6. tyler, the creator - wolf//roc marciano - "the sacrifice (prod. madlib)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

6. tyler, the creator – wolf

It’s hard to define the change Tyler, The Creator has gone through this year as a “transformation,” because he’s still retained many of the elements that vaulted him to fame in 2011 with “Yonkers” and Bastard: he’s still bitingly sarcastic, prone to emotional outbursts, and hardly afraid of the controversial.  It’s like watching a ten-year-old mind loose in the body of an immensely talented twenty-year-old.  But since his days as parent-adversary and troubled-role-model, Tyler has made massive steps forward as an artist.  He’s relying less on the Eminem-esque shock value of his lyrics, and instead taking advantage of his unique skill set as a producer/rapper.  It might sound like a disadvantage that Tyler never formally learned how to play a musical instrument, but it’s certainly playing to his strengths now; the types of chord progressions he’s using in his music are jazzy, funky, and like nothing else in hip-hop. Wolf is the most mature piece of music Tyler has ever made, and the straight-out-my-basement homespun sound of Odd Future’s earlier music has evolved into something more distinct and polished.  It’s a concept album, but the story isn’t what carries the album – in fact, several of the best songs off Wolf (like Tyler’s interpolation of Eminem’s “Stan”, “Colossus”) don’t even fit into the narrative.  Instead, it’s Tyler’s charisma: even beyond the steps he’s taken as a rapper, and even without the violence that laced most of his earlier songs, Tyler’s growl is gripping.  This is an artist coming into his own.

6. roc marciano – “the sacrifice (prod. madlib)”

The sample driving “The Sacrifice” forward doesn’t waste any time sputtering to a start like a ‘90s RZA loop, it jerks right into action.  It’s uncharacteristically soulful for a Roc Marciano backdrop, but that’s a role Madlib’s been providing for Freddie Gibbs lately too, so no surprises there.  It’s also not a surprise that Roc is just as sharp lyrically as he’s been on virtually every single song he’s ever made; who else can rap about the same things over and over on every song so consistently while mixing it up just enough to be interesting every time?  What is surprising, though, is how well all the elements of this song come together.  The eight-note bassline, the loop drifting in and out of audible range, the shrill trumpet notes dancing into the beat every few measures.  It’s all impeccably polished (for a rapper who revels in the grittiness of New York, that’s a nice change), and very soulful material.  Who else you know pulling out lines like “My main ho, cop me the Range Ro’, she say no/I need one for every color in the rainbow”?

7. run the jewels - run the jewels//kanye west - "blood on the leaves (prod. kanye and his friends)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

7. run the jewels – run the jewels

There’s something about rap duos that captures the imagination: is there anything quite as entertaining and impressive to watch as two rappers trading bar after bar, verse after verse?  But even as far as rap duos go, El-P and Killer Mike mesh together incredibly seamlessly; it’s been a while since we’ve seen two rappers so at ease giving and going.  Even if their resumes don’t exactly suggest “soulmates” (El-P came to fame as one of the New York underground’s most prominent rappers, while Killer Mike’s a figurehead of Atlanta), it actually makes a quite a bit of sense: they’re both hard-hitting, and they both evidently don’t give a shit.  El-P has been perfecting the art of musically capturing the apocalypse since he began his career, but this might be the best produced album of his career (it flits from sound to sound without dwelling too long on any set of menacing synths, and it never lets up).  Hooks like “DDFH”’s “Do dope, fuck hope” don’t seem overly fatalistic or out of place here.  But what makes Run the Jewels one of the best rap albums of the year is El-P and Killer Mike’s banter; it’s hard to believe this partnership came together last year.  Mike on “Banana Clipper”: “Producer gave me a beat, said it’s the beat of the year/Said El-P didn’t do it, so get the fuck outta here.”

7. kanye west – “blood on the leaves (prod. kanye and his friends)”

Rightfully so or not, most of the coverage swirling around “Blood on the Leaves” has to do with the two samples Kanye  chose to make up the song’s spine, Nina Simone’s plaintive and racially-tinged rendition of “Strange Fruit” and an altered version of electronic duo TNGHT’s “R U Ready”.  The suggestion (and criticism) is that Kanye, true to form, is twisting a shallow love story into a racial affair, and that sits well with few.  But I’ll set aside the sample flips for a second (which is hard to do: even though the loops are simple, the effect is initially discordant but ultimately brilliant).  Even beyond what Kanye and Co. are doing behind the boards, this is Kanye at his most dark, accusing, and self-effacing (again, true to form).  Kanye’s not a good singer, we can get that out of the way right now.  But this is sharp, stripped-down Kanye, and his words strike like daggers even if he’s not hitting all his notes; the hook is haunt-your-dreams material.  And that’s not even including the song-ending verse.

8. childish gambino - because the internet//danny brown - "odb (prod. paul white)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

8. childish gambino – because the internet

First of all, let’s establish the flaws here.  Even when Childish Gambino is flowing (he can do that well enough), he’s prone to dropping lines that make him sound like he picked up a mic for the first time yesterday (“Girl why is you lyin’?  Girl why you Mufasa?”).  The second half of the album is a mess of ideas, musical motifs, and average verses.  And the album really requires you to read a seventy-page screenplay to understand what’s going on.  That’s what’s bad.  But even given that, it’s one of my favorite albums of the year.  Part of it’s just my personal preference for innovation and my need to applaud anyone doing anything particularly different; stagnation is a much more frightening prospect than homogeneity.  The rest of it?  For a second, I’ll stop being a Music Critic and be a Music Fan.  A lot of how you view Because the Internet is going to hinge on your opinion of Gambino before you even hit play – if you like him, the flaws will read as endearing; if not, they’ll just reinforce your views of Gambino as a subpar rapper.  I’m of the former opinion.  Maybe it’s just my romanticized view of him as a musician, but he seems like the rare artist who’s more consumed with pursuing his artistic vision than with perfection (no surprise, then, that my favorite artist, Kanye West, happens to be the poster-boy of that artistic approach).  Rather than analyzing exactly what’s wrong with Gambino’s music (and there are many things that are wrong, believe me), I’d prefer to chant “All she need was some…” on “The Other Guys” and sing along with Gambino on “3005.” The album is listenable, a quality that’s often lost in the search for a good Pitchfork score.  Because the Internet is the best when you don’t take it too seriously. 

8. danny brown – “odb (prod. paul white)”

Lots of Danny’s music deals with the pains of reality in his hometown of Detroit: in fact, he’s pretty proud of the fact that he refuses to dodge or duck the facts, as he seems to think fellow Motor City rappers like Big Sean tend to do.  And even though the music video for “ODB”, the lead single off of Danny Brown’s album “Old” (even though it never ended up on the album thanks to sample clearance issues), is a psychedelic affair, the music’s still grounded right in Detroit’s grimy streets.  It’s only a rapper like Danny that could snarl “So when the night fall I be getting head in the alley/By a low down nothing 2 dollar skully” without losing all of his credibility, or lay down a hook like “But in the end I’m just a dirty old man/With a pill in my mouth and my dick in my hand” without coming off ridiculous.  Paul White’s production is brutal, screeching; his synths grinding and whining to jerky stops and starts.  At times it’s discordant, but that’s where Danny does best.

