Editorial Review: #AOTY 2014 picks by @RamseySaidWHAT

Well, this has definitely without a doubt been the hardest year for me to write this review. Hip-Hop has been interesting to say the least this year. From January to December plenty of comercial music released and I didn't find myself listening to most of any of it (crazy coming from a hip-hop blogger huh?). The music I looked forward to got pushed back like Kendrick and Joey Bada$$. It's safe to say I spent this year listening to lots of music from 2013, and mixtapes. The only exceptions were the albums that made this list and a few that just missed getting on the list. 2014 was really a year for singles as well. Don't believe me? Do me a favor, turn on the radio and all you'll is Iggy or Chris Brown murdering the charts (from a jail cell for most of the summer, go figure). Back to the topic at hand, my peers made a lot of points in their reviews when they said the year was good not great. Niles respectively declined and said there were enough quality albums to compile a decent list. I also have to agree with him when he said rap's heavy hitters were absent this year, but when based on the criteria (lyrics, production, flow, popularity, sales, and uniqueness), only a few stood out in my eyes. Please remember this is an opinion piece and not just a list of favorites. Please don't murder me too bad. The good one is for tomorrow. Until then, My album of the year picks for 2014 is as follows.

Number Five: NehruvianDOOM - Bishop Nehru & MF DOOM

If you've ever read anything I've written, you know I love music that reminds me of childhood. The 80's and 90's. NehruvianDOOM is an album born during the wrong decade and I love it. The production was superb, well it's produced soley by DOOM himself. The only exception was a collaboration with his partner Madlib on Dangerous. Although being produced by a legend Bishop Nehru still shined and was far from upstaged by his elder-statesman.  It's nice to see such young talent emerging reminding us hip-hop is still a young man's game. Niles actually did a review on this one so for more click here. NehruvianDOOM gets a 3.89 of 5 on the Ramsey Rating Scale.

Number Four: Oxymoron - ScHoolboy Q

I have a lot of respect for this album. In what seemed like a very very off year for the genre ScHoolboy Q came with a bang. His album dropped in January. For him to be able to stand the test of 12 months and even make the list is very impressive. Until July, you couldn't tell me this wasn't the best album in 2014. On top of being the first in the genre to really drop a major LP he was the first in the TDE stable who promised albums from the entire clan. The first and the only one of them to make the list, sorry Soulo. I happened to be off work and was able to stream his album listener with Rosenberg the eve of the release date. That was the first time I heard the deluxe version including songs like Collard Greens with Kendrick Lamar, Studio featuring BJ the Chicago Kid, and Man of the Year. Break the Bank and Yay Yay spoke to the pusher man ScHoolboy Q really was for him and his family, more importantly his daughter Joy you can see on the album cover (much like The Game's). Oxymoron start to finish was remarkable and definitely deserved to make everyone's top 10 including my own. I rated this a 3.91 of 5 on the Ramsey Rating Scale.

Number Three: Nobody's Smiling - Common

This is where it got hard for me. 3 through one have been interchangeable until actually sitting down and writing this. Nobody's Smiling was the only thing in my ears through the summer as far as hip-hop goes (well Rae Sremmurd too cuz those kids turn up man). I was gonna cover this one but I let Niles bless us with this review as well which you can find here. Tracks that stood out to me were Kingdom, Real, and the self title. Kingdom features Vince Staples and a choral background on the beat. The duo trade verses about their respective cities of Chicago and Long Beach, CA. Real features Elijah Blake (who this time I actually did the review on) and is somewhat the climatic turning point of the album where it takes a brief turn. Blake lays down crooning but catchy vocals. I live by the beach. This was one of those "Roll down the window and feel the warm air on a July day while listening to this with your shawty riding shotgun" tracks.

Don't be confused, Nobody's Smiling was not a happy album. I found it very timely as it released a week before the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO. The self title was an ode to Chicago but not in a Homecoming Kanye sense. Common spoke about the things not talked about. What I liked most about that track was the spoken word piece by Malik Yusef at the end of the track. Nobody's Smiling recieves 4.3 stars on the Ramsey Rating Scale.

Number Two: 2014 Forest Hills Drive - J. Cole

This is for you Jermaine. You did the same thing Childish Gambino did last year with this December release thing. That left Glover with only a honorable mention last year. It's only right that Cole stops here. Just like Common, Forest Hills Drive was timely. Common got the initial murder, Cole got the indictment verdict. 2014 Forest Hills Drive makes my list because it came with no promotion, no singles, and was still arguably the emcee's best project in his impressive discography. As all Cole albums I find myself able to relate to him. He speaks to me in different ways. The frustration and longing for freedom in me was heard in the Intro and January 28th. "Do you wanna be, happy?" Reminiscing to my first time was Wet Dreamz "Cuz I aint never did this before." Wet Dreamz was a nice storyteller track. Simple boom bap beat that doesn't overshadow what he's saying. A Tale of 2 Citez is by far the hardest track on the album. Gritty beat, gritty bars, instant repeat. G.O.M.D. is another one of those acronym tracks kinda like IDFWU. That's all I have to say about that (Forest Gump voice*). 2014 Forest Hills Drive was my favorite album this year. Perhaps if it were out longer and the initial buzz wore off I could rate it fairly with the rest. Because of that, I have to stop you there (again). Cole World huh? 2014 Forest Hills Drive gets 4.79 on the Ramsey Rating Scale.

