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Best of 2023 · Hip-Hop Now Podcast

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  Coming up on this week's episode of hip Hop Now podcast, it's our best
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  hip hop albums of twenty twenty three. Let's do it. Welcome to jip
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  Hop Now, potatast. If you from the future, you know what to
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  do. Get your ass out of my back life. Don't disrespect the leg
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  lack hip hop is say this day, escat right into the business. What
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  up, y'all? I am your host, Vegas and this it's hip Hop
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  Now podcasting podcast specifically designed to keep you caught up on all things hip hop
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  music and culture that happened throughout the week, but this time that happened throughout
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  the year. Big shout out first and foremost to those that have supported this
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  podcast over at Patreon dot com SA hip Hop Now. You can click the
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  link in the description. But if you can't help in that way, here's
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  a way you can help. We're trying to get to five hundred followers or
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  subscribers on YouTube. Hip Hop Now podcast made the jump to YouTube and video
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  form in twenty twenty three, slowly building an audience that is hip hop heads
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  that are like the conversation, that want to get caught up in news,
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  check out specials, and all that good stuff. So what I need you
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  to do is, if you're watching this and you haven't subscribed, you should
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  subscribe, and you should tell your friends who dig it too, because I
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  put on a goddamn Santa hat just for y'all. If you listen to an
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  audio form, you might want to check this episode out. I really kind
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  of did it up with Christmas lights and things in the background that feel like
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  Christmas to me as a hip hop ed hoodie Vegas in the building. But
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  welcome. Fifty years of hip hop. Twenty twenty three was fifty years of
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  hip hop, and I must say, as a person who does a best
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  of the year every year, it was a little light. It was a
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  little light for like fifty years of hip hop. There was a lot of
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  albums that I thought were gonna drop that haven't, and I hope they don't
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  drop after this video because guess what, you're not being considered. But just
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  real, you know, we'll talk about that in another episode. You know,
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  the preview of twenty twenty four about those albums that should have dropped,
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  was going to drop, could have dropped, but did not drop, And
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  let's talk about those that did now. Just to summarize twenty twenty three musically
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  for hip hop was a very interesting year, a kind of an uneven year.
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  The last couple of years, it's been very easy to have a top
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  five well before we even get to the halfway point of the year, because
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  it was just so much dope music that was being released this year. It
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  was kind of scattered. We got some joints early, then we got some
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  stuff in the summer, and you know, it was easy for me to
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  narrow down my top five. Past years, it was always difficult trying to
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  narrow down, like, you know, what are the best? So let
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  me tell you what I did this year. I've been telling people who watch
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  this podcast leading up to this, but I'm gonna say it again for those
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  who may be new here. We are not doing a like a whole random
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  list of the best of like I used to write, just album after album
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  after the album after album. So what I did this time is they're gonna
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  be ten albums that I thought were great this year, right, and then
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  they're top five. That was literally heavy rotation for me for one or another
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  reason. So the top ten I'm gonna run through as a list so you
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  can, you know, check joints out right taking notes. You know,
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  if you haven't heard any of them in the top five, I will expound
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  upon why they were in my top five. Get it, get ready to
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  go? All right, let's do it same. So here's the top ten
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  runner ups, if you will, dope albums rotation throughout the year for me
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  kind of had an impact or did something of note album wise that you know,
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  I felt like, yo, if I had to pick ten, these
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  would be them. Well, hold up, do I have ten? Hold
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  on? No, they ain't four or five? Six, ain't okay?
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  Cool? Because you know, I was going back and forth. This list
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  came down to the final hour. This is by no means a ten that
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  says they weren't other albums that were good. This was what rose to the
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  top for me. So in no order, here we go. Jpeg Mafia
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  and Danny Brown, Scaring the Holes, Nas Magic three, Static Selector,
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  Round Trip, Elzi and Oh No Vibrato. I think that's how you said,
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  Skazu and the other guys, The Mind of a Saint, Asad Rock,
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  Integrated Tech Solutions, Lloyd Banks, Halloween, Havoc four, The seventy
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  Second Hour, Mick Jenkins, The Patients, Apollo Brown, and Planet Asia,
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  Sardines and Ransom and Nicholas Craven directors Scenes two. Those are ten albums
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  that you just cannot go wrong with for one reason or another. Whether you
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  want bars, whether you want originality, whether you want something different, whether
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  you want traditional hip hop, scratches in it, old new thought, provoking.
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  It's all there, man, It's all there for you to absorb.
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  But we are here to talk about the top five, and the top five
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  are for me, not only the best projects of the year for me,
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  but for different reasons, varied reasons. I have a very palette when it
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  comes to hip hop, right. Some people just want to hear boom back
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  bars and beats in that sin. Some people want to hear something conscious,
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  some people want to hear you know, non boom back right, like just
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  varied flows, varied styles. And some people want to hear complete projects.
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  Right. When I say complete projects, I mean the concept is there within
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  the music, within the songs, with how the songs come together, the
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  artwork, everything, you know, complete package. I'm the type of person
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  throughout the year and my heavy rotation, it tends to be a variety.
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  You can go back to all my top fives of the past couple of years,
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  and my top five is always a variety because it reflects my taste,
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  just like your top five would reflect your taste. So let's get right into
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  it with no name. Conway the Machine, won't he do it? This
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  is a very interesting one to make my top five because I wasn't a big
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  fan of it when it dropped, not because Conway has lost a step lyrically
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  or that I felt like the beats were poor, but just because I felt
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  like he had dropped an album that was a collection of songs when he has
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  proven in the past where with past projects, that he can go a little
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  deeper than that. But when I tell you, I kept going back to
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  this album, when I tell you, the bar work is the reason why
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  you listen to something like this, And let me just say the variety within
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  the tracks doesn't bother me now. Previously towards I felt like it started strong
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  and then it got a little weak at the end because it was so many
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  different looks and styles. But over time, man, what's good on here
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  is so good that it makes you want to listen to it, And maybe
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  it's a byproduct of just not having enough really like World Smashing albums drop where
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  this made my top five when I initially was like, yeah, it's cool.
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  Well now it's in my top five, and I think it's in large
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  part due to the lyrical work of Conway to machine, this dude is just
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  dope. He's entering for me, He's entering push your Tea phase right where
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  Push your Tea can talk about cocaine in so many different ways that you think
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  you would get tired of hearing them talk about it, but you never do,
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  because it's not just the wordplay, but it's the execution of that,
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  right, It's how those words come together, the inflection in his voice.
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  Right. So it's the same thing with Conway, right, It's always sounds
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  like he means what he's saying, and that's kind of like half the battle
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  to get you to buy in as a as a listener, you know what
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  I mean. But what I found is listening to this album, man,
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  I just you know, I had that initial three listens I gave my review,
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  went back, We're back again, We're back again. And while I
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  here, I am just putting it in my top five, feeling kind of
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  weird because I didn't think it would be here, but it is. So
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  shout out to Conway the machine next Mickey Diamond. Nobody bleeds like Flair.
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  I don't care if I'm the only dude who likes this project this much.
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  Yes, he dropped a couple of joints this year, but this is the
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  one that stood out for me from day one. Let's just talk production,
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  the production, the skits, not necessarily skits, but the sound bites from
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  Rick Flair, from films. They're all so well placed. You you know
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  you hype when you got a clack, they're well placed right when you you
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  know, like you're you're locked in from day one, right from the minute
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  you press play. That's what it was for me. Mickey Diamond is an
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  MC where I don't feel like I was blown away by his bars, but
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  that's just the thing. His voice, his style of rapping, what he
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  had to say fit the aesthetic of