9. pusha t - my name is my name//nipsey hussle - "face the world (prod. 9th wonder)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

9. pusha t – my name is my name

My Name is My Name couldn’t have come at a better time – it’s a reminder that no matter how inconsistent and illogical he’s been with his solo career until now, he’s capable of hunkering down and rapping about cocaine better than virtually anyone alive.  Pusha might be thirty-six, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost any of the slithering menace that he’s sported since his early days with Malice in Clipse.  Of course, he’s doling it out in portions, but the times My Name is My Name really shines are when Pusha throws caution to the wind and snarls out bar after bar.  It’s a short album, but that doesn’t stop it from suffering from filler: we could have done without the (hyper-acccurate) Ma$e impression on “Let Me Love You,” and even if it presents an introspective side of Pusha we rarely see, “40 Acres” doesn’t really belong here.  And Wrath of Caine’s “Revolution” really, really should have been on here somewhere.  But it’s really not a concern when Pusha decides to really rap.  It’s funny, because Pusha’s overbearing persona exemplifies the type of approach most new artists seem to be taking with their career: style first, and Pusha does minimalism better than anyone else, including Kanye.  “Numbers on the Board” strips down a hip-hop beat right down to its spine, and most of the time, his idea of a hook seems to be a quick afterthought of a bar between verses. And while it can be a bit limiting to cast yourself almost exclusively as a drug-flipping rapper (it ruins the effect when Pusha decides to kick the thugging down a notch), it truly is hard to care once Pusha starts flinging around lines like he used to fling around kilos. 

9. nipsey hussle – “face the world (prod. 9^th wonder)”

This is the type of song that defines lost potential. Nipsey’s been making music for years now, and nothing he’s made even remotely touches this masterpiece. Sure, a lot of it stems from the beat, for sure (I shouldn’t even have to explain how good 9^th Wonder is, and this is him at his very best): but Nipsey’s the real star here.  It’s not like he’s throwing around lyrical beauties or anything; all about the atmosphere.  Nipsey’s the rare rapper (like Blu) that can be optimistic and offer advice and drop lines like “Yeah, this your life, you can play with it/You make your bed, you gon’ lay in it” without sounding remotely played-out.  Maybe it’s the confidence, maybe it’s the delivery, or maybe it’s the fact that Nipsey pulls off the slightly-harried, determined-with-a-hint-of-desperate tone here better than Game ever will.  But what it means is that this reads less like a Macklemore preaching session and more like a rapper who made it out of Crenshaw laying out his lessons.  I listened to this song again to write this, and I think I got chills about three different times.  

10. action bronson & party supplies - blue chips 2//big sean - "control (prod. no i.d.)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

10. action bronson & party supplies – blue chips 2

Collaborative projects are Action Bronson’s bread and butter; it’s only been a little over two years since he became one of New York’s most buzzed-about rappers and he already has five under his belt, with some of the most talented producers alive.  But while each of his collaborators prods something new out of Bronson (he’s got a voice made for Statik Selektah’s scratch hooks), Party Supplies is the only one that’s willing to match Bronson blow-for-blow.  Each ridiculous punchline is met with an equally ridiculous sample flip, disregard for the standards etched all over the tape.  Blue Chips 2 is just a track shy of twenty but it feels a lot shorter – the liveliness isn’t just restricted to a couple songs; it runs rampant across.  Bronson’s the rare rapper who can be constantly nudging you and winking with his lines, almost making light of his music, without trading off entertainment for quality.  At his core, he’s got the flair, wit, and breathless delivery of an elite rapper.  Not too many alive that can keep up with Bronson’s wordplay once he really gets the ball rolling. But he doesn’t keep it quite that simple, or that boring.

10. big sean – “control feat. kendrick lamar & jay electronica (prod. no i.d.)”