Number One: Under Pressure - Logic

I can't believe all of the other contributors to the site missed this one. Under Pressure was dope through and through. Frankly, I'm tired of everyone sleeping on Young Sinatra. He's been around for awhile and just now made the XXL Freshman list this past year. On top of the Editor's (me) nod on the AOTY list, iTunes also voted him as the best hip-hop album in 2014 as well. And no it's not cuz his skin pale because he still won't sell like Eminem or Adele (get it?). To the point. Under Pressure was fuego, the one fire album no one listened to. The self title track was my favorite for three reasons. One, it was self produced and done with such flare. Two was the video. The visual was insane and shot like it was a first person shooter. Three, flow. He engaged you with all of the before mentioned things but when you listen to what he said and how it was delivered it was nuts. Other impressive tracks were Driving Miss Daisy featuring Childish Gambino and Buried Alive. Under Pressure was different and equally amazing considering it was a debut album. Not a ton of features so you really see what Logic can bring to the table. I gave Under Pressure 4.71 on the Ramsey Rating Scale. It scores less than Forest Hills Drive but I believe it was still the better album of the two, how's that for an Oxymoron and I'm not talking ScHoolboy (okay the puns are corny).

I said before I started writing this was difficult to judge this year. It was hard to leave out Nicki Minaj and Ab Soul off my AOTY list. I also struggled leaving Anomaly by Lacrae off as a crossover album. I generally hate Christian Rap. I love Gospel, I love hip-hop. I separate church and state (literally). Isaiah Rashaad also impressed with his Cilvia Demo towards the top of the year but couldn't hang with the rest. Those are my picks, hope you enjoyed reading. Keep listening mates.

Royal Throne: #AOTY 2014 by @AQueens_Crown

2014 has got to be the  hardest year of my life this far. It just drained me emotional, and spiritual but I managed to make it out alright. Only because of my love music and the energy it provides me. With that being said it was a weird year for hip-hop. With artist albums leaking weeks before the release date, resulting in a lack of sales for a lot of artist. In 2014 only one album went platinum and is was Taylor Swift's 1989 selling 1.2 million in its first week . The music industry has taken a major hit in revenue sales due to these leaked albums. Even so this was a pretty dry year for hip-hop albums in my opinion. Here is my top five best albums of the year.  


5) YG - My Krazy Life

When I heard YG was dropping an album I thought great another piece of trash is being dropped. Boy was I wrong. I loved it and was so surprised. I really liked that is was a story being told in this album about his life living in Compton.  YG's MY Krazy Life made my list of top five for the fact that I played this album a lot when it came out. My favorite tracks are Bicken Back Being Bool, and Left, Right. I know there was a lot of hype around him this year. Hopefully  he continues to live up to it.

4) Nicki Minaj - Pink Print 
I was honestly surprised to actually like this album. I have never been a fan of her music before because of all that pop music crap, but after hearing a couple tracks I was impressed. I really like the track with Meek Mill on it Buy a Heart and Feeling Myself . You can really tell she bared her soul with this album. Talking about the death of her cousin, and the hopes of having a child in the near future. Now I'm not saying I'm a Barbs, but the Pink Print will not get skipped when it comes on. 

3) Schoolboy Q - Oxymoron

You can't tell me that anyone listened to Q's without feeling like a baller futuristic groovy gansta with an attitude. Within it's first week Oxymoron debuted at number one on Billboard's list. That helped earn a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. One of my favorite songs is Prescription/Oxymoron. You can really hear his struggle with drug addiction. That's something you don't hear about from most rappres these days. Instead most brag about it as if its something to be proud of. Afterwards you get haunting vibes from What They Want making me feel like no one can touch me.

2) Childish Gambino - STN MTN / Kauai
I loved this dual sided concept album. Upon first hearing about it I thought it would be an extension of Because the Internet. I was nicely surprised it wasn't. I wrote more about it in my review of the project here.

1) J.Cole - 2014 Forest Hills Drive

As far as numbers goes this album did really well in the first week considering that he didn't drop a single or do promotion tour. The album itself is a great piece of work. He spoke on a variety of subjects. I really liked this album for the main fact that I agreed with what he spoke about. From the racial tension in hip-hop today, when you have "rappers" like Iggy Azalea doing a terrible job of respecting  hip-hop culture. Making lame pop hits claiming its hip-hop then being rewarded for it. How love is all that really matters. Love for your family, for your friends. We get caught up in the capitalist system of thinking that money will make us happy. So we spend all our time trying to get money only to realize that it can't make us happy. He had a great interview with Angie Martinez on Power 105.1 FM talking all about the capitalistic system we live in, as well as the state of the black man in America. If you haven't given it a listen you can check it out below.

