Top 5 Alive 2023

Written By: Anthony Seaman

         The concept of being Top 5 Dead Or Alive has been around in rap since before anyone ever took the time to write it down as a hard list. Jadakiss claims ownership of the phrase, and it’s Jadakiss so why bother arguing even if he’s definitely not the actual first. This phrase has been the spark to hundreds of heated debates, where names of cemented first ballot Hall Of Famers are conjured (the classic 5 being Biggie, Pac, Jay, Nas, Rakim) rappers who defined culture in ways we tend to forget due to their omnipresence (Kanye, Drake, Wayne, Eminem, Snoop) regional Gods (Scarface, Ice Cube, Common, Busta Rhymes, Skepta) alien level wordsmiths (Lupe Fiasco, Andre 3000, Black Thought, Ghostface, Noname), underground forefathers (MF DOOM, Roc Marciano, Kool G Rap, Kool Keith, Aceyalone), innovators who turned their backs to the music industry or passed too soon (Big L, Big Pun, Lauryn Hill, Mos Def, Nipsey Hussle) once in a lifetime characters (Pimp C, ODB, E-40, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes), and new generation legends (J. Cole, Kendrick, Future, Nicki, Young Thug). There’s never any trophies given out to whoever is considered the Best Rapper Alive every year the way sports send Most Valuable Player awards to their brightest stars. This is an attempt to correct that. In art there are no winners and losers, but rap has toed the line between competitive sport and art more than any other format. The quest to out-wit and best an opponent goes back to the days of kids on street corners playing the dozens or breakdancing in front of crowds for approval. Hip-Hop at its core is about sharing the perspective of the auertor and DJ in unison while a crowd parties or nods on, and every calendar year 5 artists stick out as the most essential MC’s who complete that task. Some years there’s only 2 or 3 standouts, some years you can choose between 10 people. The core of this award comes to these categories;

Quality Of Rapping

• Are you expanding the playbook with flow, presence, lyricism, content, songwriting?

• Are you better than your peers?

• How often do we as listeners sit back in amazement, laughter, or appreciation at the level of rapping we’re listening to?

Quality Musical Output

• How good was the album / features / singles you officially released this year?

• Did you put out multiple quality projects or was it a mixed bag?

• Are we constantly going back to enjoy the work you created even months later?

Impact On The Genre

• What is the conversation within your sphere centered around, and how much of it is you as an artist?

• Did you break out of your sub-genres sphere into the greater zeitgeist or into multiple other realms?

• Are you equally or more popular than you were last year?

• When we look back at this year, who are the people that will stand out?

        Sales never come into play, what the MetaCritic average is for your last project is irrelevant. When you leave your house, check your timeline, kick it with friends, open YouTube, who do you want to hear? Who can you not avoid? Who is everyone trying to sound like? Who is everyone trying to be better than? Who is living up to their own shadow? Who will we look back on in 10 years and think about most? Being underground or mainstream is a minor note, but rather what waves did you cause in your scene? How does it compare to the other scenes within this sprawling ecosystem of hip-hop? There’s no pre-set requirements for the Top 5 like we’re the college football bowl games, it can be all underground, all international, all mainstream, all west coast, all auto-tune, all middle aged; but whoever is selected are the best of the best. Each of these artists has created masterful work, outshined their peers, become representatives of a time or a scene that they are champions of, or are just so omnipresent and openly praised in the hip-hop world that they can't be denied.

Veeze

Midwest (Detroit, MI)

First Top 5 Alive - 1st Midwest All-Star

Best Verses: “Not A Drill” Verse 2 - “GOMD” - “ATL Freestyle Pt. 1 & Pt. 2”

He’s the king of quotables, an elite beat selector, performs gripping hooks and punchline filled verses with a mumbled drawl, and even as a low energy performer he has the charm every slacker character in entertainment has ever had. Ganger (Deluxe) is a 26 song odyssey into classic tropes; groupie love, drugs, quality clothing and hi-fi descriptions of how much cooler he is than you. Every thought flows without a filter, shouting out legends of generations past, NBA role players, and his constant oscillation between cocky king and anxious. The balance between room rattling bangers and hyper intuitive bar crafting hasn’t been pulled off this seamlessly since The Notorious B.I.G. was huffing and puffing in and out of limos. Michigan street rap has bubbled to nuclear levels over the last 2 years. Pouring together scam rap and West Coast indebted drug dealer tales has turned Flint and Detroit into epicenters of style within the hip-hop industry. 42 Dugg, Babyface Ray, Icewater Vezzo, Sada Baby, Babytron and Tee Grizzley have become pillars, influencing or making fans out of the biggest mainstream stars (Yachty, Lil Baby, Future). Few have peaked public interest more than Veeze who's as funny off record as he is when the mic is live. He'll roast fits on Twitter, disassociate in a photoshoot, and keep the childlike goofiness that is typically buried away with layers of stuffy bravado.

Building upon an endless amount of Soundcloud loosies and features have set the bedrock for Veeze to build his own messy technicolor mansion atop. “Not A Drill”, “GAIG”, “Get Lucki”, “GOMD” and “Sexy Liar” all stack up next to whoever your favorite analog obsessed underground acts may be, while the hooks and beats outlast any mainstream contemporaries attempts to be innovative. Song structure is secondary, allowing his consciousness to be free over ethereal keys and time flattening percussion. Some songs are bookended with refrains, some are endless poems detailing life as someone who still can’t believe they’re famous. Ganger is curated as whole much like it's individual parts. It's a sprawling hard drive dump from the hundreds of hours spent in studios across the country the last 4 years that would sound more unfocused if the music slipped enough upon listening for you to care. A majority of the beatmakers are local stars or relatively unknown names (MitchGoneMad, Rocaine, Tye Beatz, Pat Swish) imprinting their names to the game outside of one major placement from Pooh Beatz (“What’s Poppin?” / “Suge”). Without super producers and allowing modern styles like NY Drill and Jersey Club to inject themselves in, it allows Veeze to expand from within. Bit by bit deepening the playbook of what Detroit rap can sound like. He’s created the kind of catalog that can only be successful today; so distinctly in conversation with the mainstream trends but proudly adverse to hooks and traditional “singles”. Like an episode of Seinfeld you lose focus for 2 minutes and you fine yourself in a whole new world scrambling to connect how we got here, most of the time with no reason to be found. Fresh life has overgrown from Detroit into the rap zeitgeist, with Veeze as the newest and brightest bud within the knotted vines.

