Hip-Hop: 2010

LIST: TOP 10 HIP-HOP RECORDS OF 2010

As far as the mainstream goes, 2010 was the year where Eminem was once again huge, Bone Thugs, Cypress Hill and Reflection Eternal attempted comebacks, Nas collaborated with Damien Marley (and saw what was supposed to be his "new classic" shelved), the second Madvillain still didn't come out, Drake and Nicki Minaj both made a half-good debuts that were half full of awful singing, B.o.B. attempted to further blur the lines between hip-hop and pop, and mostly tossed-off mixtapes continued to be treated as credible. But much more happened in the hip-hop world in 2010, both at the mainstream and underground levels.

In fact, 2010 was, for my money, one of the best years for hip-hop records in a long time. While most Top 10 lists out there seem to focus on one realm of the genre (be it mainstream, underground, mixtapes, local or way underground), we're going to attempt to consider all things, be them Kanye West or Earl Sweatshirt. Albums like the ones listed below make The New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, who boldly claimed that hip-hop was dead just last year, look like even a bigger douche than usual. My guess? We'll be looking back on 2010 for years to come, calling it the beginning of a new era for hip-hop music. (Note: after writing this we received new albums from both Tyler the Creator and The Silversmiths.)

10. Das Racist - Sit Down, Man and Shut Up, Dude: First available as a free download (and later for 50 cents each), these two download-only records surely made for some of the hippest hipster nights of 2010, adding a slightly more authentic hip-hop flavor to the lives of those who usually don't listen to anything resembling "real" hip-hop music. To me, these guys are an update of De La Soul - goofy, hook-loving artists who make loose records full of style and jokes. That said, Das Racist are thus far about 1/10th as good as their many Pitchfork-issued fans think they are.

9. Cola-Zone - Immortality Skeems: Cola-Zone's proper debut is, easily, the best hip-hop record I've heard out of Indiana in ages. A record that sounds as legit as any underground hip-hop release I've heard (and even features Vast Aire), Skeems marks the public birth of a great new emcee with plenty to say and a classic-yet-new delivery that's instantly memorable. Oh, and Cola is a pretty great producer, too.

8. Earl Sweatshirt - EARL: In the year where five of my most-listened-to hip-hop albums were released only as downloads (all either free or name-your-price), Earl Sweatshirt's debut record showed the most promise. Part of the exciting Odd Future collective, Earl is a very young, very skilled emcee who had one of the year's best singles, titled "Earl." Backed by Tyler the Creator's production, the record, like all the Odd Future records, is like nothing else. The promise of a new movement is here, with Earl. WIth Odd Future and the collective's endlessly talented, interesting and creative leader, Tyler.

7. Nawlij - Total Eclipse of the Smart: Another practically free (name-your-price, as long as it's $1) hip-hop record available only as a download, don't be fooled by the title of Total Eclipse, this is one heck of a debut. Nawlij, who does his own production, made this album quickly, and it shows. Songs like "Wow," which he obviously spent plenty of time on, just might have you convinced that we have the new great young talent (think early Nas) on our hands. An amazing debut now in the tank it should be fun to see what Nawlij does from here forward.

6. Meth, Rae & Ghost - Wu-Massacre: The three most memorable Wu-Tang Clan emcees get together and decide to make a concise, consistent record that reminds of the early Wu-Tang sound. Brilliant. Necessary. Obvious. Why haven't these guys been making records that sound like this all along?! The most classic Wu-sounding album since 2000's Supreme Clientele.

5. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: I've always very much preferred Andre, Big Boi's partner in Outkast. In fact, no matter how good Big Boi has been at times, I never thought he'd be able to make a consistent - let alone creative - record without the help of Andre. I was very wrong. Not only is the production on Lucious effective and at times deeply creative, but Big Boi's vocal performances are some of the best of his career. He really went for it with this one. The result? A new summertime classic and reminder of the greatness of Outkast.

4. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: The spilling of a manchild's ego. A talented manchild's ego. Recorded in Hawaii with dozens of guests on a $2 million dollar label budget, MBDTF probably is almost as good as everyone says it is. That is, if you consider it for what it is: a hip-hop album obsessed with pop music, bright lights and American stardom. Soulless, but incredibly well executed and, at times, very creative stuff.

3. Shad - TSOL: Something of a Fresh Prince-styled party emcee for underground hip-hop fans, Kenyan-Canadian emcee Shad steps up into the elite with his third record, rapping instantly memorable verses over funky, organic production that feels like a natural progression of the Native Tongues Movement. Featuring Broken Social Scene, Lisa Lobsinger and other unconventional guests, this very solid record reminds of artists like Common, a less self-serious Talib Kweli and the forever underrated k-os, but with more consistently great production and looser writing.

2. The Roots - How I Got Over: I was done with The Roots. They'd somehow become a TV band who claimed to be done releasing studio albums. Then, about to go on a long trip, I needed a new album to listen to. Damn. A fan of the band dating back to ninth grade (1995), I was shocked by the quality and consistency of How I Got Over. Not just a new hip-hop classic, a new boom-bap classic and a great example of just how good (and musical) hip-hop can be, but a modern day genre classic that perfects their sound with loads of soul and style.

1. Black Milk - Album of the Year: Compared to others on this list, Black Milk's (pictured above) appropriately titled latest release is a straightforward hip-hop record, full of big beats and big, memorable verses that sound instantly classic. Imagine if Pete Rock were born into all the modern production techniques - and he was a charismatic emcee - and you'll have an idea of how AOTY sounds through the headphones. There are so many big, booming songs that, right when that Kanye record came out, I felt a rush of pop confusion; why didn't this aesthetically similar (though much more modestly made) record get 1/100th the attention Twisted Fantasy got? All the better for underground fans, I suppose.

Honorable mention: Canibus' C of Tranquility; Curren$y's Pilot Talk & Pilot Talk II; Little Brother's Leftback; Atmosphere's To All My Friends: Blood Makes the Blade Holy; Freeway's Stimulus Package; Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' VS. Redux; Murs & 9th Wonder's Fornever; Freddie Gibbs' Str8 Killa; Odd Future's Radical; Guilty Simpson's OJ Simpson; Homeboy Sandman's The Good Sun.

Written by G. William Locke

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