Opinion - My Krazy Life by YG album review by Niles Cavanaugh

"So this YG album I have to review sucks kind of.  Beats all sound the same."
"Well it's probably made to sell."

That was a conversation I had with my homegirl Jazzy about My Krazy Life. When Ramsey assigned it to me he described it as the gangbanger perspective to the same Compton Kendrick Lamar spoke about in his debut album.  Listening to it on the long and taxing drive home from Cherry Hill, I found that Ramsey was right about it.  This album tells a story, albeit loosely, of a day in the life of a Tree Top Piru Blood in Compton.

Being that West Coast hip-hop has been on an upswing the last couple of years (especially with ScHoolboy Q dropping Oxymoron a couple weeks ago), I was intrigued by this concept. As I listened on my trip home, I was sorely disappointed.

My Krazy Life does loosely tell a story of a day in the life of a blood in Compton, or Bompton if you choose. Lyrically and content wise, you aren't being sold a false bill of goods here. The subject matter is somewhat repetitive but makes sense. Smoking drinking, partying, fighting shooting, hanging out with your set f*ckin chicks are apparently what happens in a typical day for a blood around the way. I have no issue with that because you can tell YG isn't bullsh*ttin' listeners in any way shape or form. He's just speaking on what he knows on songs such as BPT or the blood-coded Bicken Back Being Bool. He also frequently uses interpolations of throwback West Coast hits in his rhymes. While he may not have the same lyrical technique and flow finesse as The Game, any of TDE, Fashawn, Crooked I, Murs, or any other left coast MC out there, YG still speaks in authentic language and comes from the heart in most of his raps. He's not going to be in anyone's top 5 dead or alive list, but tolerable lyrically, albeit average.

The main trouble with My Krazy Life is the beats. If you're going to be an average newcomer newcomer in a hip-hop scene that seemingly sees thousands of releases per week, you have to be carried by top-notch production if you don't have the necessary wordplay to stand out. YG doesn't have that. Out of a possible 17-18 songs (depending on the edition you purchased) the aforementioned DJ Mustard either solely produced or at least had a hand in produced or at least had a hand in producing 12 of them. The beats stay true to the album's California roots but largely get repetitive and boring after awhile. I understand that you want any album to have a consistent vibe when it comes to production, but almost all of this sounds the same. In an interview with Hip-Hop DX review, DJ Mustard compared the album to Dr. Dre's classic The Chronic. while that album had a consistent vibe and formula, you could at least tell the songs apart. I got the feeling that the beats were like a modern day g-funk soundtrack of an old video game or something. Combined with the subject matter that's standard at best, you aren't looking at anything Earth shattering.

There are a few gems here, don't get me wrong. I Just Wanna Party is pretty good and comes with a double assist by ScHoolboy Q and Jay Rock. Really Be shows that YG can avoid getting completely eaten alive by current California hip-hop king Kendrick Lamar. 1 AM is too short yet solid, and Sorry Momma is the best song on the album. It's an introspective joint co-produced by Terrance Martin and DJ Mustard that survives an appearance by new guy Ty Dolla Sign. Even the bonus track Bompton has replay value. Overall this album has a lot of filler, and like Jazzy implied, this album was seemingly made to sell. There's an obligatory Drake appearance on Who Do You Love? and the radio smash My N*gga (or My Hitta as heard on the radio) sounds like your average irritating hit hip-hop song of today. The original features label boss Young Jeezy and fellow new act Rich Homie Quan. The remix on the deluxe edition features Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and Meek Mill. Clearly this was built for spins and nothing else.

Overall, this album fell short of the expectations that I had. While it does show a gangster's view of Compton, it ultimately sputters once you realize that gangsters don't do much and seemingly don't leave the neighborhood in which they reside. Put these stories over mostly bland beats, and you don't have much of a memorable album. It doesn't compare to good kid, m.A.A.d city or Oxymoron because it lacks the rich production and lyrical diversity to keep up with it's peers. This album will have and audience though. Fans of a new school radio rap will find it catchy. People from Compton and like areas in Cali (shoutouts to Tori who also put me on the album) will be able to relate to some of the culture and references and therefore embrace it. At the end of the day, My Krazy Life sounds like other albums before it and will eventually sound like other albums after it. It won't go down as a classic, or make my top 10 of 2014. It'll just kind of something that happened. It was an album that was made to sell and it shows.

Short backstory: hailing from Compton, YG is a Tree Top Piru Blood who is signed to Jeezy's CTE World/Def Jam. He released a number of mixtapes and frequently collaborated with producer DJ Mustard starting in 2010.

Oxymoron - Schoolboy Q: In Stores Now

 

The day is finally here!

Schoolboy Q has released Oxymoron. You can find it in stores everywhere. It is also on iTunes and Amazon or wherever you can purchase music online. Below are the first singles off of the TDE and Cali native's record. Oxymoron is easily WTM's early favorite for #AOTY 2014.