Without its star main attraction, “Control” would be relatively average as a song.  It’s heavy, heavier than most of the songs Big Sean makes, and it’s the most astute and gripping Sean’s been on a song since G.O.O.D. Fridays – but it hardly sports an instrumental that plays to Sean’s talents, and the only reason he doesn’t seem like a mixtape rapper leagues out of his depth is that Jay Electronica managed to phone in his worst verse in what seems like years.  But what really keys this song in, and what really keeps it stuck in repeat rotation, is Kendrick.  While “Control” has hardly been the end-all that seemingly every rap blogger, fan, and their mom seemed to be proclaiming it as, the fact remains – it’s been years since a rapper of Kendrick’s caliber and stature has fired shots into the crowd this openly.  As many have noted, it’s not exactly a diss track (hard to consider his lines threats when he closes them by noting, “I got love for you all…”), but to see a rapper like Kendrick declare himself the king of a city across the country? That’s the type of competition that makes rap entertaining.  No one really relevant fired direct shots back (besides you, Papoose, we definitely still care about you), but no matter.  It’s one of the best rappers alive flexing his bars over a thirty-two, hijacking a track with two of his rivals, asking who’s gonna step up to him as king of rap.  Drake tried the same case earlier this year with “5AM in Toronto”, only for K-Dot to walk all over him.  You gotta admit, Kendrick has quite the convincing case.

11. vince staples - stolen youth//tyler, the creator - "rusty (prod. tyler, the creator)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

12. vince staples & larry fisherman – stolen youth

If Shyne Coldchain, Vol. 1 was Vince Staples sliding his demo into a mailbox, the Larry Fisherman/Mac Miller-produced Stolen Youth is the Long Beach rapper kicking down a label exec’s doorway.  Vince might take his sweet time snarling out his verses, but his ten-track tape doesn’t waste any time; Mac’s fuzzy vocal samples and taut drums provide a hazy atmosphere that Vince’s sharp rhymes cut right through.  The obvious comparison for Vince is Odd Future member and frequent collaborator Earl Sweatshirt – they’ve been working together since the latter blew up back at the start of the decade.  But while Earl busies himself by conjuring up twisted threats aimed at various unnamed opponents, often eschewing lyrical themes for the sake of a strong one-liner, Vince is tunnel-vision focused.  It’s not that he can’t engage in wordplay: he can, and with the best of them.  Vince throws around acute sports references like Pusha T namedrops Ric Flair – “You catch em out the shot gun, that’s Roddy White from fifty yards” on “Back Selling Crack.” It’s just that he’s always inexorably pounding away with a verbal baseball bat at the same themes of black discrimination, wandering, and ultimately, hopelessness.  The last couple bars to “Stuck in My Ways”: “25, two strikes, you don’t need a number three/They pull you over, now you nervous cause the heater by the seat.”  Vince might well be one of the best rappers to emerge from California in the last few years, but that hasn’t given him any breathing space from the wall he’s backed up against.

12. tyler, the creator – “rusty feat. domo genesis & earl sweatshirt (prod. tyler, the creator)”

I could talk about how Domo Genesis throttles this track with his verse and hook before the other two, more high-profile Odd Future rappers jump on the track (you can practically see Domo’s eyes popping and spittle flying).  Or I could talk about the fact that this is one of the most “standard” – slow bassline drowned out by a RZA-esque set of loops and filtered-out drums – but most compelling beats Tyler has ever made.  But to anyone who’s heard the song, the real show-stealer is Tyler’s sandwiched verse, no matter the fact that the middle verse is hardly the ideal position to be chest-puffing.  He’s scrolling through all the complaints and criticisms and fuck-yous that’ve been leveled at him since he burst onto the scene, knocking them all off one-by-one.  At his absolute best, Tyler’s incredibly human – not in the Drake manner, by baring his whole self, but in how he lashes out and retracts into his shell just as you or I might.  It’s all about how he comes across, alternating defenses with shots and sliding in triumphant crows.  Tyler’s defending himself in perfect Tyler manner: with striking points (“The fuck am I saying? Tyler’s not even a violent name/About as threatening as stained windbreakers in hurricanes”) with the usual palette of expletives scattered across.  Towards the end, he ponders, “‘Analog’ fans are getting sick of the rape/All the ‘Tron Cat’ fans are getting sick of the lakes/But what about me, bitch? I’m getting sick of complaints.”  He’s got a good fucking point.  Tyler deserves plaudits for being gutsy enough to even pose the question in the middle of one of his songs, and outright applause for doing it so skillfully and powerfully.

