Last year I struggled a little bit to come up with my top 25 albums and ended up including an album (Magna Carter Holy Grail) that I didn't really like at all outside a couple of tracks. In 2014 though I had the opposite problem as there were a number of albums fighting for a spot on the list that I really enjoyed, but for a variety of reasons just missed out. Cyhi's mixtape was the one that I felt really bad about leaving out as I love the concept and there are some really great tracks on it.
- CyHi The Prynce – Black Hystori Project
- Logic - Under Pressure
- Ghostface Killah - 36 Seasons
- Cunninlynguists x The Grouch & Eligh - The Winterfire EP
- The Doppelgangaz – Peace Kehd
And now on to the list...
25. Rick Ross - Mastermind
I've never been a huge Rick Ross fan and could never really get into his albums before despite enjoying a lot of his features. He's not the most complex of rap artists, but he has a certain undeniable charisma on the mic, has a good rhythm in his voice and can flow on a beat. What really made me check out Mastermind though was his monster of a track he dropped late last year with Jay-Z "The Devil is a Lie".
This is definitely the project I've most enjoyed from Ross thanks to some thumping varied beats, great features and a strong performance from the man himself. There are a few missteps on the album though, including the weirdly popular "Nobody" which features French Montana and Rozay pissing all over Biggie's memory with a cover of You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You) that I struggle to think of a single worthwhile reason for its existence.
Strangely enough the highlight of the album for me though has Rick Ross in dangerous territory touching on another classic, this time Souls of Mischief's timeless 93 Til Infinity. The difference between the two though is that on Thug Cry, Rozay adds his own twist to the classic track with a bit of help from Lil' Wayne. I really think they managed to pay homage to a Hip Hop classic with this track but keep it original enough that it can stand on its own, thanks in a big way to the great production from J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League.
Top Tracks: Thug Cry, The Devil Is A Lie, Rich Is Gangsta, Sanctified, In Vein
24. Vince Staples - Hell Can Wait
Vince Staples isn't an artist I was familiar with before 2014, but I got introduced to him on his mixtape released in March, Shyne Coldchain Vol. 2. I wasn't crazy about the tape but there were a couple of tracks that really caught my attention (Trunk Rattle & Nate) and put Vince on my radar for the future. Thanks to some great features on Common's album I was quite excited for his Hell Can Wait EP when it eventually dropped and it didn't disappoint.
On the EP I feel that Vince really stamps his identity on it more than he did on his mixtape and he sounds genuinely like his growing buzz has given him an extra layer of confidence. The EP is an extremely cohesive project thanks to the production being grimy as fuck and Vince really gets his point across that Hell Can Wait because he's already living in it.
Vince Staples has the potential to be the voice for a whole new generation of hip hop fans and I can't wait to see what he brings to his first full length album
Top Tracks: 65 Hunnid, Hands Up, Limo
23. Hail Mary Mallon - Bestiary
- Cunninlynguists x The Grouch & Eligh - The Winterfire EP
- The Doppelgangaz – Peace Kehd
And now on to the list...
25. Rick Ross - Mastermind
I've never been a huge Rick Ross fan and could never really get into his albums before despite enjoying a lot of his features. He's not the most complex of rap artists, but he has a certain undeniable charisma on the mic, has a good rhythm in his voice and can flow on a beat. What really made me check out Mastermind though was his monster of a track he dropped late last year with Jay-Z "The Devil is a Lie".
This is definitely the project I've most enjoyed from Ross thanks to some thumping varied beats, great features and a strong performance from the man himself. There are a few missteps on the album though, including the weirdly popular "Nobody" which features French Montana and Rozay pissing all over Biggie's memory with a cover of You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You) that I struggle to think of a single worthwhile reason for its existence.
Strangely enough the highlight of the album for me though has Rick Ross in dangerous territory touching on another classic, this time Souls of Mischief's timeless 93 Til Infinity. The difference between the two though is that on Thug Cry, Rozay adds his own twist to the classic track with a bit of help from Lil' Wayne. I really think they managed to pay homage to a Hip Hop classic with this track but keep it original enough that it can stand on its own, thanks in a big way to the great production from J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League.
Top Tracks: Thug Cry, The Devil Is A Lie, Rich Is Gangsta, Sanctified, In Vein
24. Vince Staples - Hell Can Wait
Vince Staples isn't an artist I was familiar with before 2014, but I got introduced to him on his mixtape released in March, Shyne Coldchain Vol. 2. I wasn't crazy about the tape but there were a couple of tracks that really caught my attention (Trunk Rattle & Nate) and put Vince on my radar for the future. Thanks to some great features on Common's album I was quite excited for his Hell Can Wait EP when it eventually dropped and it didn't disappoint.
On the EP I feel that Vince really stamps his identity on it more than he did on his mixtape and he sounds genuinely like his growing buzz has given him an extra layer of confidence. The EP is an extremely cohesive project thanks to the production being grimy as fuck and Vince really gets his point across that Hell Can Wait because he's already living in it.
Vince Staples has the potential to be the voice for a whole new generation of hip hop fans and I can't wait to see what he brings to his first full length album
Top Tracks: 65 Hunnid, Hands Up, Limo
23. Hail Mary Mallon - Bestiary
Hail Mary Mallon is the collaboration act of Aesop Rock and Rob Sonic. I didn't realise this until just before the album was released despite Rock tweeting about it quite a lot in the build up, I wrongly assumed he was just promoting a colleague's album. Just thought I'd throw that intro in there in case anyone else was in the same boat as me.
If you've heard Aesop Rock before then you've probably decided whether you're a fan or not and this album most likely won't change your mind.
If you're a new listener or a fan of either MC though I strongly urge you to check out this release because they have great chemistry on the mic and over the experimental production on here it's a real treat for your ears. Framed by the loose concept of them hooking up to perform a concert to save the local bowling alley Bestiary provides a really witty but intelligent experience that I enjoyed a whole lot.
Top Tracks: Jonathan, Dollywood, The Soup, Octoberfest
22. Apathy - Connecticut Casual
Connecticut isn't a place I've ever been nor is it somewhere that I know a lot about, but thanks to Apathy's album I feel a whole lot more familiar with one of the smallest states in America.
I absolutely love albums that really bring you into the artist's world through a combination of unique sounds and storytelling (think Illmatic, The Chronic, Original Pirate Material) and Apathy really succeeds in that.
The Army of the Pharoahs MC weaves tales of the upper class yacht club dwelling culture of his home state as well as going into the sinister side that these spoilt rich folk have tried to conceal, touching on true stories like a young girl drowning while in Ted Kennedy's company and the murder of Martha Moxley - over a strange but brilliant sample of Careless Whisper.
Top Tracks:Back In New England, The Curse of the Kennedys, Martha Moxley (R.I.P.)
21. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Pinata
This album's been a long time in the making, with lead single Thuggin' being a couple of years old by now. Gibbs takes you back to some old school cocaine stories while Madlib's warm production and soulful samples definitely conjure up Scarface era images.
