Best of 2009: San Diego Rap Albums

One more list. I will keep pretending that San Diego has a scene until the day that we have a scene. Also posted at Examiner, but who cares?

1. Blame One – Days Chasing Days
Let’s recap: Days Chasing Days was simultaneously Blame One’s return from retirement after his last album, his label debut to the greater rap world, and then eventually his swan song before going back into retirement (…… before coming back out of retirement just a few months later). As ambivalent as Blame is towards the actual business of music, the music itself is very focused. It’s grown man rap, whether he’s discussing metaphysics and hieroglyphics, reminiscing on his childhood, or just bitch-slapping young, wack, and/or disrespectful emcees. Production from post-Dilla torchbearers like Exile, Oh No, and Black Milk offer stable, boom-bap support for Blame to rip.
Listen: Blame One “Supreme Beings”

Best of 2009: Album Leftovers

No, I’m not done with 2009. It was that great for rap music.

I overlooked some albums in the rush to spit out some 2000-odd words and cut off a few more to keep it at a nice round number of 10 for the Best Albums posts. I should’ve also noted that I have not been able to keep up with too many releases from November and December. I’ve only barely scratched the surface on albums from the Clipse, Souls of Mischief, Z-Ro, Juvenile, and Ryan Leslie, so apologies to those projects. At any rate, here are some more projects that I enjoyed plenty this year, in no particular order and again, with download links for the artist-sanctioned free releases:

Ryan Leslie – Ryan Leslie
Obviously, I couldn’t put this on a Best Rap post, it not being rap and all. But if I had, it would’ve ranked pretty highly. Ryan Leslie is a great pop producer and just a real sweet dude, which is pretty cool. Except for my obsession with ignorant rap music, I’m pretty square. I mostly like my R&B to be less playerating and womanizing, more monogamously lovely but without sounding like it’s for old people. And that’s basically what Ryan Leslie’s music is. He actually released a second album this year but that fell in with the late-year batch that I didn’t get to.

Best of 2009: Beat Drop Leftovers

Here are a few more beats that stood out to me this year but that I didn’t submit to the Beat Drop for one reason or another, none of which had anything to do with the actual enjoyability of the beats.

G-Side “Rising Sun” [prod. Block Beattaz]
I knew Brandon would pick this one and he writes way better than me so I figured I better not even try lest I sound completely retarded in comparison. He pretty much covers it in the Beat Drop and on No Trivia. But one detail I’m partial to is the times during ST’s verse when Block Beattaz throw a quick effect onto the end of his line. Like when ST raps “Methadone music, crack gone rap/Syrup in a song,” the word “rap” has this screwed up effect which morphs into a chipmunk effect for “syrup,” signifying Southern rap music and its reliance on drugs as a topic and as an aesthetic. They use the same effect when ST spits “You ain’t a G, you a dude(?) do boy, I’m a W-2 boy” and “W-2 boy” is screwed. It’s like trying to usurp the musical language of crack rap for the purposes of responsible hustler rap. Obviously, I’m overthinking it but it was a small detail that I appreciated nonetheless.

Mos Def ft. Slick Rick “Auditorium” [prod. Madlib]
Another joint I figured Brandon might choose. Not much to this here, it just happens to be this extremely dope, Mid-Eastern, trek-across-deserts sample, wrapped in as much mystery as Madlib himself. I actually kinda want to hear Rakim on this since he’s got this similar mysterious, mythological vibe emanating from him. Definitely would’ve been better than anything on The Seventh Seal, but I digress.

Metal Lungies: Beat Drop – Best of 2009

Metal Lungies hosted a massive two-part (and possibly three-part) Beat Drop to wrap up the year. All contributors chose their 5 favorite beats of the year and just gushed over them. I chose the first 5 that came to mind …… which coincidentally all come from albums off my Best Rap Albums of 2009 list (yes, you are correct, I’ve really only listened to like 3 and a half albums all year, I’m a simple man). I chose Alchemist’s “That’ll Work,” G-Side’s “In The Rain,” Juicy J’s “Purple Kush,” Diamond District’s “Who I Be,” and DJ Quik’s “Do You Know,” though the last one didn’t make the cut (I guess ML thought my 140-character write-up was just plain lazy and they’d be right). There’s lots of good writing in the entire piece and plenty more good music to be heard that I’ve only barely scratched the surface myself. Here’s what I wrote for the Alchemist joint:

Three 6 Mafia is perfect for this track because this Alchemist beat is along the same lines of Satanic hip-hop that Three 6 came up on earlier in their career (and the style they went back to this year). The difference being that Three 6 beats sound like gargoyles, church steeples, and bloody goblets and shit. This beat sounds like a record being played backwards, twisting a nice sunny melody into a secret message from Lucifer.