Our Best of 2016 albums lists by genre continue today with our staff picks for the 15 best hip-hop albums this year.
Click next to read through the albums one by one, or use the list below to skip ahead to your favourites.
Top 15 Hip-Hop Albums of 2016:
15. Rae Sremmurd
SremmLife 2
(Eardrummers/Interscope)
Look, 2016's been a tough year. It's been the sort of year that inspires people to make the sort of protest music that gets people out in the streets and storming the barricades. It's also been the sort of year that makes people look for a distraction, something that lets them cut loose and feel good for a few minutes. That's the sort of music Rae Sremmurd make: tear-the-roof-off party music. And they do it better than almost anyone working in music today.
SremmLife 2 is a goddamn joy to listen to. It's the hour-long vacation we all needed. You can't not move to it. You can't not smile. You can't not get pulled into the day-in, day-out party that is Sremmlife. "Look Alive" is the sort of song you want played every time you walk into the room, like you're a UFC fighter, while "Black Beatles" is a catchy, hypnotic piece of ear candy that may be the best rap, pop, electronic and R&B song of the year. Frankly, we should all be sending Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi a thank you note.
Chris Dart
14. Drake
VIEWS
(OVO Sound/Young Money/Cash Money/Republic)
The dark, woozy style that defines "the Toronto Sound" reached its apotheosis on VIEWS, Drake's long-teased fourth LP, on which Drizzy and producer Noah "40" Shebib continue honing their craft with razor-sharp focus. Wrapping the album in seasonal bookends (winter becomes summer before turning back to winter again), they penned a love letter to their hometown in the process.
VIEWS is overlong, maybe, but its lowest points still best the hordes of Drake imitators, while its highs rank amongst the year's best. Even within the album's thematic confines, 40 finds space to crack open his typically hermitic and claustrophobic beats to include subtle nods to a larger and brighter global pop landscape. The album's oft-memed cover, which perched the 6 God on the side of the CN Tower, accurately captures the MC towering over his city. After VIEWS, it might as well be the whole world.
Ian Gormely
13. Isaiah Rashad
The Sun's Tirade
(Top Dawg Entertainment)
Released in the dawg days of summer, The Sun's Tirade is for indoor cats like Earl Sweatshirt, who find doing shit and going outside generally unappealing. It's more thematically consistent than 2014's sketched-out Cilvia Demo, as he uses the "sun/son" homonym to make sense of how his struggle with inter-generational addiction has impacted his own role as a parent.
At age 25, Rashad is already describing his life as a sort of cautionary tale, trying to break the cycle of drugs and depression without getting too far ahead of himself. Showcasing some of this year's most impressive features from Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Jay Rock, The Sun's Tirade is a highly accomplished work of paternal wisdom.
TDE's woefully underrated in-house producers paint gorgeous instrumentals with a hazy late-afternoon feel that underscores Rashad's deceptively nonchalant flow, as sunlight spills through the curtains. Despite the record's laid-back, downtempo pacing, he never fails to sound sharp and lucid here. It's not a celebration of his self-destructive lifestyle so much as an unraveling revelation: Rashad's "gotta consider [his] liver" and ultimately "make the bottle go away."
Cole Firth
12. Kamaiyah
A Good Night in the Ghetto
(Independent)
Kamaiyah gained notoriety at the end of 2015 with "How Does It Feel," a colourful single that displayed a '90s sensibility with a modern twist. Her ensuing mixtape, A Good Night in the Ghetto, is one of those game-changers that ruffle feathers by keeping its head down and doing its thing.
The 20-year-old rapper doesn't put on airs; she raps from the believable point of view of a hard-partying, unattached Oakland girl. At a time when a lot of hip-hop hinges on bleak beats and rhymes written from the perspective of invincible cartoon characters, Kamaiyah's music isn't only a breath of fresh air, but a much-needed return to authenticity. If nothing else, hooks like the "woopty-woos" of "Out the Bottle," or the "freaky-freakys" of "Freaky Freaks" are infectious enough to justify the album's place among the most memorable hip-hop releases of 2016.
