Best Of 2019: Hip Hop, RnB, and Reggae

For my listening, the year in hip hop was so dominated by Bandana by Freddie Gibbs and Madlib (#5 of The Top 25) and Jesus Is King by Kanye West (#24/25) that I was tempted to think it was a down year for the genre as far as quantity goes. But then I looked back and found a wealth of great records. Beyond Solange’s wonderful When I Get Home (#25/25), there were just a few RnB albums that reached for greatness. As for reggae, there was nothing that made it into the Top 25 but there were some great releases that should not be overlooked. Press play on this playlist or below and read on for all the scoop. 

Hip Hop

First Quarter Report: The Albums

C-Bo - Animal

G&D - Black Love & War The “G” is Georgia Ann Muldrow and the “D” is Declaime, AKA her partner, Dudley Perkins. Their talents as producers and vocalists blend marvelously, with Muldrow either soulful or imperious (a touch of Grace Jones) and Declaime’s thick and gritty flow the perfect contrast. The production veers from earthy jazz to psychedelic soul, while still remaining thoroughly contemporary and 100 percent hip hop. A few lyrical infelicities and a couple of snoozy cuts kept this out of the Top 25 - but it was close. 

Tyler The Creator - Igor I’ve had a hands off approach to the Odd Future crew (except Frank Ocean) since inception, finding them - especially Tyler - unable to back up their bravado with anything I wanted to listen to more than once. But word that this album was different began creeping into my consciousness shortly after it came out and when my daughter insisted I listen I took a chance. And it’s fantastic - a self-produced and nearly seamless blend of singing, rapping, electronics, and emotional depth far beyond most hip hop. That latter point is based mostly on how the record makes me feel as opposed to an in-depth look at the lyrics. But love and loss are front and center, with some of the crestfallen bitterness explored by Andre 3000 on The Love Below. Also, as proven by his incendiary performance on the Grammys (all hail Charlie Wilson), Tyler has tapped into his creativity and talent in all dimensions. Further big things remain to come for this complex and nuanced artist. 

Danny Brown - Uknowhatimsayin While still not at the level of 2016’s pitch black Atrocity Exhibition, there’s still plenty of the outrageousness and wide-ranging musical exploration he’s led us to expect over the years. “Reliable” is not a word I would have expected to use for Danny Brown, but he’s become someone you can count on - maybe next time he’ll thrill us again, like Killer Mike does on his verse for 3 Tearz.  

Earl Sweatshirt - Feet Of Clay Rather than wondering when Sweatshirt is going to break out of what seems to be a numbed state of being, that seems to have become sort of the point. Along with smudged textures and foggy beats, whether self-produced, as most of this EP, or when Alchemist steps behind the boards for a track. If this is him coasting, still quite fascinating. 

Pusha T - Coming Home (feat. Lauryn Hill) With the world still reeling from Daytona (#3/25, 2018), perhaps it's wise that Pusha-T didn't put out an album in 2019. But he did put out two great singles and guest spots on a number of tracks. Inspired by an uplifting beat from Kanye West, et al, Coming Home is a bittersweet but still gritty track that rides the line of speaking some truth about mass incarceration while still offering hope to those affected by this national tragedy. Not coke rap! Lauryn Hill's turn is beautiful, too, much more than a mere hook. We also got Sociopath, with its great mid-song "charcuterie" skit, and a bit of catnip for Succession fans. Hear all of his work from last year in this handy playlist.

RnB

H.E.R. - I Used To Know Her Now that Gabriella Wilson is a certified Grammy fixture, inspiring awe with both her melodic inventiveness and ripping guitar solos, hopefully people are finding their way to this album, which displays more versatility than you might expect from those televised extravaganzas. And if the record could have used a little judicious pruning, consider the fact that Wilson is only 22 - she has plenty of time to figure out when less can equal more.

Burna Boy - African Giant Maybe I was supposed to put this on the Best Of 2019: Jazz, Latin, and Global, but I willed it into this category because I wish more contemporary R&B was this suave, smooth, and funky. His Nigerian roots would show through in any genre, however, and it's wonderful to see him break through outside his native land after nearly a decade of recording. 

SiR - Chasing Summer This is the longest and most clearly defined release from Top Dawg Entertainment's resident crooner. Even with starry guests like Kendrick Lamar, it's an intimate and spare affair, fully modern but with enough touches of classic soul to ground it firmly in tradition.

Anderson .Paak - Ventura It seems almost cruel to expect more from someone so talented, who consistently makes albums that go down so easily it would be easy to downplay the art and craft that go into them. But I can't help thinking that .Paak has been grooving on past glories with each album since the mind-blowing Malibu (#19/20 in 2016). Still, there is much pleasure to be had on Ventura - ignore it at your peril.

Lizzo - Cuz I Love You (Deluxe) While she's not as good a rapper as she seems to think she is (maybe leave that to Missy Elliott, who guests on Tempo), and she might sing bigger than she has to, her larger than life exuberance is impossible to deny. Even with a few dud tracks, enough of that personality comes through to make this a defining album of 2019. She's on a fulcrum point, however - any more concessions to commercialism and she will become bound to her moment rather than owning it.

FKA Twigs - Holy Terrain (feat. Future) While I didn't find Magdalene as static as LP1, the creeping Kate Bush-influenced obscurantism was a turn-off, except for this terrific single, also the best thing Future has done in a while. I know I'm swimming against the tide here, as Magdalene nearly broke the internet when it came out, but I can only like what I like. And I like this song A LOT.

Frank Ocean - In My Room Two singles, this one and DHL, are all we got from Ocean in 2019, with Blonde - one of the best albums of the century, never mind the decade - now three years in the rear view. Beautiful stuff in any case, especially the minimalist bedsit romance of In My Room. I would hesitate to make any predictions about what his next album will sound like based on these as I have a feeling it will be more full of sonic surprise than either of them.

Charlotte Dos Santos - Harvest Time I still find Dos Santos's 2017 album, Cleo, sigh-inducing, so I hope this wonderful filament of a song signals more from her in 2020. 

Reggae

Lee "Scratch" Perry - Heavy Rain This album was the best of the three the 83-year-old Perry put out in 2019. Mostly made up of dubs from Rainford, which came out earlier in the year, it improves on that album either by adding the trombone wizardry of the great Vin Gordon or the studio magic of the legendary Brian Eno, or simply by swathing some of Perry's less-than-scintillating vocal moments in washes of echo and effects. Great to have Perry collaborating with Adrian Sherwood again, who steered him into waters more creative than Spacewave, who produced the mostly tedious Rootz Reggae Dub. 

Prince Fatty - In The Viper's Shadow In which the Brit master of roots and dub assembles a murderer's row of vocalists, from Big Youth to Cornell Campbell (who I also wrote about here), to sing or toast over his killer tracks. The biggest surprise might be the soaring vocals of Shniece McMenamin, who holds her own in this august company. More from her, with Fatty producing, would be the exact opposite of a bad thing. 

Koffee - Rapture After taking note of her excellent single Throne in January, it took Koffee winning a Grammy for Best Reggae Album - the first woman to do so - for me to even realize she had an album out. But she also kind of doesn't, as Rapture is a mere 15 minutes long. Either way, the 19-year-old shows great promise on this short showcase, whether spitting auto-tuned fire over dancehall beats or singing soulfully over rootsier tracks. Looking forward to a true long-player - soon, please.

Hollie Cook - Dance In The Sunshine Maybe now that Koffee has broken the gender barrier at the Grammys, Cook will get the recognition she deserves. Until then, we will just bask in the warmth of her presence whenever she chooses to release sweet songs like this single. If you're still unfamiliar with this wonderful singer and songwriter, start with her self-titled debut, which was my #3 album of 2011. Or you could check out Twice, which landed at #5 in 2014. Then there's Vessel Of Love, my #7 album of 2018. She's just great!

What turned your head in these genres in 2019? Let me know! There’s also more in this archived playlist - and follow this one so you know how 2020 fares.

You may also enjoy:
Best Of 2018: Hip Hop, RnB and Reggae
Best Of 2017: Hip Hop, RnB and Reggae
Best Of 2016: Hip Hop and RnB

Frank Ocean Goes Deep

It's profound. It's profane. It's a benediction. It's an indictment. It's intimate. It's universal. It's pop. It's art. It's soulful. It's icy. It's carnal. It's cerebral. It's wickedly funny. It's as serious as your life. Frank Ocean's Blonde (or Blond?) is all of these things, and more, and it's on the top of the charts. After a four year wait, which drove some corners of the Internet to the breaking point, we finally have a follow up to Channel Orange and it is brilliant, exceeding my expectations in every way. 

Part of the reason I love Blond is that it makes fewer concessions than Channel Orange to R&B, the genre to which it supposedly belongs. For one thing, half the songs have no drums, and on the ones that do, the percussion comes and goes. For another, guitars are the most prominent instrument - next to Oceans's glorious voice, of course. Ivy, for example, feels rich and fully realized despite just being voices accompanied by two tracks of heavily processed electric guitars. It works so well mainly due to the sophistication of Ocean's melodies, which combine with his poetic lyrics to make an intoxicating cocktail of a song. Then there's the end of the song, where he makes a hook out of a little vocal phrase that would seem bizarre if it didn't feel so good. 

The length of time between albums might imply a lack of confidence but much of Blonde is incredibly bold, including all of the different things he does with his voice. Considering that his gifts as a singer put him in the same league as Stevie Wonder (believe it), his lack of veneration for his instrument is refreshing. He pitches it up, distorts it, talks through parts of songs, and, in general, could care less about impressing you. This makes the moments when he lets rip, like the wordless passages in Solo, that much more astonishing. 

Lyrically, he's gotten bolder as well. Consider Skyline To, which kicks off like a Frank Loesser song ("This is joy, this is summer...") and then, as a reflective jazz guitar shimmers in the background, turns strikingly conversational. "That's a pretty fucking fast year flew by," he says, speaking plainly, "that's a pretty long third gear in this car, gliding on the Five, deer run across, killed the headlights," he continues in a stream of consciousness. He keeps talking: "Pretty fucking under moonlight, now, pretty fucking...sunrise in sight" - he sings the last word and we're back on Broadway - "then comes the morning hunting us with the beams, solstice ain't as far as it used to be, it begins to blur, we get older, summer's not as long as it used to be, every day counts like crazy." 

This is compressed language, heightened but completely relatable, and, in the context of a 2:37 pop song, amazing. Throw in subtexts about  sexual encounters and the effects of the drug trade on the Congo, and his achievement is  elevated from the pop realm into that of the literary. Synth clouds and squiggles float in, Ocean begins to harmonize with himself and heaven is not too strong a word for the sensation of listening. And this is just one song, picked almost at random. One day monographs and graduate essays will be written exploring the treasures of Blonde - for now, I'll just keep browsing Genius. 

Skyline To also continues some of the main themes of Blonde, the cut-adrift sensation of getting older, being on your own, answering only to yourself but desperate for connection, coping with work, self-worth and technology. "I may be younger, but I'll take care of you," he sings in Nikes, the opening cut (don't miss the video), a come-on to a one night stand whose glow lasts long in the lives of both people involved. The spoken word interludes also play off of these strains. Be Yourself is a voicemail from a friend's mom imploring her son not to drink or do drugs "unless under a doctor's control,"and signing off, unnecessarily: "This is mom. Call me." 

Facebook Story is an anecdote told by Sebastian, one of Blonde's producers, about a woman who left him after three years because he wouldn't accept her friend request. "I'm in front of you," he told her, "I don't need to accept you on Facebook." These snippets speak volumes about helicopter parenting and the perils of social media - issues that don't only weigh on millennials, I can assure you. Frank Ocean has straight up become the voice of more than one generation, all the while remaining an artist of great intimacy. 

A word about collaborations. Guests and samples can sink an album under the weight of misplaced star power or references that are too clever by half. No worries on Blonde - Ocean is in total command. Luminaries such as Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Jonny Greenwood and Kim Burrell are here, along with a children's choir and samples of everyone from Gang of Four and Elliott Smith to The Beatles themselves. However, everything is beautifully woven into a distinctive tapestry that could belong to no one else. If any collaborator deserves to become better known based on Blonde, it would be Om'Mas Keith, who has songwriting and production credits on 11 songs on the album.

The one song where Ocean takes a backseat is Solo (Reprise), a full-on feature by Andre 3000 of OutKast, who speed-raps over a soulful piano and arty synths. Depending on my mood, I vacillate between joy that someone was able to get Three Stacks in front of a microphone to feeling like it's an intrusion. I've heard it's a two year old recording so I'll chalk up its inclusion to the diaristic structure of the album, which makes a palpable presence of all the living Ocean has done since Channel Orange came out.

Considering that Blonde is a vessel for four years of emotions and creativity, I hope everyone who snapped up this album invests their own time to let it unfold in their hearts. Blonde is an unconventional, deeply felt, and organically original work of art. There's much more I could say about its mysteries but I'd rather let you discover them on your own. And, Frank - feel free to take your time on the next record. A gem like Blonde is well worth the wait. 

Note: Two days before Blonde came out, Frank Ocean released a "visual album" called Endless that featured a soundtrack of all new music. It is only available to watch and listen to if you subscribe to Apple Music, a sub-par service that I tried several months ago. From what I understand, Endless was a clever move on Ocean's part to finish out his Def Jam contract and allow him to put out Blonde independently. That suggests that he saved the best music for Blonde and, based on what I've heard from tinny-sounding bootleg MP3's, that is indeed the case. If and when Endless is released in a conventional fashion I will be happy to give it full consideration in a future review.

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Baroness & Frank Ocean: They Came From Beneath The Genre

Best Of 12: Part Two

Is there an opposite of "ado"? Here goes...

1. The Walkmen - Heaven I've been along for the ride with Hamilton Leithauser & Co. since the first album and it has been a joy to hear them grow. Each album has expanded on their sound and explored further reaches within it. Even in the context of their progression, Heaven is a bold and startling leap forward. Perhaps touring with Fleet Foxes (and working with their producer, Phil Ek) gave Leithauser the confidence to wipe away the reverb and just sing out. His crystal clear tenor perfectly embodies songs that, for all their individuality, touch the elemental core of why we sing in the first place, and the band plays with a sizzling passion. There's something elemental about Heaven that looks back to bedrock artists like Buddy Holly - and even further back, to the earliest troubadours. The Walkmen connect with the lifeblood of music and directly to my heart.

2. Breton - Other People's Problems These brilliant 21st century art-rockers have given their all this year, touring extensively, releasing this dark (but never despairing) and often funky album, the terrific Blanket Rule EP, and ending the year with a killer single, Population Density. Can't say I'm sure why they remain cult-bound in this country, but it is certainly not because I've slacked on spreading the word. Get the memo.

3. Father John Misty - Fear Fun It was a great moment when the first video from this transcendent album dropped into my iTunes. All those Dum Dum Girls tracks Sub Pop had been foisting on me were quickly forgotten when I got a taste of J.Tillman's new persona. Bitingly witty and with the best singing and songwriting of his career, the new name seems to have begotten almost an entirely new artist out of whole cloth. The hip-shaking, slightly pissed off Misty also deserves to be called Performer Of The Year - catch him if you can. And I was having so much fun singing along to I'm Writing A Novel that I barely worried who was going to be the new sticks man for my beloved Fleet Foxes.

4. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange Deep and delightful, dirty and sublime, this album singlehandedly redefined modern R&B. It's also a unifying force, appearing on more year-end lists than any other album as far as I can tell. Sometimes you just can't argue with ubiquity. One caveat: the first time I listened to the hamhanded Super Rich Kids was also the last.

5. Jeremy Denk - Ligeti/Beethoven Programming concerts and albums to cause communication across the centuries is fairly common practice these days. Denk just follows through on the concept in more dazzling fashion than most. Somehow he gets Ligeti's ultra-knotty Etudes to breathe, and their twists, turns and spikes prepare your ears to re-experience Beethoven's Sonata No. 32 with an alertness to every detail. When the Sonata ends and we are returned to Ligeti's world, it seems perfectly natural for both composers to occupy the same universe. It's a journey you'll want to repeat.

6. Domenico - Ciné Privé Miguel Atwood-Ferguson has his hands in so many things that it should be no surprise that he was my introduction to this bewitching Brazilian musician. Spare yet immersive grooves limn relaxed vocals that speak to me regardless of any language barrier. Members of Wilco guest on this fantastic album, which was recorded some years ago but is just now getting a U.S. release featuring Atwood-Ferguson's string-bedecked remix of Receita.

7. Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music This is the album us die-hard Killer Mike fans have been waiting for since his OutKast-assisted debut back in 2003. Bona fide block rocking beats from Brooklyn's own El-P provide the perfect foundation for Mike's raps, which range from heartfelt to enraged. His demolition of Ronald Reagan's legacy is so complete that when he points out that the ex-President's name is (numerologically speaking) the number of the beast, you just nod your head. Hopefully all the attention R.A.P. Music is getting will shine a light on PL3DGE, his last album, which was nearly as good.

8. Bob Dylan - Tempest I literally feel pity for those whose inability to tolerate Dylan's current voice(s) is preventing them from hearing the mastery at work on this bloody-minded album. As the man himself puts it in Narrow Way: "If I can't work up to you, you'll surely have to work down to me someday." Don't just take Bob's legendary staus for granted, open your mind and ears and experience it for yourself as it's happening.

9. The Darcys - Aja In which the Toronto band remakes Steely Dan's multi-platinum masterpiece in their own image. It's an act of homage that dismantles the object of The Darcys affections, exposing the darkness at its core. When I asked lead singer Jason Couse if Becker and Fagen had heard their baby's new incarnation, he was only able to report that a Dropbox had been accessed by Becker's assistant. Hopefully they "got the news" by now. You can get it for free.

10. Talea Ensemble - Fausto Romitelli: Anamorphosis In concert after concert around the world, this adventurous and virtuosic group is bringing the composed music of our times to full-blooded life. Their debut album features world premieres of five pieces by Romitelli, who died at 41 in 2004, all played to perfection. On February 4th, 2013, Talea will be paying tribute to patron Ralph Kaminsky, alongside other new music luminaries including Alarm Will Sound and the JACK Quartet, at Merkin Concert Hall. I wouldn't miss it!

Still to come: Best Of The Rest and Out Of The Past (reissues and other older sounds)

Baroness & Frank Ocean: They Came From Beneath The Genre

Strange bedfellows? No, just great music.

After about an hour of pushing through the crowd at Comic Con last year, trying to take it all in without losing track of my kids, I found myself on the second floor of the Javits Center. As the kids browsed through the fan-made goods, I looked down on the main level at the milling crowd, bedecked in costumes, bedazzled in piercings and tattoos, or in some other way representing their niche of the scene, when it occurred to me: I am so not a geek.

Sure I love Frank Miller and Alan Moore, Battlestar Galactica and (the original) Star Trek, Miyazaki and Pixar, J.R.R. Tolkein and Jeff Somers, but I don't go all in where their respective genres are concerned. I think it comes from being culturally omnivorous - my interests are so broad that I end up cherry picking across the landscape of creativity and getting deeply attached to what bubbles up from various genres.

If i am a geek, it's for music in general. In my more self-righteous moments (we all have them), I think of the things I end up liking as being the "best" or "one of the best," although that is likely an aesthetically indefensible position. There's probably an anime freak out there who can explain how Miyazaki is watered down, or a comics guru who will tell me Miller sold out years ago, but I think there are solid reasons why they rose above their cohort. So what does this have to do with Frank Ocean and Baroness?

Each can be aligned with a genre, R&B and metal respectively, yet each has a broader reach than many of the artists associated with those genres. Maybe their own interests and tastes are wider ranging than other metal and R&B musicians and that translates to something that sounds richer to me.

Since I am a music obsessive but not a metal head, what attracted me to Baroness in the first place? I admit it was their slightly goofy and effeminate name as well as their habit of calling albums colors (Red Album, Blue Album, etc.) that made me think something different might be going on with them. Then I heard a song a couple of years ago on Lars Gotrich's annual Viking's Choice edition of All Songs Considered and it was excellent. Having absorbed the complete discography of the equally fantastic Mastodon, I was ready to have some new heavy sounds to enjoy and delved in. While they lack Mastodon's unique advantage of having three great but very different vocalists, I found their music to be very exciting - passionate, technically profound without merely being virtuosic, and with a sure sense of structure, dynamics and melody.

This year they gave us a double album, Yellow & Green, with the first disc representing the more brutal end of the sonic spectrum and the second exploring more lyrical territory. Naturally, this kind of stretching out was bound to cause some controversy in their fan base, but I think Baroness always had a higher ambition beyond ruling the sludge metal roost. Even their earlier releases showed cognizance of the dictum of "light and shade" handed down from Jimmy Page, so the development of their sound should be no surprise. What makes Yellow & Green (and Baroness) so great is that while it is their most expansive release they also sound more focused than ever. Melodies are better defined and modulated, the guitars of John Baizley and Peter Adams are layered with more complexity, not to mention astonishing assurance and swagger, and the rhythm section of drummer Allen Blickle and bassist Matt Maggioni plays with perfect sensitivity to the nuances of each song. Blickle especially is showing a new versatility and, at times, even playfulness.

Yet Yellow & Green is in no way a compromise. The more I listen, the more it's two halves feel of a piece - there are reflective moments on Yellow and bludgeoning moments on Green - and the more it seems to be the kind of grand artistic statement that can't be contained by genre. So if Baroness finds the rune-carved gates of "metal" closed to them, they should be easily embraced by music fans everywhere. Here's wishing them a speedy recovery from their recent bus accident.

As for Frank Ocean, his purported genre, R&B, has been an even less reliable source than metal for music I like. Others have taken the time to figure out why that may be but I'm going to focus on Channel Orange, his latest record, and how I came around to it. Ocean first came on my radar last year and although his association with the ridiculous and over-hyped Odd Future collective was a turn off, his great singing on Kanye West & Jay-Z's Watch The Throne was undeniable and his mastery of social media made him seem very accessible. His first album, nostalgia/ultra, got caught up in bureaucratic delays and was finally released on his Tumblr, free of charge. As much as I wanted to like it, I found it ultimately disappointing. While it has its moments (Novocaine is a modern classic, like a sung blog post), it often succumbs to some of the kind of mush-mouthed self absorption I associate with unreasonably popular people like Drake, while also being melodically flat. Listening to most of it left me feeling blah and unsatisfied but also with the intuition that there was something to the guy.

In the months before Channel Orange came out, we were treated to a lot of talk about Ocean in the wake of his announcement that he had been in love with a man and was bisexual. This was a brave thing to do as there are fewer more homophobic cultures than that of hip hop and R&B. But while this was fascinating in a TMZ kind of way, in the end the music is all that matters. If he was going to deliver more emotionally shut-down, unengaging stuff like most of nostalgia/ultra, I was done. When Pyramids was leaked on Soundcloud, I was intrigued - a nine minute epic is definitely going against genre - but still not quite getting the hit of pleasure others were reporting.

Well, thank goodness for Spotify. It was last chance time for Ocean as I clicked play on the streaming service. Couple songs in, Sweet Life started up and I was hooked. Here was the whole package - a lighter than air groove, clever lyrics and gorgeous singing. The song proved to be the gateway to his wondrous world and an album full of delights for the ear, the heart and the mind. This is a collection of sumptuous textures, delicate funk and a window into a searching intelligence that is rare in any corner of music. The only exception is the wretched pandering of Super Rich Kids, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ocean needs to ditch the Odd Future gang and fast.

Channel Orange is solidly a post-Kanye record, especially as far as subject matter goes, with it's mixture of the high-minded ("If it brings me to my knees/It's a bad religion") and the down and dirty ("Now it's mosh pits and wet tits//I think I need a cold shower"), yet it pretty much ignores the method of a Kanye West record. There is only one sample credited and most of the sounds come from a top notch crew of studio honchos like Matt Chamberlain on drums and Charlie Hunter on bass and guitar. Guest spots are few and far between, with John Mayer thankfully unnoticeable and Andre 3000 stealing the spotlight for two spectacular moments. So Frank Ocean brings us the best of both worlds - solid craftsmanship and ultra-fresh songwriting - and I hope his talent burns for a long time.

Perhaps the genre-busting work of both Ocean and Baroness will have a salutary effect on the rest of metal and R&B and there will be more wonderful musical cherries for me to pick. What records or songs have you saying "I don't usually go for this kind of music but this sounds GOOD!"?

 

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