12. roc marciano - the pimpire strikes back//mac miller - "the star room (prod. randomblackdude)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

12. roc marciano – the pimpire strikes back

In an industry that’s increasingly leaning towards style over talent and “indelible” over “solid”, there’s something to be said for an artist like Roc Marciano who clearly cares a lot more about how many compound rhymes he can jam into a rhyme than how many radio plays he gets.  It’s like “fuck you, pay me” without the money.  His rhyming is dense, cerebral material, polishing his gangster narratives into a slick sheen.  Longevity in hip-hop seems more and more like it rotates around instant recognition, but Roc’s taken an entirely different path from some of his peers to equal impact.  He’s stretching lyricism to its very edges by chopping bars up into four or five rapid-fire non sequitor rhymes rather than trying to jam in meanings.  What does that mean for his music?  It means that he’s creating some of the most powerful images in hip-hop without ever directly telling you anything.  The subtlety of that approach alone is applaudable in a time when the route to impact increasingly seems to be leading artists to brute force, but it’s even more impressive given that Roc’s verbal images are often so unforgettable.  On “Doesn’t Last”: “Used to book niggas for chains and leathers/Cook ‘caine, now I grab the wood-grain in the seven.”  If Marci Beaucoup was his production album, Pimpire is the project where he’s really flexing his chops lyrically.  Rest assured, it shows.

12. mac miller – “the star room (prod. randomblackdude)”

Clearly Mac Miller didn’t pay attention in high school English class, because he stuck the thesis of his album right at the top, murmuring, “Can’t decide if you like all the fame/Three years ago to now, it’s just not the same/I’m looking my window ashing on the pane/Shit, wonder if I lost my way.”  The tumbling, meandering psychedelics of “The Star Room” couldn’t be a more perfect encapsulation of Mac Miller’s reinvention as a rapper.  The type of fame Mac’s enjoyed up until this point has to be an uncomfortable one, where you know you’re divisive by your very nature and you slide right into a racial and generational demographic split.  So to see him bust out of the gates of his album with a song like this, where he’s baring himself (racial problems, parental splits, major label futures, his hometown, selling out, and drugs) to a listener base that’s primarily composed of white teenage girls – that’s ballsy.  But not only is it ballsy from the Pittsburgh boy, it’s just a simply excellent rap song.  It’s hardly efficient in gunning down Mac’s demons, but his newfound ability (seriously, what has he been doing the last few years) to draw drugged-out snapshots and scenarios is what’s suddenly made him such a compelling artist to listen to.  Listening to Mac’s music has been a tedious exercise since 2010, but it’s hard now not to get dragged along by the current here.   

13. black milk - no poison no paradise//rich homie quan - "type of way (prod. yung carter)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

13. black milk - no poison no paradise

Black Milk’s last album, 2010’s ambitiously-titled Album of the Year, had a cover simply adorned with a large black circle and the number “365”.  No Poison No Paradise’s art is a much more complicated (and overtly symbolic) affair.  Cartoon multicolored ghouls devouring letters floating on clouds, hourglasses lurking in corners and suns chased into clouds by orange daggers – it’s a lot more evocative, to say the least.  That quality extends to the music inside, too: it’s not the Motor City’s best hip-hop album of the year, but it’s the one that’s best at bridging decades and eras of hip-hop.  Black Milk’s channeling early 2000s Detroit with a decidedly electronic twist, sliding in restrained funk riffs on “Codes & Cab Fare" just a song after the practically hopping bassline and piano sweeps of "Deion’s House”.  It’s just so perfectly Detroit (have you seen anyone channel the city this way since J Dilla?).  A reinvigorated Black Milk (suddenly one of the best Detroit MCs alive, a stark progression from the rapper who got strutted all over by Danny Brown on his own joint three years ago) is all over the scene with this one, carrying on about his hometown over tight drums and even tighter samples.  The real highlight, though? “Sunday’s Best/Monday’s Worst”, the pre-album two-song cut that got split into tracks for the album, might be one of the most compellingly framed hip-hop tracks about crime this decade.  The first half sees Black Milk rapping about church in the ghetto – but only until the funk and military drumline rhythm of “Monday’s Worst" kicks in, and he weaves his tale of crime from two different sides.  It’s the peak of brilliance on an album that tackles an entire city’s story beautifully.

