10.
Navy Blue – Navy’s Reprise
[Freedom Sounds]
Outside of a blink-and-you-miss-it at the end of Frank Oceanโs Blonde, the world wasnโt properly introduced to Sage Elsesser aka Navy Blue until his raw introduction on Earl Sweatshirtโs Some Rap Songs single โThe Mintโ. Navy and Earl are part of a revolution in rap that includes others like MIKE, billy woods, and Standing on the Corner. They focus on bars and production, using vaudeville snippets and old gramophone speakers with static to relay their stories of struggle and survival. They arenโt flashy, they arenโt over-confident. They just live in the moment for each release.
On his third album in two years, Navyโs Reprise finds the NYC skateboarder, rapper, and producer delivering his strongest body of work to date; and thatโs an actual feat of glory, as his output for 2020 was some of the best rap of the year. Navyโs focus on building atmosphere and mood takes precedence over rhyme schemes and weighty bass โ not that those are present, they are and in abundance. Navyโs goal isnโt to distract, he draws us in with these tiny confessionals stitched together. He raps on highlight โHGTVโ about his place on the stardom tree; โSkip lucidly, I couldnโt dream / Iโm fallinโ too fast / too soon,โ and none of it sounds like a man eager to be at the top of rap, simply being in rap is enough for him.
The elemental nature of Navy Blueโs words never feels strained, even if they fire off from underneath brooding and hazy layers. Its character driven, and heโs the character being driven. This approach has gained steam over the years, but Navyโs pushing this conscious underground hip-hop as lyrical therapy, โCode of Honorโ shows this – โHad my wings clipped just to let me soar / Cold air creepinโ through the door / Iโm in a Brownstone, Iโm a metaphor / Found a better source to draw from / Itโs not yours / its within me.โ This is a man who has built a career from honesty, and Navyโs Reprise is his clearest and most honest work yet. – Tim Sentz
9.
Young Dolph & Key Glock – Dum and Dummer 2
[Paper Route Empire]
Young Dolph and Key Glock share some remarkable similarities. Both are guttural MCs from Memphis with a penchant for talking about sex, stacks, and smoking. Hell, their names are even sorta similar. So, why do their team-ups feel so satisfying instead of redundant, as is the case when other kindred hip-hop spirits join forces? It might be the clear respect they have, for each other and their craft. On Dum and Dummer 2, Dolph and his protรฉgรฉ spill out impossibly precise flows, giving stories like the one about shooting dice at the casino with his nonagenarian grandmother the brazen confidence they deserve. And, despite having a fairly stuffed tracklist, the worst you can say about any song is that itโs disposable, but still fun. With their taste for head-nodding but experimental trap beats and hooks with more depth than some rapperโs verses, Dolph and Glock have success in the best possible way: by being themselves. – Brody Kenny
8.
Backxwash – I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses
[Ugly Hag]
Backxwashโs I Lie Here Buried with My Rings and My Dresses opens with an exposition on the purpose and possible benefits of pain, the speakerโs voice bringing to mind a neurologist or doctor being interviewed on a talk show. โWail of the Bansheeโ follows, including Backxwashโs opening line, โMy mindโs stuck in a torture chamber.โ The title track ensues, replete with grungy, serrated, lo-fi instrumentation and guest Ada Rookโs terrifyingly demonic snarl. The Zambian-born Backxwash follows with the politically charged lines, โLost in addiction / exiled from my sisters / the colonies and their vision / robbing me of my diction.โ
โBlood in the Waterโ is a nightmarish vision that obliquely melds references to what might be someone having a heart attack, what might be a drowning and/or an assault by a man on a woman, and what occurs as a gruesome death scene (the title phrase repeated over and over). โ666 in Luxaxaโ is an elaboration on the anticolonial stance of โWail of the Bansheesโ: โThey came up from the darkness / stole my people from me / now was the mission holy?โ The project closes with โBurn to Ashes,โ toward the end of which Backxwash growls, โFuck all my enemies hard as I can / fuck all these papers who call me a man / when the time comes, it fades to black, I know where Iโm at / I just light the fumes, boom, and spark it as I burn to ash.โ
Throughout the 10-track, approximately 32-minute project, Backxwash expands on the desperation, rage, and cathartic expostulations of 2020โs God Has Nothing to Do with This Leave Him Out of It. Even when her lyrics are indecipherable, her explosive intensity is riveting. Her snarls, screams, and incendiary rants are as instrumental as they are lyrical โ tonal and energetic as much as verbal transmissions. Backxwash is a talented rapper and gifted lyricist; her work, however, is ultimately textural and instinctively driven, a work of dark ambience that transcends convention and genre. – John Amen
7.
