[RATE ANNOUNCEMENT] The ‘Lost to Macklemore at the Grammys’ Rate: good kid, m.A.A.d city vs Magna Carta… Holy Grail vs Nothing Was The Same vs Yeezus - HipHop |
- [RATE ANNOUNCEMENT] The ‘Lost to Macklemore at the Grammys’ Rate: good kid, m.A.A.d city vs Magna Carta… Holy Grail vs Nothing Was The Same vs Yeezus
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| Posted: 07 Jan 2022 09:01 AM PST Happy 2022 /r/hiphopheads! Hope you all enjoyed your holidays and are ready to get back into it with our third official rate. We're kicking off the new year with a best of losers rate, to see which of the four albums we have here can reach the closest to the highs of The Heist. Whether you had wanted Kendrick to win the first HHH rate or maybe you just hate the Grammy's in general, I hope to see you all participate as we revisit some well-loved, critically acclaimed albums from 2012-2013 and Magna Carta. If you're new to rates, welcome! A rate is essentially an event where we pit a few albums with a common theme against each other (try to guess this one's). Everyone listens to them, scores every song out of 10, and sends those numbers to myself. In about a month, I'll tally everyone's scores and host a reveal where we'll see how each song stacks against each other, from the lowest to the highest averaged scores. Rate reveals are a fun time all around, we joke, we roast, but we also talk pretty passionately about the music we're into. Check out the past two reveal threads for a feel. And if you have any more questions, the Rate 101 tab on this Google Doc is a great resource, although feel free to ask in the thread as well. Now let's get into the albums we'll be rating over the next few weeks. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
Spotify | Apple Music | Tidal | Youtube For his second studio album and major label debut, Kendrick Lamar wanted to a sound that was different from his prior project, Section.80. So he looked back to roots of growing up in Compton. What led was an album that not only influenced by his hometown sonically, but also thematically. good kid, m.A.A.d city was billed as an autobiographical short film; just a glance at the album cover will tell you so, note the censorship of everyone's eyes except a young Kendrick. Lyrically it's a dense and at times a dark narrative, following the rapper through his adolescence in his city, as he deals with issues of lust, family, and gang violence. It's an album that manages to combine the intense, unfiltered storytelling in songs like "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst" with the more atmospheric, catchier tracks like "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe" into one cohesive, concept album. GKMC has been universally applauded since its release, it's been taught academically, and dubbed a classic; many fans, including myself, will call it their favorite Kendrick album still. Jay-Z - Magna Carta... Holy Grail
Spotify | Apple Music | Tidal | Youtube With the longest time between his last solo project and the one being rated, Jay-Z had a lot of expectations to meet with his twelfth studio album. And did he meet them? Well commercially, Magna Carta... Holy Grail was a roaring success. A release deal with Samsung allowed their users to receive the album for free; it also smashed expected debut numbers and broke Spotify streaming records at the time. All fitting for an album full of Jay's braggadocious lyricism over Timbaland's luxurious production. But the album doesn't fill its runtime with just mentions of fame and fortune. There's quite a lot of mention of the significance of family, especially fatherhood since Jay's first daughter was born quite recently. More so than the other albums included in the rate, Magna Carta features an all-star list of guest spots— artists like Justin Timberlake and Frank Ocean shine on tracks "Holy Grail" and "Oceans" respectively. Despite all this, the album left a lot to be desired from both critics and fans, so we'll see if time has changed this perspective.
Spotify | Apple Music | Tidal | Youtube While Nothing Was The Same couldn't win a Grammy for Best Rap Album as its predecessor Take Care did, the third studio album by Drake did solidify his imperial status in not just the hip-hop sphere, but beyond. Met with critical praise and remarked by fans as one of his most consistent works, this album is classic confessional Drake and all his inner musings on heartache, family, and the complications of fame. But don't box this as just a rap album. The title is an allusion to his musical evolution, moving away from solely rapping to incorporating R&B and synthpop such as on songs like "From Time" and "Hold On, We're Going Home". The whole project feels sincere, nostalgic, and essential; there's definitely a NWTS track for every listener out there.
Spotify | Apple Music | Tidal | Youtube What do you create after you've released your magnum opus? If you're Kanye West, well then... Yeezus. West's sixth solo studio album was born under a vision of creating something more freeform and minimalist, no doubt a reaction to his grandiose attempts at perfection with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the creative restraints he was facing in his fashion endeavors. The result is a project that melds the aesthetics and sounds of his hometown of Chicago with his current lodging in Paris, touching on genres like drill, acid-house, and industrial music. It's abrasive yet sparse, but not too unfamiliar. With tracks like "Blood on the Leaves" or "On Sight", we see it's the same Kanye just dialed up, continuing his audacious sample work, but with unmatched levels of megalomania and lewd punchlines really only he can get away with. While Yeezus had near universal critical acclaim on release, between its unconventional release strategy and drastic departure from sound, it's still polarizing to the general public so it'll be interesting to see its performance here. RulesREAD ALL OF THESE BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR SCORES
This is correct:
These are incorrect:
You can also leave comments on complete albums by adding a colon after the album name and then your comment (without a score), like so:
That's all from me! I can't wait to get your ballots, which you should SUBMIT HERE(Pastebin of Empty Ballot in case submission link is down)Scores are due February 26. The reveal will be March 3-5. [link] [comments] |
| Album of the Year #36: GoldLink - HARAM! Posted: 01 Feb 2022 08:06 AM PST Artist: GoldLink Album: HARAM! Label: RCA Records/Squaaash Club Release Date: June 18, 2021 Listen: Background The DMV area (Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia) has always boasted a rich background in arts while being one of the most known metro areas in the U.S., especially with Go-go style. Although one could say the music scene, in particular, has been disrespected and underrated for a long time, it has never been without its lack of talent, whether it be Clipse, Missy Elliott, the Neptunes, or in the most recent decade rappers like Wale, Shy Glizzy, Fat Trel, Logic, Q Da Fool, and many more. In this scene, GoldLink was also able to rise out with his extremely unique and interesting take on a blend of house music and hip hop. /u/TheRoyalGodfrey wrote an excellent post on how Azealia Banks arguably pioneered this movement that would come to light with GoldLink's rise. Per Goldlink's own words in a 2014 Complex interview, here is how he described the sound
…
This sound was in most display with the release of his critically acclaimed 2014 debut mixtape "The God Complex". Planet Paradise (Prod. by Louie Lastic) Despite ending on several best of 2014 lists, Goldlink kept an anonymous persona for most of the year, spending most of the year wearing masks to not reveal his look and barely doing interviews. His hype was strong enough during this period that Andre 3000 decided to show up to GoldLink's first London show ever (which also featured another up-and-coming rapper by the name of Little Simz). During this time, GoldLink was also heavily affiliated with the rise of Soulection (an independent music label/collective), along with other producers like KAYTRANADA, Mr. Carmack, Sango, Sam Gellaitry, TEK.LUN, and more. After being named on the 2015 XXL Freshman List, GoldLink released "...And After That, We Didn't Talk" through Soulection to majorly positive acclaim, again displaying more of his future bounce sound, although also distancing away from it and focusing on more slow, melodic production and songs. This album also featured numerous up-and-coming artists such as Anderson Paak, Masego, Louie Lastic (a staple in GoldLink's projects since the start of his career), Galimatias, and more. For the next year, GoldLink's career was mostly quiet other than the release of two loosies, Fall In Love featuring fellow DMV artist Ciscero and produced by Canadian producers KAYTRANADA and BADBADNOTGOOD, and Untitled with Isaiah Rashad. However, in 2017 GoldLink released what would become one of the national summer and DMV anthems: Crew. Featuring fellow DMV artists Shy Glizzy and Brent Faiyaz (in what would arguably become the backbone to the start of another incredible artist's career), the single was eventually nominated for a Grammy and peaked at #45 on the Billboard Hot 100 (the only charting song in GoldLink's career). Stereogum has a great article here on why the song was such a hit for the DMV artist if anyone is interested. This single was followed up by the release of his 3rd album, At What Cost, which also featured artists such as KAYTRANADA, Louie Lastic, Lil Dude, Steve Lacy, Matt Martians, and more. Usually regarded as his best project with The God Complex, this album was able to capture the essence of go-go music, Washington D.C., life and death, and more. Per this DJ Booth article,
Needless to say, I could write up a lot more on this album but for now, I recommend anyone interested to read /u/Pasalacquanian's AOTY writeup he did on this in 2017. Finally, GoldLink released Diaspora, his 2nd official studio album in 2019. Making the album title proud, the rapper was able to blend several different sounds which included Afrobeats, Reggae Fusion, R&B, Dancehall, and as always included many interesting collaborators hailing from Ghana, London, Kenya, and Los Angeles. Although many considered this his weakest project to date, the rapper was still able to step outside his comfort zone and blend in these foreign sounds. However, something in GoldLink's career at this point was very clear, and that was the fact he had pretty much separated himself from the Future Bounce sound and settled for a much more "lazy", slowish and melodic flow (to the tune of someone like Smino or Duckwrth). In each project to this point of his career, you were able to tell the sound and production's direction was categorically different and saw GoldLink step outside his normal zone and try to challenge himself. Mac Miller Post and Lead Up to HARAM! The next 2 and a half years were turbulent, to say the least. On November 26, 2019. GoldLink posted "that" Mac Miller post on his Instagram. This post has effectively ruined GoldLink's reputation for good (if you still search his name on Twitter or Reddit these days 9 times out of 10 it'll be "fuck GoldLink" because of the post). I've posted before about my thoughts on this but to quickly summarize it's 2 things. 1: GoldLink tried conveying in quite possibly the worst way about his thoughts on The Divine Feminine being slightly influenced by And After That We Didn't Talk and 2: It is a fact that Mac and Link were pretty close friends (he was one of the last people Mac hung out with before his death + being his opener for the GOOD AM tour). Either way, the matter of fact is this post took a huge hit on GoldLink's reputation and he probably won't ever be looked at the same no matter what. Release and Review Nevertheless, GoldLink officially released HARAM! on June 18, 2021. As mentioned before, straight off the bat the first noticeable aspect of the album will be GoldLink's use of this muzzled, static, unapologetic-like voice effect throughout much of the project. When asked about this, the artist has mentioned a few reasons as to why he decided to go in this risky direction. Knowing he has a great and unique voice, GoldLink felt like it would be challenging to the listeners if he added a filter to his voice and distorted it to change it. Per his own words on the use of it: GoldLink also posted a quickly-deleted IG post a few weeks after the album's release which I believe can add a lot of background for what went into the album's direction:
Keeping this in mind, listening to the album will make considerably more sense. With HARAM!, GoldLink is able to create a sound that borrows from club music, grime, R&B, and more in what ultimately proceeds to be an eclectic listen. With the muzzled, distorted voice effect, GoldLink can add value to a lot of these tracks by making them more unnerving and causing some sort of reaction. In addition to this, you have GoldLink working with a multitude of U.K. artists, as well as creating the album in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. What I believe makes this project such an intriguing and interesting listen is how in parts it could be seen as incohesive, disjointed, bizarre, yet for some odd reasons, it works. One of my favorite parts about listening to his projects is usually paying attention to who was involved with each track and so on. Terrordome was co-produced and co-written with Tyler Johnson), who in recent years produced and co-wrote the entirety of Harry Styles' last 2 albums, as well as helping produce in Sam Smith's last album. This might make sense why (as is the case in a lot of these songs), this track can be seen as out of place, with GoldLink's muzzled and distorted voice clashing against this futuristic, upbeat production and culminating with this catchy hook that could be probably heard in the next Harry Styles album (per his own words, "Tyler Johnson wanted to do a session. He'd been making the Harry Styles album, and I thought, 'Right, he's going to fucking hate this.' He didn't. We ended up making 'Terrordome', which is, to me, a pop record that stands the test of time"). 202 (produced by RIO of Nez & Rio, who are responsible for some HHH favorites like Man of The Year, LPFJ2, Druggys With Hoes Again, Gangstas, etc.) shows up as the second track in the project and is something you wouldn't be surprised if Isaiah Rashad spit on, almost sounding like a futuristic sequel to their previous Untitled collab I mentioned earlier. In the first two tracks, you're able to hear hints of strange but large normalcy, with a prime example being NLE Choppa's feature in which he spits his usual bars with interesting pseudoscience beliefs, contrasted with GoldLink just sort of popping up for a bit at the beginning with the muzzled voice effects. For this track, GoldLink mentioned
