No. 21
Billy Woods -
History Will Absolve Me
When it comes to Hip Hop in the last few years, a lot of things have changed. You have a resurgence of Independent artists gaining widespread appeal and also an increased interest in experimentation. The backlash of this is even more saturation of the market, even more sub-par music gaining indie cred and an all-round lack of genuinely interesting music. Then you have albums like this. Politically astute, interesting production, high quality lyricism and just a fantastic release.
No. 20
Chino XL -
Ricanstruction: The Black Rosary
If you are not familiar with
Chino XL's work, he is a highly praised quick-fire punchline rapper with a conscience. This album follows in that vein with an inordinate amount of material (35 tracks, most of which are 3-4 minutes). If fast paced intelligent rap is your thing, and you are familiar with his work, this album should interest you. My only issue if the sheer amount of tracks and some lame hooks. The track
Fathers Day is incredible.
No. 19
Stephen O'Malley & Steve Noble -
St Francis Duo
This is an obscure find and one that I wasn't sold on at first, but I listened to it with a pair of headphones and it blew me away. Epic improvisational drone album that consists of four tracks around the 20 minute mark. Similarly to
The Seer, I don't always feel like listening to it all the way through, but the drones on this thing are repetitive and hypnotising.
No. 18
Clams Casino -
Instrumentals 2
If there is anyone more responsible for the rise of "cloud rap" I would be surprised because this guy has almost perfected that style of beat making. He has worked with many of the "cloud rappers" (who are often pretty
shitty) and his beats alone have essentially enabled them to become major superstars. An improvement on anything he released prior to this and something I keep going back to. If only the majority of Cloud Rappers would vanish into thin air.