A lot of people have this album in their top 5 of the year and I can understand why, because individually there are some amazing songs on here and there's a cohesive theme throghout that ties them together. My issue with the LP that stops it ranking higher is that I just find it drags on a little bit. Any time I throw it on I struggle to make it through to the end in one playthrough. I'm not even sure why as it isn't an overly long album, but there's something about it that never gets going for me - most likely a combination of Gibbs being a bit one dimensional (though mad talented) and the fact that some of the beats are just a little boring to me. Call me crazy but it is what it is.
This is still a top quality album well worth your time checking out but I just thought, given the reception it's had that I should explain why it's so low on my list rather than justify the good points that put it here at all.
Top Tracks: Thuggin, High, Lakers
20. Grieves – Winter & The Wolves
Here's an artist I stumbled on accidentally after his album popped up in my recommendations in Spotify and being a sucker for winter themed media I thought I'd give it a go.
There isn't really an overt "wintery" vibe to Winter & The Wolves, but Grieves makes up for that by talking about some of the coldest shit I've heard in a while. He really opens his heart and leaves his soul on the record which is both a gift and a curse. When it works, it really works like when he's displaying the kind of honest raw rage towards an ex girlfriend that most people try to conceal on "Over You" or opening up about his somewhat troubled relationship with his sister on "Serpents", outright stating that he wouldn't have been surprised had she murdered him when they were younger.
There's the very rare occasion though where it can be a bit much and Grieves (who sings a lot of the hooks) can come across as a bit whiny like on "How's It Gonna Go".
The good far outweighs the bad though and I'd highly recommend this album to anyone that's a fan of Atmosphere or similar artists - there's even a feature from Slug on the album's standout track Astronauts where Grieves laments the fact that as adults we don't have the free imagination that we had as children.
Top Tracks: Astronauts, Serpents, Shreds
19. Skyzoo & Torae - Barrell Brothers
I don't want to analyse this album too much, because I think that would be missing the point somewhat, but if you'd like to hear two underappreciated lyricists go toe to toe over some absolutely killer boom-bap style beats then this is the album for you. Both artists try to one up the other throughout the course of Barrell Brothers and this approach succeeds in the getting the best out of both of them
One of the highlights is 4 Bar Friday that does what it says on the tin as Skyzoo and Torae knock four bars back and forth like a hip hop game of ping pong. This is hip hop in it's purest form.
Top Tracks: Make You A Believer, 4 Bar Friday, Rediscover
18. Joe Budden - Some Love Lost
I'm not gonna lie, I thought that this Joe Budden was gone forever. Between the last Slaughterhouse album and Joey's last awful solo effort, not to mention all his generally embarrassing behavior online and in the battle rap arena (STOP MY TIME) I had all but given up on him.
I hadn't checked out any of the music he released in the build up to this EP but it was generating a bit of buzz on my twitter and I thought at 7 tracks long I might as well check it out. I'm glad I did because on Some Love Lost Joe has got into his Mood Muzik mindset again and I'd say this is probably his most consistent effort since Mood Muzik 3. There's not a bad track on here though OLS4 does sound a little redundant compared to the ridiculously high quality tracks with a similar theme. The dark place he takes the listener to in Only Human (particularly the second verse) is probably the standout here but I personally find myself going back to Poker In The Sky (dedicated to his Grandad's battle with terminal cancer) and the cold winter night vibe on Different Love.
Top Tracks: Only Human, Poker In The Sky, Different Love
17. The Roots - ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin
At the start of the year this was easily my most anticipated project, as The Roots' last two albums - undun and How I Got Over - were my picks for AOTY in their respective years and their whole discography is littered with classics. So to find ATYSYC not making it into my top 15 this year was a bit surprising for me.
I can't pretend I wasn't slightly disappointed with this album, but listening to it again recently I really can't find anything that really strikes me as "bad" about it. The production is dark, harrowing and the kind of top quality you expect from The Roots while Black Thought and regular collaborators Dice Raw and Greg Porn bring some great storytelling verses to the table. There's just something quite disjointed about the album that for me stops it from ever reaching the heights as a full project that it's aiming for. There are a lot of really solid tracks on here, but for an album so short I feel that not enough of them really took it to the next level.
I think if an unknown act had released this project it could have probably got a few extra places up the list, but with the attention to detail that I expect from The Roots there is definitely a touch of disappointment associated with the album. If it had been structured a bit better with less interludes and a few extra songs I really feel this could have been battling for the higher places not only on my list but across the hip hop community. The raw ingredients are all there, it just hasn't been left in the oven long enough.
Top Tracks: Never, Black Rock, The Dark (Trinity), Tomorrow
16. Childish Gambino - Kauai
From here on in we're hitting upon the projects that I really feel deserve the utmost praise as I don't have much negative to say about any of them. Last year my list had a "top seven" that I felt stood out head and shoulders above the rest of the pack but the next 16 projects released this year 100% have my stamp of approval. It's been a great year for Hip Hop if you scratch beneath the surface a bit.
Gambino's Because The Internet is one of my favourite albums in recent years and due to it's release date at the end of 2013 it's my most played album of 2014 by far. So in my eyes Bino didn't need to give us anything this year, but that wasn't part of his plan.
Kauai was the main half of a two-part project consisting of this EP and the free mixtape STN MTN. Now STN MTN I really didn't care for at all and didn't even come into consideration for inclusion on this list, but Kauai is another story.
Named after a Hawaiian island that Donald loves to spend vacations on, this EP definitely has a bit of an escapism vibe to it. Focusing more on his R&B tendencies Bino saves his raps for only a selection of the tracks. The whole EP has a bit of a roughness to it by design that makes it feel like it was made while on a short vacation and there was no time to remove the imperfections. In truth these supposed flaws were probably planned out to an extreme level of detail as most of what CG has done in the past 18 months has been but I still love the effect that it creates.
I love every track on this EP and it definitely carries on where the more playful parts of Because The Internet left off.
Gambino definitely has taken a lot of influences from his peers to find his identity in the hip hip game, but he's added an extra level of something intangible that I don't think the rest of them have. On Kauai he's succeeded in out-Drakeing Drake, delivering all the things that I love about Drake and none of the crap that I hate.
Top Tracks: Sober, Pop Thieves (Make It Feel Good), Retro
15. Ab-Soul - These Days
I never really got into Ab-Soul's last album, Control System, outside of a few tracks but I really dug his follow up effort. Ab sounds re-energised right from the off and uses the album to show how he's coming out of all his trials fighting harder than ever.
This album has a bit of everything and Soul shows off all his talents on here. He even has an acapella battle rap tagged on at the end of the album that's worth a listen but not something I'll return to with any frequency.
One thing I will say is that a few weeks after the original release a second version of the album came out, with a few tracks beats absolutely butchered which I assume was thanks to sample clearance. If you can get a hold of the original version by some means... then I suggest you do that. One of the strongest tracks on here, Closure was completely ruined by losing the soulful and heartbreaking original beat.
Top Tracks: Tree of Life, These Days (Interlude), Closure, W.R.O.H.
