I am really bored watching this Boston-Dallas game, so I decided to wait some time making a quick list of my fave hip pops albums of 2011. 2011 was a amazing year for hip pop and Im just gonna go in cause I suck at making topics. Ill give a quick paragraph or less description for each album, a couple of notable tracks and Ill link a song from the album in the spoiler. The list will go from 10 to 1. Keep in mind that I did not plan any of this, so most likely the descriptions for the albums will suck.

Anyway, Ill list some notable albums and give them a quick one sentence breakdown first.

Notable mentions

Pharoahe Monch-W.A.R
Liked this album a lot at first, but I recently went back and it didnt hold up that well. Still a good album.

Vakill-Armor of God.
Decent album, but Vakills voice bored me.

Flash Bang Grenada- 10 Haters
Only had a couple of noticeable tracks, and it needed moar Busdriver.

Shabazz Palaces- Black up
If you liked Death Grips' Exmilitary. You will probably like this. Just instead of crazy rock/electronic beats, imagine jazz/psychedelic beats. There is noticeably less screaming though.
Scienze-When Skies Fall
Just barely missed my top 10, really good album.

and with that lets begin.


10.Hassaan Mackey & Apollo Brown-Daily Bread



NY emcee Hassaan Mackey and Detroit producer Apollo Brown come together to create this great album that just oozes soul. Apollo Brown did a amazing job with the drums and bass and adding a bit of some soulful vocal samples into every track, which Hassaan Mackeys rough voice melds perfectly with the tracks. The theme of the album is just your typical theme of Mcees about the streets, but Hassaans story telling is pretty good.

Notable Tracks: "Megaphone", "Something", "Volume", "Mackey's Lament".




9.Big K.R.I.T.-Return of 4eva



Now, I was pretty sure I would absolutely HATE this album, mainly because its a dirty south hip pop. It doesnt do anything out of the normal southern hip pop album that makes it stand out, but heres the thing... Big K.R.I.T. can actually rhyme and his flow is real nice. Its the kind of lyrical themes you would expect from the south, about his cars and subwoofers and about dat purple drank and stuff, but the later part of the album get pretty deep, from a song where he speaks about his whole family thinking he would fail as a rapper to another track about how he feels about the hip pop game. The production is again, normal southern beats, which are actually really awesome and I found myself listening to this album over and over again. Im sure it will end up going up in my 2011 list in a few weeks.

Notable Tracks: "Country shit", "Rise and shine", "American rapstar", "The vent", "Time machine", "Free my soul"




8.Elzhi-Elmatic



Detroit native Elzhi does his own spin on the classic Nas album, Illmatic. He does good by Illmatics standards and makes the album his own. He does little spins on tracks to make them diverse enough to add a new element to those legendary tracks, but leaves enough of the originals so that any fan of Illmatic will automatically recognize them. Just a amazing job by Elzhi to even have the balls to do this.

Notable Tracks: "Detroit state of mind", "The world is yours", "Memory Lane", "Lifes a bitch"




7.Death Grips-Exmilitary



This Sacramento, CA group busted into the scene with Exmilitary, a album that truly had me saying "What the fuck is this?" the first time I heard it. I had no clue what I was listening too, I was expecting a typical hip pop album, and that is not something I received when I heard this. This is pushing the genre of hip pop as far as I have seen since early Dalek in my opinion, and Id say it pushes it about 10 times further. Zach Hill literally screams at you for a good 40 minutes and the album never loses any steam, it just keeps on going to the last track. Your ears will be molested by crazy bass, some rock in there, and crazy electronic beats, all with the sound of Zach Hill screaming as loudly as he can. Enjoy.

Notable Tracks: "Beware", "Guillotine", "Taykon", "Spread eagle cross the block", "I want it I need it"



6.Thurz-LA Riot



This is a concept album about the Rodney King beatings in 1991 that occured in Los Angeles, that eventually led to the LA Riots. This album takes many different perspectives, from Rodney King himself while he was trying to run away from the cops, to the people when they were rioting in their insanity burning down LA block by block. The production quality is pretty good, ranging from heavy guitars in the opening track and a few others, to having the typical beats expected from a hip pop album. Thurz himself has some interesting rhymes about the perspective of people in LA during that time like he was.

Notable Tracks: "Molotov Cocktail", "Rodney King", "Hell's Angel", "Riot", "Los Angeles"




5.Logic-Young Sinatra



I have never heard of Logic until this mixtape. Logics flow is truly amazing, he can literally rhyme over ANY beat and he proves it in this 22 track damn near flawless mixtape. He chooses to rhyme about how famous he wants to be, and I dont mind that cause that is truly what a 21 year old mcee aspires to be. I love that kind of bragging that great emcees usually do if it feels genuine and not overly annoying e.i. Watch the Throne and Tha Carter 4(Had to put in at least one jab at those albums, right?). This is a mixtape, so none of the beats are created by Logic or his group, but the beats have a great sort of middle ground by using traditional beats, like Jay-Z classic Dead presidents beat, has some Drake covers or some other famous tracks( I believe he covered a Mac Miller track, but I cant be sure) and adds some nice Sinatra samples throughout the album. One weak spot is that near the end of the album he has 3 "love" tracks that I could have gone without, but Logic can do love songs and the great tracks on this album I thing are truly great.