Rx Papi – 100 Miles and Walk’in
[Dismiss Yourself]
Rx Papi raps like a guy in conversation at a loud party: at risk of being drowned out by the music yet trying to get it all out. Heโs blunt and reflective all at once, mixing moments both stark and genuinely funny as if he hardly even notices the difference. By the time intro โA Man Apart (Intervention)โ is over, heโs raced through more ideas than some rappers present across an entire album.
From there he leaps right into, โI walk in this bitch like Mystikal!,โ on the the thudding โRush Hourโ. The song also includes the perfect example of his stream-of-consciousness hilarity: โI got pulled over, they asked me for my name / Iโm high as fuck, I told them John Wayne / I walk in this bitch like John Wayne / I donโt know shit about John Wayne / Chris Tucker said that shit in Rush Hour, thatโs the only time I heard about him.โ This is wedged between scar tissue from familial betrayal and tears shed from his mother refusing his dirty money. Moments later on โTerryโ heโs refusing counselling amidst connect concerns. In Papiโs world, thereโs no line between the deeply personal and the goofy, and the pace never lets up. Itโs no wonder the sole guest he lets into his world here is Boldy James: heโs among the few currently beloved MCs who could keep up in his own unique way. Some of the strangest, most addicting hip hop offered this year thus far. โ Chase McMullen
6.
Mach-Hommy – Pray for Haiti
[Griselda]
On Pray For Haiti, his best album to date, Mach-Hommy is in true form. Heโs joined by Griselda powder-keg Westside Gunn, who never steals the show, but does add a certain amount of panache to the whole affair. This gives Mach the open space to do what he does best. He rhymes Flonase with Yoplait and OJ on โFolie A Deuxโ, but turns around on โThe Stellar Ray Theoryโ to sing soulfully about the sun to some easy saxophone.
Westside Gunnโs influence on Machโs work is indeed something to note, but Machโs other influences on Pray for Haiti tell more about his mindset than anything. His reflections on his time with MF DOOM sets the stage, and the late iconic rapper’s masked persona was clearly influential to Machโs prior mask-wearing preference, but the Villain inspired in other ways that can be felt in random instances, like the minimalist โTen Boxes โ Sin Eaterโ, where Mach raps over a simplistic collection of chimes and drumbeats with slight bass on the backend. Itโs a wonderful homage to one of rapโs greatest voices. A lot of Machโs delivery seems to also come from Jay-Z, and Griselda’s production sparkles like 90s boom-bap, a period where Hova dominated, so there are distanct echoes of Hard Knock Life or even The Blueprint. All of this just shows how much respect Mach has for the craft. – Tim Sentz
5.
Tyler, the Creator – CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
[Columbia]
If Flower Boy was Revolver and Igor was Sgt. Peppers, then Call Me If You Get Lost is The White Album. More tonally diverse and darker than its predecessors, while still no less psychedelic and brazen, Tyler, the Creatorโs latest album functions as an attempt to sense if there is any limit to the rapperโs aesthetic interests. Characterized by wild sonic ideas and diverse instrumentation, at times the albumโs breakneck speed can induce emotional whiplash. But Tylerโs interests are clearly conveying his creative ideas in their most distilled form โ without any fat or filler. This also allows for the samples to stand out, like vignettes from a dream that allows the dreamer a brief glimpse, before it shifts and fades into something else. Itโs visionary stuff, especially with Tyler slipping into the costume of his newest character, Baudelaire, unifying his two main obsessions (romanticism and disgust) into a form of vulgar poetry heโs still the best at. Like many great rap albums, Call Me If You Get Lost is going to grow in stature with time, revealing itself to those who pay attention to its detailed texture and varied moods. – John Wohlmacher
4.
Young Nudy – DR. EV4L
[RCA]
Whether or not you enjoy Young Nudyโs southern drawl or street-heavy, vulgar verses, you have to admit heโs consistent. For the past five years, heโs been dropping one or two projects annually that rank among the best material that Atlanta trap rap has to offer. The tracks are verse-heavy with no capitulation to any kind of pop sound, and the production is cutting-edge. The bass thumps, the beat knocks, and slime goes in.
On DR. EV4L the formula continues, with Nudy serving up his dark style that is not without its humor (Dr. Evil is, after all, an Austin Powers reference). The second half of this album is particularly strong, with standouts in the banging single โ2Faceโ and the autobiographical โColombian Necktieโ. And, if the rumors are true, another full-length from Nudy entirely produced by Piโerre Bourne is just around the corner. – Ethan Reis
3.