14. J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hills Drive
I don't really like J. Cole. That's not to say I don't like his music and I think he's a very talented rapper, but he gives off this attitude that the world owes him something and he should automatically be a mainstream success because he made a couple of hot mixtapes. His last album lacked any kind of imagination and was as cookie cutter as it gets so his targeting of Eminem (and Macklemore to an extent) on Fire Squad reeks of bitterness - Em has totally paid his dues to earn his place in hip hop way more than Cole ever has. He should just focus on making a good album instead of whining about it and in my opinion it weakens his very valid point about Iggy Azalea.
Having said that, with 2014 Forest Hills Drive Cole *has* made a very good album, easily his best to date and I personally think it's a better overall project than any of his mixtapes as well. Clearly heavily influenced by Kendrick's classic good kid, m.a.a.d. city, Cole has decided to give us an origin story of his own and for the most part it works very well.
The album isn't quite as story heavy as GKMC and gives us a more broad view at Cole's come up, but there are definite similarities. A Tale of 2 Citiez is one of the standout cuts as Cole shows us the crossroads he came to as an adolescent, getting dragged into some violent situations and finding a way out of it.
He's got some conscious messages for Hip Hop as well on cuts like No Role Modelz lamenting that young females look around and see nothing but trashy reality stars as role models and Love Yourz, a real inspiring anthem about loving the life that you have because it's all you've got and no one else has a better life (for you) than you. Props to him for sampling the greatest George Bush soundbite of all time on No Role Modelz though!
The production on this album is really solid and I can understand why it's generated such a buzz as overall it's a great mainstream release in a year where such albums were few and far between, even if a few weaker songs towards the end stop it climbing higher on my list.
Top Tracks: 03' Adolescence, A Tale of 2 Citiez, No Role Modelz, Love Yourz
I did have to laugh at the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review of this album though - maybe he hasn't put away the cookie cutters just yet.
13. Flying Lotus - You're Dead
This is my top instrumental album of the year and is the first FlyLo full length I've had the pleasure of hearing. The thing that drew me to it was the Kendrick assisted Never Catch Me, but I decided to listen to the rest of the album in full and it turned out to be a wise decision.
You're Dead is a concept album that is supposed to take the listener through the producer's vision of various stages of the afterlife. Having never been there thankfully I can't vouch for how accurate it is but I can tell you how I experienced it on this side of the divide and I can assure you it's an absolute treat for the senses.
Stick this album on from start to finish on a good pair of headphones or set of speakers, sit back and close your eyes and let Flying Lotus take you on a hallucinogenic journey as he fuses Hip Hop, Jazz and a sprinkle of some weird space age shit.
Top Tracks: N/A - Listen to the whole thing!
12. Mick Jenkins - The Water[s]
Mick Jenkins was a new name to me in 2014 and I checked out this mixtape on a whim based off the single and one of the standout tracks of the year "Jazz."
Water is a major theme of this project both musically and lyrically as Mick focuses on the need for purity in life over some airy production that will make you feel like you're floating in a tranquil, turquoise paradise. Like a most still waters though, Mick Jenkins has darker depths and he has no problem taking you there on cuts like the aforementioned Jazz and the Strange Fruit sampling Martyrs. Mick's bass-heavy voice is simultaneously menacing and soothing and will ride the production as if it were a wave on one track before fighting against the tide and producing a great contrast the next.
There's something special to this mixtape for me, that makes the whole so much more than the sum of its parts. In one sense it's a throwback to a sepia-tinted glamorous past that throws up images of the "good old days" and the underground jazz scene, but in another sense it's a glimpse into a very promising future for Hip Hop.
Top Tracks: The Waters, Jazz, Black Sheep, Martyrs
11. Isaiah Rashad - Cilvia Demo
Honestly this album reminds me a lot of the previous album on my list, to me they have a similar vibe despite featuring wildly different themes. They both feature a kind of nostalgic airy production though thatharks back to a golden age.
Cilvia Demo was a tricky album for me to really come to grips with - first listen I loved it, second listen I was a little bored and third listen I didn't make it through to the end. I didn't listen to it again for a few months, but when I finally did it all clicked into place and I've loved it ever since. I think you need to be in a certain mood for this to really hit home and that's why it took me so long - it's best enjoyed when you're in a reflective mood and I found it was an amazing soundtrack to long autumn nights.
Isaiah gives us a lot of background to his story on this album/tape/demo (whatever it is, it sounds like a fully fledged album to me) and I think that's why the classic style of production goes so well. He also shows off a great range of songwriting skills and I can't wait to see what he does next.
Top Tracks: Webbie Flow (U Like), Tranquility, Brad Jordan, Shot You Down
Here's another album that I talked about in great depth earlier in the year in my review and most of what I said then still holds true. This album isn't maybe as immediately engaging as Finding Forever or The Dreamer/The Believer but taken as a whole I think it's his strongest release since Be. In my review I said I expected it to make my Top 5 come the end of the year and though it's narrowly missed out I still think it's a fantastic album. The only reason it hasn't placed higher is because for whatever reason I don't find myself coming back to it as often as some others on the list - every time I do revisit it I'm reminded how great it is, but it's more of a delicacy that should be wheeled out every now and then than something for day to day consumption.
Top Tracks: No Fear, Diamonds, Nobody's Smiling, Kingdom, Rewind That
6. Pharoahe Monch - PTSD
I've been a fan of Monch for quite a while now thanks to his stellar back catalogue and the fact that he remains the single best hip hop performer I've seen in concert. His powerful delivery is so unique with his wide repertoire of flows and the way he skilfully twists words is an artform of itself - but more than just being technically impressive he backs that up with some strong lyrical content. One of the true legends of the game I have no shame in saying he resides in my top ten of all time list.
On his last full length release W.A.R. he delivered a solid album, but for some reason I've not found myself going back to it with the frequency that I did (and still do) his previous work, so my hype levels for PTSD were somewhat muted.
Upon first listen any lingering doubts I had were put to rest, but I still wasn't blown away by the album. There were some tracks that immediately stood out to me - not least the Black Thought assisted Rapid Eye Movement and the golden-age evoking The Jungle - but the real triumph of this project was much more of a slow burn. On repeated listens I began to really appreciate the intricacies of the individual tracks and the concept of the album as a whole and bit by bit it climbed its way into my top five albums of the year, before finally losing out on a spot due to a very late release forcing itself into the equation.
Pharoahe Monch's social commentary on PTSD for me, is unrivalled by almost anything else released in 2014 and he's crafted a brilliant album that not only makes you nod your head and say "DAMN!" at some of the bars, but also makes your brain tick and really question just how much you're caught up in The Grand Illusion.
Top Tracks: Damage, Rapid Eye Movement, The Jungle, D.R.E.A.M., Eht Dnarg Noisulli
5. Big K.R.I.T. - Cadillactica
KRIT's last album release Live From The Underground wasn't bad at all, but it's fair to say that he's garnered a lot more respect and attention for his mixtapes than his albums so far in his career. Personally I found last year's King Remembered In Time mixtape a bit underwhelming outside of a few standout tracks but I still hoped KRIT could pull it together because honestly he's grabbed my attention more than most southern artists thanks to his buttery smooth voice and the approach he has to his music.
