BEST OF 2016

2016 was a rough one. I got locked up; I damaged my gorgeous complexion faceplanting off a hoverboard; I saw my candidate lose on election day (we got this one next time, McMullin!). But the worst part was having to hear all these adult babies complain about what a horrible year 2016 was. RAP MUSIC HYSTERAI ain't got time 4 that breh, we smokin sherm-marinated Kools in the fifth dimension and makin space-time our Maytag upstate. Mo you complain about Jupiter bein out of wack with Neptune's moons, mo time I have to get this papyrus and stack croutons to the ceiling. Got so many croutons it's more like the salad is the croutons' croutons. We turnin main courses into garnishes, playboy.

If you ain't walkin with me you better supercharge that hoverboard and hope Doc Brown got more flux in his capacitor. Try not to fall, cause we zoomin like the autobahn with disfigured faces and pockets on gangrene. Somebody better amputate my limbs cause my pimp walk is devastating. Tell a podiatrist to call a chiropractor to talk more shit behind my back. Better patch in a proctologist while you're at it, cause my shit lookin hella drippy (no diarrhea). We took stale bread and turned those bitches into croutons. We took a useless old tree and printed a Ross Douthat column on that motherfucker. Chuuuuch.

1. Rae Sremmurd - Black Beatles (ft. Gucci Mane)*
2. Dreezy - Body (ft. Jeremih)
3. Young Thug & Travis Scott - Pick Up The Phone (ft. Quavo)
4. Ezale - Day Ones
5. Ka - Ours
6. Kap G - Southside
7. French Montana - Lockjaw (ft. Kodak Black)
8. Lud Foe - Cuttin Up
9. YG - Police Get Away Wit Murder
10. Kanye West - 30 Hours
11. Famous Dex - Geek On A Bitch
12. Stresmatic - The Joog
13. Mozzy - Beautiful Struggle
14. A-Wax - Always Something
15. Shy Glizzy - You Know What
16. Boone - Pop A Perc
17. WNC Carlos x JMM Larry x SOG Sherwood Flame - Cross Me
18. YID - Keep It On Me (ft. Lil Yee)
19. The Team - Can I
20. Chance The Rapper - No Problem (ft. 2Chainz & Lil Wayne)**
21. A Tribe Called Quest - We The People...
22. 21 Savage - No Heart
23. Spodee - Trappin Out Da Partments
24. Lil Yase - Boom Boom***
25. Mista Cain - No Shootas (ft. Spitta Bad Newz)
26. Future - Perkys Callin
27. Gensu Dean & Denmark Vessey - Racka Lamb
28. WNC Whop x WNC Carlos x WNC Ram Bam - Die Bout It
29. Nipsey Hussle - County Jail
30. Uncle Murda - Cam'Ron Voice
31. SOB x RBE - Different
32. CupcakKe - Ace Hardware
33. Spitta - Fuck It
34. Boosie Badazz - This Ain't Living (ft. VS)
35. G-Val - Fake Shit
36. Rick Ross - Buy Back The Block (ft. 2Chainz & Gucci Mane)
37. ClydeTheMack - No Love (ft. SOB x RBE, Mike Sherm, G-Bo Lean, SouthsideSu)
38. Vic Spencer - Blast Fa Me (ft. Freddie Old Soul)
39. King Lil G - Cold Christmas
40. No Panty - Iceys On Deck
41. Gucci Mane - Richest Nigga In The Room
42. Blac Youngsta - Shake Sum
43. Big Rome - Keepin It Lit (ft. Young Flacs)
44. DB Tha General - Gas Chamber
45. Gee Money - Take It There
46. Rocaine - BWB
47. C-Murder - Dear Supreme Court
48. Dre Bandz x Ty Money x JB - Mac Talk
49. A$AP Ferg - New Level (ft. Future)
50. Young M.A - OOOUUU

*Every now and then dystopian music goes pop. This was one such instance.

**At this point I heard the song so many times I actually hate it, but for about three months I was boppin along in the whip to Brothers Chainz and Wayne sounding lovely over a gospel sample. Chance got killed on his own shit in a historical capacity. Someone with editing skills needs to get his free-range-toddler temper tantrum the FOH. He's fine on the hook, but you can't come with that open-mic "Oh I'm just riffin, tryin out some new stuff" coffeeshop yodelling shit when your song features two legends. This ain't the Good Life Cafe, and your name ain't P.E.A.C.E. This ain't the hungry i, and you ain't fit to carry Mort Sahl's red v-neck jockstrap. Hold my Charleston Chew, my lil Kit Kat.