Mathias Pageau
11. Young Thug
JEFFERY
(300 Entertainment/Atlantic)
Thanks to exuberant weirdos like Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert, the once-freaky Young Thug seems relatively normal in comparison. Fortunately, Thugger has proven yet again that he's much more than a pop culture oddity. On JEFFERY, he spits urgent bars over top-shelf production, further cementing his status as the suave hip-hop deity he presents himself as on the album's cover.
The album's tracks are each named for a different celeb, from "Wyclef Jean" to "Kanye West" (which, weirdly, features Wyclef Jean). That there would be a song about the Internet's favourite deceased ape should be a surprise to no one, but we'll have to revisit 2016's worst meme over and over again, because "Harambe" is a stone-cold banger.
Josiah Hughes
10. YG
Still Brazy
(400/CTE World/Def Jam Recordings)
YG's sophomore effort not only proved the acclaimed My Krazy Life was more than just a flash in the pan; it bridged the gap between old heads and new. On Still Brazy, the "Bompton" native resumed his cinematic portrayal of his hood — (mostly) without Ty Dolla $ign or homie-turned-enemy DJ Mustard — while bringing G-Funk into the 21st century.
And it worked. A handful of beatsmiths remarried thumping bass lines to timeless funk samples while YG continued to prove a born raconteur with some expertly placed interludes and uniquely Compton tales like "Gimmie Got Shot" and "Bool, Balm & Bollective."
The Angelino restores the West Coast's former glory by vividly reminding heads that where N.W.A once had Reagan, today's rappers have Trump (still just a presidential candidate during the making of the album), and their comings and goings with the police are as acrimonious now as they were then.
Still Brazy might delight with flashbacks of Chevies and Death Row's prime, but it remains firmly rooted in the hard truths of YG's "Bompton."
Themistoklis Alexis
9. Vince Staples
Prima Donna
(Def Jam Recordings)
Since the release of his landmark full-length debut Summertime '06, 23-year-old wunderkind Vince Staples has been riding a wave of success thanks to his signature blend of creamy-smooth, vivacious tracks. His follow-up EP, which was poised to be a kind of victory lap, sounds more like a recession into the shadows — an experimental, understated take on hip-hop.
Opening with a solemn, tinny version of "This Little Light of Mine," cut off short by the sound of a gunshot that makes you jump to attention, Staples and his roster of A-class producers set the tone of the album from the get-go. Between a brilliant sampling of an Andre 3000 "ATLiens" verse on the track "War Ready," spoken word interludes and upbeat tracks that act as house party-ready yet lonesome, almost nihilistic odes to the world's problems, Staples has taken his craft to another level here. The question is: Where to next?
Courtney Baird-Lew
8. Common
Black America Again
(ARTrium Recordings/Def Jam Recordings)
The world Common creates on his new LP is almost science fiction: a world where Hillary won, where America's black communities acknowledged the struggles they faced but looked forward in hope. It's fair to say that Com probably thought the album, released on the eve of a presidential election which just about everybody assumed was a done deal, would reflect reality. We have never wished harder for a black hole to a parallel universe, but in the absence of one, at least we have the truly incredible Black America Again.
Common is better than he's been in years here. The picture he paints on the title track and "Little Chicago Boy" are extraordinary, and the sheer ferocity with which he attacks the mic on "Pyramids" will make your jaw hit the floor. His work with producer Karriem Riggins is as good as anything he did with Kanye or Dilla, and the entire package — a landmark — is a joy from start to finish.
At a time when everything seems well and truly fucked, Black America Again is a reminder that good things can still happen. We are not lost yet.
Rob Boffard
7. Skepta
Konnichiwa
(Boy Better Know)
Toronto and London share many similarities, from the Caribbean-infused slang to the names of certain neighbourhoods, but the most endearing parallel between the two cities is the history of each destination's hip-hop scene. Much like Toronto hip-hop's long and arduous uphill climb, British grime is unique, vibrant and locally thriving, yet has remained a bit of an underdog in the mainstream sense until recently. That said, Skepta's fourth studio album, Konnichiwa, was a game-changing release that went a long way to cementing grime's place in the international spotlight this year.