Billy Woods

East Coast (New York City, NY)

3rd Top 5 Alive ('19, '22) - 9th East All-Star

Best Verses: “Soundcheck" Verse 1 - "Facetime" Verse 2 - "Living Curfew"

    At any given moment Billy Woods is going to rap at a higher level than any working rapper. Maps is the 2nd installment into his full length collabs with underground wizard Kenny Segal, and a Travel Channel ready anthology about the pro’s, cons and oddities of tour life and intercontinental travel in a post-pandemic world. We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, the newest release from his Armand Hammer outfit with Elucid harkens back to the swirling familial world building of Aquemini, but one that has Fantastic Damage and Vaudville Villian as North Stars instead of Parliament Funkadelic and A Tribe Called Quest. While most of the underground follows suit with the Griselda indebted neo-boom bap sound that is easy to replicate (one MAYBE two verses per song with no hook about clothes, drugs and “being the realest” and a simple drum break and loop combo) Woods has pushed the envelope far the other way. Anything Segal, JPEGMAFIA, August Fanon, El-P, DJ Haram provide (along with a sea of other collaborators) are from the farthest corners of their hard drives. Awkward time signatures, living sounds never looping, instruments from across the globe; nothing is off limits. His voice is brooding, and nearly every verse is a verbalization of impending doom from the perspective of someone who’s too aware to ignore what seems inevitable. Retiring from rap and becoming a writer of theological essays or Kafka style novels wouldn't surprise anyone, as his pen game stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the best in modern times. Even the comedic moments that slide in sound fit for a gallows stand up set rather than conversational wise cracks. Layering in singers or echoing war chants provides a depth that the gritty brutality the other side of the East Coast spectrum rarely provides. 

            Give him ethereal mood music, it becomes the canvas to appreciate disastrous smells and ethnic foods (“Agriculture”). Pass along glitching sci-fi scores, you’ll receive new couplets to live life by and poetic recollections of Larry David like situations (“Woke Up And Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die”). Sloppy late night jazz renditions lead to musings of a New York native's melancholy about the world that molded him changing before his eyes (“NYC Tapwater”). Aesop Rock, Noname, $ilkmoney, Danny Brown, Curly Castro, Earl Sweatshirt; take your pick. They’ve all paled next to Woods. Elucid is his only match on record, but with his own southpaw style anyone at any moment can be duped next to Elucid. To top it all off Woods’ Backwoodz Studioz imprint has also had an explosion of releases from Fatboi Sharif, Blockhead and Fielded, creating a ground zero for some of the most inventive hip-hop and rap adjacent music in America. Raising popularity, praise from his peers, quality albums, and a shock factor to every verse that leads one down a YouTube rabbit hole on African history or a visual essays about what happened to sour diesel weed have allowed Woods to become a star in today’s online inhabiting hip-hop, and an all time legend in the process. 

Danny Brown

Midwest (Detroit, MI)

2nd Top 5 Alive ('11) - 10th Midwest All-Star

Best Verses: “Ground Zero" - "Down Wit It" Verse 1 - "Orange Juice Jones" Verse 1

    After 15 years of being a professional rapper Danny Brown has pushed, destroyed and rebuilt expectations of what hip-hop should sound like 10 times over. He's been an underground institution, a proud representative of Detroit's rich musical history, and an artist constantly looking to find new highs in every sonic basin he can screech into. For years XXXX, a follow up to the breakthrough album XXX, had been teased as the next installment to the Danny Brown discography. Instead Scaring The Hoes and Quaranta keep the same format of his famed breakout, just in 2 different bodies. XXX showed the duality of Danny; one side of the album dedicated to the obnoxious drug fueled Tazmania devil zooming within, while the other was a grown ass man who is thoughtful and well aware of the struggles he and his cohorts survived. Scaring The Hoes found the chaotic half of himself diving full steam into the glitchy chasms of experimental genre fluid rap he helped create with Old and Atrocity Exhibition, but has excavated to new depths thanks to collaborator and unabashed fan JPEGMAFIA. The duo released Scaring The Hoes and an accompanying DLC Pack that saw JPEG's production at it's most ambitious, bringing the motor mouthed Danny into a zone he hadn't sniffed in nearly a decade. Diving back and forth with JPEG for 2 projects reminds us just how nimble Danny can be. Whether it's over blown out industrial drums or over-compressed R&B samples he's at home throwing his feet on the coffee table. The absurdity of his lyrics remains intact behind muffled vocal mixing making his already signature register a new instrument all together.