With Cadillactica he presents a pretty dope concept right from the intro where he and a girl are talking about creating a planet ("Cadillactica") and the conflict between taking time to do it right and the instant gratification of just doing it now. I think this probably has parallels with KRIT's approach to releasing the album as a whole and in my opinion he's let this project cook for just the right amount of time and dropped an album that belongs in the higher end of his back catalogue.
KRIT usually handles all his own production and for the majority of Cadillactica this remains true, but he does branch out on a number of songs including the divisive lead single Pay Attention. Personally I'm a big fan of this song and though I can see why some other long-time fans wouldn't be I think it's probably done what it set out to do and gain KRIT some new fans and although it's a bit of a one off on the album it doesn't feel out of place to me.
The title track and second single is also produced by someone other than KRIT, but this one feels a lot more like something his fans have come to love over the years. With a bit of an electronic vibe mixed into it KRIT drops one of the bangers of the year and the hook on this track will infect your brain almost instantly. I just couldn't stop singing this to myself.
KRIT keeps things varied on here and has something for everyone. Personally I'm not a huge fan of his love ballads to his cars, but his songwriting means I can enjoy them even if I'm not enthralled by the subject matter and there are enough other songs on here that I do connect with that it doesn't bother me. From the braggadocious King of the South to the more socially conscious songs, KRIT is an incredibly well rounded artist and if you've been sleeping on him up until now you need to stop.
The idea that KRIT can only deliver with the freedom that mixtapes give you has been shattered by this project, but there's still one thing that irks me and that is the bonus track version of Mt. Olympus that's presented here. Likely due to sample clearance issues the entire beat has been rebuilt and in my opinion the track has lost a lot of its power. Personally I feel if he couldn't get the original (my song of the year) on the album then he shouldn't have bothered with it at all, but I've seen a lot of people discovering the song here for the first time so I guess it did serve a purpose. Don't let that put you off Cadillactica though, because skipping this would be a huge mistake.
Top Tracks: Life, Cadillactica, Soul Food, Angels, Saturday = Celebration, Lost Generation, Lac Lac
4. Schoolboy Q - Oxymoron
Top Tracks: The whole album is great and I'd recommend listening in full, but Cult Leader, Orange, Death Warrant and The Rabbithole are a great place to start if you just want a taste.
Top Tracks: Jonathan, Dollywood, The Soup, Octoberfest
22. Apathy - Connecticut Casual
Connecticut isn't a place I've ever been nor is it somewhere that I know a lot about, but thanks to Apathy's album I feel a whole lot more familiar with one of the smallest states in America.
I absolutely love albums that really bring you into the artist's world through a combination of unique sounds and storytelling (think Illmatic, The Chronic, Original Pirate Material) and Apathy really succeeds in that.
The Army of the Pharoahs MC weaves tales of the upper class yacht club dwelling culture of his home state as well as going into the sinister side that these spoilt rich folk have tried to conceal, touching on true stories like a young girl drowning while in Ted Kennedy's company and the murder of Martha Moxley - over a strange but brilliant sample of Careless Whisper.
Top Tracks:Back In New England, The Curse of the Kennedys, Martha Moxley (R.I.P.)
21. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Pinata
This album's been a long time in the making, with lead single Thuggin' being a couple of years old by now. Gibbs takes you back to some old school cocaine stories while Madlib's warm production and soulful samples definitely conjure up Scarface era images.
A lot of people have this album in their top 5 of the year and I can understand why, because individually there are some amazing songs on here and there's a cohesive theme throghout that ties them together. My issue with the LP that stops it ranking higher is that I just find it drags on a little bit. Any time I throw it on I struggle to make it through to the end in one playthrough. I'm not even sure why as it isn't an overly long album, but there's something about it that never gets going for me - most likely a combination of Gibbs being a bit one dimensional (though mad talented) and the fact that some of the beats are just a little boring to me. Call me crazy but it is what it is.
This is still a top quality album well worth your time checking out but I just thought, given the reception it's had that I should explain why it's so low on my list rather than justify the good points that put it here at all.
Top Tracks: Thuggin, High, Lakers
20. Grieves – Winter & The Wolves
Here's an artist I stumbled on accidentally after his album popped up in my recommendations in Spotify and being a sucker for winter themed media I thought I'd give it a go.
There isn't really an overt "wintery" vibe to Winter & The Wolves, but Grieves makes up for that by talking about some of the coldest shit I've heard in a while. He really opens his heart and leaves his soul on the record which is both a gift and a curse. When it works, it really works like when he's displaying the kind of honest raw rage towards an ex girlfriend that most people try to conceal on "Over You" or opening up about his somewhat troubled relationship with his sister on "Serpents", outright stating that he wouldn't have been surprised had she murdered him when they were younger.
There's the very rare occasion though where it can be a bit much and Grieves (who sings a lot of the hooks) can come across as a bit whiny like on "How's It Gonna Go".
The good far outweighs the bad though and I'd highly recommend this album to anyone that's a fan of Atmosphere or similar artists - there's even a feature from Slug on the album's standout track Astronauts where Grieves laments the fact that as adults we don't have the free imagination that we had as children.
Top Tracks: Astronauts, Serpents, Shreds
19. Skyzoo & Torae - Barrell Brothers
I don't want to analyse this album too much, because I think that would be missing the point somewhat, but if you'd like to hear two underappreciated lyricists go toe to toe over some absolutely killer boom-bap style beats then this is the album for you. Both artists try to one up the other throughout the course of Barrell Brothers and this approach succeeds in the getting the best out of both of them
One of the highlights is 4 Bar Friday that does what it says on the tin as Skyzoo and Torae knock four bars back and forth like a hip hop game of ping pong. This is hip hop in it's purest form.
Top Tracks: Make You A Believer, 4 Bar Friday, Rediscover
18. Joe Budden - Some Love Lost
I'm not gonna lie, I thought that this Joe Budden was gone forever. Between the last Slaughterhouse album and Joey's last awful solo effort, not to mention all his generally embarrassing behavior online and in the battle rap arena (STOP MY TIME) I had all but given up on him.
I hadn't checked out any of the music he released in the build up to this EP but it was generating a bit of buzz on my twitter and I thought at 7 tracks long I might as well check it out. I'm glad I did because on Some Love Lost Joe has got into his Mood Muzik mindset again and I'd say this is probably his most consistent effort since Mood Muzik 3. There's not a bad track on here though OLS4 does sound a little redundant compared to the ridiculously high quality tracks with a similar theme. The dark place he takes the listener to in Only Human (particularly the second verse) is probably the standout here but I personally find myself going back to Poker In The Sky (dedicated to his Grandad's battle with terminal cancer) and the cold winter night vibe on Different Love.
Top Tracks: Only Human, Poker In The Sky, Different Love
17. The Roots - ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin
At the start of the year this was easily my most anticipated project, as The Roots' last two albums - undun and How I Got Over - were my picks for AOTY in their respective years and their whole discography is littered with classics. So to find ATYSYC not making it into my top 15 this year was a bit surprising for me.
I can't pretend I wasn't slightly disappointed with this album, but listening to it again recently I really can't find anything that really strikes me as "bad" about it. The production is dark, harrowing and the kind of top quality you expect from The Roots while Black Thought and regular collaborators Dice Raw and Greg Porn bring some great storytelling verses to the table. There's just something quite disjointed about the album that for me stops it from ever reaching the heights as a full project that it's aiming for. There are a lot of really solid tracks on here, but for an album so short I feel that not enough of them really took it to the next level.