From the anarchic and regional "Shutdown" and "Detox" to more mainstream hits like "Ladies Hit Squad," Skepta showcased his versatility throughout the album without ever diluting his style. Both on his diverse production and through his agile cadence, he flirted with North American sounds yet held unapologetically onto everything that makes grime distinct. Bold and gritty, Konnichiwa was crossover without compromise.
A. Harmony
6. Kendrick Lamar
untitled unmastered.
(TDE/Aftermath/Universal)
Ostensibly a clearinghouse for unreleased material from 2015's To Pimp a Butterfly, untitled unmastered. was dropped without much advance fanfare in early March; upon its release, Kendrick Lamar described the brief eight-song album as "Demos from to Pimp a Butterfly. In Raw Form. Unfinished. Untitled. Unmastered." Of course, when an artist is riding a creative wave of the type that Kendrick has been riding for the past half-decade, every scrap of new music is worth hearing — and untitled unmastered. is no average set of leftovers.
If it doesn't quite startle like To Pimp a Butterfly, the impact of the Compton rapper's dense, dizzying rhymes, which alternate between introspection and socio-ethno-cultural critiques of American hierarchy as well as the ongoing and systemic oppression of minorities, is in no way lessened by the familiarity with musical backdrops that mix jazz instrumentation, unsettling synths and elastic West Coast funk. At its best (the apocalyptic "untitled 01," the breezy Cee-Lo Green duet of "untitled 06," the middle section of the sprawling "untitled 07," the funky "untitled 08"), untitled unmastered. is as good as anything titled and mastered that Kendrick's released to date.
Thierry Côté
5. ScHoolboy Q
Blank Face LP
(Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope)
Darker, fiercer and less compromising than his 2014 breakthrough Oxymoron, ScHoolboy Q's fifth album is his hardest yet. Capturing the nothing-to-lose aura of his younger, broker, more violent self, the former Hoover Crip cares little here for catering to any new ears his increased Billboard notoriety may have stole for him; what he does care about is upgrading and varying his flows and energy, and selecting dope beats.
This and improved writing serve as the perfect mask for stomping over familiar themes. Sure, there are the requisite showtime cameos — Kanye West, Miguel, E-40, and Anderson .Paak, who was everywhere in 2016 — but Q pulls them all under his bucket hat and hotboxes them tight under a balaclava. Groovy Tony frightens with modern gangster anthems like "Ride Out," addresses the ladies on "Overtime" and makes P-funk relevant again on the irresistible "Big Body" (with Tha Dogg Pound), and all of it's gleefully irreverent. If Oxymoron was ScHoolboy Q flashing us a needle, Blank Face LP is him driving it unrepentantly into our arm, again and again. More, please.
Luke Fox
4. Kanye West
The Life of Pablo
(G.O.O.D.)
Alienation — Kanye West feeds off of it more than any popular artist since Kurt Cobain. Angry, talented men, both have exhibited open hostility to the fame and adulation they craved as nobodies and, once celebrities, each spent considerable time purposefully challenging their audiences with outsider art postures while simultaneously holding sycophants in contempt for relating to their insecurity. Teenage angst pays off well, but eventually cries for help should be acknowledged.
West has been wrestling with self-loathing forever, but the projection and over-compensation has never been as raw or unhinged as it is on The Life of Pablo. There are lyrical flurries here (the primal scream verse in "Pt. 2," the pseudo-suicide note that is "FML," the self-aware schizophrenia "joke" that is "I Love Kanye") and samples ("I don't blame you much for wanting to be free," Rihanna and Nina Simone each coo on "Famous," like mothers soothing petulant children after a tantrum) that are so disturbing, they feel dangerous.
West's tendency to make you hate a guy you love is vexing yet irresistible; the infamously re-tweaked beats are all sick, the fragmented gospel sessions, confusing. He masks the early onset mid-life crisis he's suffering by rapping about his dick a lot, but this is the sound of a genius suffering behind a cage he himself created. We're complicit in all of this because we're still here, begging him to entertain us.
