Our Top 10 albums lists by genre continue with our staff picks for the best of hip hop music this year. Click next to read through the albums one by one, or use the list below to skip ahead to your favourites.
Top 10 Hip-Hop Albums of 2013:
To see more of our Year-End Top Tens , head over to our Best of 2013 section.
10. Deltron 3030
Event II
(Bulk)
It's been more than ten years since Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala dropped their debut album as supergroup Deltron 3030, and almost as many since they began recording follow-up album Event II. Still, the time was well used by Del for research, as he adds extra depth to the post-apocalyptic imagery that made the first album so successful. This time, it's the concerns of our current world that are exaggerated into the problems of Del's dystopian future; he reveals them as the endpoint of a linear narrative from our time to his, serving as a warning for the world we might become. In this new world, Del and his ragtag collection of misfits are armed with hi-tech weaponry versus the powerful 1% who have decimated the earth.
The epic story and vivid imagery are matched by Dan's cinematic production, his samples layered to create movement within the music, giving the album a lush, orchestral sound backed by boom bap drums, while Kid Koala's cuts add a subtle layer of atmosphere. An ambitious effort that lives up to the hype Event II is that rare release that works as both a fun listen and a cautionary tale. (Thomas Quinlan)
9. Chance the Rapper
Acid Rap
(Independent)
Everybody's somebody's everything. Nobody's nothing. Everything's good. These are the takeaways from Chance the Rapper's sophomore mixtape Acid Rap released this past spring. Full of subversively positive, distinctly introspective and often profound observations from a highly charismatic unsigned 20-year-old, Acid Rap is one of the best releases this year. Songs like "Pusha Man," "Lost" and "NaNa" offer silky smooth backdrops against which Chance and guests like Action Bronson and Childish Gambino meld wordplay and suaveness. Dilla fans will likely appreciate his reworking of Slum's "Fall In Love" on "Everybody's Something" featuring BJ the Chicago Kid.
Make no mistake about it, if you enjoyed the breath of fresh air that was Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Acid Rap is your assurance that this next generation of rappers is approaching the mic with a decidedly more progressive idea of what the art form can be. Rather than simply reiterating the violent narrative plaguing Chicago's youth with stories of shootouts and machismo, Chance raps about the overwhelming fear he and his peers have, and pleads for your empathy. This, an open admission of living under the constant threat of victimization and the psychological consequences, is the furthest hip-hop has ever drifted from it's escapist roots, and is a testament to a new maturity these young rappers bring to the table.
The mixtape ends on an explicit proclamation of love between Chance and his father over a quick phone call before jumping into the celebratory "Everything's Good (Good Ass Outro)." Indeed it is, and hip-hop is maybe in better hands than ever. (Michael Warren)
8. Earl Sweatshirt
Doris
(Columbia)
Odd Future's Earl Sweatshirt faced incredible expectations on his retail debut Doris, and he did not deliver on them.
This was no error. Rather than an attempt to appease the masses or meet expectations, Doris is the sound of a talented, acclaimed young scribe making sense of success and his youthful delinquency the way most teenagers do: drugs, music and lots of writing. You can see the hundreds of crumpled sheets that went into crafting the complex internal rhymes of songs like "Whoa" or "Hive."
Sweatshirt ignites when driven by his peers, from Vince Staples ("Centurion" and "Hive") to Domo Genesis ("20 Wave Caps" and "Knight"). He has a knack for writing lines that lodge themselves in your cranium with sheer ingenuity. He's rawer than the skinned knee cap on the blacktop. "Chum" compresses 19 years into four minutes, chronicling Sweatshirt's passage "from honor roll to cracking locks up off them bicycle racks."
Shedding the murderous misanthropy and misogyny of his Eminem-inflected debut, Sweatshirt found inspiration in Madvillain's Madvillainy. It's all there: the gauzy, blunted beats, largely created by Sweatshirt himself; the sardonic humour, the wry, dense verbiage. Yet Doris is also its own beast, a slow grower that requires attentive listening to tease out the knotty tangles of Sweatshirt's writing. And it's well worth the time. (Aaron Matthews)
7. A$AP Rocky
Long.Live.A$AP
(Sony)
It's a testament to the infectious sound and charisma of A$AP Rocky that his debut album, Long.Live.A$AP, is still being mentioned despite being released at the top of the year. From its syrupy blend of lean-fueled introspective album cuts like "Suddenly" to the braggadocios boasts of "Fuckin' Problems," the album is a music curator's dream concoction. While Rocky's first effort ultimately sacrifices cohesion for variety, it's his versatility and ability to make an album for everyone that makes it one of the year's strongest releases. '90s-influenced posse cut "1 Train" features the artist holding his own against lyrical monsters like Kendrick Lamar and Big K.R.I.T. while "Fashion Killa," despite coming across as a paint-by-numbers single, finds Rocky ably making a fashion manifesto seem appropriate on a hip-hop album.