  On the flipside Quaranta is his most somber album. Kassa Overall, Quelle Chris, Skywlkr, and Kaelin Ellis headline the production team that strips back all the psychedelia JPEGMAFIA bathed him in. The beats at times only feature drums and some light ambiance letting the dark side of his accidental exile from rap pour out. Reignited struggles with addiction, the pandemic and a budding podcast had kept Brown busy since the 2019's uknowhatimsayin'?, but now sober he takes the time to recognize his slip ups and what he's learned along the way. He's loved, lost, looked inward, and for the first time seems so sick of what he's done that he might finally have reached a turning point. The album cover shows everything this album represents; the barren headshot of a man who has over his whole career used cartoons or heavily edited photographs as covers to create a Dionysian monster that sparsely showed any humanity. Thematically the shame and regret from his partying have always snuck into songs, but now there's nothing to hide them behind. Returning from solitude as just a guy who's been through the wringer rather than a pill popping sleep paralysis demon gives him the opportunity to master a new chamber. At 42 years old he's the head of Bruiser Brigade (ZelooperZ, Bruiser Wolf, J.U.S., Fat Ray, and Chip$), a label that he's carried the freak flag for for over a decade that in the last few years has created critical darlings who are just beginning to go farther than Danny ever could. The Danny Brown Show podcast exists at the nexus of stand up comedy, rap, and deep Internet culture and is a riot that platforms his sparkling charisma. At this point in his career he's rapping with friends, expanding a legacy that is already lauded in the eyes of fans, and is an unquestioned Hall Of Fame rapper. Now he's well becoming a well rounded entertainer and person, for what seems like the first time.

MIKE

East Coast (New York City, NY)

First Top 5 - 4th East Coast All-Star

Best Verses: “Sentry” - "Snake Charm" - "Thug Anthem"

           This one is a long time coming. MIKE has been the torch bearer for New York's haziest deconstructions of what rap music can be for nearly a decade and it all came to a head this year. Beware Of The Monkey was released late December of 2022 and was the bgeninnig of a 12 month tear featuring his solo album Burning Desire, a collaborative tape with Wiki and The Alchemist titled Faith Is A Rock, and an instrumental tape under his DJ Blackpower pseudonym Dr. Grabba. As an artist he's always toyed with analog fuzz, the static of old TV's and the disjointed chops of distorted samples creating new universes on each track. Reflecting the brain fog birthed of trauma and the coping mechanisms to tamper down said trauma was his specialty. After each release you were always left rooting for MIKE to find peace through his sorrows, and while the pitfalls always show up he's jumping over them with glee for the first time. He weak spot was always as a writer, with his nostalgia laden production and freefrom pockets doing the heavy lifting to keep one interested. Maturity and expansion into working with more battle tested rappers has forced growth in his writing to which he's not only competent but straight up witty in his wordplay. On "Bless" with 10k cohort Sideshow, MIKE dishes quick and tight body blows about self improvement, while on another Alchemist produced track, "Sentry",  he produces existential questions and loose thoughts in a speedy flow that perfectly counters Earl's slurred musings.
                 Only through a full body of work does MIKE truly spread his wings. Burning Desire (which may be his best album to date), is meant to quell short attention spans with 2 dozen short songs bursting at the edges with everything from the blown out tension of "African Sex Freak Fantasy", the speedy horn ensemble "98", and the sensual bounce of "Set The Mood". Don't look to closely into the labeled "concept" of the album (billed as a dark romantic horror) but rather lay out and enjoy the journey through the most accessible album in a catalog of challenging futuristic hip-hop. Stripped back from the ambition of Burning Desire is Faith Is A Rock, a one-v-one barfest with fellow Yankee representative Wiki. The duo have pefected thier chemistry over the years and leave space for the other to act as a yin to the others yang. Wiki is a more traditional lyricist, but MIKE takes every opportunity to one up or draw even with someone I previously saw as tiers above him as a spitter. This entire year could be a fluke where verses like "Real Hip Hop" and "Thug Anthem" live in a vacuum, letting MIKE return to being a discombobulated mumbler through the malaise. But more likely than not we're watching in real time someone grow into their final form, not just as a musician but a man ruling indie rap. In this time period the label he heads, 10k Global, also saw 16 new releases hit the world from himself, Sideshow, Jadasea, DJ Paradise, and Niontay among others with everyone gaining steam in their own careers. As his cohort pursue greatness in their own form, MIKE watches his popularity grow by proxy. Burning Desire saw his first entry into a chart of any kind peaking his head into the Apple Music charts upon its release. How the world accepts his art is something only time can tell, but at the trajectory he's going he'll be accepted and praised with open arms.

RXK Nephew

East Coast (Rochester, NY)

First Top 5 - 2nd East Coast All-Star

Best Verses: “Long Song" - "Yeezy Boots" - "Minute Made" Verse 1

            In 50 years when i’m a grandfather, when this website has been bought out by a BlackRock company or TikTok, and we all have to wear heat retardant suits to go outside and check the mail, I’m probably not going to have my grandbaby sitting on my knee telling him about much because I already have the memory of a goldfish at 26 years old. But deep down in the recesses of my brain will be the memory of me cry laughing in the middle of the night listening to “American Tterroristt” for the first time. 3 years ago when it came out RXK Nephew was still in my mind the Robin to RX Papi’s Batman, an idea that today could not be farther from the truth. From then to now everything that made “American Tterroristt” one of the single funniest and most exciting rap performances of the decade has been smoothed out into clear form. The unpredictable punchlines of a young Wayne, the extremely online nonsensical explorations of Lil B, the trap lord ruthlessness of Gucci Mane, the targeted battle rap mindset of Papoose and Joe Budden; it’s all there and entering new levels release by release. The last 12 months has seen 9 albums hit streamers, each one distinct from the other capturing boom bap, electro-fusion, traditional trap, whatever you consider the funky nostalgia of Harry Fraud, and plugg music to name a few.