Vish Khanna
3. A Tribe Called Quest
We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service
(Epic)
To understand A Tribe Called Quest's sixth and final studio album, We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, requires understanding the very foundations hip-hop culture stands on — expression, subversion, bravado and experimentalism. Following the recent passing of the late Phife Dawg, it was hard to imagine what could become of a new Tribe release in 2016, but the full-bodied album wasn't lacking in spirit, and served as a telling tribute to the group's effortless dynamism and legacy.
As honorary ATCQ members Consequence and Busta Rhymes coat the album with their natural presence, the integration of newer artists like Anderson .Paak and Kendrick Lamar bring the album full-circle. Layered with the classic jazzy soul elements that Quest fans have come to know and love, the 14-track album is carefully mastered to relive the nuances of the Ummah's early production and the futuristic spirits of the Native Tongues movement.
While the intentions of We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service was largely rooted in being a celebration of life for Phife Dawg, it instantaneously re-injected present-day rap culture with the fuel to drive a musical revolution through lyricism, creativity and a passion for this culture.
Erin Lowers
2. Danny Brown
Atrocity Exhibition
(Warp)
Danny Brown has truly lived up to his 2010 billing as "the hybrid" by pushing hip-hop music into areas both hilarious and horrid. Atrocity Exhibition begins by going right off the rails, throwing the Detroit MC headfirst into the woozy "Downward Spiral" his work so often alludes to.
"Ain't it funny how it happens," Brown asks sarcastically at the album's apex, detailing the darker spaces of his own brain in unflinching fashion — as if the song's beat, which stirs the image of Brown leading a brass band into the depths of hell, wasn't enough of an indicator that laughing time is undoubtedly over.
In a year full of ugliness, Brown turns the lens upon himself once again to both revel in and rail against everything that's come with the sex, drugs and rap lifestyle he's become accustomed to. His lyrical truths are brought to life through the incredible ear of producer Paul White, whose expert crate-digging required a cool $70,000 for sample clearances.
"I'm walking down this long road. Will I come back? Homie, I don't even really know," Brown admits on "Rolling Stone," plumbing the depths of his psyche to create not only one of the genre's best LPs this year, but the greatest of his career so far.
Calum Slingerland
1. Chance the Rapper
Coloring Book
(Independent)
In a year when doom and gloom felt so pervasive as to be defining characteristics of it, Chance the Rapper shone a beacon of joy and hope that pierced the clouds, starting with his guest spot on Kanye West's "Ultralight Beam." "This is my part, nobody else speak," he uttered, clearing the stage for Coloring Book, the Chicago MC's third and, unequivocally, best mixtape.
Over 14 tracks of glory, gospel and guests upon guests — Kanye, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz, Jeremih, Young Thug, Justin Bieber, Jay Electronica and, yes, his cousin Nicole, among others — Chance made happiness and optimism sound unimpeachably cool, even in a time when, as he asserts on the charging opener, "music is all we got."
In between more personal statements like the sweet nostalgia of "Same Drugs," commentary on his Xanax addiction and references to his daughter throughout, Chance addresses more universal issues, like the continued importance of independence and artistic agency in hip-hop ("No Problem," "Mixtape") and, perhaps most prevalently, faith ("Blessings," "How Great").
Yet whether you choose to read the god on Coloring Book as the Christian deity or as a metaphor for faith that transcends human struggle, the crucial aspect of it here is that it provides a light at the end of a dark tunnel. It was that sense — more than the magnificent production, the exuberant instrumentals and the sharp, staccato lyrical bars — that made Coloring Book feel not just special, but absolutely necessary.
Stephen Carlick
Click next to read through the albums one by one, or use the list below to skip ahead to your favourites.