The young Harlemite reminds us what inspired the crazed blog hype in the first place on the Clams Casino produced "LVL," on which he boasts with his usual brashness, "Lord Pretty Flacko, bitch I behead people/ Kneel and kiss the ring, all hail the King/ Long Live A$AP put that on everything."
Whether he can maintain this level of consistency and charm in his future efforts is up for debate, but for 2013, Long.Live.A$AP. is one of this year's best. (Jabbari Weekes)
6. Danny Brown
Old
(Fool's Gold)
With his retail debut Old, Detroit rapper Danny Brown went hood to hipster without losing sight of the streets that raised him. Danny broke through to a new audience in the past year, with verses celebrating a pill-fuelled bacchanal in a Looney Tunes yawp. Yet Old also addresses fans asking for the old Danny Brown, the rapper who delivered thoughtful and hilariously honest chronicles of Detroit hood life. So, Danny split his album into Side A and B to address both audiences.
The underground rap-infused Side A retells Danny's difficult come-up, while Side B sees him partying over dubstep, grime and electro-inflected breaks — or at least that's the veneer. Initial impressions of careless hedonism peel off with closer listening, revealing a man desperate to drown the trauma of his Detroit upbringing. The pills, weed and girls are distractions, but provide no real escape.
Fitting for someone who took 32 years to drop his first official album, Danny turned Old into his own star vehicle. The album glances forward and backward to create an imaginative biopic of Danny's past and future. Unburdened by commercial concession, he cast the few guest spots perfectly: Freddie Gibbs as impeccable gangster; A$AP Rocky as boundless libertine; Schoolboy Q as gremlin horndog; Charlie XCX as stoner siren. Danny doesn't glorify drug dealing anymore. Where XXX concluded with Danny's imagined death by overdose, album closer "Float On" finds Danny right back where he started: sniffing Adderall, trying to spark ideas with the pen. (Aaron Matthews)
5. Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels
(Fool's Gold)
With two of the most successful releases last year, El-P's Cancer 4 Cure and Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music, the artist-producer duo teamed up to form supergroup Run the Jewels. Having already collaborated in 2012, El-P and Killer Mike have synthesized their styles, socio-political views and experience to drop the 10-track project of the same name.
The marriage of Killer Mike's Southern drawl and El-Ps eclectic hype illuminates a gritty and raw soundscape composed of head-nodding beats and genuine rhymes. With features from Big Boi ("Banana Clipper") and De La Soul's Prince Paul ("Twin Hype Back"), Run the Jewels is characterized by both New York's rugged vibes and Atlanta's peerless energy. While tracks like "Twin Hype Back" explore dark humour while paying homage to De La Soul's own humorous skits, the album also brings socio-political commentary to issues such as drug culture and crooked authorities found on "No Come Down" and "DDFH (Do Dope Fuck Hope)," respectively. Likewise, denouncing corporate enslavement, Killer Mike takes shots at some well-known competition on "Sea Legs," spitting that "There will be no respect for the Thrones," and "Niggas will perish in Paris."
Throughout the album, Killer Mike's aggressive delivery serves as the narrative's wisdom, while El-P's candid paranoia offers relatability. With brute force, Run the Jewels offers an unapologetic storyline that triumphs with hard-hitting beats and untouchable bars. (Erin Lowers)
4. Shad
Flying Colours
(Black Box)
Shad has never really played it safe per se, challenging hip-hop conventions on one hand, immersing himself in the familiar sound and vernacular of the culture on the other. But there's an intangible aspect to Flying Colours that makes it his biggest curveball yet.
With the odd exception, historically Shad's been unabashedly affable, switching up flows like a pro but rarely touting his gifts as a rapper or a lyricist — even though almost every line of his can be broken down for some witty joke or double meaning. And while the beats he has chosen are all over the map, nothing from his past is quite as challenging as the sound and tone of Flying Colours.
Even the seemingly lighter moments here, like say, "Fam Jam (Fe Sum Immigrins)," are full of politicized sentiments about race, class, and equality in Canada. And the beautiful music of "He Say She Say" is more heartbreaking once its love-gone-wrong message hits home.
