingly, and yet he ties it all together with the sort of skill that Damon Albarn only dreams of. Seriously, if any of you don't get why I'm always skeptical of Albarn's genre mashing attempts with Gorillaz and the last two Blur albums, THIS GUY is why. More than anything what makes this K-os's big break is the songs, Exit was neat for it's variety, but the songwriting wasn't all there. Here, that is fixed. K-os became a super hook candy maker on the next two releases, but these songs are built up in a very well crafted way creating true pieces that stand up and keep you coming back. He gives such respect to the sounds he uses on each one, the sort of thing that only someone who really loves and comes from a background amid all those genres could do. Albarn felt a bit like he was rushing over to downtempo and electronic musics kind of like he had only just gotten into them, K-os grew up on ALLA this. How else does a guy drop fully convincing rap and rock side by side, and within eachother? If you still can't buy that I would put an artist on both my rap and rock lists give Dirty Water a listen and you'll see. At the end of the day what keeps me coming back to K-os is maybe the vibe, there's always a sort of real light in his music I can't quite describe. A certain life affirming vibe that is backed up well by the lush arrangements, maybe it's his Trinidadian background filtering through all the North American styles. I dunno. Don't care. I can only wish to help spread his legend to you if you haven't come across him yet rock fans. People always talk about wanting this sort of thing don't they? Multi-intrumentalist perfectionist type artists? True genre blurring? Music as catchy as it is exciting? Something fresh and modern? Here it all is, and among his later records as well.

Rating: 4.5
Highlights: Crucial, Man I Used to Be, The Love Song, Dirty Water

Hip Hop is a merciless world of music that has no equal in the speed which it cycles through movements and importance for it's artists. True things have slowed down, but it's still the genre that spits and berates anything suddenly too old and too far back. In the height of the golden age an artist that waited one measly year between albums risked sounding incredibly outdated and irrelevant on their sophomore release. Groups as mighty as Public Enemy and labels as invincible as Death Row don't have the simple joy of fading, they crashed and burned, and abruptly. So again, Masta Ace is a man who has straddled hip hop's three decades, never giving up his integrity (cough LL cough). Disposable Arts was dipped deep into a vat of vinegar, and while good, one couldn't help but feel it was a little too "bitter veteran". Spiritually speaking that's a bad note to go out on. Apparently Masta Ace thought so too. Because he came back three years later with this masterful set of mostly warm and philosophical little city tales that sends his career off with what I think, of all 5 releases, is his best work. Adios Masta Ace, Juice Crew's finest, one of hip hop's greatest.

Rating: 4.5
Highlights: Big City, Da Grind, Beautiful, Soda & Soap

Two forces rose up in 03' and took control over the game after the mostly rudderless early 00's, Crunk and 50 Cent. "Fitty" was suddenly the king of the game, riding high with his pop-hardcore rap. Muscles pumped, a gory crime backstory, and Dre beats. Then he was almost instantly challenged by a guy in a sweater who depicted himself as a teddy bear. It was enough to get even the most jaded hip-hop fans doing double takes. Even if people didn't exactly care for this newcomer, there was undeniably something refreshing about him... First things first. Yes Kanye has one of the worst flows in Hip Hop. But you just can't can't can't let that get in the way of his excellent production work. Kanye breaks free from the Pete Rock soul production tradition by embracing soul not as a calm contemplative thing, but as a bombastic 70's retro celebration. Which is frankly refreshing, alot of really dull soul rap producers have popped up in the 00's (*cough* 9th Wonder), so Kanye's unique take (which admittingly borrows some tricks from the RZA cookbook) is just what the doctor ordered. Lots of indie rap fans may hate him, but they're missing the hell out. And anyone who sucker punches 50 Cent's career is a friend of mine.

rating: 4.5
Highlights: All Falls Down, Never Let Me Down, Through the Wire, Last Call

Nas was just in a mess still in 04', not a mess in terms of music nescessarily, but you can't tell me he had any idea what his direction was as of 99'. You make the best hip-hop album of all time, try and be a mafioso, then kind of blindly grasp at bigger fame, fail, lose fans, then sort of return to form, and....uh...stuff. Luckily for him his singles could still become rap hits and his albums sell a bunch, but he was left aimless never the less. Nas was never really an artist per say, making albums as anything much. He was a mic man, pure rapper for better or worse and that really isn't an easy thing to be anymore. Mojoless he decided on a double album! Why? I guess he decided to try everything he wanted at once and see how they felt? It's a pretty good idea because it makes his best album since It Was Written easily, a smorgasboard of mostly basic rap songs, but with enough variety that it keeps interesting enough. There's funk throwbacks, political diatribes, neo-noir rap, bare bones 80's def beat, and even a jazzy duet with his father Olu Dara! Is it a good double album? Not really. But it is a good album, pulling together a nice experience from all he gives out, and thankfully has a better second side. As time has proven Nas did find a new voice and direction starting with Hip Hop Is Dead, which is possible to see in several pieces in here.

