2011 Top Ten Hip Hop Albums of the Year

Here are WhiskeyTeeth's top ten albums (or "releases" if you want to get technical with the one mixtape that made the list) of the year. What does your list look like? 

10. Oddisee- Rock Creek Park & DTMD- Makin' Dollas

Released: August 23rd and September 20th on Mello Music Group

Thoughts: Some might think it's weak to toss up a tie, but I truly love both of these records and couldn't bring myself to leave one off this list. I haven't had a chance to hear everything Mello Music Group put out this year, but that's mainly because when they put an album out it STAYS in my rotation the entire year. If MMG isn't on your radar yet, you're missing out on the most consistent collectives making hip hop today.

I am a die hard Oddisee fan (raps and beats) and own just about everything he has put out, so it was really inspiring to get one of my favorite records from him so far in 2011. As a sucker for live hip hop instrumentation, I felt the addition of Jon Laine's brilliant drumming took Oddisee's already polished sound into another stratosphere of feeling and emotion. You could hear in every track that this was a special project close to his heart and Oddisee's passion and precision transferred well into my headphones.



DTMD's debut full length, Makin' Dollas, remains one of the more slept on releases of the year. I've been highly anticipating their work since hearing about them in the first quarter of 2010 with The Basics EP. Dunc and Toine did not disappoint.

Dunc's throwback bangers provide the perfect backdrop to Toine's wise-beyond-his-years writtens and, despite its lengthy sixteen track body, never fails to to keep your attention in more ways than one. We are seeing a lot more full length records spotlighting one MC and one producer's chemistry, but most of them are one and done collabos. Dunc and Toine have a Mecca and the Soul Brother type vibe that will only cultivate more with time and the talent that surrounds them and this isn't a one and done connection. Get ready for a bright future full of beautiful hip hop and many 'dollas' being made in PG County.

#9-1 on the flip side! Read More Below...

9. DaVinci- Feast or Famine EP 

Released: August 24th on SWTBRDS 

Thoughts: Much like Stalley, Bay Area rapper DaVinci doesn't rely on style or vocal gimmicks to deliver his emotionally potent content; instead, he relies on his expert ear for production to help uplift his chilly vocals and carry his message. On Feast or Famine, his sophomore release, DaVinci carefully crafted and selected eight silky slaps that weaved seamlessly through his nostalgic tales of the ugly and lovely sides of street life. This Bay Area Beanie Sigel definitely grabbed my attention with this EP.

8. Stalley- Lincoln Way Nights

Released: February 8th on then Deluxe on November 8th

Thoughts: I knew Stalley had a lot of potential after first hearing him on his 2010 mixtape, MadStalley: The Autobiography, but Lincoln Way Nights far surpassed the expectations I had for his follow up. It took me months to fully appreciate what Stalley and Rashad did together on this record, but the combination of Stalley's methodical delivery and precise lyricism with Rashad's crisp and mindful production and sequencing provided the lunch pail toting, blue collar listener a truly luxurious and memorable audible feast. 

7. Blue Sky Black Death- Noir

Released: April 26th on Fake Four

Thoughts: A buddy of mine was praising this album up and down for weeks, but while searching for a link, I came across the Nacho Picasso material BSBD produced and got lost in one of my new favorite rappers. No regrets there. I just wish I knew about this release when it hit stores in April. While bloggers are still busy worshiping Clams Casino's 2011, they missed out on the real producers of the year and the true (genre-bending) instrumental album of the year.

Noir blows everything Clams did right out of the water. Case in point:

6. Big K.R.I.T.- Return of 4eva

Released: March 28th - Self Released

Thoughts: Everyone should just slap me upside the head with a few late passes because I slept on Mississippi's Big K.R.I.T. for far too long and for no real reason. Simply, when K.R.I.T. was emerging, I wasn't in the mood for southern music, but all that changed this year after moving to Texas and getting back into the type of rap I used to listen to in high school. Is this the best thing K.R.I.T. has ever done? To be honest, I couldn't tell you because I'm working through his body of work backwards. Return of 4eva just hit me at the right time and in the right spot, and with tracks like Dreamin', The Vent, and Rise & Shine, how could it not do the same to everyone else.

5. Shabazz Palaces- Black Up

Released: June 28th on SubPop

Thoughts: 18 years ago, Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler took part in making an album that will remain in my top albums of all time until I'm bench pressing daisies. This year he made an album that most of hip hop won't be able to stomach until Wayne hits the oldies station, and I loved every second of it. Bloated with thick, synthy streams of bohemian mist and sound particles from a planet unknown, Black Up is a celebration of experimental hip hop and a sound, much like Open Mike Eagle and Danny Brown are making, that 80's babies have been dying for in their beloved genre for years.

It's ironic that the last line of the album is, "still it morphs, this shit is way too advanced," because this album is slipping through way too many end of the year lists. 

4. The Roots- undun

Released: December 2nd on DefJam

Thoughts: Listening to the 40 minute masterpiece from the legendary Roots crew felt like a lifetime, because it was one. Their conceptual composition that follows a young, poor kid named Stephens and his rise and fall through the unforgiving streets of Philadelphia is both flawlessly arranged and carefully executed. Many fans didn't appreciate the supposed "instrumental pretentiousness" that ended the record, but to me it was perfection. The Roots do it yet again and if it was released earlier in the year and I had more time to sit with it like the three albums below, you would have probably seen them at the #1 spot for the second year in a row.

This should be Grammy (winning) bait.

3. Danny Brown- XXX

Released: August 15th on FoolsGold

Thoughts: Danny Brown's XXX channels Kool Keith, Def Jux, and the copious amounts of drugs most likely dropped by both of the aforementioned. XXX was one of 2011's most exciting releases because, as Danny Brown emerged into the hipster limelight due to signing with Fools Gold, he stayed true to what made him 2010's favorite artist. He didn't sacrifice his sound to please his new demographic; instead, he continued his fearless blend of original style and blunt introspections over a toxic tapestry of psych-synth production and added a gripping tension and vulnerability to his raps that made this the go to album over The Hybrid.

2. Nacho Picasso- For the Glory

Released: September 15th on BSBD Music

Thoughts: Driven by the sublime slaps of sound from Blue Sky Black Death and Raised by Wolves, Nacho shocked me with a debut album that I could not stop listening to. At first, his nonchalant style came across a little mundane, but that ended up far from the case. Nacho Picasso is one of the wittiest and mentally penetrating new MCs I've heard all year. His clever writtens and rapping style match the reasons why rap fans love MF Doom and Danny Brown and the ethereal production provided by the incredibly underrated BSBD and company only help his genius reach divine levels.

My 2011 Album of the Year 

1. Open Mike Eagle- Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes

Released: June 14th on HellFyre Club

Thoughts: Hip Hop today is a little like the stand up comic scene in 2006. While flavorless frat-douche favorites like Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia, and Jeff Dunham continued to collect cake from the vapid and impressionable, creative geniuses like Patton Oswalt and Demetri Martin settle to satisfy their niche at the peak of their careers. But instead of forming this into yet another "popular" artist versus a more "underground" artist analogy, I've come to talk about 2007 and beyond.

After the triple team of tools hit their plateau and began their plummet, 2007 marks the year when Demetri and Patton's career skyrocketed into what they are today and left those predictable, overrated, un-funny, larcenists of laughs in the dust and forever forgotten.



What's my point? Well, other than his rhymes reminding me of Patton and Demetri's act mashed up into a ball of eclectic rhythmic poetry, Open Mike Eagle's 2011 record Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes, is the perfect example of inspired art being swept under the floor of an exhibit full of pop-art copycats and art school dropouts. But that's exactly why I dropped the left field stand-up comic analogy above. It takes time for people creating art far before their time to be absorbed and appreciated by the general public. I bet in the next few years, just like Patton and Demetri's were called upon and finally recognized, Open Mike Eagle will be called to replace the forgettable, more popular big mouths that stole from their style-fathers, rapped forgettable jokes, and fooled the world.

Or at least I hope.