Best of 2017 Hip Hop

HIPHOP - not in specfic order - but pretty damn close.

Check this Spotify list - 3+ hours of tracks from these and many others - including singles from favorites not listed here.

OC + Apathy Perestroika Dirty Version – My best of. Hands down Aps rapid delivery of complex bar structures contrasted with OC's laid back, casual style plays beautifully. Ap made 90% of the beats - find samples and quotes and that continually support the Perestroika theme. It's a genius boom bap album. Plus, guests like Slaine on "Tomorrow is Gone" with all telling 3 stories of their Northeastern homes is genuine. The opener is the best, an unstoppable banger, killer beat with AP's nastiest verse. But songs like "Whats It All About" addresses society's and personal stress over a seductive piano solidiofy the sincerity of this project. Peppered with classic Boom bap like "Soviet Official" (a soulful head nod) , "stompcrushkillmode" w/ Celph, and "Covey Leader to Raven" just as bragadocious gold. "Winter Winds" is relelntless with Ap's verse and the vocal loop for the verse and ODB sample in the hopok.

Slaine + Termanology AntiHero Brick/ST records: ..probably #2 for real. vicious lyrical ability by both and multiple syllable schemes. When you have been doing this for as long as these two - as skilled as these two - you cultivate killer support: Preemo beat with Bun B and Everlast; Evidence beat; Statik beat with Madchild + DJ Revolution; and that's tracks 2, 3, and 4. Other names include beats by more Statik, Willy Loman, Psycho Les, Arcitype, and DC the Midi Alien; MCs include Chris Rivers ("Bringing Much Terror" - Oooohhh!!!! pure banger), Ill Bill, Nems, Ea$y Money, and Ras Kass. But Again here you get mind bending wordplay of Slaine and Term on top of their vivid storytelling.

Blu + Exile In the Beginning: Before the Heavens FatBeats

Classic, funky, west coast hip hop – sample driven and bluesy. Multiple instruments sampled here, piano, strings, and horns. Blu embodies smart lyrics passed through sick flows. His lyrics are descriptive (with a phrase like "takes more than water for a flower to grow" while still talking drugs and guns in community; so not hippie shit. Just insightful. Gives mad respect to old school). Great to here new Compton stories what aren't rehashed from what we grew up with. "On the Radio" is a classic jam that will get you nostalgic while appreciating a fresh breath. 

Sean Price Imperius Rex My favorite rapper. riP! At first i didn't deep dive because it felt like a posthumous release, kinda clunky. I still think a few songs in the middle with avg guests and beats i would drop; but considering sentimentality and P’s bars, i have been rocking this frequently! Beats by Nottz, Stu Bangas, 4th Disciple, Alchemist and Marco Polo. plus some new dudes.

MC Eiht + Brenk Sinatra + DJ Premier – which way iz west Year Round Records

We have all waited for this for years, it was disappointing to hear it would not be all preemo beats (feels like this happens.) But I was a huge fan of the Brenk EP Keep It Hood. So here he get hood legend, Eiht, banging over dope beats with great guests like Bumpy, WC, DAZ, Chill (CMW), and the greatest surprise, Lady of Rage murdering her 16. Amazing LP here.

Planet Asia + Apollo Brown Anchovies Mello Music Group - Apollo reinvents himself while still concocting tracks with his formula. Samples galore but this exhibits a minimalist approach from Apollo; sparse elements as the foundation is perfect for PA's flow. Planet Sia is in my top 10 - and i never tire of his lyrics even as he bangs out 2-3 LPs each year. "The Aura" is sublime. "Panties" is the jam. "Deep in the Casket" kills. Fly Shit.

Kool G Rap + MOSS Return of the Don Clockwork -smooth '70s soul with a GOAT top5 telling gangsta stories.  

Muggs + Mayhem Gems from the Equinox Soul Assassins -spooky, dark; classic Muggs with killer bars by Mayhem. I have loved every Muggs collabo and this solidifies the legacy.

