yeah I actually ignored G-Unit completely while they were really relevant. I mean, I think everybody with a pulse got pumped from the "In The Club" beat and all, but just as a collective I wasn't really interested at the time. I think during the height of their popularity I was more into indie hip hop stuff. But eventually, slowly, I started getting interested in them over the years for various reasons.

The Game of course. I got into him right after Doctor's Advocate dropped and pretty instantly he became a favorite of mine. I agree w/ you on Jesus Piece. It's so awesome. But honestly, all his major label albums are solid as hell. I love them all. Anyway, I'm pretty bummed that he didn't stick around long enough to really be part of G-Unit's recording legacy. Obviously The Documentary has 50 all over it, but still woulda been cool to hear him on a straight group album.

Young Buck I got into via that Ratatat mixtape. 2007 was when I really fell hard for Southern hip hop, so it was a good fit. 50 has grown more interesting to me over the years as he's sort of faded from the spotlight. He spends a lot of time on his website. He dropped a bunch of albums posing as mixtapes in the last few years (stuff like War Angel, Forever King,).

perfect!

and i love the synths on 4th Chamber. i have a soft spot for GZA's cold, monotone and sophisticated rapping style as well.

you guys are gonna forget about that Wiz album once you get to hear Travis' new tape, it's so much better, no contest! Quinata Pt. 2 sounds like a song from Yeezus, it's THAT good!

Wiz is just fun for bumpin'. Plain and simple. He never lives up to his own rapping potential, cause he can't resist those hooks. But I think he'll continue to evolve, and Blacc Hollywood will be a big hit.

I'm missing A$AP A LOT right now. I realize, in his down time, that there isn't another rapper out there who goes for his preferred style of production. It's pretty progressive really, and I want his next album to drop almost as bad as I want Kanye's.

But there's been a lot of surprisingly good hip hop this year. It's not the complete let down I thought it was going to be, after all.

Agree, agree, agree.

Wiz' mixtapes are better than his albums. he makes the albums just to generate some money, his tapes are where you can find his interesting stuff.

that DVD comes w/ a pressed CD of Live Love A$AP.

^ NICE!

yeah man my physical hip hop collection is starting to look nice, and just tipped it over 100 CD's.

I wanna talk for a min about the importance of Q-Tip and the sound of NYC hip hop in the 90's. We all love ATCQ of course, but we never talk about Q-Tip as a producer. Consider this... he played a serious role in both Illmatic and The Infamous. I mean, that's some passing of the torch shit right there.

true. the tracks he produced for The Infamous are my favs on the album.

Fabolous - Real Talk
This album is pretty frustrating. After opening with an attention-grabbing spoken word intro (performed by Black Ice) it kicks off with a few pretty strong tracks and gives you the impression that the record on a whole will maintain a good momentum. But before you know it Fab's focus is lost and a sort of aimless meandering takes over for Real Talk's mid-section. There seems to be some kind of confusion over what kind of album Real Talk should even be. The title track seems worlds apart from songs like "Tit-4-Tat," "Baby" and "Girls" for instance. By the time you make it to the album's closing third you get hit with "Breathe," one of the defining single's of Fab's career. In fact the song is so good that it actually makes most of what has preceded sound even weaker. It's unfortunate, as Real Talk could have been a great album but instead is mostly a mixed bag of decent-to-great material.

Sweet! Keep going at this rate and you'll surpass me before the end of the next decade!!!

;)

J/kL0Lzzorz. Btw: my inbox is starting to feel like it's been stood up in a fancy restaurant.

Not to mention the fact that he contributed to Watch The Throne, meaning that even Kanye would rather have q-Tip on a track than have all the production glory to himself. That's saying something.

Hey, did you guys happen to read P4K's (largely bullshit) “Best Tracks” and “Best Albums” of the decade's first half?

If not, lemme break it down for you: it was largely bullshit. Notice how they included albums from this year in the top 20? I guess that's fair enough, but the albums they chose were rather whack, if you ask me.

And look at them, acting as though they even knew who Mac DeMarco or Actress were prior to their breakthrough albums. It's a way to retroactively award themselves cred, and I call bullshit.

YET: Kanye topped the albums list with MBDTF, and my all time favorite Yeezy song, which I didn't know they had such strong feelings about, landed at #3 on the tracks list (talkin' about “Runaway” in case you don't know anything about me).

So I can't totally fault them. But I can certainly fault them a lot.

I read that too sev. No idea why so many 2013, 2014 albums were in there.

^ That Sonic Youth/Cypress Hill track was my introduction to Sonic Youth.

I love you Mary Jaaaaaaaanneee

No idea who Big Mike is, but all the others are very solid pics. Awesome score Brad! My car's cd player and I are jealous! heh

yeah Judgement Night is a great soundtrack.

Big Mike is just a DJ... that's a Jay-Z remix mixtape.

OMG this is so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkWMpDdLe6s

I get a perverse joy out of reading those lists, but jesus christ. are they actively trying to kill music? they're perhaps the most cynical organisation I've ever come across in the way that they've constructed these movements and then retrospectively eliminated them from this cultural lexicon (for which they're entirely responsible) purely because they don't feel them to be valid...

// I can't support any entity which ups a band like real estate or beach house. I don't even care if they're aesthetically pleasing (to middle-class white kids 'discovering' music because they 'love it' and distracts them from the vacuity of their entire fucking existence), is it among the BEST music to be released? this shouldn't even be a question, although maybe there's some subjectivity in the term...to me, best connotes a piece of work which actually achieves something, which would eliminate 95% of the shit from that list.

lol why the fuck do I care? they've won.