This from a guy who used to rap, "I want a Clair Huxtable," as a way of measuring his desire for companionship and keeping actual feelings at bay by settling into fiction, particularly the disposable morality of sitcoms. Flying Colours is a coming-of-age album by an artist dealing with the harshness of the world personally and positively, but most tellingly, as an adult. (Vish Khanna)
3. Drake
Nothing Was the Same
(Universal)
If there's one benefit to being one of the biggest selling acts in rap music — beyond the obvious millions of dollars — it's that you earn the right to experiment. You can make as weird an album as you want, and no one at the label gets to say anything. Kanye made 808s and Heartbreak, Lil Wayne made that atrocious rock album, and Drake made Nothing Was the Same, the most interesting album of his career.
It's 73 minutes long and has no obvious singles save for "Hold On, We're Going Home," a song that sounds like it could have come out on Motown in the mid-1980s; first song "Tuscan Leather" is six minutes long and has no chorus; "Started from the Bottom" and the beautiful, chilling "From Time" are experiments in musical minimalism. The whole thing is injected with a level of emotional honesty that, even in an age where we're used to hearing rappers talk about feelings, is a little overwhelming.
This album shouldn't work, but it does. It's so wonderfully strange that you can't help wondering where it's going next. Drake's emotional torment is oddly relatable, not to mention clever and intricate. Even months after hearing it for the first time, you'll keep hearing new things on Nothing Was the Same. (Chris Dart)
2. Pusha T
My Name Is My Name
(Def Jam)
With the Clipse getting chopped in half — brother Malice found God, lost his maliciousness — one might expect the purity of Virginia's dope to diminish. But those trapped know the product can be just as potent if you cut it and cook it right.
My Name Is My Name is the crack confessions of the Clipse bubbling in a Kanye West beaker. Pusha T's solo salvo thrusts our slick-talking kingpin into his own beautiful dark fantasy, distilling the best from his Grade A guest MCs (no mail-in verses from the prolific Rick Ross or Kendrick Lamar) and producers (No I.D., Pharrell, 88-Keys), who pitch in but never overwhelm. Chris Brown and Swizz Beatz, a couple of guys prone to bogarting a track, recede to the shadows on "Sweet Serenade," leaving Pusha's impassioned cold raps to bristle. And the Bad Boy throwback "Let Me Love" (featuring Kelly Rowland) shows Pusha's ability to switch up his flow; you'll have to lean in to the speaker to figure out that's not actually Ma$e.
Despite his numerous connects, MNIMN is all Pusha — the charismatic cocaine cowboy — in his Ric Flair-hooting prime: "My Ouija board don't ever lie to me/ The best rapper livin', I know who's alive to me," he crows, with good reason. Ounce for ounce, this is one of the year's best. (Luke Fox)
1. Kanye West
Yeezus
(Def Jam)
Kanye West has been on a bit of a tear of late, hitting the media circuit to express as best he can the next few chapters of his ever-evolving manifesto for artistic domination and to explain, when asked, exactly where he was coming from with this year's monstrous Yeezus LP. In a career during which Kanye's relentless strokes of musical genius often draw a calmed sigh of relief following one of his more maddening, narcissistic public eruptions, Yeezus proved his most divisive release to date.
It was a thoroughly abrasive record that took many quite a bit of effort to swallow. Social media platforms lit up upon its release as fans tried to square themselves with the uncomfortable aggression and unabashed misogyny that coated the record's vitriolic lyrics. Sonically, Yeezus was equally challenging, a grinding mix of unsettling electronic drones and squelches, pounding drums and unexpected rhythmic shifts crafted in tandem with the record's enlisted EDM superstars Daft Punk and Hudson Mohawke, light years removed from Yeezy's soul beats of yore.
But it was that challenge, and Kanye's inextinguishable drive to extend his creative limits, that produced so many of the record's most rewarding moments, from the sheer brutish audacity of cuts like "I'm in It" and "I Am a God" to the fragility shown on "Hold My Liquor," not to mention the curious use of Nina Simone's "Strange Fruit" as the base sample for a bitter song about failed affairs.