13. rich homie quan - "type of way (prod. yung carter)”

This song should be so bad.  Everything about it, from the cover (shout out to bobblehead Quan) to his name (do you really get any more tacky than Rich Homie Quan and Yung Carter?), everything about it screams 2013 get-me-on-the-radio rap.  But that’s not it.  In fact, it’s the best Autotune wailing hip-hop song this side of Future besides, well, Future – the entire song’s basically “Cadence and Inflection for Rappers 101”.  It’d be a bit patronizing to say that Quan sounds like he’s on the verge of tears, but his rushed, wavering delivery snags the perfect balance between emotional and ridiculous.  He’s nailed the ambiguity, too (difficult to tell that he’s stunting when it’s over bottomed-out synths), but it’s unmistakable after you stop incoherently singing along with the lyrics for enough time to actual decipher Quan’s boasts (“I got hoes like golf tryna make what Tiger makes”).  It’s a brilliant anthem in a year full of them – Quan could have looped the hook for four minutes and still had one of the songs of the year.  Instead, he dropped an Atlanta masterclass.  Who said the South’s dead?

14. boldy james & the alchemist - m.1.c.s.//statik selektah - "birds eye view (prod. statik selektah)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

14. boldy james & the alchemist - m.1.c.s.: my 1st chemistry set

Boldy James’ got the Freddie Gibbs type of aura, where you wouldn’t doubt it if he told you that he jumped straight from firing gats into recording one of his songs.  Alc’s the perfect person to provide background music for Boldy’s thugging exploits, really, even more so than Boldy himself.  Every gangsta rapper could use some trademark Alchemist gloom and doom, yeah, but Alc has a knack for unsettling, bottomless beats that feel like they’re pulling the carpet out from under you.  There are tons of buzz-words to fling around when talking about an artist as vividly outlined as Boldy –“genuine”, “candid”, “authentic”  – but they’re all basically different ways of saying that Boldy’s possibly the most believable rapper in his subgenre.  He’s assigning his fingers roles for pulling his gun’s trigger on “Bold”, and on “Moochie”, he’s rehauling Big L‘s “Ebonics” for his own Detroit slang purposes, he’s grilling you asking if you’d be ready to be put on the hot stove by a fed’s investigation.  Gibbs is just a little too slick in his delivery, Roc Marciano’s narratives just a little too magnetic.  Boldy is just rapping, letting his drawl drop off Alc’s drums for a sec before pulling it back, ceding the stage for his cohorts to grab the spotlight.  It’s tough to even splice out lyrics for highlight purposes; it’s just a stream of endless quotables.  There’s nothing really clever here, because half of the time it’s like a documentary.  Alc’s vinyl scratch and frenzied vocal samples hidden behind snares and hi-hats just found their soulmate.

14. statik selektah - “bird’s eye view feat. joey bada$$, raekwon & black thought (prod. statik selektah)”

