#15: 1017 Thug – Young Thug

For better or worse, 2013 has undeniably been the year for trap music. Saturated with molly references, menacing bells, thudding bass and auto-tune, most of this music has been aggressively forgettable. Even the most passionate trap-enthused DJs haven’t kept most of these songs in rotation. Nevertheless, amidst this atmosphere of ephemeral mediocrity, one particular artist is etched into our minds: Young Thug. The Atlanta artist released 1017 Thug back in February, but it’s still a fresh project. Released a few weeks after Young Thug‘s signing to Gucci Mane‘s 1017 imprint, the mixtape reminds us of the unbridled experimentation that characterized trap’s initial emergence. Before trap music had a readily identifiable aesthetic, it was basically the sound of people trying to make money by any means necessary. Accordingly, no stone was left unturned; no idea was left unconsidered. Young Thug keeps that spirit alive, using trap sounds to create music that doesn’t easily fall into the categories of “street anthem” or “club-ready.” 1017 Thug features him truly exploring what trap can do beyond making people “turn up.” Of course, this mixtape will make you turn up, but that’s not all there is to it. There’s some genuine craftsmanship here.

#14: Summer Knights – Joey Bada$$

Young Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ had a hectic 2012. The release of his mixtape 1999 was insanely successful, very quickly propelling him and his Pro Era crew from internet underdogs to widely acknowledged emcees. Yet despite these gains, the year ended with a tragic los:, the suicide of Joey‘s friend and fellow crew member, Capital STEEZ. Joey and company strongly kept chugging along, working with other artists, touring and just generally trying to capitalize on their hard-earned opportunities, but death is a strange and unpredictable experience, so when Summer Knights was announced, there was some genuine trepidation regarding how good the music could be in the wake of such a tragedy. Fortunately, Joey delivers. Whereas 1999 painted Joey and Pro Era as meticulous nostalgists, Summer Knights shows that the crew’s artistic roots extend far beyond 90’s New York. New York’s particular contributions to hip-hop are still central to how Joey creates, but Summer Knights depicts Joey with leanings toward reggae, dub, poetry and arguably even some punk rock, with flows to match.

#13: Cut 4 Me – Kelela

Kelela has the uncanny ability to establish harmony amidst the most elemental chaos. Featuring graceful melodies atop amorphous tracks from producer hive Fade to Mind, Cut 4 Me is 50 minutes of fearless exploration of voice and affect. Strikingly, most of the songs are remixes, yet Kelela stealthily colonizes them all, owning them for herself. Some of these instrumentals truly are intimidating, yet Kelela faces them like a veteran, variously taming them and absorbing their unbridled energy into her melodies. Cut 4 Me is the musical equivalent of the comic book character Storm controlling, unleashing and becoming one with the weather.

#12: King Remembered in Time – Big K.R.I.T.

The consequence of giving fans consecutively stronger releases is the escalation of their expectations. With the release of Live From the Underground, Big K.R.I.T. found himself fighting against the quality of his former releases, much to his chagrin. After all, he made many sacrifices for Live From the Underground, namely its necessarily small number of samples in comparison to his mixtapes. Dealing with the reception of his debut album, the Mississippi rapper doubled-down on King Remembered in Time, actively competing with and trying to best his previous works. He isn’t as successful as he could have been, but the tenacity and the gumption of the project resonate well. K.R.I.T. both gives fans what they want and gives them a potent “STFU,” all while remaining relatively innovative and open-minded. There are surely some misfires, but when K.R.I.T. is on point, he’s truly unmatched. Read our full review here.

#11: No Poison, No Paradise – Black Milk

Black Milk‘s biggest career mistake may have been titling his 2010 LP, “Album of the Year.” While that project certainly stands firm as a great body of work, it is on No Poison, No Paradise that the Detroit emcee/producer crafts his magnum opus and undoubtedly one of the best albums of 2013. From the Mel-assisted opener, the listener is taken on a morose journey through the childhood of Sonny, a fictionalized character brought to life by Black Milk’s own experiences. Think of this as a more flushed-out and hyper-realized version of The Roots’ Undun. “Deion’s House” tells the story of Sonny’s friend, who is a quasi-bad influence, given the fact that he pulls Sonny towards the street life, while at the same time pushes our hero to pursue his musical aspirations. Herein lies the narrative in a nutshell: dealing with the influences of your surroundings while striving towards a greater goal. While Black Milk’s production sometimes garners more attention than his lyrical skills, as do his collaborations with the likes of Danny Brown and Jack White, this is the album that proves that his pen game is just as lethal.

