It's the end of the year and ain't shit going down. To be fair we have seen and heard way more dope music than anyone has a right too in one lap around the sun. I'll be devouring things that dropped this year for the next decade. But thats cool, music is sounding great and when the need to debate what was the best goes down? Far better than the feeling of scratching your head asking what did I get down to this year, didn't it all drop years ago? I for one can't get enough new music and struggle with the prospect of balancing out time spent hearing new things versus just enjoying them music I love.As I prepare to move at the top of 2011 and put together our own best of lists I've been perusing the usual haunts, more so hopping for something new to be delivered than to read yet another list but that's what critics do this time of year. A few sites have impressed me with their choices, my favorite site dropped a list of 50 albums over half of which I'm certain I never heard - got even more listening to do, thank god for the first quarter when nothing drops and we all play catch up with what we missed in the year that was.
What lists have impressed you? If you have never ventured over to No Trivia I highly reccomend Soderbergs sly take and ear on modern hiphop. He resides in B More and sometimes he lets his city influence him more than it would if he lived elsewhere which is ok, it provides a voice for some dope music in a town no one cares about. What you know about that Moodyman? He dropped his list of 25 best rap tunes then went on to mix 'em up and drop off a smooth playing podcast. He sounds like a radio DJ throughout the mix, basically just letting one tune finish and dropping the next one, but hey not everyone can be a DJ and at least this way you are able to actually hear the full song in case you missed any. His best selection in my eyes? The Little Brother jam, that as the title states, is "Tiggalo For Dolo." Don't forget that Phonte has bars, even if he is more concerned with singing a tune these days.
Passion of the Weiss always organizes a pretty serious year end wrap up, you may have already seen it, or clicked the above link to my fav site - yeah I said it, if you are looking for music journalism on the internet focused on forward thinking artists this is the site to visit hands down. Enough stanning, this is about Sach O aka Son Raw's best of the year rap mix. Sach has multiple skills with his hands, not just writing dope pieces on bass music of the future he gets down on the tables behind his computer and in front of crowds every now and then in Montreal. Mixing a tad bit more than Soderberg did and looking at a whole other section of hiphop, listening to these two mixes next to each other you will hear just how wide open hiphop is these days. Lots of dope music coming from so many different angles.
And if the glasses are confusing you just watch this and be ready for one of the dopest projects of 2011.