Top 15 Hip-Hop Albums of 2016:
- 15. Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife 2
- 14. Drake - VIEWS
- 13. Isaiah Rashad - The Sun's Tirade
- 12. Kamaiyah - A Good Night in the Ghetto
- 11. Young Thug - JEFFERY
- 10. YG - Still Brazy
- 9. Vince Staples - Prima Donna
- 8. Common - Black America Again
- 7. Skepta - Konnichiwa
- 6. Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered.
- 5. ScHoolboy Q - Blank Face LP
- 4. Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
- 3. A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service
- 2. Danny Brown - Atrocity Exhibition
- 1. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
15. Rae Sremmurd
SremmLife 2
(Eardrummers/Interscope)
Look, 2016's been a tough year. It's been the sort of year that inspires people to make the sort of protest music that gets people out in the streets and storming the barricades. It's also been the sort of year that makes people look for a distraction, something that lets them cut loose and feel good for a few minutes. That's the sort of music Rae Sremmurd make: tear-the-roof-off party music. And they do it better than almost anyone working in music today.
SremmLife 2 is a goddamn joy to listen to. It's the hour-long vacation we all needed. You can't not move to it. You can't not smile. You can't not get pulled into the day-in, day-out party that is Sremmlife. "Look Alive" is the sort of song you want played every time you walk into the room, like you're a UFC fighter, while "Black Beatles" is a catchy, hypnotic piece of ear candy that may be the best rap, pop, electronic and R&B song of the year. Frankly, we should all be sending Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi a thank you note.
Chris Dart
14. Drake
VIEWS
(OVO Sound/Young Money/Cash Money/Republic)
The dark, woozy style that defines "the Toronto Sound" reached its apotheosis on VIEWS, Drake's long-teased fourth LP, on which Drizzy and producer Noah "40" Shebib continue honing their craft with razor-sharp focus. Wrapping the album in seasonal bookends (winter becomes summer before turning back to winter again), they penned a love letter to their hometown in the process.
VIEWS is overlong, maybe, but its lowest points still best the hordes of Drake imitators, while its highs rank amongst the year's best. Even within the album's thematic confines, 40 finds space to crack open his typically hermitic and claustrophobic beats to include subtle nods to a larger and brighter global pop landscape. The album's oft-memed cover, which perched the 6 God on the side of the CN Tower, accurately captures the MC towering over his city. After VIEWS, it might as well be the whole world.
Ian Gormely
13. Isaiah Rashad
The Sun's Tirade
(Top Dawg Entertainment)
Released in the dawg days of summer, The Sun's Tirade is for indoor cats like Earl Sweatshirt, who find doing shit and going outside generally unappealing. It's more thematically consistent than 2014's sketched-out Cilvia Demo, as he uses the "sun/son" homonym to make sense of how his struggle with inter-generational addiction has impacted his own role as a parent.
At age 25, Rashad is already describing his life as a sort of cautionary tale, trying to break the cycle of drugs and depression without getting too far ahead of himself. Showcasing some of this year's most impressive features from Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Jay Rock, The Sun's Tirade is a highly accomplished work of paternal wisdom.
TDE's woefully underrated in-house producers paint gorgeous instrumentals with a hazy late-afternoon feel that underscores Rashad's deceptively nonchalant flow, as sunlight spills through the curtains. Despite the record's laid-back, downtempo pacing, he never fails to sound sharp and lucid here. It's not a celebration of his self-destructive lifestyle so much as an unraveling revelation: Rashad's "gotta consider [his] liver" and ultimately "make the bottle go away."
Cole Firth
12. Kamaiyah
A Good Night in the Ghetto
(Independent)
Kamaiyah gained notoriety at the end of 2015 with "How Does It Feel," a colourful single that displayed a '90s sensibility with a modern twist. Her ensuing mixtape, A Good Night in the Ghetto, is one of those game-changers that ruffle feathers by keeping its head down and doing its thing.