KOSS Born to Live Slice of Spice …obviously. Ad for this read: “I just use turntables, vinyl and an MPC, That's it." Belgium producer with a soul drenched touch. Guest include Masta Ace, Keith Murray, Blaq Poet, Craig G, Ruste Juxx, and Torae. even more.

Pawz One Pick Your Poison Pawz One Music / Dopeshit Music -  actual guitar bass and drums here - playing funky tunes with energy and punch. "Wish You Weren't Here" is great specimen, add his Pawz bard, a redman sample for the hook and ill scratches. Love hearing Mykill Myers on a track - so cool. "Front to Back" bangs as the album's opener. Loved Pawz' Face the Facts and Def by Stereo. The dopeness here is pushing the boundary like 90s Too $hort, MC Breed, and even NWA. Remember real instrumentation? Goats? Roots? (discounting intro, interlude, outro) There are 12 tracks only 5 have guests. So Pawz shows he can carry an LP. But when gets the guests.... hot damn. Shabaam Sahdeeq (jazz soaked trumpet and guitar), El Da Sensei, King Magnetic + Cheif Kamachi, Talib Kweli + Main Flow, and the Myers track - which is a rollicking funk fest with horns and piano over the best and a sick hook with Das Efx and Artifacts' sample. 

M-Dot Ego and The Enemy EMS Produuctions - Boston vet delivers the full package here. Check my review here. 

Blacastan + Stu Bangaz The Uncanny Adventures of Watson & Holmes Brick Records / Brutal Music - whether on his relentless mixtapes - Master Builder Patr II - or Blac Sabbath or on AOTP or DGZ - Blacastan stands out with storytelling, bars, and personality. Having a consistent producer on an entire LP helps this cohesive project. Great follow up to the first installment. Stu's style of MPC chop and loop sampling gets heads to respect his game.

Your Old Droog Packs oooohhh, I love his laid back style; smokey and jazzy. His EP hooked me. This full length begins with a bold track, "GKAC". It's brilliant. Then "Bangledesh" and "Grandma Hips" back to back - is way too fonky. Dude can rap.

Edo G Freedom 5th & Union - The lord of Boston just keeps doing Edo; nasty flow and social commentary with multis. Great beats. I'll buy everything this man ever releases. 

Roc Marciano Rosebudd’s Revenge Marci / Fat Beats 15 tracks - only 2 guest verses. Roc has been doing this! From The UN to his solo work like Reloaded, Marcberg and Marci Beacoup, his unique style - like he needs a translator and demands repeated listens - he creates worlds and one of the most original styles. Plus, his beats are ridiculous - matching his sparse and minimal wordsmithing. No one here is a super name, but he exploits each opportunity to spit straight fire.

King Magnetic Everything Happens 4 a Reason King Mag Music - AOTP and solo vet from Philly, comes with a captivating album. Not the best rapper, but King has bars and killer beats which are thick and funky. Sampling the trinity, horns, keys, strings. This is east coast boom bap for 2018. This road dawg's subjects are heartfelt, down to earth, while still being hard.

Thirstin Howl III Skillmatic (self) 2018. Are you kidding me? TH III returns with a full on classic. You have to adjust to his flow and delivery style -  but beats bang and he’s entertaining as fuck.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: not in order

Fokis Underground with Commercial Appeal

Madchild The Darkest Hour

Rock Rockness AP

Ruste Juxx International Juxxe – grimy and gritty – boom bap – all collabos with varied MCs from the world)

Masta Killa Loyalty is Royalty

Heavy Metal Kings Black God White Devil - Ill Bill and Vinnie Paz return with metal themed tracks putting Goretex on most tracks. 

Skyzoo The Peddler Themes

Showbiz + AG Take It Back

WuTang The Saga Continues 

Raekwon The Wild  *"Can't You See" is top5 single of this year.