While you could quibble about many of the details, Yeezus is an incredibly bold and impressive complete unit, and it's hard to imagine anyone but Kanye — a certified master of the stylistic pivot — pulling it off. (Kevin Jones)
Top 10 Hip-Hop Albums of 2013:
- 1. Kanye West - Yeezus
- 2. Pusha T - My Name Is My Name
- 3. Drake - Nothing Was the Same
- 4. Shad - Flying Colours
- 5. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels
- 6. Danny Brown - Old
- 7. A$AP Rocky - Long.Live.A$AP
- 8. Earl Sweatshirt - Doris
- 9. Chance the Rapper - Acid Rap
- 10. Deltron 3030 - Event II
To see more of our Year-End Top Tens , head over to our Best of 2013 section.
10. Deltron 3030
Event II
(Bulk)
It's been more than ten years since Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala dropped their debut album as supergroup Deltron 3030, and almost as many since they began recording follow-up album Event II. Still, the time was well used by Del for research, as he adds extra depth to the post-apocalyptic imagery that made the first album so successful. This time, it's the concerns of our current world that are exaggerated into the problems of Del's dystopian future; he reveals them as the endpoint of a linear narrative from our time to his, serving as a warning for the world we might become. In this new world, Del and his ragtag collection of misfits are armed with hi-tech weaponry versus the powerful 1% who have decimated the earth.
The epic story and vivid imagery are matched by Dan's cinematic production, his samples layered to create movement within the music, giving the album a lush, orchestral sound backed by boom bap drums, while Kid Koala's cuts add a subtle layer of atmosphere. An ambitious effort that lives up to the hype Event II is that rare release that works as both a fun listen and a cautionary tale. (Thomas Quinlan)
9. Chance the Rapper
Acid Rap
(Independent)
Everybody's somebody's everything. Nobody's nothing. Everything's good. These are the takeaways from Chance the Rapper's sophomore mixtape Acid Rap released this past spring. Full of subversively positive, distinctly introspective and often profound observations from a highly charismatic unsigned 20-year-old, Acid Rap is one of the best releases this year. Songs like "Pusha Man," "Lost" and "NaNa" offer silky smooth backdrops against which Chance and guests like Action Bronson and Childish Gambino meld wordplay and suaveness. Dilla fans will likely appreciate his reworking of Slum's "Fall In Love" on "Everybody's Something" featuring BJ the Chicago Kid.
Make no mistake about it, if you enjoyed the breath of fresh air that was Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Acid Rap is your assurance that this next generation of rappers is approaching the mic with a decidedly more progressive idea of what the art form can be. Rather than simply reiterating the violent narrative plaguing Chicago's youth with stories of shootouts and machismo, Chance raps about the overwhelming fear he and his peers have, and pleads for your empathy. This, an open admission of living under the constant threat of victimization and the psychological consequences, is the furthest hip-hop has ever drifted from it's escapist roots, and is a testament to a new maturity these young rappers bring to the table.
The mixtape ends on an explicit proclamation of love between Chance and his father over a quick phone call before jumping into the celebratory "Everything's Good (Good Ass Outro)." Indeed it is, and hip-hop is maybe in better hands than ever. (Michael Warren)
8. Earl Sweatshirt
Doris
(Columbia)
Odd Future's Earl Sweatshirt faced incredible expectations on his retail debut Doris, and he did not deliver on them.
This was no error. Rather than an attempt to appease the masses or meet expectations, Doris is the sound of a talented, acclaimed young scribe making sense of success and his youthful delinquency the way most teenagers do: drugs, music and lots of writing. You can see the hundreds of crumpled sheets that went into crafting the complex internal rhymes of songs like "Whoa" or "Hive."
Sweatshirt ignites when driven by his peers, from Vince Staples ("Centurion" and "Hive") to Domo Genesis ("20 Wave Caps" and "Knight"). He has a knack for writing lines that lodge themselves in your cranium with sheer ingenuity. He's rawer than the skinned knee cap on the blacktop. "Chum" compresses 19 years into four minutes, chronicling Sweatshirt's passage "from honor roll to cracking locks up off them bicycle racks."
Shedding the murderous misanthropy and misogyny of his Eminem-inflected debut, Sweatshirt found inspiration in Madvillain's Madvillainy. It's all there: the gauzy, blunted beats, largely created by Sweatshirt himself; the sardonic humour, the wry, dense verbiage. Yet Doris is also its own beast, a slow grower that requires attentive listening to tease out the knotty tangles of Sweatshirt's writing. And it's well worth the time. (Aaron Matthews)
7. A$AP Rocky
Long.Live.A$AP
(Sony)
It's a testament to the infectious sound and charisma of A$AP Rocky that his debut album, Long.Live.A$AP, is still being mentioned despite being released at the top of the year. From its syrupy blend of lean-fueled introspective album cuts like "Suddenly" to the braggadocios boasts of "Fuckin' Problems," the album is a music curator's dream concoction. While Rocky's first effort ultimately sacrifices cohesion for variety, it's his versatility and ability to make an album for everyone that makes it one of the year's strongest releases. '90s-influenced posse cut "1 Train" features the artist holding his own against lyrical monsters like Kendrick Lamar and Big K.R.I.T. while "Fashion Killa," despite coming across as a paint-by-numbers single, finds Rocky ably making a fashion manifesto seem appropriate on a hip-hop album.