It’s sad that the best song on one of the year’s better albums dropped a few months before it hit stores, but when it’s the perfect microcosm for an entire project’s aesthetic and appeal, no complaints here.  Statik’s really just doing what he does best, laying down a red carpet of trembling pitched-up choirs and speaker-shaking drum/snare flickers and an impeccably executed set of scratches at the end for some of the best East Coast rappers alive to do their thing on.  Really, there’s no wrong step being taken here: the beat’s opulent, interlacing samples and drums and pianos and background synths and what sounds like a dozen different melodies across the song’s back (even the little pop to drop the beat, or the way the song zips to a silent close).  And the verses? The verses.  Raekwon and Joey Bada$$ both hand in excellent turns, but the real highlight is Black Thought, who cuts off Joey to spit one of his best verses ever and probably the year’s best.  It’s a master class in memorable expressions (“my sonogram was an image of gun in the womb”), slick gloats (“reminiscing to when we was all out monsters, on/our Sierra Leone, reigning tyranny”), and follow-my-thoughts, shotgun rhyme strings (“the most notorious/Poet Laureate/Whole story is glorious/stoic warriors”).  He might be a “triple OG” with a “worn-out conscience”, but the way he ripped off this 32 like he was twenty again sure doesn’t show it.

15. oddisee - tangible dream//drake - "5am in toronto (prod. boi-1da & vinylz)"

Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day.  Not best. Not most influential.  Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow.  Just my favorite, ranked in order.

15. oddisee - tangible dream

It’s like Oddisee’s career has been crafted to leave him just floating above the underground’s depths but tantalizingly close to bigger success.  He’s one of the most talented rappers on the East Coast, although he’s part of one of the coast’s weaker scenes in DC, and he’s been quietly releasing phenomenal albums for the past few years without much recognition.  I’m willing to say, though, that Tangible Dream is his first album that puts it all perfectly together.  His street-smart, working-9-to-5-eight-days-a-week-with-studio-sessions-sandwiched-between aesthetic couldn’t be a better match for his music.  It’s a difficult thing for any hip-hop artist to rattle off heavy-handed hooks like the one on “Own Appeal" ("Excited by the risk and the chances I’m taking/Not sure what I’m putting my faith in but I'mma be alright”): you’ll see rappers slowing down the delivery to a storytelling pace, hitting you over the head with the moral in one hand and the lines in the other, or they’ll just speed past it and let the meaning slip past.  Oddisee’s just genuine enough to pass it off without being headshaking material.   In any case, Tangible Dream’s like if Mayer Hawthorne was a talented black rapper/producer.  If there’s a better jazzy, heartfelt, down-to-earth hip-hop album from this year, please let me know.

15. drake - “5am in toronto (prod. boi-1da & vinylz)”

Earlier on this list, I mentioned that Drake proved that he’s an actually talented rapper this year: “5AM in Toronto" was the first step in that transition.  He’s not stringing together syllable after syllable of namedrops and comparisons and boasts like Kendrick on "Control”, nor is he dropping actual rapper names – but this might be even more brutal.  Here, Drake’s stripping away more layers from his already bared music; there’s no heartstring playing, and he keeps the OVO shout outs reserved to the perfect point.  Instead, it’s just Drake playing on words and firing verbal shots into the crowd at random (it’d admittedly be a lot less interesting if it was a rapper less high-profile who dropped this one in the dead of night).  But even if Drake’s only fooling around with lower-tier wordplay, who gives a fuck as long as it’s this clever?  The threats aren’t exactly pack-it-all-up-it’s-over game-enders, but they’re slick, confident, and a lot more menacing than you’d expect from the guy who’s still lamenting Courtney from Hooter’s on Peachtree.  He’s wryly noting that if “I could load every gun with bullets that fired backward/you probably wouldn’t lose a single rapper,” while snickering that “every song sound like Drake featuring Drake.”  It’s even better considering that every uppity comment really is true – Drake’s capable of hijacking an entire artist’s hypes with a single remix (see: Migos, “Versace”), and when he raps about “some nobody [who] started feeling himself” and flopped, well, he’s looking right at you, The Weeknd.  Especially just a month after putting up big numbers at the Grammys, at the time, this was just the biggest star in the genre stunting over hyper psychedelic keys at the top of his game, the whole industry waiting on his next album.  Ultimately, this probably wasn’t the biggest “fuck all y'all” verse of the year – but we’ll get to that in a few days.