Top 10 Albums of the Year | 2022 Rap-Up

2022 what a year. No doubt, we've had some mid projects this year, but also some incredible bodies of work on both a creative and lyrical front. This has been by far the hardest ranking that I have done, and it went all the way down to the wire with some injury-time album drops from a couple MC's. As well as listing my top 10 albums of the year, at the bottom I've looked at a few other categories as I did last year, such as best feature verse, best artwork and so on... So, without further ado...

10) Loyle Carner - Hugo

A cracking start to the list with Loyle Carner's 3'rd album sneaking a spot at number 10. A brilliant album full of heartfelt messages being delivered via relentless flows and smart lyricism. His bars were sharp but the feeling of the album was soft and comfortable. There is a dourness to this album in many of the songs such as A Lasting Place, as well as strong, important, conscious moments, for example the track Blood On My Nikes. I said at the time that maybe Loyle needs to perhaps take more risks with his style and sound, but overall, the level of rapping ability on show, the quality of instrumental, there's no doubt this is a great project and one that I will often be returning to often.

Star Track - A Lasting Place

9) WESTSIDE BOOGIE - More Black Superheroes

In at 9th place we have Westside Boogie's Shady records follow-up to 2019's Everything for Sale project which made our top albums of 2019 list. This is a terrific follow-up for Boogie. It may lack some of the melodic qualities of Everything for Sale, but it still in abundance has the moodiness, with the hard, grungy instrumentals and the ugly flows. As always Boogie's full of personality and leaves his passions on display on most of the tracks on the album. One high-point was the lighter NONCHALANT featuring those beautiful Mamii vocals and those floating acoustic guitar plucks, possibly even a ukulele. But the best song was the one featuring Shelley FKA DRAM called AIGHT, which was just sick. The ominous beat fills you with energy as Boogie's and DRAM's vocals flow through your head so smoothly, but sounding so ill.

Star Track - AIGHT

8) Nas - King's Disease 3

Nasty Nas in at number 8 and making it onto our list for the second year in a row c',mon! Nas' longevity needs to be discussed because he's in the 4th decade of his career and is still producing Hip Hop that is incredible, in both how it makes you feel, how it sounds, and his lyricism on display. He has no right to be spitting this tough, and with this much finesse and intensity at this age, it's just crazy. Salute to Hit-Boy for not only being able to bring this out of Nas but also for having another incredible year himself. The vividness of his narrative style is always so fun and engaging, like on the track First Time, but also on my favourite track, Thun. Not only is the beat on Thun one of the coldest of 2022, Nas also spits one of the silliest bars I've heard all year as well - "No beef with rivals with rivals they playing 'Ether' on TIDAL, brothers can do anything when they decide to win a range rover, dissecting bars from 'Takeover', sometimes I text Hova like 'Ni**a this ain't over'." Please check out this record if you're into Nas and haven't heard it yet. Absolutely brilliant period of renaissance for Nas.

Star Track - Thun

7) JID - The Forever Story

What I love about this JID album is it's uniqueness to everything else on this list. You get a new flavour with JID. The flavour of wordy, crazy flows that are full of syllables and hard rhyme schemes. It's clear JID is a true student of the game and a student of music. His songs have crazy structures and he loves a sample or a beat switch. The Forever Story is also supported by some superb features that are very memorable, for example Lil Wayne, Yasiin Bey, Johnta Austin and Ari Lennox. Some really cool progressive and interesting production on this album, I love the beats on Lauder Too, Sistanem and Money. He has chilled out boom bap cuts, bass-heavy tracks that would no doubt be heavy live as well as some jazzier moments too. I think Better Days was a great all-round track which captured JID's tight verses and a soulful, gospel chorus that hits the ear well.

Star Track - Better Days

6) Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

Just missing out on a top-half finish we have Kendrick Lamar with Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. An album that, in my opinion, doesn't achieve the levels set from his 3 albums before this, but that is really not a heavy criticism, that was always going to be a tough feat. What this album does have is a super-creative Kendrick taking on various points-of-view and perspectives, top-tier lyricism that is highly-tuned and wired to provide these focused, refreshing and interesting narratives. Songs such as Father Time and We Cry Together are brilliant examples of that. Mr. Morale is stacked with bangers, slower ones, ones that are hugely reflective that really dig into Kendrick's psyche, as well as the aforementioned storytelling-type tracks. For me, where Kendrick is most successful is on those banger-type tracks where he still threads in his conscious style like Rich Spirit, Savior, and Count Me Out. Those deeper tracks at the bottom-end of the project of Auntie Diaries and Mother I Sober were also two big highlights. There's a few misses, for me anyway, that I didn't gel with as much such as United in Grief and Crown, but for the other tracks, they are largely forgivable. You get a real flavour of all Kendrick's core emotions on this album, doubtful, confident, regretful and empowered. It took a while to come round, so to be inside his mind for one more LP was a true joy.