The 20-year-old rapper doesn't put on airs; she raps from the believable point of view of a hard-partying, unattached Oakland girl. At a time when a lot of hip-hop hinges on bleak beats and rhymes written from the perspective of invincible cartoon characters, Kamaiyah's music isn't only a breath of fresh air, but a much-needed return to authenticity. If nothing else, hooks like the "woopty-woos" of "Out the Bottle," or the "freaky-freakys" of "Freaky Freaks" are infectious enough to justify the album's place among the most memorable hip-hop releases of 2016.
Mathias Pageau
11. Young Thug
JEFFERY
(300 Entertainment/Atlantic)
Thanks to exuberant weirdos like Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert, the once-freaky Young Thug seems relatively normal in comparison. Fortunately, Thugger has proven yet again that he's much more than a pop culture oddity. On JEFFERY, he spits urgent bars over top-shelf production, further cementing his status as the suave hip-hop deity he presents himself as on the album's cover.
The album's tracks are each named for a different celeb, from "Wyclef Jean" to "Kanye West" (which, weirdly, features Wyclef Jean). That there would be a song about the Internet's favourite deceased ape should be a surprise to no one, but we'll have to revisit 2016's worst meme over and over again, because "Harambe" is a stone-cold banger.
Josiah Hughes
10. YG
Still Brazy
(400/CTE World/Def Jam Recordings)
YG's sophomore effort not only proved the acclaimed My Krazy Life was more than just a flash in the pan; it bridged the gap between old heads and new. On Still Brazy, the "Bompton" native resumed his cinematic portrayal of his hood — (mostly) without Ty Dolla $ign or homie-turned-enemy DJ Mustard — while bringing G-Funk into the 21st century.
And it worked. A handful of beatsmiths remarried thumping bass lines to timeless funk samples while YG continued to prove a born raconteur with some expertly placed interludes and uniquely Compton tales like "Gimmie Got Shot" and "Bool, Balm & Bollective."
The Angelino restores the West Coast's former glory by vividly reminding heads that where N.W.A once had Reagan, today's rappers have Trump (still just a presidential candidate during the making of the album), and their comings and goings with the police are as acrimonious now as they were then.
Still Brazy might delight with flashbacks of Chevies and Death Row's prime, but it remains firmly rooted in the hard truths of YG's "Bompton."
Themistoklis Alexis
9. Vince Staples
Prima Donna
(Def Jam Recordings)
Since the release of his landmark full-length debut Summertime '06, 23-year-old wunderkind Vince Staples has been riding a wave of success thanks to his signature blend of creamy-smooth, vivacious tracks. His follow-up EP, which was poised to be a kind of victory lap, sounds more like a recession into the shadows — an experimental, understated take on hip-hop.
Opening with a solemn, tinny version of "This Little Light of Mine," cut off short by the sound of a gunshot that makes you jump to attention, Staples and his roster of A-class producers set the tone of the album from the get-go. Between a brilliant sampling of an Andre 3000 "ATLiens" verse on the track "War Ready," spoken word interludes and upbeat tracks that act as house party-ready yet lonesome, almost nihilistic odes to the world's problems, Staples has taken his craft to another level here. The question is: Where to next?
Courtney Baird-Lew
8. Common
Black America Again
(ARTrium Recordings/Def Jam Recordings)
The world Common creates on his new LP is almost science fiction: a world where Hillary won, where America's black communities acknowledged the struggles they faced but looked forward in hope. It's fair to say that Com probably thought the album, released on the eve of a presidential election which just about everybody assumed was a done deal, would reflect reality. We have never wished harder for a black hole to a parallel universe, but in the absence of one, at least we have the truly incredible Black America Again.
Common is better than he's been in years here. The picture he paints on the title track and "Little Chicago Boy" are extraordinary, and the sheer ferocity with which he attacks the mic on "Pyramids" will make your jaw hit the floor. His work with producer Karriem Riggins is as good as anything he did with Kanye or Dilla, and the entire package — a landmark — is a joy from start to finish.
At a time when everything seems well and truly fucked, Black America Again is a reminder that good things can still happen. We are not lost yet.
