#1: Anderson .Paak – Malibu

Anderson .Paak was brought to the spotlight through multiple features on Dr. Dre’s Compton: A Soundtrack. Paak stands out with a unique voice and his music comes with an equally unique sound. For me, Paak was one of the best parts of an overall “meh” project in Compton, and it made me anticipate whatever he was planning on releasing after garnering this attention. I heard “The Season | Carry Me” prior to the release of Malibu, and thought that if Paak could create an album of songs with this quality, it would be a favorite. Sure enough, Malibu is one of the best albums I have heard in a looooooong time.

- From front to back this album is strong and there isn’t a track I don’t like aside from Put Me Thru
- I’ve never been, but this album makes me feel like I’m in Malibu vibing out.
- There are very few artists that could make a compelling four minute song that primarily discusses a woman’s fake breasts, and yet Silicon Valley pulls that off.

It’s hard for me to pinpoint standout tracks (aside from one that I will get to in the next paragraph), but it’s worth mentioning how well .Paak utilizes features on this album. I think that good feature tracks can make or break an album, and features help make Malibu. I would have never really thought ScHoolboy Q would use the sound he did on Am I Wrong, but it works so well. Rapsody very well may have stolen the show on this entire album with her verse on Without You. The Game and Sonyae Elise flow so nicely together with .Paak on Room in Here. Talib Kweli does his thing on the final track of the album, The Dreamer. But there’s one feature I didn’t mention:

BJ The Chicago Kid on The Waters. This is one of my favorite songs of all time and my jaw dropped when I heard it for the first time. The flow on this song from both artists is just so smooth. Please listen to this song. I can’t really articulate why I love it so much.

Paak’s unique sound can now be heard all over projects from other artists, including KAYTRANADA, Snakehips, Domo Genesis, Goldlink, and The Game. There’s no doubt that we’ll be hearing so much more from Paak, and I cannot wait. He’s a piece of shit for not coming to Vancouver though.

2. Royce Da 5’9 – Layers & Trust the Shooter

Trust the Shooter was a mixtape from Royce that released shortly before his album, Layers. After hearing Trust the Shooter, I was really curious as to what was on the album because I thought Royce had already given his best. Now granted, the two songs that overlap on these two projects (Tabernacle and Wait) are two of the best, but Layers somehow outshone Trust the Shooter.

Opening with Tabernacle was a great choice, and I really recommend this song. Such an amazing story told through rap about the night that essentially shaped Royce’s career. Awesome to get to hear Pusha T and Royce together on the title track “Layers”, and I actually really liked the verse from female rapper “Tiara” on “Quiet”, which was a pleasant surprise. Very few can compare to the flow and rapping ability that Royce has and I think that Layers was a great cohesive project despite detractors saying Royce can’t hold his own for a whole album. Also one of the very few albums where I can say I love the skits (“Shit baby I got hot pockets in the oven, what you need?” followed by “Well my son got a basketball game later on but that lil nigga ain’t even starting” should be sewn into a quilt or something).

3. The Life of Pablo – Kanye West

I had just got out of the theater from watching Deadpool and checked my facebook messages only to see a group chat I’m in blowing up with exclamations such as “holy shit” and “holy fuck”. Sure enough Pablo had finally dropped while I was in the theatre. I got home, sat down, and spent a solid hour listening to TLOP. Note that Kanye’s biggest mistake with this album was probably releasing Real Friends & No More Parties in LA as singles because they were two of the best tracks on here.

This was one of my favorite first listens in recent memory. The grandiose atmosphere of Ultralight Beam was such a badass start. The Metro Boomin tag on Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1 has already cemented its place in rap history, along with the inclusion of Desiigner’s Panda on Pt. 2. Famous opens with one of the best voices in the music industry, and the song includes some surprisingly necessary Swizz Beatz adlibs dashed in throughout the controversy this track created. Feedback jars you with its weirdness and brings you back to Yeezus. Low Lights has you waiting for the beat drop that doesn’t happen until Highlights, which is a pretty amusing song. So on, and so forth. Freestyle 4 is forgettable, I Love Kanye is necessary, Waves is great, FML is great, Real Friends is great, Wolves is great, Frank’s Track is great, Free Max B, 30 Hours is a disappointment, NMPILA is great, Facts (Charlie Heat Version) is 100x better than the original Jumpman mix, and Fade is unnecessary.

This album has a mixture of far too much criticism and far too much praise, as is the case with all of Kanye’s projects. It was unable to crack into my Kanye Top 3 (Late Registration, MBDTF, and Graduation), but it fits in somewhere below and definitely above Yeezus.

7. Denzel Curry – Imperial

Denzel Curry is unfortunately probably most known for the snippet from his song “Ultimate” that has appeared across Vines, but luckily he is much more than that. I think I listened to his previous project or at least some of it and I either didn’t really like it or care about it. That is not the case with Imperial, an album where 8 of the 10 songs are great bangers (I don’t really care for “Pure Enough” or “If Tomorrow Never Comes” possibly because they sound like album titles for a punk rock band). Apparently Denzel Curry is from Miami, a place that doesn’t come to mind when listening to this project. Imperial is a mixture of glorifying drug trafficking and complaining about police mistreatment towards the black community; a double standard most rap listeners like to ignore. Whenever you can get a good Rick Ross feature (the song Knotty Head) you may very well have a good project on your hands. I think this album takes a certain amount of ignorance (ig’nance, perhaps) and partying to truly enjoy.