Star Track - Count Me Out

5) Kid Cudi - Entergalactic

Sneaking a top-half position and potentially raising a few eyebrows is Kid Cudi's Entergalactic. Why would this raise a few eyebrows? Well, it could be viewed as a more surface-level version of Man on the Moon III from 2020. And I probably wouldn't hesitate to agree. I enjoyed and was fucking with this album from the first time I heard it. But when it truly connected with me and came alive was when I saw the accompanying film Entergalactic that Cudi produced and starred in, alongside Ty Dolla $ign whom also featured twice on the album. The film itself I found on Netflix. People may see it as a cop-out to have this album on the list, but not for me. There's so many fire tracks on this album, even without the movie, the movie just gave sort of visuals to what I'd already heard. The album has it's spacey and psychedelic atmosphere where Cudi hums and sings his arse off. Some of the biggest highlights came from New Mode, Angel, Willing To Trust, Ignite The Love, Livin' My Truth and Can't Shake Her. Hugely accessible music but the sentiment is always something that attaches to me as well as Cudi's personality, not to mention the crazy performances he puts in track to track.

Star Track - Livin' My Truth

4) Denzel Curry - Melt My Eyez See Your Future

Just missing out on the bronze position, and where the list really heats up is Denzel Curry's Melt My Eyez See Your Future which seems like fucking years ago, dropping back in March of 2022. One of the earlier albums that secured a high-spot on this list the minute I heard those crisp drums come in on that opening track Melt Session 1. Following up from the underground-sounding, sample-heavy joint tape with Kenny Beats UNLOCKED, Denzel gave us another unique album to add to his forever-diversifying discography. The instrumentals on Melt My Eyez sounded progressive, full, live, detailed, futuristic and and to the core, Hip Hop. Denzel was super-lyrical and gave us some great conscious moments and opinion-pieces, but equally wasn't afraid of releasing bangers that we have grown accustomed to from him. A perfect blend of this, and my favourite track on the album, was The Last where Denzel discusses murders and crime that he sees around him in America as well as police brutality. Between verses we have one of the catchiest and hardest choruses of the year, easily, completing a perfect song. In September Denzel released live jazz editions of a large portion of the album as well as a couple new tracks. This was brilliant and breathed a new lease of life into the music, particularly for the live version of Troubles.

Star Track - The Last

3) Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn - Nothing New Under The Sun

Now if the Kid Cudi placement didn't raise eyebrows... Look, I said at the time, some of the music does play quite 'samey' and they do have a specific sound they often stick to. But that doesn't change the fact that; Frankie's still spitting, the beats are still sick, and their music just does connect with me differently. I must mention 3 powerful features from Kojey Radical, Lex Amor and Finn Foxell, absolutely superb verses that made the tracks that they appeared on. There was also needed breaks in the form of brilliant hooks from Frankie. Frankie trying his hand at singing nicely on the closer In Pursuit and the more rap-style hook on Don't Do Drugs were absolutely awesome. Highly-reflective bars from Frankie that as always are really personal. Some people may see his bars as a bit 'soppy' and there's been tracks in the past where he has probably tipped that scale too much for me before, but I think he gets a good balance on this album. The music's fire, second year in a row I've had FS & HG in position 3, c'mon can't really be too mad - I really like these two, let's see what they bring in the future and let's see if they change it up as well and give us more sounds.

Star Track - Don't Do Drugs

2) Ab-Soul - HERBERT

Ab-Soul coming in last minute, dropping on December 16th with one of my favourite albums of the year and the runner-up on this list. HERBERT is sensational on many fronts; the flows, the bars, the content-matter and the charisma. Everything that I've heard from Ab-Soul in the past from his features (I haven't heard any of his earlier albums) was demonstrated on this album. His ear for quality hooks is also top-tier as well, songs like NO REPORT CARD and DO BETTER. I just love Ab-Souls voice, it's incredible and quickly become one of my favourites in Hip Hop. Every now and then I here him sounding a bit like Royce Da 5'9, I dunno that's just something I picked up a couple times -  the chorus to NO REPORT CARD for example. An example I can point to straight away for all these things I've spoken about in terms of flow, charisma and delivery, is to both his verses on HOLLANDAISE, you can also add nice rhyme schemes to that list as well whilst we're at it. This album runs so smoothly as well, at 18 tracks (no skits either), at 1 hour 18 mins, this plays so quickly and you never want it to end. This project leaves you wanting more like not many other albums I've heard this year. Ab-Soul gives you good versatility too, but nothing feels out of place. This is a considered album where each song benefits from the other existing. He gives you high energy moments like HOLLANDAISE, silky moments like THE WILD SIDE, highly personal tracks like DO BETTER, and just pure bars tracks like GOTTA RAP which includes a lyric you can check out in my 'best bar' category down below. Yeah really love this album.

Star Track - DO BETTER

1) Conway the Machine - God Don't Make Mistakes

Another album that feels like fucking time ago. This dropped, and for me, has never once been topped. It's simply the hardest album of the year. The production is just evil and Conway's bars are just filthy. Great example from the opener Lock Load. I knew to expect this from Conway but I had no idea he'd deliver as strong as this. The darkness is consistent but we still get lighter moments, Guilty has a more upbeat sound but when you dig into the lyrics you can still here that raw, honest and vivid style.  He raps on Guilty, "reject back from the trenches, back with the MAC with extensions, thinkin about when they had me layin back on my back intensive, clapped in my head and neck, that shit was inches from hittin' my cartoid, I would've bled to death and nobody could stop it, doctor said the bullet too close to my voice box to try to get it out, you can't touch it and I doubt there's anything we can do about it, bells palsy from damage to my nerves, no feelings in my leg, I took a bullet to the head".

That openness and authenticity is felt once again on the track Stressed where he raps "and not too long after my cousin hung his-self, I never told nobody, but I lost a son myself, imagine being in the hospital holding your dead baby, and he look just like you, you tryna keep from going crazy". This album is pure emotion and pure quality. Behind the toughness of it you still feel that vulnerability and sadness. Big recommend this album for people into Boom Bap.

Star Track - Stressed

Honourable Mentions List:

• Little Simz - NO THANK YOU
• GRIP - 5 & A F*** You
• Pusha T - It's Almost Dry
• KXNG Crooked & Joell Ortiz - Rise & Fall of Slaughterhouse
• Cordae - From a Birds Eye View
• Joey Bada$$ - 2000
• Roc Marciano & The Alchemist - The Elephant Man's Bones
• Logic - Vinyl Days
• Lloyd Banks - The Course of the Inevitable 2
• KRS-One - I M A M C R U 1 2
• Wiz Khalifa & Big K.R.I.T. & Girl Talk - Full Court Press
• Snoop Dogg - BODR
• Phife Dawg - Forever

So that concludes the list. There's a real lack of non-male MC's on this list so please let me know of upcoming albums from rappers that aren't men so we can have a more diverse list next year. I really hope you enjoyed reading this list and please let me know your favourite album of the year and if you've heard any of the ones I've spoke about. Below I've put a few categories together as well so please check them out. See you later!

Best Album Art Work:

Conway the Machine - God Don't Make Mistakes

Best Song:

Big K.R.I.T. - Generational - Weighed Down

(Honourable Mention: Conway the Machine - Stressed)

Best Ensemble Track:

Conway the Machine ft Benny the Butcher, Westside Gunn - John Woo Flick

(Honourable Mention: Logic ft Like, Blu, Exile - Orville)

Best Feature:

J.Cole - Johnny P's Caddy by Benny The Butcher

(Honourable Mention: Kojey Radical - Cats and Dogs by Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn)

Best Chorus:

Denzel Curry - The Last

(Honourable Mention: WESTSIDE GUNN - NONCHALANT ft Mamii)

Best Bar:

Ab Soul on GOTTA RAP - "I even tried suicide and I don't know why, I know better that most that the Soul don't die, took a leap, shattered my leg and lost some teeth, and I'm still standing behind every word I speak".

(Honourable Mention: Nas on Thun - "No beef with rivals with rivals they playing 'Ether' on TIDAL, brothers can do anything when they decide to win a range rover, dissecting bars from 'Takeover', sometimes I text Hova like 'Ni**a this ain't over'")