The way his bars are crafted sound like scribblings of a madman. He can hyper analyze any situation down to the aglets on a pedestrian's shoes, or come up with jabs that seem fit for a middle school lunch table. The drunken piling onto a single target could go on for a couplet, or could go on for 5 minutes straight without a breath. You never know exactly what version of Neph you’re going to get day to day and in that he’s the perfect living totem for what 2023 rap has been. In a post-Drake world everyone can do every kind of sub-genre. You either become a chameleone to the world around you or you burrow deeper into yourself to create an irreplicable sound that white kids with a cracked FL Studio program in Europe will remaster in a way you couldn’t have imagined in 18 months tops. Somehow Neph has done both, a distinct punch in Pablo Juan-ish delivery that ranges from silky sweet talker to manic Mr. Hyde that can find a home in any beat. Love songs, drug abusing songs, party songs, serving family songs, fuck Kanye songs. Whatever the newest album is is a safe entry point into his catalog because no matter what the next 2 tapes to drop will make you think it’s a whole new man. Sometimes with these “best rapper” convos we look purly at bars (of which Neph has when he’s in the mood) but we’ll overlook how much fun someone is to listen to, how exciting and invigorating their style is. Carrying the Real RX torch from Papi as he dips in and out of jail forced Nephew to be a monster. The furvor in making music at such a high creative clip doesn’t even feel like something he’s in control of; a year like this only comes from an unfathomable ether. You can never harness it, but just lean into it when you’ve been chosen by it. If there’s anything Nephew has perfected this calendar year it’s letting loose and we’re all to be thankful for that.

The 50 Best Rap Albums: 2023 Pt. 3

  

Written By: The Linx Staff + Contributors

        The final level. The S Tier. The best of the best. These 15 albums aren't just some rappers career best work, but the records you can turn on at any point in the year, look around, and wonder what the fuck everyone else was doing beneath them. From the intro to the last moments of a closing track there are bodies of work listed here that can go toe-to-toe with albums from any era. Production that adds textures to the musical lexicon as a whole. Rapping that resets the fabric of what being a great writer looks like. What rap as a whole can look like. Skimming through this list you'll see first timers, all-timers, old timers, and guys redefining time itself.

AWAL

15. Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA - Scaring The Hoes

Collaborative albums are algorithmic cheat codes. They combine fanbases, interlock artists who already have enough respect for each other to make a full record, and when done right will force all parties involved into a new terrace of creativity. For years the two iconoclastic rappers have sung praises of the other, Danny being an inspiration to JPEG to get into music, and JPEG creating one of Danny’s favorite albums the last decade in All My My Heros Are Cornballs. With such high adoration of the other the two felt comfortable pushing the other to new heights. As a producer JPEG has never been more scatterbrained, turning anything he can find into percussion instruments while tactically sampling the peak moments of global pop tunes, gospel choirs and live street performers to build a soundscape Danny has never worked within. Hardcore EDM and psychedelic sample based beats have guided Danny to stardom, but never mashed together into a hearty digital gumbo quite like this. Even the vocal acrobatics they do with thier own flows add a new rhythmic element that instruments just can't seem to hit. Their vocals are buried into the mix and distorted to a hiss, which does their high pitched registers any favor in cutting through. Together the two unleash all of their frustrations at every rapper they’ve ever seen on their Youtube Recommended page; they’re all none writing, bad performing, wannabe fashionistas who couldn’t take either of the two in a street fight despite their shit talking ways (and the fact “yall let Jack Harlow sell yall chicken”). For two artists who exist in their own bubbles where nothing matters except the art, they together purge their hatred at everything that exists in the most enjoyable way possible. Being a hater never sounded so fun. - Anthony Seaman
Best Song: Lean Beef Patty
Best Beat: Kingdom Hearts Key

For Fans Of: Denzel Curry, Injury Reserve, BROCKHAMPTON
One Line: If r/hiphopheads was synthesized into an album (non-derogatory, for once).

Def Jam

14. Maxo - Even God Has A Sense Of Humor

Accordion runs, organs, windchimes, live drum breaks, every instrument that can tickle deep in your ear and sound good from 10,000 feet is used to build Maxo’s dreamlike kaleidoscope world. It’s one birthed from that raw soulfulness melding into the robotics of a modern studio; the kind where the line between home and recording booth could just be a single wire. The fingers of man pressing the triggers of the machine, forming a symbiotic universe where a heartbeat means as much as a WiFi connection. Bleeding out from his strained speaking voice or raspy whispers is the divinity of Georgia Anne Muldrow and the questioning of a long past philosopher from the mouth of LA’s newest soul seeker. In his own rap style, the traditional “bars” that rap heads value are erased and replaced with anecdotes and affirmations of a man who has felt too much, crying to the sky for peace instead of hollow calls for hands in the air. The LA Beat Scene was in many ways galactic jazz, smoked out hip-hop, and pioneering electronica mashing together into a collage of humanistic beauty, and Maxo is the chosen child carrying that torch on. Despite what the underground ancestors represented, his focus on relatability and baring one's soul overdies the unobtainable idea of technical perfection. The bars still weigh with you from listen to listen, but the release from near-gospel background vocals and instrumental breaks ease you back to a warmer zone. - Anthony Seaman

Read more about Maxo in our November edition of Another Link To The Chain here.
Best Song: Free!
Best Beat: Nuri
For Fans Of: Blu, Flying Lotus, Pink Siifu
One Line: Some Rap Songs with a bigger budget launched through a spiritual wormhole.

Young Stoner Life / 300

13. Gunna - A Gift & A Curse

A Gift & A Curse is a prime example of how good music can overcome adversity. On this project, Gunna used the creative spark again and harnessed it to address the trials and tribulations in his personal life along with his relationship with Young Thug and Lil Baby, all while being a household name involved in a highly publicized RICO case. Before an album was even announced to the public, he returned after ____ months locked up with the video for “Bread And Butter”, where he swiftly opened up about his relationships to industry associates and his part in the case as a whole. Wether they are targeted barbs or just him speaking the truth of the matter, lines like “We are not the same, they ain't in my lane, I got my own column, yeah / Peepin' shit, I'm seein' niggas fall back / You bitch-ass niggas got me as the topic of the chat” show a shocking disconnect from an Atlanta scene that gained power thanks to such a tight familial bond. This 15-song body of work hardly has any skips, and is a vibe all the way through. The superstar moments are at their most undeniable on “Back At It”, “Turned Your Back”, “I Was Just Thinking”, and song of the year contender, “Fukumean”. A Gift & a Curse is quite versatile, checking all the boxes any great album needs (personality, layered production, for the first time emotional transparency, all while tying it together with melodic choruses that have a life of their own). He managed to accomplish this without compromising what he’s known for; his patented “Wunna flow”, rapid slick verse delivery, and luxury trap beats.  - Tristen Swanson

Read more about Gunna and "Fukumean" in our Songs Of The Summer article here.