Rob Boffard
7. Skepta
Konnichiwa
(Boy Better Know)
Toronto and London share many similarities, from the Caribbean-infused slang to the names of certain neighbourhoods, but the most endearing parallel between the two cities is the history of each destination's hip-hop scene. Much like Toronto hip-hop's long and arduous uphill climb, British grime is unique, vibrant and locally thriving, yet has remained a bit of an underdog in the mainstream sense until recently. That said, Skepta's fourth studio album, Konnichiwa, was a game-changing release that went a long way to cementing grime's place in the international spotlight this year.
From the anarchic and regional "Shutdown" and "Detox" to more mainstream hits like "Ladies Hit Squad," Skepta showcased his versatility throughout the album without ever diluting his style. Both on his diverse production and through his agile cadence, he flirted with North American sounds yet held unapologetically onto everything that makes grime distinct. Bold and gritty, Konnichiwa was crossover without compromise.
A. Harmony
6. Kendrick Lamar
untitled unmastered.
(TDE/Aftermath/Universal)
Ostensibly a clearinghouse for unreleased material from 2015's To Pimp a Butterfly, untitled unmastered. was dropped without much advance fanfare in early March; upon its release, Kendrick Lamar described the brief eight-song album as "Demos from to Pimp a Butterfly. In Raw Form. Unfinished. Untitled. Unmastered." Of course, when an artist is riding a creative wave of the type that Kendrick has been riding for the past half-decade, every scrap of new music is worth hearing — and untitled unmastered. is no average set of leftovers.
If it doesn't quite startle like To Pimp a Butterfly, the impact of the Compton rapper's dense, dizzying rhymes, which alternate between introspection and socio-ethno-cultural critiques of American hierarchy as well as the ongoing and systemic oppression of minorities, is in no way lessened by the familiarity with musical backdrops that mix jazz instrumentation, unsettling synths and elastic West Coast funk. At its best (the apocalyptic "untitled 01," the breezy Cee-Lo Green duet of "untitled 06," the middle section of the sprawling "untitled 07," the funky "untitled 08"), untitled unmastered. is as good as anything titled and mastered that Kendrick's released to date.
Thierry Côté
5. ScHoolboy Q
Blank Face LP
(Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope)
Darker, fiercer and less compromising than his 2014 breakthrough Oxymoron, ScHoolboy Q's fifth album is his hardest yet. Capturing the nothing-to-lose aura of his younger, broker, more violent self, the former Hoover Crip cares little here for catering to any new ears his increased Billboard notoriety may have stole for him; what he does care about is upgrading and varying his flows and energy, and selecting dope beats.
This and improved writing serve as the perfect mask for stomping over familiar themes. Sure, there are the requisite showtime cameos — Kanye West, Miguel, E-40, and Anderson .Paak, who was everywhere in 2016 — but Q pulls them all under his bucket hat and hotboxes them tight under a balaclava. Groovy Tony frightens with modern gangster anthems like "Ride Out," addresses the ladies on "Overtime" and makes P-funk relevant again on the irresistible "Big Body" (with Tha Dogg Pound), and all of it's gleefully irreverent. If Oxymoron was ScHoolboy Q flashing us a needle, Blank Face LP is him driving it unrepentantly into our arm, again and again. More, please.
Luke Fox
4. Kanye West
The Life of Pablo
(G.O.O.D.)
Alienation — Kanye West feeds off of it more than any popular artist since Kurt Cobain. Angry, talented men, both have exhibited open hostility to the fame and adulation they craved as nobodies and, once celebrities, each spent considerable time purposefully challenging their audiences with outsider art postures while simultaneously holding sycophants in contempt for relating to their insecurity. Teenage angst pays off well, but eventually cries for help should be acknowledged.
West has been wrestling with self-loathing forever, but the projection and over-compensation has never been as raw or unhinged as it is on The Life of Pablo. There are lyrical flurries here (the primal scream verse in "Pt. 2," the pseudo-suicide note that is "FML," the self-aware schizophrenia "joke" that is "I Love Kanye") and samples ("I don't blame you much for wanting to be free," Rihanna and Nina Simone each coo on "Famous," like mothers soothing petulant children after a tantrum) that are so disturbing, they feel dangerous.