I think if an unknown act had released this project it could have probably got a few extra places up the list, but with the attention to detail that I expect from The Roots there is definitely a touch of disappointment associated with the album. If it had been structured a bit better with less interludes and a few extra songs I really feel this could have been battling for the higher places not only on my list but across the hip hop community. The raw ingredients are all there, it just hasn't been left in the oven long enough.
Top Tracks: Never, Black Rock, The Dark (Trinity), Tomorrow
16. Childish Gambino - Kauai
From here on in we're hitting upon the projects that I really feel deserve the utmost praise as I don't have much negative to say about any of them. Last year my list had a "top seven" that I felt stood out head and shoulders above the rest of the pack but the next 16 projects released this year 100% have my stamp of approval. It's been a great year for Hip Hop if you scratch beneath the surface a bit.
Gambino's Because The Internet is one of my favourite albums in recent years and due to it's release date at the end of 2013 it's my most played album of 2014 by far. So in my eyes Bino didn't need to give us anything this year, but that wasn't part of his plan.
Kauai was the main half of a two-part project consisting of this EP and the free mixtape STN MTN. Now STN MTN I really didn't care for at all and didn't even come into consideration for inclusion on this list, but Kauai is another story.
Named after a Hawaiian island that Donald loves to spend vacations on, this EP definitely has a bit of an escapism vibe to it. Focusing more on his R&B tendencies Bino saves his raps for only a selection of the tracks. The whole EP has a bit of a roughness to it by design that makes it feel like it was made while on a short vacation and there was no time to remove the imperfections. In truth these supposed flaws were probably planned out to an extreme level of detail as most of what CG has done in the past 18 months has been but I still love the effect that it creates.
I love every track on this EP and it definitely carries on where the more playful parts of Because The Internet left off.
Gambino definitely has taken a lot of influences from his peers to find his identity in the hip hip game, but he's added an extra level of something intangible that I don't think the rest of them have. On Kauai he's succeeded in out-Drakeing Drake, delivering all the things that I love about Drake and none of the crap that I hate.
Top Tracks: Sober, Pop Thieves (Make It Feel Good), Retro
15. Ab-Soul - These Days
I never really got into Ab-Soul's last album, Control System, outside of a few tracks but I really dug his follow up effort. Ab sounds re-energised right from the off and uses the album to show how he's coming out of all his trials fighting harder than ever.
This album has a bit of everything and Soul shows off all his talents on here. He even has an acapella battle rap tagged on at the end of the album that's worth a listen but not something I'll return to with any frequency.
One thing I will say is that a few weeks after the original release a second version of the album came out, with a few tracks beats absolutely butchered which I assume was thanks to sample clearance. If you can get a hold of the original version by some means... then I suggest you do that. One of the strongest tracks on here, Closure was completely ruined by losing the soulful and heartbreaking original beat.
Top Tracks: Tree of Life, These Days (Interlude), Closure, W.R.O.H.
14. J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hills Drive
I don't really like J. Cole. That's not to say I don't like his music and I think he's a very talented rapper, but he gives off this attitude that the world owes him something and he should automatically be a mainstream success because he made a couple of hot mixtapes. His last album lacked any kind of imagination and was as cookie cutter as it gets so his targeting of Eminem (and Macklemore to an extent) on Fire Squad reeks of bitterness - Em has totally paid his dues to earn his place in hip hop way more than Cole ever has. He should just focus on making a good album instead of whining about it and in my opinion it weakens his very valid point about Iggy Azalea.
Having said that, with 2014 Forest Hills Drive Cole *has* made a very good album, easily his best to date and I personally think it's a better overall project than any of his mixtapes as well. Clearly heavily influenced by Kendrick's classic good kid, m.a.a.d. city, Cole has decided to give us an origin story of his own and for the most part it works very well.
The album isn't quite as story heavy as GKMC and gives us a more broad view at Cole's come up, but there are definite similarities. A Tale of 2 Citiez is one of the standout cuts as Cole shows us the crossroads he came to as an adolescent, getting dragged into some violent situations and finding a way out of it.
He's got some conscious messages for Hip Hop as well on cuts like No Role Modelz lamenting that young females look around and see nothing but trashy reality stars as role models and Love Yourz, a real inspiring anthem about loving the life that you have because it's all you've got and no one else has a better life (for you) than you. Props to him for sampling the greatest George Bush soundbite of all time on No Role Modelz though!
The production on this album is really solid and I can understand why it's generated such a buzz as overall it's a great mainstream release in a year where such albums were few and far between, even if a few weaker songs towards the end stop it climbing higher on my list.
Top Tracks: 03' Adolescence, A Tale of 2 Citiez, No Role Modelz, Love Yourz
I did have to laugh at the first paragraph of the Pitchfork review of this album though - maybe he hasn't put away the cookie cutters just yet.
13. Flying Lotus - You're Dead
This is my top instrumental album of the year and is the first FlyLo full length I've had the pleasure of hearing. The thing that drew me to it was the Kendrick assisted Never Catch Me, but I decided to listen to the rest of the album in full and it turned out to be a wise decision.
You're Dead is a concept album that is supposed to take the listener through the producer's vision of various stages of the afterlife. Having never been there thankfully I can't vouch for how accurate it is but I can tell you how I experienced it on this side of the divide and I can assure you it's an absolute treat for the senses.
Stick this album on from start to finish on a good pair of headphones or set of speakers, sit back and close your eyes and let Flying Lotus take you on a hallucinogenic journey as he fuses Hip Hop, Jazz and a sprinkle of some weird space age shit.
Top Tracks: N/A - Listen to the whole thing!
12. Mick Jenkins - The Water[s]
Mick Jenkins was a new name to me in 2014 and I checked out this mixtape on a whim based off the single and one of the standout tracks of the year "Jazz."
Water is a major theme of this project both musically and lyrically as Mick focuses on the need for purity in life over some airy production that will make you feel like you're floating in a tranquil, turquoise paradise. Like a most still waters though, Mick Jenkins has darker depths and he has no problem taking you there on cuts like the aforementioned Jazz and the Strange Fruit sampling Martyrs. Mick's bass-heavy voice is simultaneously menacing and soothing and will ride the production as if it were a wave on one track before fighting against the tide and producing a great contrast the next.
There's something special to this mixtape for me, that makes the whole so much more than the sum of its parts. In one sense it's a throwback to a sepia-tinted glamorous past that throws up images of the "good old days" and the underground jazz scene, but in another sense it's a glimpse into a very promising future for Hip Hop.
Top Tracks: The Waters, Jazz, Black Sheep, Martyrs
11. Isaiah Rashad - Cilvia Demo
Honestly this album reminds me a lot of the previous album on my list, to me they have a similar vibe despite featuring wildly different themes. They both feature a kind of nostalgic airy production though thatharks back to a golden age.