Notable Tracks: "Prime", "One", "Shine one", "Mind of Logic", "Young Sinatra II", " Growning pains II"




4.Kendrick Lamar-Section.80



I heard buzz around Kendrick Lamar in around early 2011, but I just counted him out as one of one and done rappers. Holy shit, was I wrong. Section.80 is a concept album about something Kendrick calls Section.80, the people who were born in the 80s and what they went through. The album focuses on things like the crack epidemic in Los Angeles, the Reagan Administration and sex and drug abuse. The production values are nice, but Kendrick Lamars lyrics and flow are the true stars of the album. The album kind of starts a bit slow, but at chapter six it gets amazing.

Notable Tracks: "HiiiPower", "Kush & Corinthians", "Chapter six", "Keisha's song", "Ab-souls outro", "Ronald Reagan Era"



3.Danny Brown-XXX



XXX is the perfect way to be introduced to Danny Brown. XXX is Danny Brown, plain and simple. You cannot get more personal and real with an audience that you can with this album here right. First thing you will notice with the first track is Dannys high pitched delivery and it sounds funny at first, but the rhymes he says while using that voice are extremely personal and at some points depressing. Danny shows off amazing variety in his tracks, from songs rhyming about how he is gonna die like a rock star, to how he is hoping to OD off of his drug use because of all the things he has gone through. He rhymes about seeing his uncle shoot up while his mom is smoking crack in almost scary amounts of detail to how he thinks his own drug use has affected him mentally, and you can almost notice the toll the drugs have taken in his flow, where it a bit off at most times but somehow sounds so amazing. The middle tracks are the ones that are a bit iffy but the beginning tracks and the tracks after Adderal Admiral pick up.

Notable Tracks: "30", "XXX", "DNA", "Fields", "Nosebleeds", "Party all the time"



2.Cunninlyguists-Oneirology



I have always been a huge fan of Cunninlyguists ever since I first heard the track "The Gates" of off 2006's A piece of strange. Ive never heard a hip pop group use ambiance to a degree of near perfectness before and I would just lay in bed with my buds on and listen to that album over and over again. Now here is Oneriology, a concept album about what our minds do once we enter the dream state and what kind of things the mind things about, from just being happy to the murderous feelings that is encoded in our DNA. The album goes from the beginning of our dream state, to the violent feelings to the addiction and obsession that we all have, all the way until the the mind realizes that its in a dream and makes it way out. Track for track, its just amazing. Kno did a truly superb job creating every single track on this album, all of the tracks create a feeling of the state the mind is in. Damn near perfect album in my opinion.

Notable Track: "Get Ignorant", "Predormitum", "Murder", "My habit", "So as not to wake you", "Enemies with benefits", "Dreams", "Embers"



1.The Roots-Undun



Perfect. There is nothing else I can say to explain what I feel about this album. The is the first concept album by Hip pop group The Roots. The concept is the life and death of a man called Redford Stevens and the album begins at the death of Redford and goes backwards through his life. Now first off, the music The Roots created is just incredible, almost everyone track on the album has multiple sections, and the 4 movements to end the album are just beautiful. I dont think I have ever been so moved by just hearing a band play. Black Though does a amazing job of telling the story of Redfords life, from multiple perspectives and his delivery is spot on. There really isnt anything I can say about the album other that I fucking love it and its perfect in my eyes, I would not touch or change a single thing on it. I may or may not have cried a bit listening to this album.

Notable Tracks: Every Track.



Ok, there is it. Wow, it took longer than I expected. Took me about 2 hours to do :\. Anyways, Id recommend every album on my list. Feel free to discuss my choices, type angry shit about I didnt put Tha Carter 4 or Watch the throne there, make your own list(hopefully not as long as mine cause goddamn it took a while), or just say how fucking awesome my list is.

Discuss.

I'm really starting to wonder what your definition of hip pop is.

AGuyIsWatchingYou wrote:

Exactly what I was thinking...

GMcC09 wrote:

In what way?

never heard of any of them. im with the rest of them what kind of hip hop are you into?

AGuyIsWatchingYou wrote:

Oh shit, Genre Police. Leg it!!


To be honest I've no idea what hip pop is so maybe you're right..

I've listened to Danny Brown and a few songs off Exmilitary, don't know the rest :/

Well, I made this list to encourage you guys to listen to the albums and maybe get exposed to Artists you guys havent heard of before. Also, xKDAC and mikelandry18, you guys have never heard of The Roots?!!! Really?!!

Maybe this song will refresh your memory.



Im out of the mainstream loop, but I see that videos from The Roots have like 5+ million views, and I also figured that Kendrick Lamar and Big Krit were popular with the mainstream.

