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.

Things I Like About Gucci Mane’s Burrrprint

I’m slowly coming around to Gucci Mane, which is looking like a bad thing in the sense that he’s dropping a ridiculous amount of material these days and I won’t be able to keep up if I keep coming around this slowly. I’m still bumping Burrrprint, which dropped last weekend, and then Gucci has to fuck around and drop a three-part mixtape series this weekend.

The Burrrprint is his most enjoyable mixtape so far, a lot of it having to do with the fact that the beats bang so goddamn hard. But Gucci is kinda hilarious too and pretty weird. Here are all the lines/moments/aspects that I think makes Gucci stand out as a rapper on this mixtape:

Intro
-Gucci talks to the mirror on the wall a la the witch from Sleeping Beauty. Which reinforces my perception of Gucci as goofy, Alice-In-Wonderland rapper.

Dope Boys
-”I don’t feel you cuz I’m parapalegic, where’s my paralegal?”
-”I got court in the early morning, I don’t really wanna go/ Said I violated probation just because I blew my nose”
-”Gold stacks up in my closet, I can’t see my fucking clothes/ And my belly is so big, I can hardly see my toes”

Gucci Mane for game nerds

For the past couple months, I’ve been painstakingly trying to “figure out” this Guccimania thing. Usually, I’d just dismiss this type of thing after a few listens, if that. But way too many respected writers and bloggers have been jumping on and riding for Gucci. After reading a decent article at Vibe.com, a better one at Creative Loafing, and just kinda mulling it over for awhile, I think I finally sorta got it albeit in nerdy, video game terms that may be just as inaccessible as Gucci’s music itself.

Alright, so take Sean Price. I think most hip-hop heads can agree that Sean P is one of the most technically skilled rappers out right now. When you think about the traditional factors that you would point to to indicate that someone is a good rapper, Sean P’s got it locked. He’s got the excellent flow, breath control, clever wordplay, witty punchlines, extensive vocabulary, and a great voice to boot. He talks about beating the crap out of people and he does it really well. Many would even say he’s a rapper’s rapper. In the world of video games, assuming rap is like the fighting game genre, Sean P would be like Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, a game regarded by many as essentially the PERFECT fighting game.