2016 was a year to remember.
Ever since hosting college radio in 2000, I thought about new music through a perspective of my own top 10 charts. It's how I distinguished the new music I was listening to from the old. A few times I wrote blogs listing my top Hip Hop albums of the year and reported weekly to College Media Journal (CMJ). Some of it was based on promos the radio station received and most based on music I was checking for on my own. The last time I hosted a radio show was in 2008, a week before finishing school and moving on. The fun of being inundated with new music, listening to the unknown, rotating music live on air, and sharing my thoughts about music for eight years straight is how I continued to imagine music I accumulated post radio dayz. Its also what I wrote about from time to time on this blog under the #LHHSCharts and #HHbeAtz10 tags. In 2017, its time to let that go.
There is so much music out there. Every morning I turn the ignition in the ride and connect the auxiliary cord to listen to Southern Vangard radio, other podcasts, or a CD...or whenever I setup my iPOD for a run around the track or gym...Its a process free from my routine on radio to now as a casual listener. Especially when I discover music I want to replay a few times. It could be a record I pull from neglected crate...some mp3 files lost in folders disorganized after years of CD burns and downloads. I'm interested in being more patient with my music. More time to explore the details and remember the process I fell in love with before music and our access to it became an all-you-can-hear affair. Back to a time when I'd look through my father's record collection...to a point where a Weather Report album cover would came alive in my dreams.
I've conducted a lot of interviews with eMCees, beatmakers, writers, poets, and groups for radio and web. The same way I remember charting music is the same way I imagine questions I would ask today if I could. I'm a big fan of interview shows and podcasts and getting the chance to understand the interviewer and the kind of story they're trying to pull from the interviewee. I love that process and the preparation and research that goes into it. I'd like to find ways to channel that interest more and research what I'm listening to. Not just when something new comes out, but for any record at any given time. I look forward to using this blog to take time and document the stories of music, including some of my own. A process that's free from any sort of structure, time frame, and any order of charts, real or imagined...a process more conducive to someone who simply loves music.
With that said its time to close the book on #LHHSCharts. The collage of records above that pretty much defined my 2016 is the last of this idea of imagining top 10s inspired by the radio dayz...
Before the new year, I finally listened to A Tribe Called Quest's We Got it From Here, Thank You 4 Your Service. A line from Nate Denver off Grimm's American Hunger album came to mind..."there's no Tribe Called Quest if there is no Phife". I was only able to listen to the new ATCQ once wondering what it took to finally happen. It made me wonder if everything happened when it was suppose to or if we simply ran out of time at the dawn of a new era in this country. It made me wonder more about a Phife record than anything else and what he envisioned beyond the Ventilation LP...free from the anticipation and constant expectations of an ATCQ reunion that maybe was never meant to be in the first place.
Nobody hits on Hip Hop nostalgia and life to me like Junclassic. The ((Father's Day)) song he composed in 2016 to Wun Two's production had the emotion and power of a ((Dear Mama)) Pac track to me...to me it spoke for sons who grew up watching their fathers put in work and stand up to the insurmountable responsibility and resilience of doing their part to hold a family together through struggle, tragedy, set backs, and success. Better than Fiction Too is the kind of record that's gonna last my whole life which is how I've gotten to know Junclassic's music since day one. Better than Fiction Too is soul music with the poetic grit of of the Hip Hop we've come to love out of NYC since the beginning.
ScHoolBoy Q...The Blank Face LP is brilliant. Many of us that came up on Hip Hop in the early 90s in the Southwest were hit by that \/\/est Coast influence before anything else. For me it came by way of Ice Cube, Eazy E, NWA, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, DJ Quik, Warren G, Too Short, E-40, Rappin 4 Tay, MC Eiht/CMW, Cypress Hill and others. Much of it channeled through some of our favorite films, Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, etc. The mayhem of Pac's demise made me realize that the \/\/est went beyond what made it popular in the early 90s...the void of losing Pac introduced me to eMCees like Ras Kass, Hiero, Cali Agents, Paris, everything out of Stones Throw a few years later, Dilated Peoples, Sevin from Sacramento, and many more...through their sound I thought about styles differently and learned to appreciate the ground work of groups like Freestyle Fellowship, the Pharcyde, J5, Souls of Mischief and other eMCees/groups I never would've known about if I didn't search. I love thinking about what TDE records means in that context now and what they'll mean later. Especially since I'm more preoccupied enjoying TDE's music than trying to decipher the wordplay and beat production. The beats are an ill anomaly to me and makes me reflect back on Organized Noize production, the Dungeon Family, and ATLiens. I wonder about the magic of sampling listening to TDE...a scrapbook of what the \/\/est coast has experienced and what it has to offer today. Beyond the state of California, TDE makes me think about what Marc Spekt of Broady Champs said on a Southern Vangard interview session describing Hip Hop as fine art.
When I hosted radio and worked as program manager, I decided to do two things when it came to Soul music. One was set aside a slot specific to Soul music (shout out to Mz. Soulshine) and also bring everything together during my own slot...Soul, Hip Hop, Blues, Jazz, Funk, everything...whether released generations prior or present...only rule was that it go together real smooth and connect. I called my time slot The Representation Show/Soul Session and together it turned into 4 straight hours of all the music I could gather in time to go on air. Also the playlist always had to be unique, never duplicated. I also collaborated with fellow radio djs combining music slots and crashing concepts together for an unexpected marathon of anything we felt like rotating and talking about (shout out to the Moleman Rawk$hop). This year no record reminded me of the Soul Session days more than Maxwell's Black Summer's Night. Especially when I discovered Stuart Matthewman was involved with the sound. Its one of those records that I'll revisit often. A reconnection to everything I loved about Amel Larrieux rotations, Carl Thomas, D'Angelo, Sade, Dwele, Goapele, Alice Smith, and many other voices. Maxwell is one of a kind.
With The Greatest X by Reks, we're talking about the best Hip Hop record to drop in 2016, period. Its appropriately titled and reflective of all the unsung-blue-collar-hard-hat work that Boston eMCees like Reks have put into the game over the past many years. This record got anthems and is a collaborative case of organized rhyme. It goes beyond what you can burn on just one CD...a double disc respectively with enough weight to equal any three 2016 album releases combined. The Greatest X reflects the competitive lyricism with undeniable beat production that comes with having the right to stake claim to the crown. Beyond that its tied together with the storytelling of a for real eMCee....the King... Reks...the greatest unknown.
I'll wrap it up talking about four other records that made 2016 what it was for me. While Young Roddy's The Kenner Loop got me through the start of 2016, it was Isaiah Rashad's The Sun's Tirade that got me through a summer of decisions and time I needed to regroup. Masta Ace's The Falling Season is easily up there for one of 2016's best records and one of my favorite records of all time. Its what Masta Ace does...one of Hip Hop's greatest storytellers of Top 5 caliber rhyme... a music man of many scripts...his songs are definitely films in my imagination. J Cole's 4 Your Eyez Only is how I actually started 2017 but the track not included on the record ((False Prophets)) is how I made sense of the remaining weeks in December reflecting on 2016. It definitely gave me a chance to organize many faces, stories, and situations experienced throughout the year. I still need to reflect on what Cole's album means to me so I'll let time do its thing. As for the last album on the collage, I included a record I've written about already...Elzhi's Lead Poison. The last no. 1 album to grace the top of LHHS Charts.
With that said, here's to a new beginning of the Tape Decks blog. A new way of thinking of what I feel like writing about next when it comes to music. This is an end to the LHHS Charts and the HHbeAtz10 days and the beginning to responding to this simple question more often..."what are you listening to?"
Sincerely 2016,
Lee
p.s. This one is for the vinyl, CDs, digitals, & cassettes.