The young Harlemite reminds us what inspired the crazed blog hype in the first place on the Clams Casino produced "LVL," on which he boasts with his usual brashness, "Lord Pretty Flacko, bitch I behead people/ Kneel and kiss the ring, all hail the King/ Long Live A$AP put that on everything."
Whether he can maintain this level of consistency and charm in his future efforts is up for debate, but for 2013, Long.Live.A$AP. is one of this year's best. (Jabbari Weekes)
6. Danny Brown
Old
(Fool's Gold)
With his retail debut Old, Detroit rapper Danny Brown went hood to hipster without losing sight of the streets that raised him. Danny broke through to a new audience in the past year, with verses celebrating a pill-fuelled bacchanal in a Looney Tunes yawp. Yet Old also addresses fans asking for the old Danny Brown, the rapper who delivered thoughtful and hilariously honest chronicles of Detroit hood life. So, Danny split his album into Side A and B to address both audiences.
The underground rap-infused Side A retells Danny's difficult come-up, while Side B sees him partying over dubstep, grime and electro-inflected breaks — or at least that's the veneer. Initial impressions of careless hedonism peel off with closer listening, revealing a man desperate to drown the trauma of his Detroit upbringing. The pills, weed and girls are distractions, but provide no real escape.
Fitting for someone who took 32 years to drop his first official album, Danny turned Old into his own star vehicle. The album glances forward and backward to create an imaginative biopic of Danny's past and future. Unburdened by commercial concession, he cast the few guest spots perfectly: Freddie Gibbs as impeccable gangster; A$AP Rocky as boundless libertine; Schoolboy Q as gremlin horndog; Charlie XCX as stoner siren. Danny doesn't glorify drug dealing anymore. Where XXX concluded with Danny's imagined death by overdose, album closer "Float On" finds Danny right back where he started: sniffing Adderall, trying to spark ideas with the pen. (Aaron Matthews)
5. Run the Jewels
Run the Jewels
(Fool's Gold)
With two of the most successful releases last year, El-P's Cancer 4 Cure and Killer Mike's R.A.P. Music, the artist-producer duo teamed up to form supergroup Run the Jewels. Having already collaborated in 2012, El-P and Killer Mike have synthesized their styles, socio-political views and experience to drop the 10-track project of the same name.
The marriage of Killer Mike's Southern drawl and El-Ps eclectic hype illuminates a gritty and raw soundscape composed of head-nodding beats and genuine rhymes. With features from Big Boi ("Banana Clipper") and De La Soul's Prince Paul ("Twin Hype Back"), Run the Jewels is characterized by both New York's rugged vibes and Atlanta's peerless energy. While tracks like "Twin Hype Back" explore dark humour while paying homage to De La Soul's own humorous skits, the album also brings socio-political commentary to issues such as drug culture and crooked authorities found on "No Come Down" and "DDFH (Do Dope Fuck Hope)," respectively. Likewise, denouncing corporate enslavement, Killer Mike takes shots at some well-known competition on "Sea Legs," spitting that "There will be no respect for the Thrones," and "Niggas will perish in Paris."
Throughout the album, Killer Mike's aggressive delivery serves as the narrative's wisdom, while El-P's candid paranoia offers relatability. With brute force, Run the Jewels offers an unapologetic storyline that triumphs with hard-hitting beats and untouchable bars. (Erin Lowers)
4. Shad
Flying Colours
(Black Box)
Shad has never really played it safe per se, challenging hip-hop conventions on one hand, immersing himself in the familiar sound and vernacular of the culture on the other. But there's an intangible aspect to Flying Colours that makes it his biggest curveball yet.
With the odd exception, historically Shad's been unabashedly affable, switching up flows like a pro but rarely touting his gifts as a rapper or a lyricist — even though almost every line of his can be broken down for some witty joke or double meaning. And while the beats he has chosen are all over the map, nothing from his past is quite as challenging as the sound and tone of Flying Colours.
