best rap album so far this year?

I haven't heard a solid album. The Mike Jones is OK but not outstanding, the 50 album seems weak outside of the singles.

LOLOLOLOLOL.

chief kamachi and the juju mob - black candles

dutch rap?!? my curiosity is seriously piqued.

i sound like such a backpacker. mainstream rap was better than indie rap for three years running, but i think undie-hop's having a good showing in 05. but i'm hoping the ying yang twins full-length delivers.

If 13 + God still counts as rap, then that's my other vote...

I liked "Turning Lane" and "grandma" and "Back Then" and a couple other songs too. I think its a weird album because he tells people who clearly already own his album to buy the album and there are lots of verses i'd heard before but i still like it. it certainly doesn't deserve the pretty much unanimous beating its taking from critics.

PS I also liked the Pimp C album a lot, and Quasimoto.

I've seen Edan mentioned quite a bit but no comparisons. So what is it like?

it's a very consistent and engaging record, nothing really so great to make you jump out of your seat but it hangs together very nicely (which might be partially to do with the fact that it's so short, which is definitely not a bad thing).

though i do like the subtitle, farm fresh, mike jones, dalek, edan, and a few others that haven't been mentioned here (blueprint for instance)

anyway: mannie fresh, common, southern smoke 16 (or maybe 17?...i dont have it on hand) if you count mixtapes (i do), the beans record is about 2/3 good, mike jones is ass, i have heard a clutch of good mixtapes (slim thug, that one from big boi's new label) as per but albumswise this has been kind of a shit year so far.

Here's a pic of him.

http://www.humblemagnificent.com/pics/edanstills/1.jpg

Self named "The Humble Maginificent"

And His Website. http://www.humblemagnificent.com

but we all agree the best albums this year will be the Ghostface & Doom releases (collab album, DangerDoom, solo Ghost).

and Common really sounds fresh with Kanye but I haven't listened to it enough (yet).

*to other music

and you know what album is good? b.g. - heart of tha streetz

Yeah, I just checked the CD and it does say 2004. but i could've sworn it came out this year (and that the leak was from 2004). Maybe I got it mixed up with Sage's 'Healthy Distrust' leaking in november and not coming out til february. Nevermind.

which third of the beans (thats beanie sigel) album is bad?

i only listened to the first half of the common album because it got really warped from being left in my left in my car and i thought leaving it under some dictionarys would help. but i found it mildly intolerable.

The single off of the Mike Jones album is TERRIBLE.

crooked crack 2 is 2005 i think

'Slow Down' samples 'What I Am'.

Um, I'd say albums of the year so far are:
1. Cormega--Testament
2. TheGame--Documentary
3. Beanie Sigel--B.Coming

maybe a wack honorable mention ta Common--Be, I personally don't like it at all but cats do, so I guess it deserves the mention.

I think that the BEST album of the year will be Bun-B's masterpiece Trill, but TheGame's will be more remembered & recognized as the album that shaped the year.
here's actually how I see the rest the Rap year playing out:
•Bun-B--"Trill"
•TheGame--"TheDocumentary"
•Ghostface & MF-DOOM--"????"
•Styles P.--"Time Is Money"
•Kast--"Ten The Hardway"
with hon. mentions ta--B.Coming//Be//Black Roses//Certified//Cuban Lynx:2//
..DangerDoom//Game Theory//Ghetto Extraordinary//
Hell Hath No Fury//Middle Passage//Million-$-Mouthpiece//
Minstrel Show//Rebirth Of A Nation/Revolutionary Vol 3//
Thoughts Of A Predicate Felon//25 To Life//The Urban
Legend//What The Game's Been Missing//???????????????????

not feelin mike jones. haven't heard the new beanie, but never really liked him. definitely like the new geto boys, they're some real ass gangsters i mean gangstahz, although they say mother fucker a hell of a lot. those of you (deej) on the indy gangsta tip go check out the new chillin villian empire.

aesoprock's got tight beats and lyrics but i always though he forced his delivery.
dŠlek's album was a good one.

what is 13+god? i'll check it ooout, same with pete philly and perquisite. and dj screw: most avant garde ever? awesome! 333.. you should check out subtitle.

and what is dipset? who sampled edie brickell? i heard b nubian, but forkclovetofu??
you don't like common but you think the game is a banger? 'i'm raps mvp' oh please..

i heard common is a good one. not boundary pushing by any means, but quality flavor.
danger doom sounds interesting.
quasi's gotta be good, anyone teamed up with madlib brings their style to another level.
wake up josh love, lots of hip hop around for all flavors. google some of these groups dude.

i think i heard edan say he was jewish when i saw him live. as for self proclaimed humble magnificent.. he has an ego and won't admit it. his freestyle in the session at the end of the show was extremely sick though

dude, quasi is madlib

shame.. cause most of what i'm seeing listed is poop.

is this serious?!

