Lamont's Lists

You've seen the singles, now here are the albums. The best of what 2019 had to offer is below. It's an eclectic mix, a clash of old and new, trap music and soul samples, crisp battle rhymes and garbled vocal gymnastics. Somehow hip hop makes it all work. The beat goes on. Let's hope it never stops. Here's to another great year of hip hop and the dawn of a new decade. Enjoy. 10.Young M.A. – Herstory In The Making – If Young M.A. is not the best MC on the planet, she's gotta be the nicest. On her long-awaited debut album,  Herstory In The Making , she gives a masterclass on the lost art of MC’ing – ripping through one brooding trap beat after another while sounding like she’s only giving you about 60% of her max effort. Her one-two punch of “Big” and “No Mercy” are a couple of the best singles of the year – a two-part hay maker of raw talent and swagger, nifty ad libs and cunning wordplay. But don’t get me wrong,  Herstory  is not all puns and punchlines, ov...

2019 was another progressive year for hip hop (which unfortunately ended on a sad note, with the recent death of talented young artist Juice WRLD). Generation Now continued to give a big F-U to convention, reinventing the culture to suit their own tastes while delivering eclectic sounds that covered every possible sub-genre. I for one, was game to give it all a listen. I'm trying something different this year, creating a list of my Top Rap Songs in addition to my Top Rap Albums post (coming soon). These were the tracks that moved me. The ones I kept coming back to for one reason or another - either because they featured interesting production, banging beats or a charismatic leading man/woman who grabbed and held my attention. Some of these tracks spoke to our times and captured the ethos the American youth experience. Others...well they just sounded awesome in my car stereo. Given the volume of music released these days, it's impossible for me to even begin to determine w...