Hood,” a character built from instructional records whose journey reflects brothers Zev Love X and Subroc’s evolution of knowledge of self. The album is bracketed with skits featuring “Mr. Hood is a marvel of youthful imagination, and a reflection of hip-hop’s short-lived Native Tongues era. And songs like “All Girls Are the Same” and “Lucid Dreams” turned his epic sadness into undeniable pop confections. He wasn’t even 20, but Juice WRLD sounded like he was shouldering enough burden (bad love, bad drugs, bad health) to last a lifetime - a performative self-cancelation that turned out to be tragically prophetic. Working a primal whine of been-done-wrong romantic angst, his vocals marinating in effluvial synths that sounded even more bummed than he was, Jarad Higgins staked his claim as an emo-rap star on his debut album. Juice WRLD, ‘Goodbye & Good Riddance’ (2018).It’s a shame we’ll most likely never be able to appreciate the innovations here the same way again. Scott incorporated sounds and ideas from across the hip-hop spectrum, from the Drake-assisted smash “Sicko Mode” to the Screwston slither of “5% Tint” to the throwback jazz-rap of “Coffee Bean,” fusing his myriad impulses into an ambitious avant-crunk full of woozy, frenzied discovery. But it’s also impossible to deny that Scott’s breakthrough hasn’t loomed largely over the last few years of rap. To a fan coming up in the era of Cardi or Tyler or Polo G or Playboi Carti, the golden age is now.Īfter the horrific tragedy at his Astroworld Festival, it’s hard to listen to this album with much objectivity, let alone any sympathy. One of the incredible things about hip-hop is that it evolves and expands faster than any other genre in music history. to Houston to Chicago, and beyond.Īs we dug and listened, we found ourselves a little less swayed by “golden age” mystique than we might’ve been had we done this list 10 or 15 years ago. and Rakim and others, through the gangsta era, the rise of the South, the ascendance of larger-than-life aughts superstars like Jay-Z and Kanye West and Nicki Minaj, and on and on into more recent moments like blog-rap, emo-rap, and drill, from New York to L.A. The result was a list that touches on every important moment in the genre’s evolution - from compilations that honor the music’s paleo old-school days, to its artistic flourishing in the late Eighties and early Nineties with Public Enemy, De La Soul, Eric B. When confronted with a choice between the third (or fourth or fifth) record by a classic artist (Outkast, for instance, or A Tribe Called Quest) and an album from an artist who would make the list more interesting (The Jacka or Saba or Camp Lo), we tended to go with the latter option. Relatedly, a list of hip-hop-adjacent albums from the worlds of dancehall or reggaeton or grime would be fun and fascinating, and something for us to revisit down the road. That’s one reason we limited our scope to English language hip-hop. But the history of rap LPs is so rich and varied, we were forced to make some painful choices - there are so many iconic artists with deep catalogs, so many constantly evolving sounds and regional scenes. Two hundred seems like an almost luxuriantly expansive number when you’re making an albums list, and in any other genre, maybe it would be.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |