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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Top 10 Albums/Mixtapes of 2008 (As Told By Empathy)

The following are the hottest albums/mixtapes I've heard this year. They provided the soundtrack for my life these 11 months, well, for as long as they were out....They come in no particular order and they appear on this list mainly for their originality and creativity, as well as nice album covers.


SWEET LORD- First and foremost, MURS, he's been an influence upon my writings and I've been a fan of him since 2004, when I stumbled upon his song, "God's Work" ,off his album The End of the Beginning...This feature was brought to my attention back in the summertime by Ace Boogie. I wasn't trying to hear it because we were in the final stages of our album, but once it came on, it played front to back. Two stand out tracks to me are "Are You Ready?" and "Marry Me". The collaboration was produced by Little Brother's producer, 9th Wonder, who produced "Threat" for Jay-Z, "Honey" for Erykah Badu and more recently "Do The Right Thang" for Ludacris. This feature can be downloaded free here: http://mursand9thwonder.com/download.html. MURS released this album for free as an incentive to his fans, they can have this "present" only if they promised to go out and buy his most recent album, MURS For President.


SILVER MEDALLION will probably be the most unheard of feature on this list, basically because the group hasn't reached the mainstream yet. Supreeme is a rap group based in Atlanta, Georgia, but listening to them, you'd never be able to tell. I was put on to these cats back in 2006 by a classmate, she was crazy for underground rappers. Everyday in our college-esque art history class, she'd bang all the usual suspects, MURS, MF DOOM, and U.N.K.L.E. One day I heard something I'd never heard before, the sound was distinct. I took home a copy of their first commercial album and I've been a follower ever since. They were signed to Warner Brother's music label by MURS. Not too long ago, they released their LP, Silver Medallion. It's a good listen if you want to break away from the monotony of the radio. The single off this one is "I'm Crazy", other highlight songs off of it are,"The Best Years", "Dios Mio" and "Set 4 Life". You can get this one from: http://supreeme.com/silver/index.htm .


WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS- This album, that title's been edited for consumer friendliness , "When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold", is a wild ride. I had already had knowledge of Atmosphere prior to hearing this album. I caught them performing on MTV2 in between shows and commercial breaks and I liked the emcee in the lead vocalist, Ant. It's quite obvious this band has something to say. Back in the summer, I caught a video on demand off this album called "Shoulda Known". The video is of a lesbian couple...really, just watch the video. . I finally had a chance to listen to the album, at first Boogie and I were chit chatting over the song "Yesterday". To the naked ear, the first and second verse lead you to believe it's just another sappy heartbreak song, until the last line of the third verse explodes your perspective. This led us to review the rest of the album. Some key tracks are: "Shoulda Known", "Your Glasshouse", "Yesterday", "Guarantees" and "The Waitress".


THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT MIXTAPE- Honestly, I am a person who is a huge fan of beauty rest, so I do a lot of sleeping. I've slept on a lot of emcees in my day, Lupe Fiasco, Lil' Wayne, and Eminem, just to name a few....But this is one I don't really know what was wrong with me. It all started....in the summer, yet again. My long time producing friend, Burnz was playing a lot of staticy music from his phone. One artist in particular he kept going on about was Asher Roth. Me, being the biggest gamer at heart could only think of a Soul Calibur character, Astaroth. I was confused from the get go. The first track I heard was "Roth Boys", I literally thought it was Eminem coming out on some weak shit. Because of the quality of the song, I couldn't dig it and I refused to listen to anything else. Later, that summer, Ace Boogie brought over a copy of "The Green House Effect Mixtape" along with "Sweet Lord" by MURS. Like I said earlier, MURS got a front to back play. I had to pick at Mr.Roth. My opinion instantly changed. He was different, yet that different was sincerely him. He didn't drop one gun or coke rhyme. I think of XXL's Class of 2009 in the way Kanye West said it. He told an interviewer, hip hop is like high school. Hip-hop used to be about standing out, now it's about being afraid and fitting in. Roth as well the C/O 2009 are like the new kids at school and I think they'll do just fine. Stand out tracks on this joint: "Roth Boys", "Mr.Me 2","Black Mags" and "Gimme Your Box". Get this tape from: http://thedailykush.ning.com/


THE MIXTAPE ABOUT NOTHING- One of the more recent of my listenings was reccommended to me back when I first graduated by one of my protege's from my old art school. The protege texted me like," Yo, have you heard Wale, Mixtape About Nothing?" I'm sitting there like "Nah,sahn." He was quite adamant about me hearing this Wale fella. He's one of the nicest young'n's I've heard in a while, he'll fool you though. I really thought he was gonna be trash. He's got a nice life story and he's seriously earned his deal at Interscope. Plus, he's the only underground cat I know that had big stars on his tracks. This mixtape features, Chrisette Michelle, The Roots, Bun-B and Pusha T(The Clipse) and Lil'Wayne. Because of the Seinfeld theme, he somehow got the chick that played Elaine to lend her voice on the mixtape. Now, me, back in the day, I would've laughed my ass off at the premise at this tape. I wasn't as open minded back then, and kinda racist, I would be like, 'black people don't watch Seinfeld'. It's a new day. Speaking of racism, he's got this track talking about the N-Word, called(what better name to give it?), "The Kramer." That's one of the big boy tracks, other than that, "The Manipulation", "The Artistic Integrity", The Crazy" and "The Vacation From Ourselves". You can get what I get here: www.megaupload.com/?d=BNBDWQGY



