Three Generations Of 2016 Top 10 Hip Hop Albums Lists

As an interesting exercise in looking at the year in music, I asked Evan and Reese to complete their 2016 top 10 Hip Hop Album's lists in order to compare them to mine. Evan (22) represents Gen Y and Reese (13) reps Gen Z. Below are their lists alongside mine, and some analysis on what I think this says about the state of contemporary hip hop and its future.

THE TOP 10 HIP HOP ALBUMS OF 2016

	Lamont Generation X	Evan Generation Y	Reese Generation Z
1	A Tribe Called Quest We Got It From Here	Kanye West The Life Of Pablo	Chance The Rapper Coloring Book
2	Chance The Rapper Coloring Book	Kendrick Lamar untitled unmastered	Drake Views
3	Kanye West The Life Of Pablo	ScHoolboy Q Blank Face LP	Future Evol
4	ScHoolboy Q Blank Face LP	Curren$y & Alchemist The Carrollton Heist	Lil Yachty Lil Boat
5	Drake Views	Chance The Rapper Coloring Book	Kanye West The Life Of Pablo
6	Pusha T Darkest Before Dawn	Isaiah Rashad The Sun’s Tirade	21 Savage Savage Mode
7	J Cole 4 Your Eyez Only	Travis Scott Birds In The Trap	Travis Scott Birds In The Trap
8	Travis Scott Birds In The Trap	Drake Views	Lil Uzi Vert The Perfect Luv Tape
9	Curren$y & Alchemist The Carrollton Heist	Pusha T Darkest Before Dawn	Ralo Diary Of The Streets
10	Royce 5’9” Layers	Kodak Black Lil B.I.G. Pac	J Cole 4 Your Eyez Only

What We Agree On:
Chance, Drake, Travis Scott and Kanye – Conventional wisdom says that our age gap, combined with the incredibly fractured digital music age we live in, would lead to very little overlap in our top 10 selections. But it turns out that's not the case at all. Sure, my #1 pick, A Tribe Called Quest's We Got It From Here.. didn't even crack Evan or Reese's top 10, but otherwise we found quite a bit to agree on. Aside from maybe Travis Scott, the 4 albums that made each of our Top 10s were all massive pop hits in 2016. They are all no-brainer records that showed up on pretty much everybody’s lists, proving there was something on each of those albums for all of us to love.

Additional Gen X And Gen Y Overlap:
Pusha T, Curren$y And ScHoolboy Q – Clearly Evan and I have similar tastes in music. With the addition of these 3 albums, we shared 7 of the same top 10 albums for the year. This either proves that the generation gap between X and Y is not as prevalent as one might think, or simply that our preferences tend to rub off on each other.
Additional Gen X And Gen Z Overlap:
J Cole - In addition to the Big 4, Reese and I agreed on J Cole. We're both long time fans, so this is not a surprise at all.
Additional Gen Y And Gen Z Overlap:
None - This is somewhat surprising, you would think that since Reese and Evan are closer in age, they would find more to agree on. Perhaps this is where fragmentation starts to come into play.
No Overlap: These are the albums that made only one of our lists, respectively:

• Gen X (Lamont) A Tribe Called Quest and Royce Da 5'9" - Both of these albums are from rappers who are on the older side (either close to or over 40 years old)

• Gen Y (Evan) Kendrick, Isaiah Rashad and Kodak Black - Kendrick and Isaiah both made 2016 albums that I liked a lot, but I couldn't get into 19 year old Kodak Black, who's southern slang seemed indistinguishable from every other dirty south tough guy.

• Gen Z (Reese) Ralo, Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, Lil Yachty and Future - Here is where the generation gap reared its ugly head. Compared to Evan and I, Reese has a much stronger preference for brooding, futuristic beats and youthful frontmen (with tons of swagger) who aggressively reject rap's conventional trappings. As a general rule, these guys place an emphasis on melody, phrasing and emoting over, you know, actual rapping. These albums were all massively popular among the Gen Z crowd, while most guys my age either never heard of them or failed to comprehend the appeal of this "mumble rap". The moral of the story: as fans (and artists) get younger, hip hop moves further away from it's traditional sound.