So this was originally supposed to be a video that I was going to upload to my personal YouTube Channel. I thought about it and decided there was kind of no point since we’d already released a video of my top 5 hip hop releases. It sounded like this video would have just been a bit redundant, so I decided to just release it in writing. The main reason of doing this was to be able to give my opinion on the albums that I didn’t get to talk about in the top 5 video.
I still plan to do a video on my top 10 non-hip hop releases as I have stated a few times on Twitter, so keep an eye out for that. Until then, here’s my top 10 hip hop releases:
10. Amir Sulaiman – The Median Openings. This album, I’m sure, went relatively unknown to the hip hop world. And that’s a serious shame. In my opinion, Amir Sulaiman dropped was the dopest releases of 2011 with The Meccan Openings. That album, start to finish, was just insanely powerful. His newer release, The Median Openings picks up right where the last record left off. Amir Sulaiman is , in my opinion, one of the best spoken word artists I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. His way with words is nothing short of astounding. He has a voice that seriously commands your absolute attention. The Median Openings flows through a plethora of different types of beats from mellow piano laden ones to more upbeat head bangers to absolutely epic orchestra-sounding beats. Be forewarned, though…Amir Sulaiman doesn’t sound like your average rapper and doesn’t create songs in a typical way. But if you’re willing to check out something that may take you out of your comfort zone (and you have no issue with hearing songs about Islam and/or God) then definitely pick this up. It’s free!
9. MHz – MHz Legacy. Listening to this album totally brings back memories for me. Memories of when I first discovered the underground hip hop crew, The Weathermen. I was already familiar with El-P through Company Flow, but I’d never heard of Copywrite, Camu Tao, Tame One, Yak Ballz or Cage. I ran upon a copy of Movies For The Blind and from there I became obsessed with these guys. I scooped up every release I could find by all of the members. The last Weathermen-affiliated release to make my collection was Table Scraps by MHz. For those not in the know, MHz is the crew featuring Copywrite, Camu Tao and Jakki The Motormouth (all original WM members) as well as Tage Future and RJD2. That release blew me away, so when I found out they were dropping a new album, I was instantly hyped. This record absolutely did not disappoint. None of these MCs have lost a step. They’re still as beastly as they were back in 2001. The only difference between their music then and their music now is they’re rhyming over better beats and they’ve developed their ability to craft songs.
8. Lushlife – Plateau Vision. This is a criminally slept-on album. Lushlife came into my life out of nowhere and totally kicked my ass. This dude puts together some of the dopest beats. They’re not super abstract or off-kilter; they’re just mad creative. The instrumentation on them is really layered and the fact that he crafts these beats by playing the majority of the instruments himself is very impressive. Best thing is the album is super diverse. You don’t put it on and vibe out too much because a lot of the songs mesh together. It flows perfectly while giving you something different with each track.
7. Billy Woods – History Will Absolve Me. I said quite a bit about this album in the review. This album was a complete shocker with its dopeness. Billy Woods has been a favorite of mine for a long time now with his unorthodox flow and the depth of his lyrics. In this album, I think he’s going over some of the best beats he’s ever used. I’m shocked that this album wasn’t on more people’s top 10 lists. Not sure if maybe people didn’t hear it or if it just didn’t move them the way it did me. If you’re a fan of Cannibal Ox, if you really dug Cancer For Cure or if you’re just into esoteric, creative hip hop in general, this is right up your alley. “Crocodile Tears” and “Duck Hunt” were easily two of my favorite hip hop tracks this year.
6. Brother Ali – Mourning In America, Dreaming In Color. What can I say about this album? Brother Ali is totally on his game with this one. US was fresh, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of it. I thought Ali brought his standard dope rhymes to the table, but I thought the record was a little too samey. I didn’t get that feeling with this album. The songs were a bit more varied to me, and Brother Ali is, as usual, dropping some serious jewels on you. One of my favorite things about an Ali album is, while you definitely feel like you’re being taught something on the album, you also feel like he’s talking himself through some issues. He’s an MC who’s always putting himself out there, showing you how he’s learned from his mistakes and letting you, maybe, learn the same lessons… but, at the same time, he’s teaching you to learn from your own mistakes.