Wordsworth Our World Today

Nutso REDSunday

Local Mu12 comp Everday People

Milano Constantine The Way We Were

Alpha Faktion Creative Control

PMD Business Mentality

Phat Kat + DJ Dister The S.O.S. Project

Gensu Dean and Diamond D drop video

Gensu Dean first grabbed my ears with the Guilty Simpsons 2014, Shaken, a remix EP of Mello Music Groups, Dice Game, by Guilty and Apollo Brown. One year earlier, in 2013, the seventeen track banger, Abrasions, with Fresno's legendary. Planet Asia, transfixed those who dared to listen. His beats knock with sparse meticulous elements. The Problem, his stunning album with 7evenThirty turned heads next. Gensu Dean's production is a rare gem these days. 

2016 brought the Refined Alkaline Water compilation boasting Roc Marciano, J Live and MMG's Red Pill, among more. The opener is a scorcher with Diamond D. The video, directed by Tommy Nova, dropped today. Gensu Dean's lead single "Principles & Codes" brings guest feature and legend Diamond D (DITC).  "The silhouette and smoke drenched video...[has] Diamond continue his reign as a pioneering force, while Gensu Dean stamps out once again his right to one of the best analog producers doing it today." The energy of Lil' Fame (MOP) in the sampled hook bust through the chill mood of the track. 

Gensu bandcamp

M Dot Ego and the Enemy review

M-Dot

The Ego and the Enemy

Own Lane Music; EMS Productions

featuring: 7L; B.A.M; Camp Lo; DJ JS-1; Djaz; Dominique Larue; Jaysaun; Krumb Snatcha; LP2; Marley Marl; Method Man; Tribeca

producers: Buckwild; Es-K; Hi Tek; Jon Glass; KAN; Khrysis; LP2; LX Beats; Large Professor; Marco Polo; Marley Marl; Snowgoons; Soulplusmind; Whatson

The man got a joint produced by Marley Marl. That could be the review. That should speak to M-Dot’s style and skill and street cred enough to make you know to buy this album. But there is so much more to The Ego and The Enemy, drenched in skilled multi syllabic bars and storytelling lyrics and boom bap beats all through the record.

There a few issues or distractions one can list with this album, if any. M-Dot spews lyrical dexterity and skill relentlessly throughput this album. The Ego and the Enemy is long at 17 tracks averaging 4 minutes each. But nothing drags here, each track bangs. M-Dot utilizes this extensive outlet to touch on many aspects of life; channeling his anger and frustration and appreciation. He explores many facets of life. He tells sad tales of people’s self-destruction on a few tracks. He highlights the love of his daughter. M-Dot also reminds you of his skills and lyricism and tenacity repeatedly. He is frank and personal like Brother Ali or Slaine or Esoteric, exhibiting traits that portray flaws and vulnerability as well as skill and mastery of this rap game. With the Boston accent and delivery, it’s hard to not think of Slaine. But M-Dot shines on his own that the thought is fleeting.

The beats are amazing, cultivating dope beats from all areas of hip hop. There is soul, reggae, jazz, blues all accented by dope scratches and hooks. The first track (after the intro) is “Dreamscape”, Marco Polo’s beat is so dark! A slow, doomy guitar line; something you would hear from La Coka Nostra or DJ Muggs. It swirls and looms as a jangly piano line jingles in the back to contrast. Another guitar line of a squealing solo is layered over it too, so bad ass. “Foreign” is a popping beat, by Jon Glass, with elements of pitched vocals, dreamy strings, and sloppy drums. Its hypnotic and and pounding, the accordion chop is dope and adds that unique flavor. “Days Are All the Same” carries a theme repeated often in my world of punk rock. The anti-cubical, anti-corporate, anti-9 to 5 and materialism and consumerism is a refreshing spark in hip hop. Second verse attacks the world which females can get trapped in when they subscribe to vanity and selfish technology. Hi-Tek’s dense beat is killer. The choral voices and the scratches over atmospheric waves and organ loops provide a stellar foundation to approach these subjects.