Cilvia Demo was a tricky album for me to really come to grips with - first listen I loved it, second listen I was a little bored and third listen I didn't make it through to the end. I didn't listen to it again for a few months, but when I finally did it all clicked into place and I've loved it ever since. I think you need to be in a certain mood for this to really hit home and that's why it took me so long - it's best enjoyed when you're in a reflective mood and I found it was an amazing soundtrack to long autumn nights.
Isaiah gives us a lot of background to his story on this album/tape/demo (whatever it is, it sounds like a fully fledged album to me) and I think that's why the classic style of production goes so well. He also shows off a great range of songwriting skills and I can't wait to see what he does next.
Top Tracks: Webbie Flow (U Like), Tranquility, Brad Jordan, Shot You Down
10. Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels 2
Here's the album that's cleaning up on all of the end of year lists and it's an absolute banger of an album! The best "sequel" album in the whole of Hip Hop? There's not much strong competition in truth but I probably wouldn't argue with that sentiment.
Killer Mike and El-P have really hit onto something special since they cooked up the first RTJ album last year and somehow they've managed to make lightning strike twice. If it's possible, RTJ2 is even more amped up than the first was. You get the feeling that after the success of the original they went on tour, had an amazing time and then decided to make an album full of tunes that are designed to be listened to live in the midst of a sweaty crowd.
El-P's production is even more layered and complex than it was last year and Killer Mike has really stepped up his game and is the clear winner in the constant back and forth battle for supremacy between the two. That's not to say El doesn't deliver, but Mike just pipped him to the post - for the record I thought it was the other way round on the original.
So why is this brilliant album only on the outskirts of my top ten? Honestly I think it trails off a little in the second half and Love Again in particular I could have done without, but the first four songs is one of the best stretches of music I've heard in 2014 and that combined with some other great tracks make this a must listen.
Top Tracks: Jeopardy, Oh My Darling Don't Cry, Blockbuster Night Part 1, Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck), All Due Respect
9. Wu-Tang Clan - A Better Tomorrow
I wrote an in depth review of the return of the Wu-Tang Clan earlier this month, so I'll let that do most of the talking for me here, but to sum up my thoughts - this is a triumphant return to form for the Wu that erases all memories of their previous album. It won't win them many new fans, nor is it a perfect album but for a long time fan such as myself I enjoyed the shit out of it and it was an easy choice to put it in my top ten.
Top Tracks: Ruckus In B Minor, Felt, Miracle, Necklace, A Better Tomorrow
8. Ras Kass & Apollo Brown - Blasphemy
Back in the 90s and early 2000s I had big hopes for Ras Kass. His debut was a stone cold classic and he seemed destined for big things. Despite his associations with Xzibit and Kurupt though he never quite made that leap to the next level, not helped by contract disputes and legal troubles, but in the last few years he really dropped off the radar and the quality of music he was releasing was nowhere near good enough.
But it seems like a shot in the arm from one of the hottest producers around is all he needed to get himself back in gear. Apollo Brown has a very distinctive sound, but he keeps things fresh from album to album and on Blasphemy he produces some of the best instrumentals I've heard from him.
Ras uses these perfectly crafted beats to tackle all sorts of issues including heavy dissections of religion and race, but most of all he uses them to show that he is back on top form.
The Pharoahe Monch assisted H2O is a contender for track of the year.
Top Tracks: How To Kill God, H2O, Humble Pi, Bon Voyage
7. Common - Nobody's SmilingHere's the album that's cleaning up on all of the end of year lists and it's an absolute banger of an album! The best "sequel" album in the whole of Hip Hop? There's not much strong competition in truth but I probably wouldn't argue with that sentiment.
Killer Mike and El-P have really hit onto something special since they cooked up the first RTJ album last year and somehow they've managed to make lightning strike twice. If it's possible, RTJ2 is even more amped up than the first was. You get the feeling that after the success of the original they went on tour, had an amazing time and then decided to make an album full of tunes that are designed to be listened to live in the midst of a sweaty crowd.
El-P's production is even more layered and complex than it was last year and Killer Mike has really stepped up his game and is the clear winner in the constant back and forth battle for supremacy between the two. That's not to say El doesn't deliver, but Mike just pipped him to the post - for the record I thought it was the other way round on the original.
So why is this brilliant album only on the outskirts of my top ten? Honestly I think it trails off a little in the second half and Love Again in particular I could have done without, but the first four songs is one of the best stretches of music I've heard in 2014 and that combined with some other great tracks make this a must listen.
Top Tracks: Jeopardy, Oh My Darling Don't Cry, Blockbuster Night Part 1, Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck), All Due Respect
9. Wu-Tang Clan - A Better Tomorrow
I wrote an in depth review of the return of the Wu-Tang Clan earlier this month, so I'll let that do most of the talking for me here, but to sum up my thoughts - this is a triumphant return to form for the Wu that erases all memories of their previous album. It won't win them many new fans, nor is it a perfect album but for a long time fan such as myself I enjoyed the shit out of it and it was an easy choice to put it in my top ten.
Top Tracks: Ruckus In B Minor, Felt, Miracle, Necklace, A Better Tomorrow
8. Ras Kass & Apollo Brown - Blasphemy
Back in the 90s and early 2000s I had big hopes for Ras Kass. His debut was a stone cold classic and he seemed destined for big things. Despite his associations with Xzibit and Kurupt though he never quite made that leap to the next level, not helped by contract disputes and legal troubles, but in the last few years he really dropped off the radar and the quality of music he was releasing was nowhere near good enough.
But it seems like a shot in the arm from one of the hottest producers around is all he needed to get himself back in gear. Apollo Brown has a very distinctive sound, but he keeps things fresh from album to album and on Blasphemy he produces some of the best instrumentals I've heard from him.
Ras uses these perfectly crafted beats to tackle all sorts of issues including heavy dissections of religion and race, but most of all he uses them to show that he is back on top form.
The Pharoahe Monch assisted H2O is a contender for track of the year.
Top Tracks: How To Kill God, H2O, Humble Pi, Bon Voyage
Here's another album that I talked about in great depth earlier in the year in my review and most of what I said then still holds true. This album isn't maybe as immediately engaging as Finding Forever or The Dreamer/The Believer but taken as a whole I think it's his strongest release since Be. In my review I said I expected it to make my Top 5 come the end of the year and though it's narrowly missed out I still think it's a fantastic album. The only reason it hasn't placed higher is because for whatever reason I don't find myself coming back to it as often as some others on the list - every time I do revisit it I'm reminded how great it is, but it's more of a delicacy that should be wheeled out every now and then than something for day to day consumption.
Top Tracks: No Fear, Diamonds, Nobody's Smiling, Kingdom, Rewind That
6. Pharoahe Monch - PTSD
I've been a fan of Monch for quite a while now thanks to his stellar back catalogue and the fact that he remains the single best hip hop performer I've seen in concert. His powerful delivery is so unique with his wide repertoire of flows and the way he skilfully twists words is an artform of itself - but more than just being technically impressive he backs that up with some strong lyrical content. One of the true legends of the game I have no shame in saying he resides in my top ten of all time list.
On his last full length release W.A.R. he delivered a solid album, but for some reason I've not found myself going back to it with the frequency that I did (and still do) his previous work, so my hype levels for PTSD were somewhat muted.