@Alan, Kendrick's on the verge of going more or less mainstream because he has some shows coming up with Drake and he did a spot on some mainstream rapper album......Death Grips and Danny Brown on the hand are nowhere close to being mainstream. As for the others I'm not too sure about (Although The Roots are big in a hard to describe way).


I'll probably make a bigger post tomorrow but for now I'll just say that Section.80 is my hip hop AOTY and one of top overall AOTY.

Yea, I was real close to putting Section.80 at number 3 and dropping XXX to 4, its so amazing. Also, can you elaborate on your first post? It had me confused for a while, was it because I put different kinds of hip pop on my list or something else?

Nolan, check out Shabazz palaces, you will love them.

All I know is Big K.R.I.T., Kendrick Lamar, and The Roots. Why isn't there any Lil Wayne.

slie165 wrote:
I listened to Black Up a while back, I wasn't really paying attention to it so I'll I have to revisit it some time.

As to what I meant when I said

I was just wondering what you define hip pop as, I was always under the assumption that it was just a term you used describe mainstream hip hop like Lil Wayne, Jay Z, and Eminem. But then you included Death Grips and Danny Brown on the list. I'm just confused since Death Grips and Danny Brown are nowhere near mainstream. Just to pull up some statistics here, total last.fm play for some of your listed artists:
Danny Brown - 30,210 listeners
Kendrick Lamar - 178,579 listeners
Death Grips - 26,359 listeners

Oh and one more thing.........Zach Hill is a drummer (also for bands like Wavves, for a short time that is, and Hella), he doesn't do the vocals for Death Grips

AGuyIsWatchingYou wrote:

Well, I define Hip pop as a culture or life style, not just a genre of music. In How to Rap, they do a breakdown of the Hip pop culture, its basically Rhyming, DJing, Breakdancing(Dont think they do this anymore lol), and Graffiti writing(which I did from when I was about 13 to 16). Graffiti is basically what got me into the more underground/lesser known hip pop artists because of friends that were also graffiti writers. Anyway, Hip pop music to me is anything that has a form of either rhyming or even singing over a beat. Hip pop can go as far as Death Grips, Dalek and shabazz palaces who incorporate other genres of music like Jazz electronic and rock(like Thurz did in LA Riot to show how insane LA was during that time) into traditional hip pop and create something amazing to something like Big Sean or Lil wayne where they appeal to the masses and do Id say some cookie cutter garbage, but its still hip pop, and that is why I love Hip pop the most. I even consider Erykah Badu Hip pop because she is not a normal R&B singer and she has soul, which is something most R&B singers are missing. Isnt it weird that most of the underground rap fans I know absolutely LOVE erykah badu? Its because she fits in with what most hip pop fans can consider a part of our culture. And to be fair, Jay Z was a great emcee back is his days and he created what I would consider the 2nd greatest Hip pop song of all time, Dead Presidents I, even if Jay does have a weak flow. I put The world is yours by Nas as the number 1, but its just opinion.

Anyways, I look forward to seeing your top 10 list.

Not in the mood to explain everything, regardless:

1. Kendrick Lamar - Section.80
2. Long Arm – The Branches
3. Danny Brown - XXX
4. Death Grips - Exmilitary
5. Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire - Lost In Translation
6. A$AP Rocky - LiveLoveA$AP
7. Clams Casino – Instrumental Mixtape
8. The Roots - Undun
9. Das Racist - Relax
10. Flash Bang Grenada - 10 Haters
.....
.......9000. The Throne - WTT
..........9001. Tyler, The Creator - Goblin

9002. Lil B-Im Gay
9003. Big Sean-Finally Famous

Its shocking how good Clams Casino beats are and he allows Lil B to shit all over them.

slie165 wrote:
You shouldn't take Lil B' seriously, it's like taking MC Chris seriously.

AGuyIsWatchingYou wrote:



These guys did take it serious, and it was hilarious. If you enjoy how these guys argued over this album, check out the tyler the creator review, the camera actually had to stop recording, hand the camera to someone else and defend Goblin. Also, these guys are great and you should sub them up if you like hip pop reviews, pretty much the hip pop version of the needle drop and they also did a few videos with him.

Does Blue Slide Park count?

I prefer songs on that album like Man in the Hat, Missed Calls, English Lane, and PA Nights over the main songs Party on Fifth Ave., Smile Back, and Frick Park Market.

slie165 wrote:
I know, I subbed to them when they did a review of Lost In Translation with Anthony.

I seriously watch that review of Lil B and the review of Tha Carter 4 at least twice a day, its so good.

TheSuperDerek wrote:

Yea, it does count. I have heard a few tracks of that album and I didnt like it that much, but I understand what Mac Millers audience is. To be real, Mac Miller has a amazing flow, I just find his lyrics to be meh. If you like Blue Slide Park, you will probably LOOOOVE Logic's Young Sinatra mixtape, his flow is like Mac Millers, but Id say about twice as good and I find his lyrics to be much better. Listen to the video I linked for Logics album.

ive heard of the roots yes, but nothing else.