***Late 2015, but I do not care. Swap it out for "Who Is He" if you a bitch for historical accuracy like that.

Songs I liked but heard so many times i don't like em right now
Chance The Rapper - No Problem (ft. 2Chainz & Lil Wayne)
D.R.A.M. - Broccoli (ft. Lil Yachty)
Migos - Bad and Boujee (ft. Lil Uzi Vert)
The guys with Zs in their name - Juju On That Beat

Good albums
ATCQ - In A World Gone Mad...Hot Sauce Committee
Ezale - Tonite Show
Future - Purple Reign
Ka - Honor Killed The Samurai
YG - Still Brazy 

2015s
Babyface Ray & Samuel Shabazz - Pinky & Brain
Cartiyay - Favor for a Favor
Chippass - IDGAF
DJ XO - Pulled Off The Lot (ft. Rizzo & Sosamann)
Gank Gaank - Like Aye
Madeintyo - Uber Everywhere
Mike Sherm - Blue Faces
Nef The Pharoah - Michael Jackson
Sonniebo - Hella Mad

Old-timer's game
Curren$y - Fat Albert (ft. Lil Wayne)
E-40 - On One (ft. AD)
Gensu Dean - Principles & Codes (ft. Diamond D)
Old Jeezy - Let Em Know
Pusha T - Keep Dealing (ft. Beanie Sigel)
The Mekanix - I'm So Oakland (ft. The Delinquents)
Neef Buck - Game of Thrones (ft. State Property)
Rich The Factor - 24's
Suga Free - Up In Da Pocket
Z-Ro - My Money

Not rap
Alkaline - City
Almighty - Ocho
Arcangel x Bad Bunny - Tu No Vive Asi
Busy Signal - Bad Longtime
Chi Ching Ching - Nacho
Daddy Yankee - Shaky Shaky
Ding Dong - Yeng Yeng (ft. Bravo Ravers)
Harley Flanagan - Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Savage Savo - Jiggle Likkle
Shatta Wale - Kakai
Spice - Indicator
Vybz Kartel - Real Youth

Almost song 50
Some Lil Dicky shit cause fuck it. David Lee Roth once said, "Music journalists like Elvis Costello because music journalists look like Elvis Costello.” Lil Dicky gets the other side of that: critics hate him because he reminds them of the lame middle-class upbringing they want to leave behind. If you and I were to travel through time (holding hands and tying lanyards the whole way), we would see every critic who hates Lil Dicky smoking bongs in college with guys who look exactly like Lil Dicky.

Line of the year
The one about bleaching assholes, of course. Say what you will about Kanye, but the guy began a radio single with a line about bleached assholes. A true accomplishment. Second best line is A$AP Ferg talking about buying shovels.

What else? Time to click the post button and watch the regret pile up.

THE BEST SONG OF 2004 IN 2016

Kanye sayin wild shit about a Republican prez and Twista dropped a jack-rabbit love sawng over an old soul sample. Where the wrinkle at, space time continuum? Why we in some shitty version of 2004?

The Rose Royce sample is deployed somewhat unimaginatively, but who cares? Soundbreaking, maybe. The PBS program recently did an episode on hip-hop producers, focusing mainly on the contributions of such Caucasoids as Rick Rubin, The Dust Brothers, and Arthur Baker. The Dust Brothers produced, what, two albums anyone cares about? And the only one that's (arguably) a hip-hop record is Paul's Boutique? IMO, their best work is Hanson's "MMMBop."

We ain't racist here. We got much respect for whitey's contributions to the art of beatsmithing. But if they was gonna focus on melanin-deficient pioneers, why couldn't they give shine to Paul C, Mike Dean, and the Tuff Jew himself, Sir Scott Storch? George Martin, if u was still alive u would be an enemy of RAP MUSIC HYSTERIA. Everyone knows you was just a schoolmarm for the White Beatles.

GOT A RAP SHEET LONGER THAN MY BLOG ROLL

Ya boy just caught a charge on some flimflam. It is what it is, mayne. We was all sittin around watching Donald Trump sitting in a spray-painted gold chair. He was talkin to Lesley Stahl on that tick-tick-tick program. I stood up on the chair and started spittin fire: Jail is bad / This shit ain't rad / Make me so mad / Where the YouTube at? DJ Vlad. The trustee came up, handed me his Pono, and said, "Brother, Nipsey Hussle did it already." I began to cry.

1. Sittin in my cell, all I did was pray...
Tbh, I was mainly thinkin about asses and wondering if my mattress was a repurposed gym mat.

2. Called home once a week and tell my people I'm ok
If Nipsey was able to call out, he worth his weight in gelt. Them jail phones is an exercise in futility. Even if you get your peoples on the line, it's gonna disconnect before they can figure out the collect-call protocol. No wonder they sneakin smartphones in, cause these phones ain't even dumb - they just some dicks. Maybe he only called home once a week cause that's how long it took to get through.

3. Ask me if I'm stressin, I say 'Hell no, I'm straight,' / But you can see the difference cause it's written on my face
First thing they did was play a DVD on buttrape and I'm like

4. I been workin out, I been gaining weight
I was doin elevated push-ups and dips on my bedframe, but there were no good ways to work out the traps or lats. Smh, welcome to Trump AmeriKKKa. And gainin weight? How you gaining weight off a slice of baloney and American cheese? They did give us cookies at every meal. Know why? Cause we got the key 2 da sweetz!

5. I been having dreams about the day they crack the gate
You expect it to be like the intro for Ready To Die where they like, "Bet we gonna see your fat ass again, Biggie," and he's like, "Haha yeah right, I got big plans!", but they just said, "A'ight peace," and I went to the gas station to buy a protein-infused Starbucks doubleshot and a pack of cigarettes.