Upon first listen any lingering doubts I had were put to rest, but I still wasn't blown away by the album. There were some tracks that immediately stood out to me - not least the Black Thought assisted Rapid Eye Movement and the golden-age evoking The Jungle - but the real triumph of this project was much more of a slow burn. On repeated listens I began to really appreciate the intricacies of the individual tracks and the concept of the album as a whole and bit by bit it climbed its way into my top five albums of the year, before finally losing out on a spot due to a very late release forcing itself into the equation.
Pharoahe Monch's social commentary on PTSD for me, is unrivalled by almost anything else released in 2014 and he's crafted a brilliant album that not only makes you nod your head and say "DAMN!" at some of the bars, but also makes your brain tick and really question just how much you're caught up in The Grand Illusion.
Top Tracks: Damage, Rapid Eye Movement, The Jungle, D.R.E.A.M., Eht Dnarg Noisulli
5. Big K.R.I.T. - Cadillactica
KRIT's last album release Live From The Underground wasn't bad at all, but it's fair to say that he's garnered a lot more respect and attention for his mixtapes than his albums so far in his career. Personally I found last year's King Remembered In Time mixtape a bit underwhelming outside of a few standout tracks but I still hoped KRIT could pull it together because honestly he's grabbed my attention more than most southern artists thanks to his buttery smooth voice and the approach he has to his music.
With Cadillactica he presents a pretty dope concept right from the intro where he and a girl are talking about creating a planet ("Cadillactica") and the conflict between taking time to do it right and the instant gratification of just doing it now. I think this probably has parallels with KRIT's approach to releasing the album as a whole and in my opinion he's let this project cook for just the right amount of time and dropped an album that belongs in the higher end of his back catalogue.
KRIT usually handles all his own production and for the majority of Cadillactica this remains true, but he does branch out on a number of songs including the divisive lead single Pay Attention. Personally I'm a big fan of this song and though I can see why some other long-time fans wouldn't be I think it's probably done what it set out to do and gain KRIT some new fans and although it's a bit of a one off on the album it doesn't feel out of place to me.
The title track and second single is also produced by someone other than KRIT, but this one feels a lot more like something his fans have come to love over the years. With a bit of an electronic vibe mixed into it KRIT drops one of the bangers of the year and the hook on this track will infect your brain almost instantly. I just couldn't stop singing this to myself.
KRIT keeps things varied on here and has something for everyone. Personally I'm not a huge fan of his love ballads to his cars, but his songwriting means I can enjoy them even if I'm not enthralled by the subject matter and there are enough other songs on here that I do connect with that it doesn't bother me. From the braggadocious King of the South to the more socially conscious songs, KRIT is an incredibly well rounded artist and if you've been sleeping on him up until now you need to stop.
The idea that KRIT can only deliver with the freedom that mixtapes give you has been shattered by this project, but there's still one thing that irks me and that is the bonus track version of Mt. Olympus that's presented here. Likely due to sample clearance issues the entire beat has been rebuilt and in my opinion the track has lost a lot of its power. Personally I feel if he couldn't get the original (my song of the year) on the album then he shouldn't have bothered with it at all, but I've seen a lot of people discovering the song here for the first time so I guess it did serve a purpose. Don't let that put you off Cadillactica though, because skipping this would be a huge mistake.
Top Tracks: Life, Cadillactica, Soul Food, Angels, Saturday = Celebration, Lost Generation, Lac Lac
4. Schoolboy Q - Oxymoron
This for me is the best mainstream release of the year and it's also the first album I bought in 2014. Now I didn't go into this with high hopes at all, mainly down to a bit of ignorance on my part in assuming that the rest of TDE were not much more than Kendrick's homies tagging along for the ride - it wouldn't have been the first time in hip hop. But man, was I wrong! Schoolboy Q brings the heat from the start to the finish and is buoyed by some tremendous West Coast G-shit sounding production from some of the hottest names in the game. Much more of a Gangsta (see track 1) rapper than his more famous collaborator, to reduce him to that simple moniker would do him a disservice.
Q certainly had a cohesive vision for this project rather than just throwing a bunch of songs together, but he has a wide variety of tracks on here. There's the straight up braggadocious bangers with Jay Rock and Kendrick, something dedicated to the ladies, dark origin stories. There's also more introspective moments like the album's standout cut, Blind Threats featuring a haunting, stripped back, dusty beat, Q emotionally relaying some of the tribulations he's been through and a Raekwon feature that caps the track off perfectly.
I first heard Oxymoron on an official stream the well before release and I only made it 5 tracks in before I made my way off to Amazon to pre order the damn thing. It was pretty much the only CD in my car for the first half of the year because there are so many good songs on here that work perfectly in bite size chunks when driving from place to place, but the album holds up even better when played from front to back. There are no tracks I don't like on here and even the more mainstream efforts work well. Another thing that keeps me coming back to Oxymoron is that unlike quite a lot of the albums on my list, you don't have to be in a certain mood to enjoy it - any time is a perfect Oxymoron time.
Honestly I don't think I've heard as good a West Coast album in this kind of ilk in a long time, probably since one of Game's early albums. The bar has been set for Jay Rock next year now.
Top Tracks: Los Awesome, Collard Greens, Hoover Street, Blind Threats, Hell of a Night
3. CunninLynguists - Strange Journey Vol. 3
Throughout their discography CunninLynguists have created some of the tightest concept albums in Hip Hop and with Strange Journey Vol. 3 - supposedly just a "mixtape" - they've crafted another amazing project with a slightly more straightforward concept than some of their previous work.
On SJV3 Kno, Deacon, Natti and a host of guests play the part of travellers from another world guided by their computer Miley 3000 coming to see what Planet Earth has to offer. OK so on paper it isn't the most original idea, but the execution is absolutely flawless. The production from Kno is exquisite, probably the best I've heard all year. The variety of the beats is astonishing and they set the tone for each song brilliantly - whether the chilled out vibes of In The City & South California, the nostalgic emotions of Innerspace & The Format or some straight-up-space-age-rap-your-ass-off bangers like Strange Universe & Urutora Kaiju.
There are a whole load of guest features on this project but it never once feels overcrowded - each guest is there for a reason and none of them feel phoned in. Del on the aforementioned Strange Universe revives his Deltron persona to help with a cut that sounds more like a Deltron 3030 sequel than anything on the actual sequel did, while J-Live helps out on semi-album closer Beyond The Sun with one of my favourite verses of the year as our travellers come to the conclusion that Earth is a "Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live here".
Despite the numbers of guests, it's CunninLynguists themselves that make this album truly special. The chemistry they have developed over the years is as tight as ever and you can tell this album was made with them all on the same page. It dropped fairly early in the year and it's been a mainstay of my Top 3 all year - no ups and downs - I loved it on release and it's got heavy rotation through all four seasons. One of the finest albums of the year without question.
Top Tracks: In The City, Innerspace, Castles, The Format, Dying Breed, Beyond The Sun
2. DJ Premier & Royce Da 5'9" - PRhyme
3. CunninLynguists - Strange Journey Vol. 3
Throughout their discography CunninLynguists have created some of the tightest concept albums in Hip Hop and with Strange Journey Vol. 3 - supposedly just a "mixtape" - they've crafted another amazing project with a slightly more straightforward concept than some of their previous work.