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What’s brilliant about Old is that Danny Brown frames this cost in terms of old fans/expectations vs news fans/expectations: Side A and Side B, respectively. Yet if you pay attention the cost, the battle, is actually internal. On the Rustie-produced “Dope Song,” a track that has the atmosphere of an unexpected boss fight in a Final Fantasy game, Danny Brown aggressively asserts that he’s done rapping about his experiences in the drug trade. Shouting the chorus with the full power of his throat, he almost sounds like he’s barking. In fact, he is barking; he’s warning the listener that the specter of his drug tales and their inherent misery is not a specter: it is very alive, so alive that even when he’s rapping over a track that is made to be ecstatic, he still feels compelled to reflect on his past.

What’s interesting about this reflection, however, is that he’s actually reflecting on his present. “Dope Song” is just as much about summoning traumatic experiences as it is about acknowledging that those experiences don’t need to be summoned to be felt. “Side B” as a whole feels like a response to “Side A” and vice versa, both in terms of content and in terms of the division itself, but in actuality, both sides are responses to themselves,indicating their parallels and subsequently the fact that the divisions are artificial.

For instance, on the A-Trak produced “Smokin & Drinkin” Danny raps “Stress, party it away, hope these problems just go away.” At another point in the song, he references “Blunt After Blunt;” he’s not just being self-referential here: he’s emphasizing that he uses his problems to solve his problems. Stated differently, he uses bad habits (the past) to solve bad realities (the present). Similarly, on “The Return” he and Freddie Gibbs tell us that the gangster has returned while emphasizing that he never left: “The return of the gangster, fuck a hipster, squeeze a trigger/You got me fucked up: I’m a hood ass nigga.” In both songs, the present is presented as a solution to the past all while acknowledging that there isn’t really a split between the two. Danny Brown (circa 2013) is Danny Brown (circa 2011) is Danny Brown (circa 2009).

This is the main difference between XXX and Old. Whereas XXX was a yearning for something to happen, for a talented to artist to be acknowledged and appreciated for the lengths he goes to make his art, Old is a proof (in the logical sense) that that rapper has never been solely party rapper or thoughtful rapper. He is both simultaneously and neither is possible without the other: he wants to have fun because he spent decades not having fun (selling drugs, being poor, being incarcerated) and he wants to temper his fun because his way of having fun (partying and taking massive amounts of drugs) is not very sustainable.

This argument for harmony and continuity is reflected in both the content and the sound of the album. Despite the album’s apparent schism, few of the instrumentals sonically (aesthetically) indicate whether Danny will definitely rap about his past or his present. For instance, if Danny‘s raps are removed from the dizzying “Kush Coma” (Side B) and the buzzing “Dope Fiend Rental” (Side A),  neither one could be definitively placed on either side of the album. In fact, these songs have the same producer: SKYWLKR. Even the hellish “Torture,” with its raspy snares and suffering echoes could become a party track with the right approach. The same goes for the bubbling instrumental of “Red 2 Go;” it could easily burst into something hedonistic. All in all, there is nothing inherent, predestined, about the album’s elements, including the main element, Danny Brown.

In the end, this is Old‘s strength. By setting up and even enacting a false division between old and new, past and present, Danny Brown is able to disrupt both ideas and focus on his real woe: his future. He knows that he’s beyond the party/festival circuit – he’s got the bars, the versatility, the passion, and the energy – but how long can he float above it without crashing? Even he lacks the answer. But the way he poses the question, by mocking the past and the present, is brilliant. A lot of writers and listeners have claimed that Old lacks humor in comparison to XXX, but Old is the best joke of Danny‘s career. The Hybrid is still The Hybrid and fans are still lazy listeners.

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Queens emcees World’s Fair show off their skills with their Bastards Of The Party album, released for $free.99 via Fools Gold. The six member crew raps effortlessly on the 13-track project, proving that New York rap is not dead. You may or may not have heard from the collective before but they have been making noise for a while which lead to their deal with Fool’s Gold. The clique has an old-school retro feel complete with skits and plenty of boom-baps, but their energy and their aesthetic are definitely products of this millennium. The press release actually describes it as “futuristic boom-bap.” That should be taken with a grain of salt, but it shouldn’t be entirely dismissed. The only real way to assess the claim is to listen for yourself. Go for it.