Best Song: Fukumean

Best Beat: Rodeo Dr

For Fans Of: Lil Keed, Hoodrich Pablo Juan, SahBabii
One Line: Mainstream Album Of The Year in the sense every one of these could find their way into drive-time radio rotation, a RapCaviar playlist, while sounding like the best version of everything pop rap stands for.

Fat Possum

12. Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips

Got to the busiest section of your local downtown area and find a bench. Sit there on any weekday morning, keep a few snacks on deck. Don’t just watch, but observe the world as it passes along. Absorb the how every boring piece of minutia that fills our space works in concert with each other. Your phone will vibrate and try to deceive you away from your task as it was meticulously designed to do, but stay true to the mission. You’ll notice the stress painted on your fellow man's face as they bustle between office buildings with a Christmas wish list for their kids on their mind as they FaceTime their mistress. The thousand yard stare that bellows out from the sunken eyes of the woman balancing a cardboard sign on the feet of her wheelchair, hoping for enough dollars to buy a bagel and an oxy. The plumes of diesel fuel from beer trucks cloud the windshields of a new fleet of eco-friendly buses with law office phone numbers plastered on the side looking to fund their founders next vacation to Turks. The sun will reflect off the metal street signs, the birds will shit on your shoulder, and the billboard above you promoting the newest $100,000,000 blockbuster will soon be swapped out for another while the wheelchair woman nods off in its shadow. We Buy Diabetic Test Strips is an album of these realizations stacked on top of each other like a Twitter feed of dystopian proportions (which may be a tautology but who’s to say). ELUCID and billy woods have captured the starkness of everyday living like documentarians on site to the fall of Rome. Any gravity the statements they make about fame, global warming or blackness is simply outweighed by whatever the following bar is. They take turns seething about the desolate nature of what our world has become. It’s an unforgiving basket of doom, orchestrated with more moving parts than the Super Bowl. Also like the advertisers biggest night of the year, it's two of the best at what they do at war with one another, while the diligent glitz and glamor surrounding it takes away from the raw human brutality that it all is built upon. - Anthony Seaman

Best Song: The Gods Might Be Crazy

Best Beat: Woke Up And Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die

For Fans Of: Canibal Ox, Aquemini, Aesop Rock

One Line: Buhloone Mindstate for people on mood stabilizers.

Freedom Sounds / Def Jam

11. Navy Blue - Ways Of Knowing

After years of depression, anxiety, heartbreak and loss a crossroads will arise; to keep going or to end the story. To end the story is to be free of hurt, but instead forever hurting those left around you. To keep going is a chance at joys you’ve never felt possible. Though the fantastic 2020 album Navy’s Reprise was a loose sunny Saturday playlist that tapped into that purity, it was one that had made the choice to keep going and was living just to keep the good vibes up. Along 13 songs there’s a focused brightness in the eyes for the first time in the model-skateboarder turned generational producer with a growing skillset as a songwriter writer. Ways Of Knowing isn’t only coming from a space of newfound bliss, but awareness of it all. There’s affirmations and reminders across the record of that dark place being just a few slip ups away, but also a reassurance that there’s a system of love (whether it be familial, from self, or from God) in place to keep the ship steady. LA beat-scene veteran Budgie tugs Navy out of his own lo-fi universe into one of gospel harmonies and tear jerking piano flips that brings a clarity never before heard in his music. Full fleshed out SONGS with hooks, sonic progressions, an incorporation of background singers (and his own budding songbird vocals) bring a fulfillment one searches the corners of Spotify’s digital record collections to discover.  - Anthony Seaman

Best Song: Life's Terms

Best Beat: Chosen

For Fans Of: Medhane, MIKE, Mavi

One Line: What Ye thought he was doing with all those Sunday Service performances.

New Breed Trapper

10. RXKNephew - 'Til I'm Dead

It’s disingenuous to boil down the year RXKNephew had to a lone album. The Rochester rapper has been on a grind the last few years putting out hundreds of songs between his dozens of tapes and loosies on Youtube, and the closest one can find to a cushy entry point is 'Til I’m Dead. Sliding down his Apple Music page you’ll see the electro soaked 'Til I’m Dead came out at the top of the year capturing the most carefree and upbeat attributes he holds focused into making some of the most popular songs in his catalog (“Critical”, “1000MPH”). To be a fan of RXKNephew is to be a fan of the battle rap mentality; find a target, embarrass the target, move to the next one. Supervillain, sniper, crack dealer, the man who taught Bobby Brown how to dance, alcoholic; he’s going to tell you he’s everything and sell it like it’s the truth so well you question if everything you've ever heard before was a lie. Trying to contain such a chaotic force of nature like Neph is not for the weak hearted, but trust Rx crew producer Rx Brainstorm knows exactly what he needs: simple hi speed drums and shifting chords that drop in melodies to counter Neph’s charging voice. It’s a hyper detailed affair where you can hear vocal pads whisper deep in the mix like a ghost choir singing along with their Hell raising leader. Flashes of jungle and drum-n-bass breaks make their way into the fold pushing Neph out of his usual diet of sample loops and more bleak versions of mainstream trap beats. If he isn’t attacking the character of unnamed opps or attempting to keep his alter ego Slitherman at bay he can be found bouncing off the walls changing his voice into a barrage of other side identities. After so many hours alone (whether it be in studio, jail, or on street corners) it’s clear Neph has lost his mind, channeling it into an even more deranged Gucci Mane-esk run. - Anthony Seaman
Best Song: Critical
Best Beat: On My Mind / Pork N Beans
For Fans Of: Kool Kieth, Gucci Mane, mixtape Lil Wayne
One Line: If RXKNephew is Charmander, Gucci Mane is Charmeleon, Lil Wayne is cast as Charizard and Lil B is Shiny Charizard.