2) i think we can assume the ghostface over wichita lineman is a goof, but if it ain't, put me on the list for a copy

3) Juelz Santana - "Slow Down"
'Now she on it like Whitney Houston / But can't afford it like Whitney Houston' trumps the infamous BEP line X 20.
Boo to the little kid discussing crack sales, tho.
Enough with the fuckin' crack!

there's the new Ying Yang single with mike jones, i posted it on the shrimp too. i cant hear it because i'm on dial-up and its taking fucking forever to download...someone tell me if its any good.

I don't know that 13 & God is a true hip hop record, but it's pretty damn good. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's a collaboration between The Notwist and Themselves.

other nominees: Juelz Santana (mixtapes count right?). lots of singles, few albums, same as it ever was.

beanie siegel
mannie fresh
cormega
c-murder
mike jones
geto boys
z-ro
messy marv

http://s48.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0J0X9COHD6YOZ23YNZ2Y2QRN2N

Clipse - We Got It for Cheap 2 gets my vote right now.

The only part of that "Mask" track that did much for me was the Brak part, so I'm guessing I shouldn't bother with DangerDoom.

1) I miss Pimp C's scratchy drawl playing off bun-b's gruff baritone.
2) "Draped Up" is a pretty weak lead single.
3) the album falls off kind of hard at the end - that Travis Barker track is reaaaally boring. I thought it would be interesting but its like him trying to sound 'old school' tasteful or something.

Surprises: the Mannie beats are surprisingly great!

Xhuxk, I'm surprised you like Trina that much! Her rapping and persona seem a lot less fresh to me right now so i may be giving her songs a hard time.

I'm still waiting to hear what third of the Beanie album strongo thinks is so bad!

Trife recommended the Webbie album to me. Its long, and its pretty intense but its definitely got some incredibly hot tracks. Lyrically its much better than I expected, based on his performance on the mixtape with Boosie from last year/the single.

the AZ album is uneven but wow wow wow "City of Gods." Disco D is on my shortlist of new producers right now.

Also, I am kind of enraptured with the French rapper Cuizinier's new thing, Pour les Filles: Street Tape Volume 01, which is completely insane and great. Please tell me someone else out there has heard this.

got trina and twista in the mail last week, really need to listen to 'em both now apparently.

i dont think the beanie album is BAD. just boring. i dont think he's a particularly charismatic mc and a lot of the beats are just kind "ehhh". also sax solos will lose you a lot of points.

What about the other tracks RZA has done for Ghostface since then like "the watch", "the sun", "maxine", "run" and "kunta fly shit"..? They were all great.

Anyway, the Black Rob mixtape i made of the cream of the crop of his new tracks is my favorite rap cd of this year.

If you take the 12 great tracks from the "black rob report" album :

2. They Heard I Got Life
3. Watch Your Movements
4. Star in da Hood
7. B.R.
8. Ready
11. When You Come Home
12. You Know What
13. Y'all Know Who Killed Him
15. Fire in da Hole
16. Smile in Ya Face
19. Help Me Out
21. Love Live B.R.

Add the original versions of "b.l.a.c.k" and "they heard i got life" aka "time 2 ride"

Then add the other new mixtape cuts like :

Permanent scars
Knock 'em out
Business never personal (Neptunes beat!)
Jeans and sneakers (with Biggie!)

.. you got a rather spendid 18 song cd that's easily the best album to come outta Noo Yawk rap in a couple of years...or at least since that version of "pretty toney" by Ghostface i made last year with all the unreleased tracks.

I suppose as an album on it's own the Black Rob is great as 12 good tracks on a NYC rap album in 2005 is pretty good going. I also still really like the Game album.

Edan is beneath contempt.

but my vote has to go to Quasimoto's second album, pipping Kanye to the post because, months after getting it, i'm still picking it all apart and finding all kinds of new ideas in there. its like a hip-hop album where the skits bleed into the tracks until you can't tell where one ends and another begins, like some stoned trip through a blaxploitation backlot that's pointedly hilarious in places, and just plain inspired elswhere.

also loved common's last one, and Big Justoleum has put out two fantastic records this year, 'imperial letters of protection' as NMS (with orko eloheim) and his own solo 'poor people's day' which just confirm how unique his sound and approach are. excited by the news of mike ladd's new one, though 'negrophilia' was better in concept than experience.

am loving spankrock's 'voila' mixtape and the 'this is the remix' 12", want to hear more...

dangerdoom is a lot of fun, but i love Adult Swim. the mooninites' rap on 'vats of urine' is classic!

but priest da nomad's, "mr. moov sumthin'" is the best album i've heard

i liked the chicago records too

xpost good ol' chuck.