6. Planned to take over the world, I just ended up in jail
The realest line of the song. Few things more humbling than bein a grown-ass man stuck in a cell. You don't realize the freedom in being able to open a door until it's taken away.

FINAL VERDICT: Better than "Ball and Chain" by Social Distortion. These days I'm siding more and more wit FrankieThaLuckyDog's boredom with raps about money and all that unrighteous Babylon talk. I wanna hear about jerking off to King magazine and eatin baby carrots with a plastic spoon. A-Wax 'n' Nipsey remaking "Ball and Chain" w/ Mike Ness make it happen Internet make it happen.

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #5: ATTACK OF DA CLONE

This guy buggin me out. He look like Vybz, sound like Tommy Lee Sparta, and dress like Michael Jackson. How they lettin a guy who looks like the reanimated corpse of a teenage pimp substitute-teach our video hoes? Public education system in shambles, blood. Strangest of all, a guy who looks like the personification of depravity—a dancehall Dorian Gray—chose as his subject matter a matter so triflin' as booty shaking. At least he scores w/ the principyal at the end of the video, lookin like the setup of a Brazzers sex travelogue. There was a Brazzers on Greensleeves back in the day, right? Think he cut some records with Sizzla.

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #4

Ding Dong been a reliable source of novelty dance songs (my chief source of happiness these days), but Vybz kilt him on his own shit with this one. No pun intended. Motorcycles are cool, I just prefer songs about fighting and winning and partying to songs about automobiles. They are both good, however, and this time of the year is really about rocking the vote and making yourself heard!



It's this kind of behind-bars productivity that has dancehall pundits calling Varg Vikernes the Vybz Kartel of Norwegian Black Metal. The guy is definitely spooky. Rumor has it he started bleaching to look more vampiric. Whether this was a genuine interest in the supernatural or a crass attempt to cash in on the Twilight craze isn't for me to decide, though murdering and dismembering (allegedly) is a pretty convincing argument for Team Scary. In time for Halloween, here is a beautiful new song he made using werewolves as a metaphor for the fickleness of man. That'z the verzatility of Vybz: he's got songs in his catalog that make you wanna unbutton your shirt and stand screaming in the rain with tears down your cheeks, and you don't have to make some apologetic meme afterwards like a Drake stan would. Vybz knows, Vybz understandz. It's okay.

DON'T LET YOUR MAN ROCK ECKO IN 2016

Sometimes a video can make or break a song. You hear a song that's merely a'ight on teh radio or in teh club, but when you dial it up on YouTube you see the rapper in a cool car hanging out with haute womens and you think to yourself, "Maybe if I listen to this song, I too can be as cool as the guy in the video."

Unfortunately, the video for Young Flacs and Big Rome's "Keepin It Lit" is the opposite. What comes across as a perfect hybrid of slap and Chicano gangbanger rap when you're bumpin it on your Pono is marred by grainy cinematography and poor composition in its video form. Big Rome's awkward screen presence is no help. My man looks like Snorlax. Young Flacs on his Mexican Pac swag, but even this is undermined by a bad audio sync.

That said, I applaud their use of homegrown video hoes. Buy local, the personal is political, small economies to combat the globalist conspiracy. As always, a YouTube commenter says it best:



Yo undertaker, put that shit on my tombstone! "Just for a quick releaf that's it nuthin more"

PS

Shout out to this guy @1:45 pourin the Henny in his mouth so he don't lip the bottle with cooties.

NEW YORK'S ALRIGHT IF YOU LIKE ICEYS

When the NYC Rap Dynasty started crumblin back 'round the turn of 2K, I couldn't wait to see it fall. I grew up on the shit, but the hubris of New York industry types made it highly entertaining when the music started to suck and the pricks started to sweat (nullus). And even tho they still tryna put fluoride in the water supply w/ not-ready-for-primetime plantz like Troy Ave and Young M.A, it's been long enough that I'm starting to miss the days when New York was the undisputed center of "the culture." I'm gettin old mane, there's a new generation who don't even remember when New York was kang. That ain't a problem, just means I'm making the transition from baby gangsta to old fart; what bothers me is the ppl my age swallowing the "Fuck New York" quarter-water and clinging blindly to the South's bozack, not realizing they're just a reversal of the last hard-heads who turned the 5 Boroughs into a sinking ship.

New York rap in 2016 is weird. It's a vacuum-sealed cottage industry like jazz since the '70s, self-consciously New York (and not self-consciously "hip-hop") in a way the old shit didn't have to be 'cause it was the gold standard. As with every iteration of Old New York's last stand, you can blame it on gentrification I think. And memes. Whatever. All I know is if you asked me about Joell Ortiz in 2007, I would have said he was a desperate symbol of NYC's retrograde rap scene. In 2016, I like a song about iceys he made with Bodega Bamz and Nitty Scott. New York is a lot of things—irritating, self-important, smelly—but it's got some cool shit too. Ima hold off registering with the Conservative Rap Coalition, but they can keep my name on the mailing list.