Note: though this was released for free, Fools Gold has consistently called it a debut album. Danny Brown‘s XXX and Run the Jewels‘ Run the Jewels were also labeled as albums when they were released for free. This is important to keep in mind because it indicates a confidence in these artists’ presentations of themselves. Although we love mixtapes, we have to admit that a lot of people use the mixtape label as a preemptive shield against possible (and sometimes probable) negative reception. So when artists call their projects albums, in a sense, they are taking full credit for the projects. That should be appreciated.

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Danny Brown hasn’t been getting the best press lately. His friend and tour-mate Kitty offered some sharp insight into the situation a few days ago, but things still haven’t quite settled.

In opposition to this negativity, this list is reminder of why Danny Brown is on tour in the first place: charisma, humor and cleverness. Of course, his image, his ear for beats and that damn voice play a highly significant role as well, but you can’t always play a song or watch a music video. This list is dedicated to those moments when your phone battery is dead, you’re walking home and all you can hear are the bizarre words of a toothless guy from Detroit.

10) “Murder Game” (ft. Guilty Simpson)

“Run up on a nigga with the 4o, go BLOCKO!/ This nigga soft like a old hard taco.”

 

9) “LOL” (prod. Black Milk)

“Ya bitch like a cue ball in a pool hall: we all hittin!’ ”

 

8) “Tick Tock” (with Pusha T, Raekwon and Joell Ortiz)

“Got the heart of a child raised by a prostitute/ that brought his mama the rubbers when the John came through.”

 

7) “Outer Space”

“Swear she played soccer, she was real good with headers/ Had me yellin’ goal while I was sittin’ on the dresser!”

 

6) “Fields”

“It’s like they all forgot man nobody care about us/ That why we all ways end up in the prison ‘stead of college/ Livin’ in the system working kitchen for chump change/ Lost in the streets, niggas playing that gun game/ Where nobody wins just a bunch of mamas losin’.”

 

5) “Detroit 187″ (ft. Chip$)

“Bitch get high wit ya nigga. The sack I got is looking like some green caterpillars/ But it’s smellin’ like a skunk that’s oh so defensive/ These bitches suck my dick like it’s moral incentive!”

 

4) “D-Boyz” (ft. t3)

“I don’t eat rappers, I eat baby mamas.”

 

3) “Japhy Joe” (with Random Axe)

“Used to wear Rockports, Swisher and a Carhartt/ I would never fuck ya bitch: she look like a aardvark.”

 

2) “30”

“Came a long way from extension cords in the window/ Borrowed neighbor’s power just to plug up the Nintendo.”

 

1) “Terrorist Threats” (with Ab-Soul)

This entire verse:

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Danny Brown’

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Typically, when Danny Brown is featured on a lineup, he stands out. Interestingly, this wasn’t the case at MoMA PS1’s latest Warm Up concert. In spite of his ostentatious gold shoes, toothless smile and brash lyrics, Danny Brown was right at home.

Perhaps keeping MoMA PS1’s contemporary aesthetic  in mind, Brown started his set with, “Witit,” a bonus track from the re-release of his 2011 album XXX. “Witit” was the perfect starter for the first half of the set, which solely featured songs and verses from 2012. The crowd didn’t seem to be as familiar with his recent works, especially his guest verses from Childish Gambino’s “Toxic” and Ab-Soul’s “Terrorist Threats,” but they were engaged nonetheless. “Black Brad Pitt” and “Blueberry,” tracks with EDM (electronic dance music) instrumentals and producers, had people particularly enthralled. A number of rappers are attempting to embrace EDM without compromising their gruff images, but few do it as comfortably as Brown who makes a living on both sides of the proverbial fence.

The second half of the set was composed entirely of songs from XXX. The first song, “Die Like a Rockstar,” was particularly energized considering how many times Brown mentioned Molly (5, exactly) in the first half of the set.  Inciting extensive audience participation, the XXX tracks definitely hit their mark. “Blunt After Blunt,” the final song of the set, got people really excited. In fact, a few fellow audience members happily admitted that they had saved their pre-prepared blunts specifically for that song.

In the end, Danny Brown’s nickname, “The Hybrid,” proved to be well-deserved. Simultaneously engaging the hip-hop heads and the EDM enthusiasts, Brown truly showed the power of experimentation. This style characterizes Brown and will definitely continue to do so, but it remains to be seen whether or not the rest of the rap world will follow suit. We can only hope.

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Detroit-bred Danny Brown released the cover art for his new mixtape, XXX. The album is set to drop for free on August 15th and something tells me this album is going to have something to do with psychedelics, just a hunch. Stay tuned for more details.

Read more on the album and get the tracklist HERE

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