On SJV3 Kno, Deacon, Natti and a host of guests play the part of travellers from another world guided by their computer Miley 3000 coming to see what Planet Earth has to offer. OK so on paper it isn't the most original idea, but the execution is absolutely flawless. The production from Kno is exquisite, probably the best I've heard all year. The variety of the beats is astonishing and they set the tone for each song brilliantly - whether the chilled out vibes of In The City & South California, the nostalgic emotions of Innerspace & The Format or some straight-up-space-age-rap-your-ass-off bangers like Strange Universe & Urutora Kaiju.
There are a whole load of guest features on this project but it never once feels overcrowded - each guest is there for a reason and none of them feel phoned in. Del on the aforementioned Strange Universe revives his Deltron persona to help with a cut that sounds more like a Deltron 3030 sequel than anything on the actual sequel did, while J-Live helps out on semi-album closer Beyond The Sun with one of my favourite verses of the year as our travellers come to the conclusion that Earth is a "Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live here".
Despite the numbers of guests, it's CunninLynguists themselves that make this album truly special. The chemistry they have developed over the years is as tight as ever and you can tell this album was made with them all on the same page. It dropped fairly early in the year and it's been a mainstay of my Top 3 all year - no ups and downs - I loved it on release and it's got heavy rotation through all four seasons. One of the finest albums of the year without question.
Top Tracks: In The City, Innerspace, Castles, The Format, Dying Breed, Beyond The Sun
2. DJ Premier & Royce Da 5'9" - PRhyme
So here we arrive at the fastest rising entry on my list, the long awaited and long talked about collaboration between Royce and Premier. Released just three weeks before the end of the year this album made quite an impact on me from the very first listen. I honestly expected this to be very underwhelming when it was announced because to me it was a collaboration that had missed its opportunity and I thought both artists were well past their best. But there must be something about working together that elevates them both to a higher level than anything either has done in years.
Premo brings some of the most inventive beats I've heard from him while keeping his signature style, while Royce proves that there's no one in Hip Hop can fuck with him when it comes to straight spittin. There's not a single MC I think would have sounded better on this project. One of the things that I love about what he did on here was the way he threw in numerous throwback lines to classic Premier tracks from the likes of Nas, Big and Jay. It was pure fan service but I found it added to my listening immensely.
I've heard a few people complain that the album's a bit too short, but I cousin disagree more. To me the short length of the album allowed Royce and Premier to condense their vision to a tightly knit, consistently great album of just banging beats and hard rhymes. Stretch this out to 15-18 tracks and I'm not sure it would carry the same weight as it does without adding a lot of variety which threatens to dilute the project as a whole.
For me, this is easily the most consistent album that Royce has been involved in and quite possibly his best - though Death Is Certain runs it close for that title. As Royce states on U Looz he isn't here to replace Guru, but I don't think it's unfair to say that PRhyme could definitely stand its ground with Gang Starr's incredible discography.
While making this list a lot of juggling was done and right up until the last few days a lot of high placing albums have been swapping positions in my head as it's been so hard to place them. All of the top 7 have switched places at one point, all except one that is. Ultraviolet grabbed my top spot the same week it was released and it's held its place ever since with its dark, brooding, cinematic soundscape and the kind of verses that Rap Genius was created for.
Sadistik is a very unique artist and he most certainly won't appeal to everyone - he's not trying to - but I think it's fair to say that with this album he's created something a bit special and reached his pinnacle (so far) as an artist. Ultraviolet will find him plenty of new fans while not at all alienating his core fanbase.
Having only released two solo albums in six years so far, I was slightly hesitant about this project coming so soon after his 2013 effort Flowers For My Father and honestly I was a bit iffy about the first couple of leaks from the album, but I needn't have worried at all. Far from being rushed this is his most focused project by far and I feel he's really hit the creative vision he set out to achieve.
This album pushes boundaries and will make you question things about hip hop and lyricism that you thought were set in stone. Musically and lyrically, he's absolutely nothing like Kanye West but looking through their discographies I can see a lot of similarities between them in their constant yearning for perfection and attention to detail. Kanye created his magnum opus with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and if you examined it closely you could see how every album he had released up to that point (while brilliant in their own right) were just pieces of the puzzle that when combined added up to a near perfect album. I feel that you can see a similar path has been trodden by Sadistik, from the raw honesty of his debut, he took it to the next level in his collab EP with Kid Called Computer. His next Prey 4 Paralysis took things in such a different direction that it took me until this year to really appreciate it, but you could see how the things he tried on there started to fall into place on Flowers For My Father. On Ultraviolet it's all clicked and he's created a tremendous album that will be a favourite of mine for years to come.
I've not even delved into the music because it's one of those albums where every song has at one point been my top pick and I would struggle to go into detail about any one of them without having to give them all the same treatment.
As I said at the top, this won't be for everyone but neither is Tom Waits. For those who enjoy music of any genre that takes a bit of digging to fully get to grips with I think you'll find Ultraviolet is a rare gem of an album. Each time I come back to it I find something new that blows my mind and I can't wait to see what the future holds.
Sadistik is a very unique artist and he most certainly won't appeal to everyone - he's not trying to - but I think it's fair to say that with this album he's created something a bit special and reached his pinnacle (so far) as an artist. Ultraviolet will find him plenty of new fans while not at all alienating his core fanbase.
Having only released two solo albums in six years so far, I was slightly hesitant about this project coming so soon after his 2013 effort Flowers For My Father and honestly I was a bit iffy about the first couple of leaks from the album, but I needn't have worried at all. Far from being rushed this is his most focused project by far and I feel he's really hit the creative vision he set out to achieve.
This album pushes boundaries and will make you question things about hip hop and lyricism that you thought were set in stone. Musically and lyrically, he's absolutely nothing like Kanye West but looking through their discographies I can see a lot of similarities between them in their constant yearning for perfection and attention to detail. Kanye created his magnum opus with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and if you examined it closely you could see how every album he had released up to that point (while brilliant in their own right) were just pieces of the puzzle that when combined added up to a near perfect album. I feel that you can see a similar path has been trodden by Sadistik, from the raw honesty of his debut, he took it to the next level in his collab EP with Kid Called Computer. His next Prey 4 Paralysis took things in such a different direction that it took me until this year to really appreciate it, but you could see how the things he tried on there started to fall into place on Flowers For My Father. On Ultraviolet it's all clicked and he's created a tremendous album that will be a favourite of mine for years to come.
I've not even delved into the music because it's one of those albums where every song has at one point been my top pick and I would struggle to go into detail about any one of them without having to give them all the same treatment.
As I said at the top, this won't be for everyone but neither is Tom Waits. For those who enjoy music of any genre that takes a bit of digging to fully get to grips with I think you'll find Ultraviolet is a rare gem of an album. Each time I come back to it I find something new that blows my mind and I can't wait to see what the future holds.
Top Tracks: The whole album is great and I'd recommend listening in full, but Cult Leader, Orange, Death Warrant and The Rabbithole are a great place to start if you just want a taste.