Marley Marl’s “Gleamin’”, featuring B.A.M., is a jazzy gem boasting a crunchy trumpet. “Give It to Me” is a banger, the dusty beat with super scratches and samples provide a ample boom bap for M-Dot to proclaim why he ain’t leaving the game anytime soon. Fellow Boston ripper, Jaysaun, joins M-Dot on a Jamaican inspired thumper. The main hook is heavy while the verse is a small sparse pluck; both angles deliver on that bumping track must. M-Dot’s lyrics flow and slip through a plethora of multis. Jaysaun spits short but potent. His razor tongue is rarely paralleled. I wish he would drop a proper studio album. Meth comes in and ignites the swing of “Shine”. Tical still got it and he brings his signature charisma and wordplay to the track. It’s an uplifting track with Dominique Larue spitting ferocious on the second verse. The sung chorus is a positive vibe, which usually turns me off, but it’s cool here.

M-Dot, on “No Excuses”, says “You either want it or you don’t”. That sums up his drive and fortitude as he writes. You can hear his hunger in his bars throughout the entirety of Ego and the Enemy. There is no doubt that talent is innate, but work is earned and proven by labor. M-Dot has created another level for himself on this superb album. M-Dot touches on fun subjects and dark ones. Divorce, strained relationships, raising children, travel, rap as a business, drugs, drinking guns, society. Every beat is a landscape of potent emotions to hit visceral paralleling his words. While the digital release came out on January 27^th, the hard copies come out on March 17th. Celebrate St Patty’s Day with this Boston MC tearing up wax.

BUY IT

Twitter: +M-Dot Boston  

TYPILL and Statik Selektah Veterans Day Review

TypIll & Statik Selektah

Veteran’s Day

FatBeats

Released November 11

When a single producer works with an emcee for an entire project, the album always stands above the rest. There is a thread that runs through the album, a cohesive angle that broadens the impact. Statik Selektah has never made a bad beat. Simplicity is never his prolific output in the last years with consistency and potency, rivals Apollo Brown, Marco Polo, DJ JS-1 and more. Enter in TYP-Ill, a LINY, veteran MC that carries his past on his sleeve. Flourishing on the mic and over Statik’s funky string and piano concoctions, TYP-Ill brings fierce street stories and bragadocious skills.

Sometimes, he has a delivery and voice exactly like Chino XL. Less focus on metaphors and wordplay, Typ-Ill still carries venom. His strength is embedded in his detailed story telling. Obviously when TYP-Ill talks of his service and the impact on his constitution it holds sincere gravity. The weight of those experiences will shrivel most nonsense MC’s trite hood tales. However, TYP-Ill is quick to tell his stories of drugs, ladies, and debauchery just as quickly. The vivid painting which Ill’s lyrics and syllabic mastery depict matches some of the rap game’s best.

The bombastic feel of the soulful 70’s flare of “The Hustle” is captivating. Statik’s use of sparse, deep piano and pitch-bent female, emotive vocals and long brass notes and the wailing, wandering electric guitar all coalesce to enrich Ill’s story of having to slang to survive. This track is as colorful as any Scorcese flick. “Onyx” combines some funk and a PE type siren over raucous drums to motivate TYP’s retarded energy as he harnesses chaos with rebellious lyrics. TYP goes in and spazzes.

Songs like “Dog Tags and Duffel Bags” and “Soldier” again garner intense facets to create blistering racks. TYP and Statik team up over dark beats. From sparse strings plucking to a dense, heavy Hammond organ, Statik gets heavy, emotional beats from opposite approaches. Statik shows he is a master here. He can utilize many approaches to confront the listener. I believe his guidance had to be a factor in TYP-Ill hone his abilities.

A skilled, tongue bending lyricist, TYP-Ill gains respect through a weathered life. But his genuine sincerity and mature humility are the engrossing factors. Combined with Statik at the paragon of his game, and a myriad of funky ass drums, Veteran’s Day is a vicious, moving album.