5. P.O.S. – We Don’t Even Live Here. I said a bit about this album on the review, but maybe not as much as I would have liked. The reason this record made my top 5 over Brother Ali was in no way a slight to Ali. I just loved the fact that P.O.S. made a record that was serious content-wise over semi-party beats. It’s like he wrote the record that gets played at your local DIY anarchist party. And a lot of the lyrics just speak to the punk rock kid in me more than any modern punk record does.
4. Killer Mike – RAP Music. The combination of El-P’s futuristic, off-kilter, spacey beats with Killer Mike’s poignant but relatable rhyme style made this album another semi-flawless release. Killer Mike has some of his best lyrics on this album with tracks like “Untitled” and “Willie Burke Sherwood.” He’s smart, he’s conscious, but at the same time he’s pure Zone-3 Atlanta. Putting this album in your list of top releases this year is a no-brainer.
3. Aesop Rock – Skelethon. Some of Aesop’s deepest lyrics to date and he still comes with that totally flawless flow. The fact that he produced this thing with some incredibly dope beats propelled this album way over most releases this year. Just for the track “Gopher Guts,” this record is one of my favorite Aesop records to date.
2. Death Grips – No Love Deep Web. I said enough about this album on the review I did. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can do so here. In a nutshell, the noisy beats were killer as was the insanity in Ride’s vocals.
1. El-P – Cancer For Cure . From the beats to the rhymes, it was damn near flawless album. El is deep, he’s funny, and he’s got social commentary. I strongly feel that he crafted an amazingly solid album that blows I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead away. The beats are more futuristic, but, at the same time, he has some nice head bangers. It’s not too out there to scare away new fans, but he still gives you enough weirdness to please old fans. And the lyrics are still classic, complex El-P work.
I’m sure some of you guys are already stewing over how your favorite album (*cough* Kendrick *cough*) didn’t make MY personal list, but too fucking bad. These are the albums that I enjoyed the most out of 2012. Others, specifically Kendrick’s, were dope albums, but they just didn’t move me the way these did. Like it or hate it…just deal with it.
2 of my top 5 on 2012 were Chino XL- Ricanstruction The Black Rosary and Madchild – Dope Sick,,, the good thing is now Myke has giving me list of some MC’s i never heard of before that i will go check out and give a listen to
My personal five
5. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: The Heist
4. Big KRIT: 4eva n a day/Live from the Underground
3. KIller Mike: R.A.P Music
2. Captain Murphy: Duality
1. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, M.A.A.D city
yo mike, you a fan of typical cats? if you are, they released an album called 3 last year. what did u think of it (if you are a fan of them)
whoops, guess Shabazz’s albumwas reased in 2011-my bad :p
Hey, what’s up? Thanks for the list-solid!! Nice to see some stuff on there that didn’t attract as much attention as I thought they deserved like P.O.S and Billy Woods. Was thinking that you might have had Shabazz Palaces on there, was it close for you? I know some people don’t consider it hip hop but this 44yr old pasty white hip hop lovin’ Canadian does yo! (thought you might enjoy knowing some of the diversity of viewers you’re getting :D)
Peace
Also, that Amir Sulaiman album is pretty awesome. I don’t know much about spoken word, so this was pretty new for me. I’m not so big on the religious messages myself, but I love the guy’s fantastically deep voice, and he’s really good at speaking with strong emotion. I’ve had the opener track on for a while. Thanks for putting this together, gave me some new stuff to try out.
You fucking hipster bitch!
Hey, “Real Nigga.” I’m just curious about something. Did you actually put your real email address in our form? Like…is it really lasso_mex@yahoo.com? If so, that was pretty stupid. How are Yahoo’s virus protection and spam filters? Pretty lax from what I’ve heard. I ask because I care. See (and this is just hypothetical) let’s say someone sent you a virus that was designed to attack everything on your computer. What would you do? I mean…real niggas don’t know much about clearing viruses, last I checked. So yeah, just curious about all this. And thanks for the comment! Glad you enjoyed my list. And yes, I do fuck hipster bitches. You should try it. Even though real niggas don’t normally do that…but branch out, man. You just might enjoy it.
Here’s my personal list. I’m comfortable with putting the same artist at the 2 and 1 spot, I understand some people don’t like that, but I really do feel this way.
