2006: Best Rap Albums

I've always liked The Roots but I never saw them as fulfilling their potential. They have all the powers of a full band invested on them and too often it seemed they just spent that time noodling around with dull neo-soul, their best album before this was the one that sounded least like a band, Illadelph Halflife. And as they slowly started to decline in quality following Things Fall Apart it seemed like it was over for them, that they were headed to being included on Nas's "Where Are They Now". Then, this album came out. They at last fully realize their powers and the results will knock you the fuck out. Intense, visceral, impassioned, and sporting absolutely amazing drum work from ?uestlove, by far this is the best Roots album. It takes a harrowing semi-political theme and barrages you from all sides with suffocating paranoia and raging percussion. It's expertly sequenced as well, following a seemingly deliberate mood trail and having the tracks segue into eachother, keeping a momentum from start to finish that left me breathless afterwards. The climax itself is a fitting farewell to the great J Dilla using one of his own beats.

Rating: 5
Highlights: Game Theory, In the Music, Long Time, Can't Stop This

All of a sudden in came Lupe, leaping straight up into pseudo mainstream attention from the get-go, becoming the darling of anyone into lyrical rap and soulful shit. Becoming the next big hope for the real heads without cultivating a damn thing. A near miracle. Where the hell did Lupe come from? I mean aside from Chicago? The rap world has been rumbling with vapid southern pop and clumsy watered down hardcore, and yet somehow a bright intelligent focused guy like Lupe up and pops into the mainstream spotlight? Well he does clearly come from the small Chi-Town revolution of Kanye, but that only explains the production styling and conscious focus, the emceeing and lyricism are on a whole other level. Whatever the reason this is exactly what rap could use more of. Lupe is smart and not afraid of that fact. He is he first and foremost, and look where it got him? He has all this talent and the album shows it in full from start to finish is consistent fashion. Everything about it is so damned refreshing and from such a young dude too.

Rating: 4.5
Highlights: Kick Push, The Instrumental, The Cool, The Emperor's Soundtrack

I'm not sure what happened to Nas around this time, but he gained some sense of direction and started elevating himself to a sort of level of emceeing few get to see, the sort where the emcee owns the beat, not the other way around. Like Pac, or Ghostface. Of course that's not to say the production is mediocre, he actually has his best set here since Stillmatic, or hell Illmatic. The theme of "modern rap is in the pit" actually isn't as prevalent here as the title suggests, in fact alot of this is just the usual suspects, but done with more care and quality then he's been up to since fuckin' 94! There's a momentum to him here, a momentum to the album, a momentum to his career, that's been missing forever. A reason to listen beyond nostalgia and brand loyalty. Whatever set him on fire again? I want some of that shit.

Rating: 4
Highlights: Where Are They Now?, Blunt Ashes, Let There Be Light, Can't Forget About You

A modern rap legend if ever there was one, and even more impressivly one that buzzed under the mainstream radar for his entire career. So now one has to ask the question. In retrospect where does Dilla stand in the history of rap? Personally I see him as an important missing link in bridging the sound of classic alt rap, to the more neo-soul oriented stuff of the turn of the century, and finally a bridge to the more modern soul/alt sound of Kanye and his offshoots. In other words, Dilla was the most key producer of the second wave of alt rap. As for this particular album, on his bed in the hospital it's said J Dilla never stopped working at producing beats. Wanting to make one last volley before he died. This LP is the result of those hospital sessions. Filled with beautiful quirky beats, many of which can be heard rapped over on other big albums of the year. The cynics of the world can yammer on about people only creating art for some sort of monetary or otherwise viceful reason, but this is proof of the lie behind that. A man who lived to the end creating his art.

R.I.P

Rating: 4
Highlights: Workinonit, Mash, Lightworks, Geek Down

Don't worry, you can completely ignore there being a film attached to or related to this. It is undoubtly an Outkast album made for the sake of music, not as a tie-in or soundtrack. While not up to their classic four albums this is still very good, and much more solid than Speakerboxx/Love Below. They explore a hybrid of rap and really old black music, delta blues and ragtime. And in it's way it almost sounds like what I would imagine the previous LP to sound like if compressed into an Outkast album, rather then two solos. It's still dotted with non-rap tracks, but most of them are pretty interesting regardless. And the weaving it does between rap and the soul stuff actually makes the two almost indistinguishable by the end, which is really cool actually. It's funny, while Andre seems to have floated away, Big Boi is actually filling in the space he left behind, taking over the job of the humane emcee. You would always peg Andre as the brilliant one, but it's Big Boi who provides the most touching grand piece here with "The Train".

Rating: 4
Highlights: Peaches, Morris Brown, The Train, Mutron Angel

T.I.'s kinda fallen into a holding pattern now of his usual ok stuff. Four albums in I think I can confidently label him as a mediocre artist, it just doesn't go beyond that folks. I know he's increasingly gotten ridiculous accolades but that just places him in the same place as Lil Wayne. A decent rapper that looks like gold next to the other crap hovering around the radio. If there is one thing T.I. can feel real proud about it's that he's actually the only one whose able to use the modern southern pop sound and not be doodoo.

Rating: 3.5
Highlights: What You Know, Why You Wanna, Top Back, Goodlife

Probably the best Snoop album in a long time, but it's still at best only slightly above his post Doggystyle par. I guess even, if in a very slight weak way, Snoop also got a bit of the wild comeback mojo of 06'. Of course again, he has reached a sort of steady mainstream re-celebrity in the 00's, becoming a burned out camera family friendly guy, hip-hop's own Ozzy Ozbourne.

Rating: 3
Highlights: Think About It, Crazy, Round Here, Imagine

Alright seriously AZ, slow the fuck down with the albums, there was no need for this to come out so soon after AWOL, but derp here it is. And surprise! It's dull and feels slightly rushed! It also feels like a weak version of AWOL, down to the token Premo produced track. I don't care if 50 cent made fun of you, you'll wait the same time between albums like everyone else.

Rating: 3
Highlights: I Am the Truth, Rise And Fall, Doing That, The Format

Y'know I wasn't unimpressed with this at first, it was trending upwards in terms of my satisfaction. Some strong beats here and there. It was heading toward a better grade then it's predecessor and maybe even a 3.5....but somewhere along the line I just got fucking fed up with his damned lyrics. Usually you can just hit on bad lyrics for being too simple and stupid, but Game just has this borderline pathetic west coast fanboyism going on. He just won't stop sucking up to veteran figures of his coast, always sounding like some sort of nervous stammering kid who just met his heroes for the first time. The hyper referential factor was all over his debut, but here it takes more of a "IM IN THE WEST CANON NOW, WOW GEE WHIZ, WEST, ITS THE WEST OMG". It doesn't help that the west he's repping is dead. He's a bizarre walking case of nostalgia.

Rating: 2.5
Highlights: Compton, Too Much, Wouldn't Get Far, One Night