Even the seemingly lighter moments here, like say, "Fam Jam (Fe Sum Immigrins)," are full of politicized sentiments about race, class, and equality in Canada. And the beautiful music of "He Say She Say" is more heartbreaking once its love-gone-wrong message hits home.
This from a guy who used to rap, "I want a Clair Huxtable," as a way of measuring his desire for companionship and keeping actual feelings at bay by settling into fiction, particularly the disposable morality of sitcoms. Flying Colours is a coming-of-age album by an artist dealing with the harshness of the world personally and positively, but most tellingly, as an adult. (Vish Khanna)
3. Drake
Nothing Was the Same
(Universal)
If there's one benefit to being one of the biggest selling acts in rap music — beyond the obvious millions of dollars — it's that you earn the right to experiment. You can make as weird an album as you want, and no one at the label gets to say anything. Kanye made 808s and Heartbreak, Lil Wayne made that atrocious rock album, and Drake made Nothing Was the Same, the most interesting album of his career.
It's 73 minutes long and has no obvious singles save for "Hold On, We're Going Home," a song that sounds like it could have come out on Motown in the mid-1980s; first song "Tuscan Leather" is six minutes long and has no chorus; "Started from the Bottom" and the beautiful, chilling "From Time" are experiments in musical minimalism. The whole thing is injected with a level of emotional honesty that, even in an age where we're used to hearing rappers talk about feelings, is a little overwhelming.
This album shouldn't work, but it does. It's so wonderfully strange that you can't help wondering where it's going next. Drake's emotional torment is oddly relatable, not to mention clever and intricate. Even months after hearing it for the first time, you'll keep hearing new things on Nothing Was the Same. (Chris Dart)
2. Pusha T
My Name Is My Name
(Def Jam)
With the Clipse getting chopped in half — brother Malice found God, lost his maliciousness — one might expect the purity of Virginia's dope to diminish. But those trapped know the product can be just as potent if you cut it and cook it right.
My Name Is My Name is the crack confessions of the Clipse bubbling in a Kanye West beaker. Pusha T's solo salvo thrusts our slick-talking kingpin into his own beautiful dark fantasy, distilling the best from his Grade A guest MCs (no mail-in verses from the prolific Rick Ross or Kendrick Lamar) and producers (No I.D., Pharrell, 88-Keys), who pitch in but never overwhelm. Chris Brown and Swizz Beatz, a couple of guys prone to bogarting a track, recede to the shadows on "Sweet Serenade," leaving Pusha's impassioned cold raps to bristle. And the Bad Boy throwback "Let Me Love" (featuring Kelly Rowland) shows Pusha's ability to switch up his flow; you'll have to lean in to the speaker to figure out that's not actually Ma$e.
Despite his numerous connects, MNIMN is all Pusha — the charismatic cocaine cowboy — in his Ric Flair-hooting prime: "My Ouija board don't ever lie to me/ The best rapper livin', I know who's alive to me," he crows, with good reason. Ounce for ounce, this is one of the year's best. (Luke Fox)
1. Kanye West
Yeezus
(Def Jam)
Kanye West has been on a bit of a tear of late, hitting the media circuit to express as best he can the next few chapters of his ever-evolving manifesto for artistic domination and to explain, when asked, exactly where he was coming from with this year's monstrous Yeezus LP. In a career during which Kanye's relentless strokes of musical genius often draw a calmed sigh of relief following one of his more maddening, narcissistic public eruptions, Yeezus proved his most divisive release to date.
It was a thoroughly abrasive record that took many quite a bit of effort to swallow. Social media platforms lit up upon its release as fans tried to square themselves with the uncomfortable aggression and unabashed misogyny that coated the record's vitriolic lyrics. Sonically, Yeezus was equally challenging, a grinding mix of unsettling electronic drones and squelches, pounding drums and unexpected rhythmic shifts crafted in tandem with the record's enlisted EDM superstars Daft Punk and Hudson Mohawke, light years removed from Yeezy's soul beats of yore.
But it was that challenge, and Kanye's inextinguishable drive to extend his creative limits, that produced so many of the record's most rewarding moments, from the sheer brutish audacity of cuts like "I'm in It" and "I Am a God" to the fragility shown on "Hold My Liquor," not to mention the curious use of Nina Simone's "Strange Fruit" as the base sample for a bitter song about failed affairs.
While you could quibble about many of the details, Yeezus is an incredibly bold and impressive complete unit, and it's hard to imagine anyone but Kanye — a certified master of the stylistic pivot — pulling it off. (Kevin Jones)