Ice Cold Entertainment / Epic

9. ICECOLDBISHOP - Generational Curse

Chaos is an unquestioned piece of the best West Coast releases ever made. The overlapping storylines within a house party, escaping or causing drive by’s, rule breaking feats of the human language, or 24-hour documentaries through the lives of those seen as America’s most dangerous never are consistent. The consistency is the inconsistency. There’s always time to party, to laugh, cry, scream to the heavens. Bass lines pulse, samples screech, drums go a mile a millisecond or a mile an hour. ICECOLDBISHOP may be the best at harnessing this chaos compared to any rapper the West Coast has ever produced. He gives classic tales of hard drug use and gun violence, but reframes it not as stories of pure violence, but before and after tales. A point is made to show that everything in his neighborhood is a time bomb that began ticking before he was even born, and how new ones are carelessly made and forgotten. Vocally he’s a virtuoso, shifting between registers while moving sideways through beats on some 4D chess shit. Mixing together a skillset that few in rap today can harness along with a more detailed perspective on a world that feels familiar, ICECOLDBISHOP creates a full fledged IMAX movie on wax like only a handful before him ever have. - Anthony Seaman

Read more about Generational Curse from our Modern Review here.
Best Song: Focused
Best Beat: Out The Window
For Fans Of: Westside Boogie, Mick Jenkins, Blank Face LP era ScHoolboy Q
One Line: Kendrick Lamar has sons out here and they’re all so damn good.

Generation Now / Atlantic

8. Jack Harlow - Jackman.

The trope of “getting to the top and feeling empty” is a tale as old as the quest for stardom itself, one not even Jack Harlow (checking off the boxes of international ladies man, actor, chart topping rapper, brand ambassador from near obscurity in under 3 years time) can escape. After a muddled reception to Come Home The Kids Miss You, he opted to slow down his traveling and move back home to Louisville. This lifestyle shift brought depth back into his writing that had only been saved for his Drake-esk vignettes into being a sex symbol to everyone with a finsta. The slower life where he spends weekends playing in local soccer leagues and kicking it with high school friends proved to be the injection into his already solid hit making that his career was begging for. It's been a steroid injection to his maturation from boy to man as you see his content base expand from the rigamarole of teen toils (girls, money, and partying) to observations of white privilege (“Common Ground”) coming to grips with complicated family dynamics (“Blame On Me”) and to what extent do friendships go when heinous acts are done by childhood pals (“Gang Gang Gang”). It’s a 24-minute headrush indebted to emotional early 10’s mixtapes (cc: Friday Night Lights and the S.O.U.L. Tape series). Whether this is a one off gift from a rap nerd with illusions of grandeur before returning to the pop-rap consortium or a promise to keep the newfound spirit alive, it adds new depth to someone vying to be the great that no one in his class has truly made an effort to do. - Anthony Seaman

Best Song: Blame On Me

Best Beat: Is That Ight?

For Fans Of: J. Cole, Little Brother, early Kanye West

One Line: The classic “Back to my hip-hop roots” / “Trust me guys I can really rap” project done right.

10k

7. MIKE - Burning Desire

Explaining the kind of rap music MIKE makes is always going to be reductive compared to just playing the albums top down on a day when sitting on the porch with headphones is top of the to-do list. Shining a light on MIKE isn’t telling everyone how great he is, because no words can ever capture the overwhelming humanity that explodes from every syllable in his rhyme book. With every MIDI trigger sound is cut up, blown out, and recontextualized into an evocative galaxy that just makes you feel something new for the first time. Every album since 2019’s Tears Of Joy feels accomplished in one main idea. Tears is a concentrated perfection of the boundless fuzz that his earlier catalog of beta tests was building towards. Weight Of The World saw his vocals become the star of the show. Disco! saw song structure enter his process, creating his catchiest records to date. Beware Of The Monkey was the sun finally breaking through into a universe built upon self-medication and the parsings of pain. Faith Is A Rock holds the best bar for bar rapping of his life. Now Burning Desire exists in the form of a contemporary rap opus, but with disjointed experience as the crux. In real life you're dashing from store to work to home, skimming through apps and text threads by the minute. There's a melding of life through his lyrics and scrambled digital realms through production. Right as you’re lulled into smooth seas, a crack of lightning reignites your mind and forces a shift in direction. From the high seas to the faithful shores the calmness of a man prepared for everything always permeates out of our trusted captain. These invigorating turns from blown out electro jams (“African Sex Freak Fantasy”) to ethereal orchestral soul interludes (“should be!”) back to his established style (“Dambe”) bring an element of surprise that makes every run through a rollercoaster into the mind of the best MC/producer hybrid working today.  - Anthony Seaman

Best Song: Set The Mood
Best Beat: U Think Maybe?

For Fans Of: AKAI SOLO, Quelle Chris, Cities Aviv
One Line: Floating in and out of sleep on your grandma's couch while cartoons and old movies play on the TV.