DEDICATION 3- This is the last mixtape, I swear....Anyway. Lil' Wayne is the #1 emcee I used to sleep on. I started listening to Weezy when he dropped Da Drought 3. Since then, I followed the Drought series hard, I wasn't too big on the Dedication series, though, I like selected tracks from them. This isn't Wayne's strongest mixtape by a long shot, but it is thoroughly entertaining. Wayne is still high and drunk on every track, his voice is scratchier than ever and the skits are on "Super Asshole" Mode. Do I dig? I dig. Some key tracks by airwaves of The Green Team are, "Bang Bang", "Dick Pleaser", "Put On For The Game", and "Get Bizzy". I admit, he's a prolific muthafucka, he's got Dedication 4 and Tha Carter III:Rebirth coming out this year. Get your Dedication 3 here: http://www.rapgodfathers.com/download/7026-lil-wayne-a-dj-drama-dedication-3


THE RECESSION- Mr.17.5 is one of the most improved rappers in my book since I first heard him. I never took Jeezy seriously because of his verse on Gucci Mane's "So Icy". He killed the track, but I didn't take him seriously. It took Thug Motivation 101 to clear that up for me, mainly "Trap Or Die". This feature truly shocked me that it wasn't titled 103,but, eh, you gotta stray from the same shit sometime. This really isn't his best album, but it proves to me his mind revolves around more than just birds, choppers, Lamborghinis and iced out bracelets. I expected the release of this one ever since I first heard "Put On". Really the Kanye West aspect is what drew me into the song, like, 'Yeezy made that beat?'. But, the video showed me how much of a revolutionary the Snow Man can be. For people who claim to not be rappers, they sure do release a lot of rap material early and often *Cough*, Jay-Z. The tone of the album is the same since the same producers worked on his other two albums. The track "My President" featuring NaS, would have made-or-"breaked" him in my opinion a month ago. If Obama wasn't elected, he'd have a good sounding anachronism on his album. My favorites on this one are "Amazing", "What They Want", "Put On", "By The Way", "Word Play" and "Circulate".


PAPER TRAILS OF A HUSTLER- KING............T.I. Vs. T.I.P(warming up)....................Paper Trail(he's on FIRE!!!!!)................T.I in my opinion wasn't a rapper that settled well with me back in the day. I'm Serious, I hadn't heard of its existence until after Urban Legend. Trap Muzik produced one good track to me, "Be Easy". Urban Legend marked the change of the rapper though, he started to dump his high pitched, squeaky voice and it seemed like he went through emcee puberty. KING marked when I was able to listen to multiple tracks at a time by him and not skip it. T.I. Vs. T.I.P was the soundtrack to my 2007 summer. Paper Trail, I was quite hesitant about it. I heard "Whatever You Like" before the first single "No Matter What" and I was pissed he rapped on the "Lollipop" beat. It grew on me a little more. I did research and stumble upon "Swagga Like Us". My opinion on SLU, lyrically it goes: Hov,Wayne,West,T.I.. Delivery it goes: T.I., West,Wayne,Hov. Now this doesn't mean anybody was buttcheeks. My favorite track on the whole album would have to be "I'm Illy". I never heard T.I. go hard like that, he knows he got skills, he just doesn't push them out as often as I'd like, honestly, it wouldn't sell records. Nice tracks on this are: "Swagga Like Us", "56 Barz", "I'm Illy", "Swing Ya Rag", "What Up,What's Happenin?" and "You Ain't Missin' Nothing".

THEATRE OF THE MIND- If you've got ears, you probably already know, Ludacris has never dropped a mediocre album, maybe Red Light District. Other than that, he's a consistent dude. This album, I would only expect from an artist like Luda. Producers get listed as The Score and features get listed Co-Stars. He's got some 5 star co-stars this trip as well as big name people for the score. He goes down as the first Southern rapper to get himself a beat by DJ Premeir. Each track is based upon a movie in a sense. I think something happened to his perspective when he cut the braids off, he eliminated the skits off his albums. He's been planning this album since Release Therapy and some crazy shit to me is, he is thinking of a sequel to Theater of the Mind for 2009. Some highlights on this on, "Wish You Would", "Everybody Hates Chris", "Last Of A Dying Breed", "I Do It For Hip-Hop" and "Do The Right Thing".


808S & HEARTBREAK- I saved this one for last because it's one of my personal favorites. I've been awaiting this one since I saw him perform "Love Lockdown" on the VMAs. As soon as "Love Lockdown" hit the radio officially, I looked at the tracklist and became saddened by how quickly each song became leaked on the Internet. Everybody in the blogosphere had mixed feelings about this album. Some felt like it was a slap in the face because they wanted Good Ass Job to be his next release. Others agreed with Mr.West as he journeyed deeper into the world of experimentation. Much like myself, Kanye is an artist at heart and he's got a lot creativity in him. I read, when he had his listening party, he had 40 nude models come out in wool masks and stand under ever changing colored lights as his music played. West states that the nudity helped listeners see his objective, emotional nakedness, freedom to express ones thoughts without worrying what people think. I feel the album was little rushed,but there's a Blueprint 3 that needs catering. My favorites on this one, "Love Lockdown","Heartless", "Say You Will", "Amazing", "Bad News" and "See You In My Nightmares". Let the man have his fun with his auto-tune, Boogie.

On that note......
The E-M-P'll say P.E.A.C.E

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