Chop Reviews: The Top 10 Hip Hop Albums of 2008, Pt. 2

Let us proceed…

5. scarface | emeritus

rap-a-lot

All good things, it seems, must come to an end.  So it is with the arguable father of Houston hip hop, Brad Jordan, b.k.a. Scarface.  According to him, this is the last solo album the Def Jam South A&R will make.  One might expect a sentimental retrospective, a la Jay-Z’s faux swan song, The Black Album.  Uncle Face, one of hip hop’s least well-behaved emcee’s hasn’t built a career off of doing what one might expect, however.  This album is simply business as usual: hardcore street poetry that is at once wisened and world-weary, and devilishly ignorant.  It is certainly a standout in his deep catalog.

After an extra-long J. Prince intro, the album opens with a no holds barred shot at haters in general, and Lil’ Troy in particular.  Apparentlyh some accusations of snitching have been flying back and forth between the two camps in the last year.  With that out of the way, the ablum settles into a nice soulful groove.  Topics range from politics to somber portrayals of life in the hood to aggressive threats.  Face hasn’t lost any of his flow or his edge as his career has progressed, and whether he’s giving fatherly advice or describing how he’ll blow somebody’s head off, it’s hard not to pay attention:  “When it come time for me to pay the piper/fuck it, I been tryin’ to meet death/So please believe that when it’s time to show/I’ll be ready with my arms crossed, dyin’ to go.” There aren’t many guests on the album, but Face stands up to them all, including top form verses from Bun B and Lil’ Wayne on Forgot About Me.

Beats on the album are handled by an ensemble cast, that surprisingly doesn’t include Face himself.  Scarface laced a couple of nice tracks on UGK’s last album, and has been speaking in interviews about developing his production skills lately.  The beats are a good mixture of slow bluesy bangers and high octane joints.  Most of them include soul sampling of some sort, but a few are synth only.  Jake One’s honey-dripping background for the sex track High Note is the clear favorite on the album.  Anthony Gilmour’s reflective, densely layered Soldier Story is one of the stronger tracks as well, and both Illmind and Nottz make nice contributions too.

Despite taking not one second to look back or reflect on the end of a long and influential career, Scarface made a fitting end to his discography with this one.  It is an uncompromising, well-crafted album that shows a level of perspective that can only come from years of experience in the game and life in general.  Hopefully Face will continue to shape the game for years to come.

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04. black milk | tronic

fat beats

Black Milk has enjoyed a relatively quick ascendance to the top of the Detroit rap scene.  The talented producer first gained notice producing on Slum Village’s Trinity LP, and hasn’t looked back since.  Definitely a devotee of Dilla, it has been hard for BM to move out of his giant shadow, over the years, however.  This album may be the first time he unequivocally does that, and establishes himself as a unique and highly talented beatsmith.  But as the infomercial saying goes, wait, there’s more!  He is also a talented rapper, and this album showcases both of those aspects of his double threat very well.

Tronic’s sound breaks with his usual, soul-drenched warmth, creating a landscape that is often cold and mechanical, but still funky.  This makes the overall album sound like a jam in outer space, and really pushes it above a lot of it’s contemporaries in the beat department.  Starting off with the thunderous anthem, Long Story Short, the album rocks with synthesized strings and even some live brass courtesy of a man better known for his abilities as a crooner, Dwele.  From there, there is the reverb’ed out offbeat jazz of Give The Drummer Some and the assembly line four-on-the-floor syncopation of Hold It Down.  One of the few unequivocally soulful tracks on the album, Try, is another favorite.  Several tracks are instrumental-only.  They are all well-produced, but the album probably could’ve done with a few more vocal tracks in it’s relatively compact 55 minutes.

Black Milk has a nice flow, clearly influenced by contemporaries like Elzhi.  His lyrics won’t blow anyone away, but he is decent on the mic.  The album largely stays in bragging territory, and does not really stray too far into social commentary, but he does switch it up every now and again.  Without U is a playful story track about a failed relationship and Long Story Short more or less lays out his curriculum vitae as a producer.  There are very few guests, but raps by Pharoahe Monch and Sean Price, and scratches from DJ Premier definitely make Matrix an awesome collab track.

Beats definitely make this album.  It is one of the best and most originally produced works of the year, and it foretells a lot of good things to come for the D in the future.  Hopefully he is able tofind some vocal talent to match his production work.

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03. bun b | ii trill

rap-a-lot

Often, an album must be evaluated in the context in which it was created and released.  For example, the significance of Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death is very much altered by the artist’s own violent death within weeks of the album’s release date.  Similarly, this album is partially defined by a death: that of Chad “Pimp C” Butler, Bun’s UGK partner.  Based on the May release of the album, shortly after Butler’s December passing, one would assume that the album was largely complete when he died.  Thus, it would’ve been a follow up to their summer 2007 success with the Underground Kingz double album, and a statement of things to come for the Port Arthur, TX group.  It certainly forecasts things to come, but now in a different way, as circumstance has turned Bun B into a solo artist.  Fortunately, he is one of the most talented and well-connected voices in hip hop, and this album showcases that.

Like it’s 2006 predecessor, Trill, this album has beats that are overall more synthesizer-based than the bluesier, sampled sound of UGK albums.  With a varied, but always obviously Houston sound, this is one of the best albums of the year from a production standpoint.  J.R. Rotem, still not a household name, but one of the best producers, makes the obvious winner with the lead single That’s Gangsta.  There are a lot of other notables too.  Jazze Phizzle dropped another banger for My Block with synthesized brass and kettle drums.  Enigma’s Swing On ‘Em has a nasty bounce to it and probably the best hook on the whole album.  The one real misstep was remaking the Cash Money classic Back Dat Azz Up as Pop It For Pimp.  A Juvenile feature, I suppose the idea was to update the track, but overall, everything about it fell completely flat.  Some things are best left as they are.

Despite never being mentioned when the question comes up, Bun B may be the best rapper period in 2008, and if not, he’s close.  This album takes a smart look at life’s ups and downs, and adds something to the dialog of poverty and drugs in the black community without coming across as preachy.  Speaking on gentrification in the hood: “They say that one rotten apple can spoil the whole bunch/But we talkin’ ’bout some people, not apples, this ain’t lunch…You say development is good for the hood, yeah that’s what you sellin’ us/But you on the payroll of the builders and developers.”Bun is sharp and has a lot to say about the ills that have plagued those he’s close to, but he finds time for a little southern swagger as well.  Guests are numerous on the album, and there are a few standout verses.  G-Unit refugee, Young Buck, lit up his verse on If I Die II Nite and You’re Everything was an excellent southern posse cut with Ricky Ross, David Banner, and 8ball & MJG.  Angel In The Sky is the mandatory “RIP Pimp C” cut on the album, and while it is hard for even Bun to express everything he had to be feeling about the situation, it is a fitting sendoff track to a friend and a legend.

This is the best album to come out of the Houston scene this year.  It mixes smart street-level commentary and a cast of producers that fit Bun’s level of talent.  Sadly, the bluesy sound of Pimp’s production passed with him, and there will never be anything that sounds like a UGK album again.  Fortunately, Bun shows that there is much to look forward to still, and that he will continue to carry the torch for the underground, no matter how big he gets.

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02. lil’ wayne – tha carter iii

Say what you will about Lil‘ Wayne, but he can’t be accused of being lazy.  Between guest appearances and mixtapes, the body of work he’s released since his last studio album, 2005′s Tha Carter II, contains more songs than some rappers put out in their entire careers.  Inevitably, some of those verses sound mailed in, but amazingly, most of it has been very high quality music.  Those tracks, combined with the consistent track record of solo releases stretching back nearly a decade, add up to the most anticipated hip hop album of the year.  Fortunately, Wayne delivers on the promise.

Weezy continues to claim the oft-contested title of “best rapper alive,” and while it’s hard to award him that title for sure, he is a monster in the vocal booth.  From the intro, 3peat, to his verses on the ending Dontgetit, he shows continued development and versatility.  The album features several good concept tracks, including Comfortable, which returns fire at Beyonce’s Irreplaceable, and Dr. Carter, in which Weezy plays doctor to hip hop.  A lot of the album is straight swagger and polish though, and short of possibly Jay-Z, Wayne is unequaled in that area.  From Playing With Fire: “Osh Kosh B’gosh, Posh Spice’s husband couldn’t kick it like I kick it.” One-liners abound, but the Robin Thicke feature, Tie My Hands, shows that Wayne is good for more than punchlines.  Picking up where the title track to his Suffix mixtape left off, Tie My Hands lovingly examines his home town of New Orleans in the post-Katrina era.  Guest spots are relatively few, and the vast majority are assets.  Nothing, even Fabolous’ sustained metaphors on You Ain’t Got Nuthin’, outshine Wayne‘s lines, though.  One interesting singing feature was 70′s R&B matron, Betty Wright, probably most famous for her single, Tonight Is The Night.  Wright lends her toughened vocals to Playing With Fire.  It adds to the song’s heavy atmosphere, which, like everything else on the album, is very well-produced.

A far cry from the Mannie Fresh-orchestrated sound of Cash Money albums in the past, Wayne has managed to put together a varied suite of beats.  Long time Lil‘ Wayne fans are sure to miss Fresh’s tom rolls and rich melodies, but it’s hard to be mad at this production.  Bangladesh laces the stutter-stepping A Milli, and Alchemist’s You Ain’t Got Nuthin’ is a grimy clavinet masterpiece.  Dr. Carter is a surprise, an unusually jazzy beat from Swizz Beatz.  Lollipop, the lead single, by Jim Jonsin, is a stripper anthem of the highest order.  Kanye West also drops a few beats, the best probably being the simplest, Let The Beat Build.  It is a vocal loop with various drum beats dropping in and out through the sprawling five-minute track.  It takes Kanye’s simplistic formula to it’s logical extreme, but it works perfectly.  There is not one bad beat on the album, and a few great ones.

Overall, this is a creative success for Wayne.  A few nagging problems exist though: Lil‘ Wayne‘s voice is changing.  Some of this comes from use, no doubt, as he is over a decade in the rap game.  Some of it though, is on purpose, and has a modern-era Ghostface nearly-crying sound to it.  There is a slight lack of cohesiveness on the album too.  From an artist who has put out several mixtapes in the last two years, this album almost sounds like another mixtape, with nothing tying all the tracks together.  A couple creative decisions are puzzling as well, like the eight-minute stoned ramble at the end of Dontgetit.  These are all minor flaws on a very good project though, and hopefully Lil‘ Wayne‘s output doesn’t slow down in the coming years.

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That’s it for this round.  My number one pick and some other great records to check for coming in a couple days!

Keep those comments coming.  I love to hear what y’all think.