West's tendency to make you hate a guy you love is vexing yet irresistible; the infamously re-tweaked beats are all sick, the fragmented gospel sessions, confusing. He masks the early onset mid-life crisis he's suffering by rapping about his dick a lot, but this is the sound of a genius suffering behind a cage he himself created. We're complicit in all of this because we're still here, begging him to entertain us.
Vish Khanna
3. A Tribe Called Quest
We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service
(Epic)
To understand A Tribe Called Quest's sixth and final studio album, We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, requires understanding the very foundations hip-hop culture stands on — expression, subversion, bravado and experimentalism. Following the recent passing of the late Phife Dawg, it was hard to imagine what could become of a new Tribe release in 2016, but the full-bodied album wasn't lacking in spirit, and served as a telling tribute to the group's effortless dynamism and legacy.
As honorary ATCQ members Consequence and Busta Rhymes coat the album with their natural presence, the integration of newer artists like Anderson .Paak and Kendrick Lamar bring the album full-circle. Layered with the classic jazzy soul elements that Quest fans have come to know and love, the 14-track album is carefully mastered to relive the nuances of the Ummah's early production and the futuristic spirits of the Native Tongues movement.
While the intentions of We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service was largely rooted in being a celebration of life for Phife Dawg, it instantaneously re-injected present-day rap culture with the fuel to drive a musical revolution through lyricism, creativity and a passion for this culture.
Erin Lowers
2. Danny Brown
Atrocity Exhibition
(Warp)
Danny Brown has truly lived up to his 2010 billing as "the hybrid" by pushing hip-hop music into areas both hilarious and horrid. Atrocity Exhibition begins by going right off the rails, throwing the Detroit MC headfirst into the woozy "Downward Spiral" his work so often alludes to.
"Ain't it funny how it happens," Brown asks sarcastically at the album's apex, detailing the darker spaces of his own brain in unflinching fashion — as if the song's beat, which stirs the image of Brown leading a brass band into the depths of hell, wasn't enough of an indicator that laughing time is undoubtedly over.
In a year full of ugliness, Brown turns the lens upon himself once again to both revel in and rail against everything that's come with the sex, drugs and rap lifestyle he's become accustomed to. His lyrical truths are brought to life through the incredible ear of producer Paul White, whose expert crate-digging required a cool $70,000 for sample clearances.
"I'm walking down this long road. Will I come back? Homie, I don't even really know," Brown admits on "Rolling Stone," plumbing the depths of his psyche to create not only one of the genre's best LPs this year, but the greatest of his career so far.
Calum Slingerland
1. Chance the Rapper
Coloring Book
(Independent)
In a year when doom and gloom felt so pervasive as to be defining characteristics of it, Chance the Rapper shone a beacon of joy and hope that pierced the clouds, starting with his guest spot on Kanye West's "Ultralight Beam." "This is my part, nobody else speak," he uttered, clearing the stage for Coloring Book, the Chicago MC's third and, unequivocally, best mixtape.
Over 14 tracks of glory, gospel and guests upon guests — Kanye, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz, Jeremih, Young Thug, Justin Bieber, Jay Electronica and, yes, his cousin Nicole, among others — Chance made happiness and optimism sound unimpeachably cool, even in a time when, as he asserts on the charging opener, "music is all we got."
In between more personal statements like the sweet nostalgia of "Same Drugs," commentary on his Xanax addiction and references to his daughter throughout, Chance addresses more universal issues, like the continued importance of independence and artistic agency in hip-hop ("No Problem," "Mixtape") and, perhaps most prevalently, faith ("Blessings," "How Great").
Yet whether you choose to read the god on Coloring Book as the Christian deity or as a metaphor for faith that transcends human struggle, the crucial aspect of it here is that it provides a light at the end of a dark tunnel. It was that sense — more than the magnificent production, the exuberant instrumentals and the sharp, staccato lyrical bars — that made Coloring Book feel not just special, but absolutely necessary.
Stephen Carlick