8. Post Malone – August 26

Like Rihanna’s ANTI, I could maybe argue one of the albums on my list of 9 to take this spot, however I know this is a project I will continue to revisit which brings it to this list. Post Malone is most known for White Iverson, and then he released a few singles after that which I’m assuming will be on his project which I’m assuming is dropping on August 26th, thus this mixtape, August 26. Go Flex was one of those singles and its way better than White Iverson. This 10 track mixtape suffers from a song that features Jaden Smith and some guy who was on the Family Channel or something. Justin Bieber or someone like that would have made that song listenable, which is a shame. This mixtape actually parallels Coloring Book in two ways (three if you count the fact they came out on the same day). The first is that it has good features from 2 Chainz, Jeremih, and Lil Yachty, and the second is that it has a truly great slapper of a song (I was tired of using banger): God Damn (like All Night from Coloring Book).

Post Malone seems to draw inspiration from a large range of genres and artists to create some sort of weird hybrid that I actually enjoy, somewhat reminding me of the sound that Allan Rayman (Hotel Allan, listen to it) or maybe Stephen (Sincerely, also listen to it but not as much as Hotel Allan) have. Post Malone is really white, has terrible hair, and used to make Minecraft videos, but he came out with one of the best mixtapes of 2016.

Turn the 6 upside down it's the 9 Honorable Mentions in no particular order except for the first one

1. Drake - Views

I will listen to songs from this album long term, and it may be pound-for-pound better than certain albums on the top 10. However because of how disappointed I was by many of the factors on this album, I wouldn't feel right saying it as a complete project is one of my favorites. Here's 3 (half of six) reasons why

1. 20 songs was far too many. Too much of this album is very same-y
2. Too many of the songs on this album are half good but ruined by terrible lyrics. Drake whinging about girls not texting him back, including a lyric where Pimp C declares Bun B is the only rapper he fucks with, and so much more. Just go read some reviews that highlight some of the trash
3. Drake is the biggest rapper out there and one of the biggest artists in the world and he loves to talk about the "hater" thing across this album, yet any shots that are fired are too vague to be known who it's actually towards.

2. 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne - ColleGrove

This album is the best thing either artist has done in awhile and it has some fantastic bangers. Also a much better example of two artists working cohesively together than Drake & Future`s WATTBA. However, I only like a handful of the songs and the sound isn`t very diverse, leaving it off the top 10.

3. Bas - Too High To Riot

Bas came out with one of my favorite songs of 2016 in Methylone, and this album has some other good songs. Pound-for-pound doesn't stack up to other releases this year.

4. Future - EVOL and Purple Reign

Deserves mentioning Future came out with 2 projects, and maybe I could combine my favorite tracks from both into making 1 album that’s maybe a top 10 of the first half of the year. Low Life with the Weeknd is one of 2016`s most important songs.

5. Young Thug - I'm Up

Has some great tracks but other ones I don't really like. Thugger is a great feature with seemingly any artist right now and that's another reason I wanted to mention him.

6. Kendrick Lamar - untitled EP

I only liked a few of the tracks here (1, 2, 7, and maybe another couple) and can`t honestly say it`s a good project on the whole.

7. Sir Michael Rocks - Part 2

Just want to mention this because it's so much better than his previous release. Doesn`t stack up to any of the top 10 really.

8. Bankroll Mafia - Bankroll Mafia

Like ColleGrove and I'm Up, some important 2016 bangers. Since I did my rough draft of this write-up sometime in May I haven`t really listened to any of this again.

9. Stalley - Saving Yusuf

This is one of my most listened to albums this year apparently so I figured I'd mention it at the end. I like the atmosphere of this album, but nothing stands out.

I kind of agree with your Drake criticisms especially the songs being overly the same, but I like his vague hits at rappers. That's kind of who he is. He's generally (up until the Meek beef) shied away from a lot of the haters that go, after him that call him soft, etc etc. Which isn't to say he never responded but just that he rarely did. I feel like now he's kind of maturing as an artist and figuring out how to do that, but in his own way.

ANTI is commercially successful, fits its niche, flows smoothly, is mostly listenable to front-to-back, and I've listened to it lots. Among whatever I wrote above and probably other things, that's what makes it good to me.

I don't really care that lots of people on here don't like Rihanna's music, she's always been one of my favorite pop artists. It's simple and I like her voice. I'm not trying to change the world by listening to Rihanna and her releases aren't supposed to be anything more than one-dimensional pop songs.

I don't know if I could say Drake has matured as an artist because he wants his music to parallel him and whats around him but he seems to have not matured at all since he really broke out. Granted I don't really follow Drake terribly closely and I never have, but I don't see a very different person from Thank Me Later (6 years old) to now, aside from the difference in fame.

I just can't appreciate a guy who wants to act like he's the top dog but can't directly call out anyone below him. Piss or get off the pot, as Meredith Palmer would say.

It's like he said and many rappers have said before him which is the idea that name dropping someone "below" him does nothing for his career while elevating that other person. Calling people out is something rappers do to get into the game for the most part.

I legit laughed at this. I'll write a full response tomorrow

This hotel paranoia is really nice

all the girl shit is near the end but it ends with a great song. Didn't mind the girl songs either except maybe one and even then the beat was great

wheres season 2 Maniak

Probably going to go ahead and wait until the end of the second half of the year.

of course not

im just a poor boy trying to make it in the big leagues

Give me a rough outline