5: Dark Time Sunshine – ANX
4: Aesop Rock – Skelethon
3: El-P – Cancer for Cure
2: Death Grips – The Money Store
1: Death Grips – No Love Deep Web
Dark Time Sunshine’s ANX had some really awesome psychadelic beats and some great rhymes, especially on the third track, “Cutclass”. I love the lyrics painting a union between religion and science in particular.
Aesop Rock’s skelethon was an awesome album to digest because of its lyrics. It was a lot of fun looking through every song like a scavenger hunt and trying to figure out the meaning. The closer, “Gopher Guts” had an incredible finish, too. The flow involving the really long sentences like, “I have been completely unable to maintain any semblance of relationship on any level/ I have been a bastard to the people who have actively attempted to deliver me from peril.” Awesome lyricism
Cancer for Cure was really, really great, and it gave me a really George Orwell 1984 kind of vibe. Especially on The Full Retard when he’s saying stuff like, “In the bread line at prison, in the chip under your wrist skin”, and definitely later on in the album when there’s that little series of songs about El-P being interrogated. $4 Vic was my favorite, hands down.
The Money Store had some of the greatest beats I’ve heard in ages. I remember the first time System Blower breaks down into that series of looping screams after MC Ride shouts, “Your shit is BLOWN”. That blew my mind. I like every track on that album for a different reason. The closer, Hacker, was also really awesome. I especially love how insane of a picture MC Ride paints of himself. “Having conversations with your car alarm, when you come out your shit is gone, soon your crew will be serving sandwiches named after me, Vietnamese style fool, please. ” still makes me laugh.
I loved No Love Deep Web for the same reason I love Cancer for Cure, incredibly dark rhymes with strong orwellian themes. This one got the edge over all of the others for me because I absolutely loved the experimentation with the more depressing side of emotions (as opposed to the usual aggression we see in Death Grips) on the closer track, Artificial Death in The West, which is my favorite track of the year. Those really cold and chilly synths compared with the droning, “Watching me, watching me, watch them watch me” still hit me really hard.
I think this has been one of the best years for hip-hop in a long, long time. I’m a massive Death Grips and El-P fan, and seeing two albums from the former and one from the latter kept me satisfied all year. I’m not even beginning to mention other awesome albums like Good Kid, M.A.A.D city, control system, R.A.P Music, Duality, or the other albums I’m definitely forgetting.
I hope to see more Death Grips in 2013. Zach Hill said in a recent pitchfork interview that the group is working on their next record. This year left me so stoked to see what comes next. The day a Death Grips album drops in like opening presents on Christmas for me.
What is with people being all “Aww man, I wish so and so, would have made it on this person’s list.”? Everyone has their personal preference, thats why it’s their list right? Anyways I picked up a copy of that Lushlife album after seeing it on several of the crews list. Going to see what it’s about later today. Myke, what would you say is your favorite track at this point from Cancer 4 Cure.
Definitely $4 Vic/FTL. That song is amazing to me and his lyrics are so dope. I love that part towards the end of the track where he’s rambling off all those greetings/salutations. “Top of the morning, morbid. Quite a day we’re having gorgeous. Salutations, unimportant. Hello, uninspired.” And the line “I can no longer contain what’s under my disguise. I’ve always had a cancer for the cure; that’s what the fuck am I.” What a fucking album, man.
I like that this list has a lot of very unpopular artists (at least to the mainstream audience). But I would have loved to see Chino XL on here, I still think he had a huge album full of sick lyrics!
it’s great that Brother Ali’s album is getting attention from you lot. I never heard of him until you had that conversation with him in one of your videos and i love this album i’m gonna buy it in the next few days. definitely worth the purchase, the production on it is superb. it sounds like it caters perfectly for his rhymes and voice. lyrics are very thoughtful
Gotta appreciate Myke for putting us readers on to artists that we wouldn’t hear otherwise. I will also add that i thought Billy Woods’ album was very good, but i think Cannibal Ox is boring as shit, so don’t hate me Myke. Good list, ORIGINAL list as well Myke.
I’m not even mad that Kendrick’s Album isn’t on here, but Ab-Soul’s Control System was fucking brilliant, would’ve loved to see it on your list, but it’s a dope list anyway.