Rating: 4
Highlights: Nazareth Savage, American Way, Bridging the Gap, War

Ohhh! It's that darned second Mos Def album! The start of a squandered career! The beginning of the end! Bullshit. One of the most unfairly treated albums in Hip Hop history. I mean god, fucking, damn, people. The way some reviews went on about it I expected nothing short of a fart on wax. And what did I get? I got a fascinating genre hopping eccentric great album. I loved it. No of course this isn't Black on Both Sides II, who said it would be? There's plenty of other Mos Def classic neo-soul to find that aren't him experimenting with different genres and so forth. Now granted, there are a couple of lousy low quality tracks here that sound like they came off a mixtape album (Rape Over, Close Edge, Grown Man Business). But there's a slew of fun rock/rap tracks that have been constantly and inexplainably compared to Limp fucking Bizcit (???). And Modern Marvel, jesus christ what a tour de force that song is. Mos draws out nearly ten minutes of Marvin Gaye samples into an epic tribute to him. If there's a reason Mos Def has been shying away from his music career maybe it's because the critics savaged him for no good reason.

Rating: 4
Highlights: Ghetto Rock, Zimzallabim, Sunshine, Modern Marvel

The 00's greatest album? Or its most overrated? Neither, a strong album that ultimately does not and cannot live up to it's insane hype. And how can you blame the hype? It was the holy union of two of the 00's underground producer trinity teaming up! MF DOOM and Madlib! Former on mic, latter on boards. That's one helluva team, but to me at least it's a great but still very mortal album. Nothing on here is gold standard (silver maybe), most particularly Madlib's beats which are easily below what he did for his Quasimoto project and even for his pal Declaime. Coulda shoulda been much more. And frankly? I'm not so sure it's even the beats. I don't think DOOM sounds so good over his beats, it doesn't quite fit for me. That's a lot of griping for a high "4" huh. But it IS a high "4". This is still madlib, and his beats are still cool as heck (especially the second half), and this is still DOOM, and his weird delivery and lyrical flow are still in their prime. So it's like, even deficiencies aside it can't help but be a great album. The talent is just too huge for anything less. And it is a pretty sweet example of the beat-tape formula in action, Madlib's specialty. You just really can't expect the end all be all music press and fans alike have canonized it as.

Rating: 4
Highlights: Meat Grinder, Figaro, All Caps, Rhinestone Cowboy

Hows this for a laugh? Who the fuck is Masta Killa? Masta Killa is that guy who sort of hangs in the back of the Wu Tang clan without anyone noticing him. The ninth member as it were who wasn't even official at the time of the debut. You've heard his verses on the Wu releases, and you probably even liked them. But probably can't remember them at all. So when the dude gets around to releasing a solo album it goes without saying it should be even less memorable then what U-God managed. Right? And certainly below what Inspectah Deck had. Instead it's actually a really great album and it's really funny that it turned out that way. I wouldn't go so far as to say this recalls the classic 93-96 Wu sound, but it reminds you why you loved these guys (as opposed to just Ghostface) in the first place. Killa has a boring flow true, but he can rap well enough and actually has a sort of unique "just stating it" delivery style. The production is in places flat out killer. Featuring some of the best Wu beats heard in a long long time. This is a late coming Wu classic that Wu fans can't go without.

Rating: 4
Highlights: No Said Date, D.T.D., School, Silverbacks

One trend that started showing up around this time was the freelance fullalbummaking producer collabs. Guys like 9th Wonder, Black Milk, and the Dutch producer Nicolay who teams up with Little Brother's Phonte to deliver this incredibly soul styled duo. Furthermore, when I was speaking about Okayplayer earlier? Well let's see. Nicolay is Dutch, Phonte is American. How did they meet exactly? The Okayplayer online forums. They didn't even physically meet until after the album was done. Nicolay sent the beats, Phonte rapped over them. The results are easily one of the thinnest lines I've seen between rap and soul, it's incredibly organic sounding and makes not so much as a inch of concession to being typical rap lyrical content either. It's refreshing to say in the least, and Phonte proves he's much more able then Little Brother let's him show. I mean maybe I have something against 9th Wonder and the other guy when it comes to my basic level of disinterest in what Little Brother has to offer, but it's undeniable that Phonte is a skilled dude.

Rating: 4
Highlights: Raw Life, Let's Move, Be Allright, Brave New World

DOOM has released so many types of album of such varying feels it's hard to pick one for friends and so forth if you want to give them a crash course on the man. It's tempting to choose one of his instrumental albums, or more well known albums like Madvillainy. But thankfully this album exists, because it's a quintessential DOOM experience from start to finish. Almost entirely his production, and lots and lots of wacked out old cartoon sampling, and a light but enjoyable conceptual theme of food. Basically a perfect summarization of what DOOM is and does. Appropriately the album is like a sandwich, there's a gooshy delicious peanut butter dollop in the middle of sample collages, and some nice soft bread of more normal songs around it. It also has the greatest packaging of any album since Metal Box, shit's wrapped up like a pop tart. Literally. It's important of course not to get carried away with the vague theme and assume there's really a concept album. The food names and all that are almost entirely incidental details.

Rating: 4
Highlights: Beef Rap, Deep Fried Frenz, Rapp Snitch Knishes, Vomitspit

Probably Jean's finest output of any of her albums. It rises above her two major weaknesses the best of any of them, though of course it's not entirely free of them. She still has a really sleepy delivery, and doesn't have great production backing, but I really do like her lyrics and so forth. I mean maybe if you actually really dig this sort of delivery style this will be awesome to you? But really, it's not like laidback flows mean there can't be energy. Look at Guru! Rakim! Them dudes! Her main strength continues to be her lyrics which thankfully aren't all pissed away on battle rapping like so many other great lyricists.

Rating: 3.5
Highlights: Going Crazy, Supa Luv, Watch Me, P.S.