Conway the Machine – La Maquina
[Griselda / Drumwork / EMPIRE]
More than any among the leading trio of Griselda, Conway has been waiting for his moment. Yes, 2017’s G.O.A.T was undeniably strong, and last year’s (admittedly brief) linkup with The Alchemist, LuLu, was has most consistent work to date, but he’s never quite enjoyed as big of a moment in the spotlight to the extent of his brethren. With Westside Gunn seeming to more and more favor his role as a curator, and Benny the Butcher sliding into a role he seems comfortable with, 2021 is the Machine’s for the taking. La Maquina proves his most varied effort yet, finding time for essential Griselda moments and a heater of a single alongside none other than Ludacris and J.I.D, as well. If his Shady Records debut, God Don’t Make Mistakes, ever materializes, his claims of being the year’s MVP may just bear weight. Whatever happens, this was surely one for the books. – Chase McMullen
2.
Lloyd Banks – The Course of the Inevitable
[Money By Any Means]
The Course of The Inevitable begins with a song called โPropaneโ and the literal sounds of gas ready to be lit โ Lloyd Banks making it extremely clear that, no matter how long heโs been gone, heโs back cooking with gas and firing on all cylinders this time around. His cutthroat attitude hasnโt gone either; โKill a n***a, set up his GoFundMe and stะตal itโ is just one of the ways he emphasises that his money-chasing drive is strong as ever.
Itโs this desire for power and wealth that drives a lot of the first half of The Course of The Inevitable. Banksโ voice โ now 40 years old โ is even more fantastically weathered, perfectly attuned to playing the paranoid top dog of a self-made empire who has to sleep with one eye open to keep all corners protected. Backed with beats that emphasise the grey and grim reality of the hustle, he takes up the mantle of the heartless thug; โWon’t be no empathy ’cause you going through it, gotta be strong / It’s always easier for you to do wrong,โ he asserts on the Freddie Gibbs featuring โEmpathyโ.
However, as the album reaches its mid-point, cracks of humanity start to appear amidst the gangster facade. Over a contemplative beat, โCrownโ finds him filled with regretful reflections, sending out the lesson โWord to the young, wild and reckless, hope you live to be oldโฆ Some friends, you gotta leave on the road.โ The funeral bounce of โBreak Me Downโ sees him reflecting on losing grandmothers and aunts, witnessing murders (โthe realest shit I ever sawโ), and โreturning from neighborhood wars tallying who went missing,โ then cracking slightly as he admits โSometime the pain hurt so bad things can get blurry.โ Itโs a hurt thatโs revisited just a few tracks later on stand-out โPain Pressure Paranoiaโ where, over a physical beat from Phill Jvckson, he raps โLosin’ a father feels like a .50 cal / Then losin’ a grandmother, damn, it hit me now.โ
By the time we reach the final stretch of The Course of The Inevitable, Banks seems to have undergone a spiritual revolution of sorts. Weโre treated to the nostalgic โDrop 5โ, where a wistful violin-imbued backing from Fruition Beats underscores Banksโ wishes; โHere’s to the slower life, two to three kids, a home, a wife.โ Shortly later, on the angelic โSmoke and Mirrorsโ, all thatโs left of that wild youth are the aches and pains, his priorities completely changed โAnd I’m a father, the thought of it makes me proud / My biggest fear is lettin’ one of my babies down.โ He underlines this very point on the closing track โC O T Iโ, explaining the albumโs title in the process: โThe streets don’t show love and gettin’ to it don’t make you a boss / There’s no remorse, the turns of the inevitable course.โ
Banks may have been largely absent for the last decade, but The Course of The Inevitable provides the full story of his last 10 years of growth. This 67 minutes is an exploration of personal evolution, visceral in both its imagery and its honesty, and a re-introduction to Lloyd Banks as a man, a father and a force to be reckoned with. – Rob Hakimian
1.
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Haram
[Backwoodz Studioz]
‘Compromise’ isnโt a word in billy woods‘ or Elucidโs vocabulary. As Armand Hammer, they peel back the rotting facade of our society as if their lives depend on it. For Haram, in a first, they linked up with a sole producer: none other than essentially the best in the game for the past few years, The Alchemist.
As ever, Uncle Al adapts to the needs at hand, providing a surprisingly stark, blunt set of beats, grim and deceptively layered. The heresy on display here only begins with the title and its sinful album cover, with the pair of rappers attacking the harshest sides of American culture, bringing to light just the sort of truths most are uncomfortable in the presence of. Drifting seamlessly between the direct and the abstract, the harshly true and the surreal, this is hip hop as fucked as the moment weโre all stuck in. โ Chase McMullen
Listen along to our Hip Hop 2021: Halftime Spotify playlist.