With the aforementioned 202, you get the same feeling again except with an even murkier beat, where the distorted filter effect is on and Link's voice is even higher. Overall, you get the feeling that you're close to normalcy but still have more prominent hints. By the time you get to White Walls, the album's first single, the project finally starts to vaguely come into its own, with the murky lilting beat clashing against the vocal effects to the point they show up fully with his voice in an even lower register, making it more prominent. Even with the different flows throughout this song, you can hear the DMV artist carrying those high, almost nasally e's and then working it into a unique flow around the 1:00 minute mark of the song, in which we can see him fully stretching the song out and getting the concept going in full. Here you're able to experience "HARAM!", with its nasally dragging flows, murky lifting production, almost offbeat vocal samples, etc. After this song, the album pretty much completely opens up in terms of production and sounds. You've got the distorted voice effects, flows and tones, diverse song selection, all being sincerely executed, from the lilting/abnormal White Walls, to GoldLink taking a shot at synthwave with Terrordome, to the up and about euphoria on Wild and Lethal Trash! GoldLink is simply doing what he wants, not even necessarily off-putting but just made to be free, in turn, the final product being off-putting. You have the artist selecting mixed reception features from Rich the Kid and NLE, and then for everybody else? U.K. MC's/artists, and then the one state just about no rapper comes from, Alabama. We are seeing Haram selections all over the place, but yet for some reason they work. It's only Haram because American Hip-Hop- can be so locked in/predictable, and that's what this album largely is commenting on through its different sounds and directions, and largely executing it well. Wild and Lethal Trash! (feat. Santigold & Fire!) [Prod. by Sam Gellaitry] This song (which I consider the arguable best track of last year) holds a special spot in my heart for me as it sort of culminates and odes back to the Soulection movement, with Sam Gellaitry (an incredible and talented Scottish producer) and GoldLink having been 2 of the most important artists behind the rise of Soulection, in what is a collaboration that should've happened at least twenty times by now. Nevertheless, it serves as the first time (from what I can tell) that Sam Gellaitry somehow officially produced a song for a rapper and it only makes sense GoldLink would be the person to do this. Sammy G absolutely killed it with this production, which ends up being something that sounds as if it was sampling an old Sonic the Hedgehog game, slowly but surely building up towards the peak of the song when U.K. legend Santigold lends her voice for the bridge, for then all 3 artists to spit back and forths in the final verse of what perfectly fits this luscious and grandiose beat (per GoldLink, he told Sammy G "I just want it to sound expensive. I wanted the palette to be grand. Whatever you think Watch the Throne sounds like, that's the way I want it to sound"). Originally, GoldLink had recorded the song 15 times before deciding he wanted Fire on it as he felt he wanted a rougher voice to go against his smoother voice, and this was a more than welcome decision as the British rapper absolutely kills his feature and adds a much needed polar opposite feel to it. Evian (feat. PinkPantheress, Rizloski & Rax) Fun fact about this song, GoldLink said he premiered and tested this song out at different gay clubs in London since it was partly made for the gay community. Produced by Kintaro (Thundercat's brother and former member of the band The Internet), this song sees GoldLink and company hop on a production that uses the clap & synth palette in a way that leads to more house elements than it does Drum n Bass. Being the former keyboardist for The Internet (and currently part of Thundercat's tour band), it might make sense why this song is much more keyboard-heavy. GoldLink specified that during the making of this song, he told all 3 features where he wanted them to go on during the song and let them do their thing, which is evidenced by PinkPantheress flawlessly messing around throughout the background of the song with Rizloski coming in while GoldLink is mumbling. At points, this song just makes you feel as if you were in a crowded, small boiler room set with all of these talented artists coming in and out for what turns out to be one of the coolest songs of the year. If you don't believe me, here's a video of GoldLink/PinkPantheress/Rizloski performing the song last week at a house party
In the only other song produced by Kintaro, we again see the producer create a very dreamy, ethereal, unorthodox just cute beat in which GoldLink effortlessly flows while singing and rapping about his known past relationship with Justine Skye (who Raindrops was also originally about and actually featured). At the end of the song, we get an uncredited brief cameo from yet another underground U.K. artist Deji Okeze (who currently has 120 monthly listeners but does have this collab with Lancey Foux) in what finishes off this excellent track. When asked about the song, GolldLink said:
Favorite Lyrics
"Wild and Lethal Trash!"
"Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk"
"Wayne Perry"
"Culture Clash"
Pressa on "Culture Clash"
Rizloski on "Spit On Me"
NLE Choppa on "Extra Clip" Discussion
Additional Links: Dead End Hip Hop Review If you've actually gotten to this point and bothered reading any of this thank you lmao, hopefully some of you found it interesting enough to revisit the album or just give it some thoughts (whether good or bad). Definitely let me know in the comments how you guys felt about the album [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2022 08:58 AM PST |
| Fetty Wap feat. Remy Boyz - 679 Posted: 01 Feb 2022 05:59 AM PST |
| Earl Sweatshirt: ‘SICK!,’ Fatherhood & Respecting the Schools and Styles of Rap | Apple Music Posted: 01 Feb 2022 12:09 PM PST |
| Keith Ape & Ski Mask The Slump God - Going Down To Underwater Posted: 01 Feb 2022 04:59 PM PST |
| ‘Dilla Time’: A Journey Deep Inside the Legend of J Dilla Posted: 01 Feb 2022 04:51 AM PST |
| Omar Apollo announces single with Daniel Caesar "invincible" coming 2/9 Posted: 01 Feb 2022 12:55 PM PST |
| Jadakiss Details Hating Bad Boy Shiny Suits: 'We Ain't Feel Right with That Sh*t' Posted: 01 Feb 2022 06:52 PM PST |
| Waco rapper Hotboy Wes arrested on robbery warrant Posted: 01 Feb 2022 04:54 PM PST |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2022 05:55 PM PST |
| Dollars to Donuts: The 40 Best J Dilla Songs of All Time, Ranked Posted: 01 Feb 2022 08:23 AM PST |
| Ransom and Rome Streetz - Rooftop Sermons (prod. by V Don) Posted: 01 Feb 2022 06:31 PM PST |
| Daily Discussion Thread 02/01/2022 Posted: 01 Feb 2022 09:12 AM PST Welcome to the /r/hiphopheads daily discussion thread! This thread is for:
Do not create a separate self post for these types of discussions outside of this thread - if you do, your post will be removed, as stated in the guidelines. Weekly/Monthly Threads Other ways to interact There are a number of other ways to interact with other members of HHH:
New to /r/hiphopheads or hip-hop in general? Check these out: This Week (2/2 to 2/4)2nd: Ivy Sole - CANDID [Philadelphia Hip Hop, Indie Rap, Les Fleurs] 4th:
Full Calendar[link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2022 04:43 PM PST |
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| [HYPE] Kxllswxtch - Crying in the Club (2020) Posted: 01 Feb 2022 05:19 PM PST |
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| [FRESH] Lazarous x Stvrk - Astronaut Posted: 01 Feb 2022 08:41 PM PST |
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| Jay Electronica x Erykah Badu — Hey 19 (Live) Posted: 01 Feb 2022 03:43 PM PST |
| 10 Rappers You Should Know Right Now (January 2022) Posted: 01 Feb 2022 08:44 AM PST |
| Posted: 01 Feb 2022 08:44 PM PST |
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