Backwoodz Studioz

6. Billy Woods & Kenny Segal - Maps

Woods has the superpower of being able to take any situation win, loss, draw or otherwise and point out the worst within it. A perennial nihilist coming to career highs during a global pandemic is just too perfect a coincidence, and since the world has reopened not much has changed in his lyrics. The world is still burning, you’re still under surveillance, and there’s just something a little off with the water, but everyone just got too busy again stare at the truth all day. His own return to the life of a touring musician has brought unbridled awkward encounters and unfortunate circumstances into the hardened veterans daily life. Sketchy bus patrons, the struggles of soundcheck, and expensive Uber rides are the reality of someone without a major label checkbook to grease the wheels of lifes travels. Like most tours a barrage of guests and old pals cross paths from City A to City Z, this time with underground stars Quelle Chris, ShrapKnel, ELUCID and Danny Brown joining the pity party. The ringleader to the entire circus is Kenny Segal, who provided the soundscapes for billy’s sludge ridden affair Hiding Places back in 2020. Where the beats on Hiding Places were lumbering ghouls peeking from the forest at night, Maps takes on a less overcast scenery. “Year Zero” still sounds like the peak of destruction in a Godzilla movie, but “Babylon By Bus” and “Facetime” hold the innocent spark of a more freeing, jazz sprinkled world. With a deeper bag of references than any rapper alive (this album shows him shouting out Playboi Carti concert goers, Jamaican oranges, LL's Walking With A Panther, flying carpets and Rubik’s cubes) every bar is a mystery on how it’ll end. The unpredictable writing paired with Kennys incalculable instrumental flairs converge in a similar no man's land that only they can properly conquer. - Anthony Seaman
Best Song: Soundcheck
Best Beat: NYC Tapwater
For Fans Of: MF DOOM, R.A.P. Ferreira, Open Mike Eagle
One Line: Nightmare version of Call Me If You Get Lost.

ALC Records / Freeminded Records / EMPIRE

5. Larry June & The Alchemist - The Great Escape

Being a rapper isn’t good enough for Larry June, but not in the dismissive way that artists looking to springboard into acting or cheap clout fame go about it, but rather you can hear he’s made for doing something bigger. Even within his monotone drone there’s more real personality to him than in many rappers working today; guys like Larry have floated around you your whole life. Always the calmest in the room, reserved to the point of near mystery, but never intimidated past having a fulfilling conversation. In the same breath he’ll give you a heads up on where to find the best green juices in the city, he’ll flex about his real estate meetings with a small town guy named LeBron James. It’s never to demean or stunt on you, but rather build this never ending lore about him. The Marathon that Nipsey Hussle preached is the path June is striding down, setting himself up for true American living rather than survival, sprinkling tips to anyone along the way keen enough to listen. Cardo, Harry Fraud, and Sean House have been the interior designers to the musical mansions he’s roamed and described in Rick Ross-esk detail, but for what is arguably the apex of his catalog he taps into The Alchemist and his never ending hard drive of beats (and marking the return of Alchemist the MC for the first time since 2019's "Arnold & Danny"). As an admitted Alc super fan there’s been 3 loose phases of his career. Stage 1 ranges from his Cypress Hill days up until around 2010-2011, Stage 2 is birthed from Covert Coup flowing through the mixtape run up until around 2016, while Stage 3 eases in around 2017 with the Fantasy Island EP and Good Book Vol. 2 and exist up until today characterized by more loop based, lighter drums, very subtle live instrument flourishes, closer to creating West Coast jazz compositions. That Stage 3 misty jazz sound works wonders for Larry, allowing the power of his motivational speaker tone to fill out a theater with an exquisite ensemble of sounds framing him. - Anthony Seaman
Best Song: 60 Days
Best Beat: Palisades, CA
For Fans Of: LNDN DRGS, Dom Kennedy, 8Ball & MJG
One Line: The physical version should probably come in a salt water and lemon grass scratch and sniff case or an Italian leather CD booklet.

OVO Sound / Republic

4. Drake - For All The Dogs: Scary Hours Edition

Drake is who he is at this point in life. The biggest rapper in the world, one of the most popular artists of all time, and someone who despite it all is just as frustrated with dating as everyone else is. A core aspect of being a rapper is having someone to rally against and pick apart piece by piece. Some take to political structures, some other rappers, and for Drake it’s the women in his life first and foremost; and that’s when he’s at his absolute best. “Bahamas Promises”, “Slime You Out”, and “Tried Our Best” are scorned R&B tracks that top his discography. “Drew A Picasso” and “Polar Opposites” are rehashings of where things went wrong and how it could just never be his fault. Even playing upon the more bouncy trap sound from Her Loss with "What Would Pluto Do" and "Another Late Night" he's taken the flows and tones that previously fit like oversized hand me downs and tapered them into form. As per every album from someone with market share monopolizing on his mind there are failed attempts to take on new sounds (there is no universe where singing in Spanish or rapping next to Yeat make sense and now we have proof of concept) which garnered enough critique for a deluxe edition of the most aggravated rapping in nearly a decade to spill out and be tacked on to an already great project. Ovrkst., Alchemist, and Boi-1da are highlights in the production credits of the Scary Hours bonus pack, bringing an aged soulfulness to an already spiteful tear. “Evil Ways” is a clash of titans over a decade in waiting and “The Shoe Fits” is a 6 minute exposé into the unspoken aspects of being a woman hopping from one famous lover to another. To say Drake improved as a writer is dismissive to the highlights that existed all along, but for the first time making every playlist seemed to take a backseat to dumping out the best overall songs he has in his stash. - Anthony Seaman

Read more about Drake and For All The Dogs from our October edition of Rapper Of The Month here.

Best Song: Drew A Picasso

Best Beat: The Shoe Fits

For Fans Of: Joe Budden, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Freddie Gibbs

One Line: The angriest and most focused rap album from Drake since IYRTITL.

