While was a year of titans re-entering the fray — we got albums last year from very nearly every heavy hitter, from Drake to Nicki and Kanye West to Jay-Z — was all about new names. DaBaby bookended the year with two thunderous statements in Baby on Baby and Kirk; Megan Thee Stallion established herself, quickly and confidently, as one of the most charismatic lyricists of her young generation; and Roddy Ricch broke through seemingly every month with a new hit, before dropping his uniformly excellent Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial. Meanwhile, near-veterans Young Thug and Tyler, the Creator put out statements that, in retrospect, served as coronations. They, along with the chaos-courting Brockhampton, put out their most assured work to date, and established their commercial weight alongside critical consensus. These are our picks for the best hip-hop albums of the year, now that all the introductions have been made. Newswire Powered by.
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30 Best Hip-Hop and R&B Albums of 2019 (So Far), Ranked
In June, we brought you 30 albums. We look forward to fighting with you all on Twitter. Additionally, this list was finalized on October 3, thus albums released October 4 and later were not considered. Carrying no pretensions and seamlessly style-shifting across genres with his frenetic cadence, the singular rapper makes you move and listen simultaneously. On paper, Young Nudy and Pi'erre Bourne seem like an odd couple. YBN Cordae remembers what albums sounded like during the blog era. When Kendrick Lamar made Section80 ; when J. The North Carolina-born, Maryland-raised rapper weaves through a coming-of-age story with thoughtful self-reflection, pointed storytelling, and soulful nostalgia.
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Fortunately for those people, Uproxx is here to remind them of all the perfectly good — even great — rap music that they overlooked while waiting for well-established superstars to drop new projects. When even Billboard favorites like Schoolboy Q only give two week lead times to release their projects, even hardcore fans can get left in the dust. Consider this one your wake-up call to all the great hip-hop that you might have slept on this year. Stay woke. Flying low under the radar just like the subcultures of the city it celebrates, Black Beans is a poignant and personal ode to self-actualization from a rapper with a foot firmly planted in two seemingly disparate cultural traditions. Choosey wrestles with reconciling his Latino and Black American roots, ultimately coming to an assured mixture of the two that reflects an important and sometimes overlooked aspect of Angeleno life.
In a hyperspeed world, it is increasingly meaningful to sit with the vision of one artist for an extended period of time. From drowsy hip-hop to pitch-perfect pop, albums of all genres felt more profound than ever. Synthesizing devastating breakups and calling for revolution in every style of sound, these albums went all-in on what matters. Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist. All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission. British electronic producer Sam Shepherd has always exerted remarkable control over his meticulous musical output as Floating Points: With his favored instrument, the Buchla modular synthesizer, he can contour sound waves and alter circuitry to suit his needs. But Shepherd, like the rest of us, has comparatively little control over his input, and the chaos of the past three years—Brexit, Trump—shook something loose inside him. Out came Crush, a record that vibrates with sadness and anger, buoyed by squelching melodies that flutter and pop. The album is a wonderful scenario for an artist a decade into their career: a rewarding balance of consistency and growth, with subtle experimentation instead of the common midcareer misstep of transparently grabbing for radio play.