Hm, yes my sentiments. Doom would be a great ace card for the guest verse, but the roughness of his flow gets grating track after track.

SNAP

the trina is a real grower, but doesn't hold together quite enough as an album -- i think some sequencing coulda really put it over the top.

the kim again had like a set of good trax but didn't hang together.

ghostface is out in dec -- & his albums are consistent always at the very least.

missy and dangerdoom will probably do v. well on the P&J, but yeah kanye will sweep it again i suspect?

Please come back Foxy! We miss you!

"Dangerdoom" sucks. M.F Doom should've retired from rhyming after "operation doomsday" and focussed on producing.

And Reggie Jackson shoulda retired after he left the A's in '75*. Fucking madness. (*I am willing to refer to VV2 as his Baltimore Orioles stint.)

A pre-emptive fuck you; Slug has been great (Felt + Atmosphere = quality). Edan I like pretty well beat-wise and lyrically when he's not getting too preposterous he's pretty fun. The guests kill shit, especially Dagha on "Rock & Roll". The Blackalicious is pretty uneven and I'm really starting to notice that Gab is great with a verse but tends to be embarrassing or flat when going for hooks. (Which reminds me: Doom pretty much NEVER uses hooks, which seems pretty weird once ya think about it.) The Banner's all right but it (and everything else released in the last I dunno 2-3 years) fades in comparison to the best tracks from the Mississippi albums. Kanye snuck up on me (week one: "no 'We Don't Care', shucky darn"; week three: "YAY JAMIE FOXX + JON BRION"). Danger Doom is so fucking stupid and I love it. The Quasimoto record has both the best and most irritating indie rap singles I've heard this year ("Seasons Change" = fusion wonderment; "Life Is" = how about "chippin'" off a piece of my dick, you awful awful piano riff) and I guess I'd forgive the fact it feels more like a Firesign Theater album than a rap record if most of the rest of the underground didn't sound like fucking warmed-over tofu stuffed down Digable Planets' sweatsocks or some shit. (J-Live I am pointing AT YOU.) I'm not even sure why I told some people I liked the Perceptionists. And Little Brother's The Minstrel Show is the most overrated rap record since S/TLB except it's overrated by a different kind of boring nerd.

Oh hey, I just remembered my answer to this thread: Run the Road.

2. Kanye dropped the ball and everyone's afraid to say it. Just like with the Eminem Show.

3. It's totally unhip to like backpacker shit these days, even tho it's just as hit or miss as the mainstream shit people are deifying. So, I refuse to buy into the groupthink that Juelz Santana is somehow better than Slug because he is so, so, so not.

My top o' the hop as of October 25:
1. Dalek
2. Farm Fresh
3. Quasimoto
4. Blueprint
5. Perceptionists
6. Mannie Fresh
7. Mike Jones
8. Sage Francis
9. Paul Wall
10. Subtitle

I loved the first Banner album, actually prefered its screwed and chopped version (which made my top ten), liked about half of the second one, but I haven't even been able to get through the new one yet. The two final tracks, which Frank Kogan tells me are the best (and which I talk about on the rolling country thread, ha ha), sounded good to me. I like rock music! But I'm really sad Banner's not incorporating country (ala "Cadillac on 22s") anymore. And I'm even sadder that Bubba Sparxxx, whose new album is consistently entertaining and consistently disappointing at the same time, is not incorporating country any more. I don't understand that at all.

I liked Edan, Blueprint, Dalek, Farm Fresh and sundry other backpack records this year (I mention a few more way upthread, I think.) I really like that new album by Dooley-0, from Connecticut. But all these sound kinda thin to me (their SOUND, I mean, not their tracklists per se) compared to the four or so Southern albums I mention at the top of this thread (and honestly, I'm not positive any of *those* mean that too much to me, either -- not positive any will make my pazz and jop top ten. Trina and Mannie Fresh definitely have the best shot. My favorite tracks on Trina's album right now are probably "Shake," "Da Club," and "It's Your B-Day," followed by "Don't Trip," "Sexy Gurl," Throw it Back," "Reach Out," and maybe "Sum Mo." But there are probably others I haven't noticed yet.) (Fannypack and MIA are definitely in my top ten, but I have no idea if anybody considers either of them hip-hop now, so never mind.)

Paul Wall is playing right now. Not a single track I don't like. My favorites so far are probably "State to State," "Drive Slow," Sip-N-Get High," and "Big Ballin'." "Internet Going Nutz" is very silly. Oddly, my least favorite track might be the one with Bun B on it.

I refuse to answer any questions (at least right now) about *why* I like particular tracks. I'm not sure I know the answers anyway, and since I am currently builing bunkers and foxholes in my office to fend off my new owners, I don't have time to today to figure it out.

