![]() Given their track record with the first three RTJ albums it was hard to imagine Killer Mike and El-P disappointing – but even equalling the level of quality of especially RTJ2 and RTJ3 was ever going to be a tall order. RTJ4 is a near-perfect presentation of fresh, exciting, banging beats and politically potent lyrics. This is an album the world needs right now. Run The Jewels (2013), Run The Jewels 2 (2014), and Run The Jewels 3 (2016) all are among the best Hip Hop albums of the 2010s, three important albums for Hip Hop as a genre. Because of its predecessors, Run The Jewels 4 was one of the most-anticipated albums of the year – and it delivered on all fronts.Īs El-P promised: RTJ4 is a punch in the face – and in a good way. The success of the tour eventually led to the decision to form Run The Jewels. Music and Cancer 4 Cure were released within weeks of each other, the two decided to tour together. Music – one of our favorite albums of 2012 – which was soon followed by Killer Mike’s appearance on the track “Tougher Colder Killer” from El-P’s Cancer 4 Cure. In 2012 El-P produced Killer Mike’s album, R.A.P. Let’s get into it, check out what we think are the best Hip Hop albums of 2020.Īlso check: Greatest Hip Hop Albums 1980 – 2020 & Top 150 Hip Hop Albums Of The 2010sĪnd: Best Hip Hop Albums Of 2020 – The Honorable Mentions & The Best Hip Hop Albums Of 2021 But having said that, there are lots of dope EP’s out there, so we will not completely ignore them – scroll all the way down for a section with some of the best EP’s released in 2020, as well as a listing of 2020’s best instrumental and best Hip Hop adjacent projects. Creating an LP is an art in itself, releasing a couple of songs as an EP or dropping a 20-minute ‘album’ with a bunch of 1 and 2-minute songs is not enough to make it on our best albums list. Some artists bill barely 30-minute-long projects as albums – HHGA sees projects that clock in at under 30 minutes as EP’s however, and we do not rank them on our album (= LP) list. Not included here are instrumental albums, compilations, and EP’s. ![]() Limiting this list to 60 titles does a disservice to lots of great albums that had to be relegated to the honorable mentions section (which admittedly is ridiculously long, but all the albums there are worth checking out). Hip Hop has never been more diverse than as it is today, and this list will reflect that diversity. Sure, there’s still plenty of terrible rap music out there, but it’s becoming easier and easier to ignore the output of mumblers and trappers because of the breadth and depth in quality Hip Hop that’s on offer these days – in the mainstream as well as in the underground. 2020 was a bad, bad year in a lot of ways, but it was a GREAT year for Hip Hop. To a fan coming up in the era of Cardi or Tyler or Polo G or Playboi Carti, the golden age is now.For this The Best Hip Hop Albums Of 2020 list we have listened to hundreds of projects – well over 500 to be more precise. 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. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |