National News
With three straight fire flame emoji months of hip-hop, it was only natural for April to slow up, right? Albeit there weren’t names like Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean and other mega-heavy hitters dropping music left and right like it did when the year started, but that doesn’t mean that April went without some notable music. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of impressive that the momentum of “the best year in hip-hop” carried through the month. 2015 has played out in the opposite order of a big prize fight; the heavy hitters and everyone is here to see dropped their material in the first quarter, leaving the very capable undercards to fill out the rest of the year. We’ll get to the music, but the biggest thing to happen that kicked off April was Jay-Z launching his music streaming service, Tidal.
Jay-Z and The Avengers of music (Beyoncé, Jack White, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, Daft Punk and many others) stood on a stage to present their new streaming service aimed at providing a better music experience for the fan and business experience for the artist. The aim of Tidal was to even the scales a bit in terms of streaming royalties in better favor of the artist; they want to take the middleman out so to speak. They’re also going to provide exclusive content whether it be music, videos, concerts, or another fan experience. Great, but they missed the mark in their delivery. By having billionaires and their peasant millionaire buddies join them on stage to announce this new platform to the world, they missed their opportunity to really represent the independent artists that those increased royalties would mean the most to. It would have been infinitely more powerful to have 5-10 unknown, independent artists there with Jay-Z’s arm around them, explaining the benefits of this new service. This isn’t to say that Tidal won’t work or they missed the opportunity to impact the streaming world, it just means that they stumbled out of the gate when we’re used to seeing Hov fly. I think the service will prove to be successful and a better option over time (for those willing to pay for it, at least. There’s not a free version), but it will take some time and tailoring to these independent artists to get the traction they desire.
Chicago’s Vic Mensa signed with Roc Nation. I fully expect great things from him on the label. He’s been killing it since his run with Kids These Days a few years back and has really emerged as one of the shining stars of an outrageously talented Chicago scene. Also, Kanye West topped TIME‘s list of 100 most influential people. Love him or hate him, Kanye has grown into an outright icon.
As far as the music goes, March ended with the oft-misunderstood Wale dropping his latest album, The Album About Nothing, for which I had very low expectations. Since signing to MMG, he’s veered very far away from his sound. However, I was pleasantly surprised to listen to his best work since his Back To The Feature project a little over 5 years ago. Like Big Sean, Wale had a lot of work to do to win back their critical audience, and they both delivered in a big way. The big draw of the album is that Jerry Seinfeld is featured prominently throughout the album. That may seem like a strange pairing, but it complimented the materially nicely for a solid listen. Continuing on with pleasant surprises to close out March and kick off April, Ludacris’ Ludaversal album has him return to form on his latest offering. Two must listens from the album: “Grass is Always Greener” and “Come and See Me,” the latter featuring Big K.R.I.T. just feels like a vintage Luda single.
While those two albums were nice continuations of the solid material dropped in 2015 thus far, my favorite projects of the month came from Tyler, The Creator and Young Thug. I genuinely think Tyler is one of the most gifted individuals of this generation, and the amount of focus and artistry he puts into every song, project and video is rather unparalleled outside of anyone not named Kanye, Kendrick or Drake. He took everyone by surprise by dropping the video for “F*cking Young/Deathcamp” and announcing his album would drop the following week. There are splashes of N.E.R.D., Kanye, J. Cole and classic Odd Future all over this album. The Kanye and Lil Wayne assisted “Smuckers” is a favorite, next to “Deathcamp.” Tyler is the only thing that gets in his way on this album as he tinkered with some of the mixing for a lo-fi effect that comes across a garbled and unenjoyable if you’re just trying to jam out. Outside of that, it’s his best project to date. On the other end of the “well, this is different” spectrum, Young Thug dropped his highly anticipated and controversial Barter 6 album. Well … they dropped it as an album, then the next day called it a mixtape, stating that his real album, Hy!£UN35, would drop in August.
The mixtape/album line has been blurred to oblivion, so let’s not get too hamstrung on that. The album was initially called Carter 6, paying homage to Lil Wayne’s Carter series, which was met with a lot of skepticism and criticism as the tension between Cash Money and Wayne rose. Lawyers stepped in to force the name change, and thus the Barter 6 was born. Do not listen to this album if you’re looking for any type of strong message, poignant wisdom or for anything outside of enjoying a vintage Lil Wayne clone fitting into a modern sound. It’s enjoyable in the sense that the volume should be turned up loudly. Stand out records include “Check,” “Can’t Tell” feat. T.I. and Lil Boosie, “Constantly Hating” and “Just Might Be.” The guy can really rap and seemingly attempts to hit every note that there is on the spectrum in his different flows and melodies, so the fearless experimentation is appreciated in the confident delivery.
Read on for a recap of local and underground hip-hop