NONAME Inc. / AWAL

3. Noname - Sundial

Bar for bar there is no better rapper at any given moment than Noname. Standing toe to toe with Common, Billy Woods and Jay Electronica she’s finally found her tribe, but is never washed away by them in the style she has done to so many others the last 10 years. At any moment you can be buried under metaphors, eye popping meter breaks and the unbearable truth of the turmoil needed to create the world we reside in. On her 3rd album, long rumored to be named Factory Baby now known as Sundial, there’s an angst to her usual hushed slam poetry style delivery that adds an acidic sting to every jab at capitalist entities and failing social constructs. At large the album aims to call out hypocrisies in American values as well as her own failures to practice what she preaches. Knowing the weaknesses in your own armor and making it known before anyone else can say it is a unique turn in a genre that is built upon blind bravado even in moments of emotional vulnerability. Does it make her untouchable? No, but the 8 Mile technique of weaponizing her own perceived image allows her points to breath longer uninterrupted, and lets the points she's making become the focal point rather than any attacking of the messenger. There’s always been a battle of pretension that exists in the aesthetic and Twitter feeds of Noname, but never the music itself. The arrogance of a liberal arts student exists in her public presentation, but on record she’s as charismatic and thoughtful as anyone holding her type of talent. The way she critiques Rihanna, white rap fans and lovers expectations is the same way she looks at herself; an idol that should never have been held as such, but rather a person who can be very right in one field while slipping in another. Her rhapsodic verses are soundtracked by a darker free jazz sound that pairs closer to a paranoid Low End Theory than her previous pastel tinted catalog. After every album it’s clear her time away has been spent adding to her already abundant toolbelt, which when paired with a deep understanding of the history and theory that her morality is built upon creates a force of nature in the rap world comparable only to comets in the sky. - Anthony Seaman
Best Song: Beauty Supply
Best Beat: Black Mirror

For Fans Of: Bahamadia, Common, Kendrick Lamar
One Line: The Lauryn Hill rap album y’all always wanted.

Tan Cressida / ALC Records / Warner / Gala Music

2. Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist - VOIR DIRE (Full Version)

Hearing Earl rap consistently was a dream that seemed unfathomable 5 years ago. To make a full traditional verse-hook-verse-hook rap song seemed to be a chore. In 2023 it still is for him and most of the general music making universe, but what has come from it is a more pure presentation of ideas that pop music form really was never meant to do. The underground spans from the Griselda-verse, into whatever you call xaviersobased, and somewhere in between lies Certified Trapper doing something no one outside of his area code can do just right (sorry Babytron). Earl played around with every exciting sub-scene that the underbelly of hip-hop music holds, absorbing cadences like Kirby, writing his poetic revelations right to papyrus. Alchemist and Earl have toyed with fans for years about a full project existing. After Youtube witch hunts came up fruitless and low-res festival performances of unreleased collab cuts circled the internet, a botched NFT style release was the "groundbreaking" structure they saw fit. Now to the chagrin of the general population (who has no concept of a .zip file), two different tracklistings exist and require an at home fix. It's an old school scavenger hunt with riddles and big X marking the spot that produces one of the best bodies of work either have ever laid their fingers on. The half mumbled but always clear delivery of a man smoked out of his mind mixed with production so airy it gives you the feeling of floating within a deprivation tank makes the journey to completion make more sense. This is the sacred room of an oracle and a wizard joining forces to bring calm during an avalanche. A focus on brevity makes every line hit like a cold brick to the head, where even simple lines can be carried as affirmations through the waves of life. All together the 14 songs synthesize that rush of water hitting your back in the shower after a joint and a full meal; rethinking the world, the sadness of losing friends, and appreciating a mothers love, all the while knowing things will be OK. - Anthony Seaman

Read more about Earl Sweatshirt and VOIR DIRE from our September edition of Rapper Of The Month here.
Best Song: 27 Braids
Best Beat: My Brother, The Wind

For Fans Of: Madlib, Denmark Vessey, Roc Marciano
One Line: An abbreviated version of Mos Def’s The Ecstatic.

Navy Wavy / Warner

1. Veeze - Ganger (Deluxe)

From the second the distorted drums and digital horns flopped through my headphones, chills ran from my calves to my ears. Veeze’s name popped up on my timeline sparingly by the best tastemakers in rap today, his praises sung in shushes like he was the boogieman. Yet so glowing you’d think he was God himself. His unholy adoration of pills, beautiful women who can't be trusted, and limited edition clothing make him seem as trivial as the next guy with access to a studio and a batch of “Surf Gang type beats”, but he’s anything but that. Rapping in run on sentences with nuanced slurs and a lower energy bar than Tyrese Halliburton on defense, Veeze patches together verses as a collage artist first and foremost. Punch ins and punchlines are his core values as a rapper, each essential textures within the Detroit scene that birthed him, just never at this high a level for a full LP. The oddball humor of Cam’ron, the Zack Lowe level NBA nerdom, the Young Dro-esk descriptions of his lean, the high level shit talking of a durag dawning Jay-Z, the masterful pocket punching of Lil Uzi Vert. It's a seismic shift in style from the top stars that have ran hip-hop for 10 years. There's almost no purposeful hooks. The only real concept to be found in 80% the songs is either how cool he is today or how cool he's always been. It's less an album and more a data dump from a deranged mans hard drive. As a listener we always hear about the good ole days from our favorite artists 10-20 years after the fact on a stiff podcast when they finally have the ability to look back and process the insanity of their run. Veeze is documenting that rise in real time. There’s nothing he can’t do, and he’s doing it on lush twitchy beats that sound like the sound Helluva and Payroll Giovanni built was reimagined with plugg producers. It was album of the year before the deluxe version even dropped, but once songs like “Luv The Tour” and “Get Lucki” were added doubling down on the best parts of the original album, it was a lock for the #1 spot. - Anthony Seaman

Best Song: Not A Drill
Best Beat: Get Lucki

For Fans Of: Babyface Ray, Lil Baby, Luh Tyler
One Line: Detroit’s Supreme Clientele.

Check out our all encompassing, probably way too long, Best Of 2023 Playlist on Spotify.