2010 was solid across the board in what it offered hip hop fans. There was the emergence of future stars and pure talents in J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, and Curren$y amongst others; as well as the old heads claiming true to their spot and releasing top quality work. I was enthralled by what came through this year.
This post was gonna start as a retrospective but fuck that everyone is doing that, I could talk at length about GOOD Fridays and how its made an indelible mark on hip hop merging old and new traditions, My Dark Twisted Fantasy, 50 Cent’s menacing of Twitter and the internet at large, Cudi loosing his shit again on stage (but still releasing an outstanding album), Eminem’s phoenix like return, or 9th Wonder’s chokehold on underground hip hop, but instead, here are videos to a few of my favorite songs by a small piece of the young hip hop artists that are breaking on the scene.
As we collectively wait for an absurdly expensive glowing ball to hit the ground, we are faced with a great unknown about the days ahead. We call family, we call friends, we make preposterous statements called ‘Resolutions’, and then proceed to do the same thing we always do: get hammered on our intoxicant of choice.
I for one am no different. I both enjoy and loathe the cycle that begins and, to be perfectly honest persists through, a new year. I call family, I call friends, and I drink, etc, the order being the only variable (Mom I apologize for 2005).
This is a New Years pattern we’ve all grown accustomed to, and is no different in music, especially Hip Hop. We go through the paces. Each year in recent history there is the call that there are no fresh artists, no fresh ideas, no lyricists, and of course the ubiquitous HIP HOP IS DEAD.
I’m still figuring out how I feel about Mr. Hudson. At one point he has the talent and of course the backing *ahem* Kanye. At another point even with Kanye West’s backing, he seems to fall into a sort of pop lounge singer, which can either crush his growth or provide him with a solid niche as a jumping off point into his future.