I'm liking the album, but I'm also pretty disappointed by it; there doesn't seem to be any country-oriented stuff, which sucks, but I guess Bubba has to move on. So far my favorite track is "Wonderful," but that could change. The Pablo track's good, too.
-- xhuxk (xedd...), October 24th, 2005.

Actually i think its that country-motif stuff that was painting him into a corner
-- deej.. (clublonel...), October 24th, 2005.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe, but that doesn't mean it wasn't his best stuff. (Plus, I'm not sure *why* it would paint him into a corner. There's as much possibility in incorporating country as in *not* incorporating country. And there's definitely more possibility in incorporating both country *and* non-country. Getting rid of it makes his horizons *less* wide, not more.) (That goes for David Banner too, by the way.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), October 24th, 2005.

Hell, a lot of my favorite albums are EPs!

I don't own an iPod, hopefully never will.

At the top of that POST I mean. And I still need to play Slim Thug.

Trina's voice and tracks have WAY more life and energy in them than any other hip-hop I've heard this year. I was not expecting much, but I'm blown away. It is the only hip-hop album this year where I start dancing around my living room. No other hip-hop album I've heard this year is so fucking *catchy*, period. No other hip-hop album I've heard this year rocks so hard. And give or take Mannnie's, no other one has made me laugh so much. I love that Trina wants her and Oprah to make a sandwhich out of Genwine on her birthday. She deserves it!

Playing Slim Thug now. Ho fucking hum, for the most part. Oppressive hard-guy thug tedium. Humorless and stodgy, as near as I can tell. I kind of hate the guy's voice. The Latin/Mantronix beats in the Bun B track I Ain't Heard Of That (Remix)" sound totally awesome, though.

I should play Missy's album more. I always take her for granted, which is wrong.

whatever.

Also, I didn't know Paul Wall was white when I first heard him. And I also think the whole "Gasp, white people RAPPING!?!?!?111wtfomg" articles that have come in his wake are very 1999. And he's very, very competent and articulate from what I gather.

Slim Thug is hella humorless. Sadly, Pharrell has the best TWO lines on that record: "Looks like my wrist been dipped in diamond fondue" and "That bbbbrrrtt make your chest look just like some pizza."

Pitbull's got a new EP coming out that will probably make my top something if it doesn't suck.

There's definitely stuff I liked on the Missy. Seemed more or less on par with most of her other albums, which I've always liked but never loved. I'm still really waiting for her best-of CD, hopefully soon.

(I know nothing about Trina being a battered wife, or anything else about her life for that matter. I don't pay attention to celebrity's lives, at all, though if she *is* a battered wife, that's very sad, obviously. I think I heard Lil Wayne is her boyfriend; that made me smile. I think they'd be a cute couple. I hope he's not the batterer.)

Sure, there's a clump of tracks I skip in the last third, but "Can't Stop", "Lose Control", "Irresistable Delicious", "Partytime" (the beat, not the hook), "Bad Man" (even though M.I.A. kinda sucks on it)...there's a bunch of hot shit on it. Even the "forgettable" tracks are pretty good.

Also, the original version of "State To State" (with Bun B) is a million times better than the released one with Freeway, it's banging.

I also didn't know he was white, but that was when I first heard him on screw tapes a few years ago... His name sounds great screwed... "Pawwwwwwl Waaaawwwwwwlll." Plus he had the advantage of only having a one verse out of like 6 on a song.

Are people not liking the Missy as much as when it came out? I remember thinking it was weird that it left me sort of cold but everyone else seemed to think it was her best.

I think for the most part it got kind of mixed reviews from the start. From looking at MetaCritic, the consensus seemed to be: A return-to-form after the disappointing "This is Not a Test", but not as good as her earlier work. (Which is kind of ironic, considering that the initial reaction to "This is Not a Test" was actually more positive than the initial reaction to "The Cookbook" - but I guess people soured on that one after a while.)

finally ddrake and i have some common ground.

was there a thread on this?

paul wall is great too but i can't listen to it for more than a few tracks at a time. sittin' sideways is my favorite of the h-town singles this year, even over still tippin'.

http://www.ytcracker.com/nes/

Z-ro too.

Devin needs to drop an album this year.

(Speaking of regional sounds, I still might take Rod Lee's Baltimore club *Vol. 5: The Official* over Trina, so if that counts as a rap record, I guess that might be second place instead. And Fannypack and MIA still beat Mannie if they count, but I don't think they do here.)

Funny, I love the album but I didn't get that sense from it. I haven't heard it in awhile though.

(Feels good to vote for a record that sounds so New Orleans this year, too, obviously.)

Xhuxk, if you want I'll send you the Hot 8 Brass Band record or something?

xp