The Downcast’s 2011 rap album of the year

Blu: NoYork!

Los Angeles MC Blu’s lost 2011 LP, NoYork!, is a bold, reckless excursion into LA’s future-shock, Low End Theory-led techno underground. It’s a place where cosmic synth textures and gritty samples mix with geometric beats and glitchy melodies. It’s a place where MCs seldom stray. And for good reason. Months after NoYork! was scheduled for release, Blu was dropped from Warner Brother Records. Why? Neither side is talking, but we’re pretty sure Warner Brothers listened to this album once and immediately cut their losses (NoYork! is well ahead of its time and Warner Brothers’ stock is well below its four-year high). To be honest, the first time we heard NoYork! we thought, what the hell is this? The second time, we thought, holy shit. HolyShit!

Grab NoYork! over there for free, dig album highlight “Never Be the Same”.

More of the year’s best rap albums…

	Vast Aire: Ox 2010After the Mighty Joseph collaborate with Karniege fizzled in 2007 and his last LP, Dueces Wild (yeah, I spelled that right), came up short, we were worried about Cannibal Ox veteran Vast Aire’s hip-hop career. But we ain’t worried no more. The New York MC’s latest, Ox 2010: A Street Odyssey is a stomping, strutting LP packed with sick rhymes, heavy beats and a bitchin collection of Motown-ish samples, sci-fi textures and alternating rhythms. This is it, kids; the 2011 hip-hop comeback of the year. Roam with the “Nomad”.
	Shabazz Palaces: Black Up What’s most remarkable about Seattle-based avant hip-hop duo Shabazz Palaces debut, Black Up, is how incredibly strange the album manages to sound without slipping into mumbling chaos. Although Black Up has the fractured feel of nostalgic channel-skipping in an urban art museum, the glitchy rhythms and warped beat architecture somehow provide a sturdy framework for Shabazz Palace’s curious sketching. It’s not easy to explain why you like Black Up, but it’s an easy album to fall in love with. Download “Swerve the Reaping”.
	Hail Mary Mallon: Are You Gonnna Eat That? We were totally floored when we heard Aesop Rock and Rob Sonic were teaming up to form Hail Mary Mallon. Expectations were high. Too high. This album didn’t stand a chance. But it still turned out pretty killer. Grab a helping of this strange heavy LP laced with menacing synths, booming beats and odd shadowed experimentation and you’ll end up scouring the web for both MC’s solo work (we recommend Aesop Rock’s Labor Days and Rob Sonic’s Sabotage Gigante to start). But first, dig “Poconos”.
	Metermaids: Rooftop Shake The Metermaids take us on a thumping, sample-heavy trip back to the golden age of East Coast hip-hop on Rooftop Shake. It’s 10 bangers laced with stomping beats, sharp hooks, hazy samples and a sincere love for the game. That said, these guys aren’t trying to re-invent hip-hop or incite any social uprisings. MCs Sentence and Swell are content delivering rad verses of tattoos-and-malt-liquor party rap with magnetic bravado over a raft of dope beats by (Grammy winning producer) 9th Wonder and DJ Rob Swift. Check out album opener “8MM”.
	Raekwon: Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang After Raekwon’s mighty comeback, 2009′s Only Built for Cuban Linx Pt II, and a slew of 2010 collaborations — including some of the years biggest aboveground (Rick Ross, Kanye West) and underground (Freeway and Jake One, Yellawolf, Curren$y) LPs — we weren’t sure what The Chef had left to give on his latest, Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang. But Raekwon spits fierce over a collection of crisp beats and prime samples on his fifth solo album. Along for the ride is an impressive supporting cast including The Wu-Tang elite (Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck), Busta Rhymes, Nas, Rick Ross, Lloyd Banks and pop siren Estelle. Here’s “Molasses (f. Rick Ross and Ghostface)”.
	Death Grips: Exmilitary Fractured, anxiety stricken and patched with jagged samples, Sacramento experimental hip-hop duo Death Grips scared more than a few NPR listeners this year with Exmilitary. We’d be curious to know which of NPR’s Starbucks drinking, Banana Republic-shopping listeners were cranking the cold pixelated savagery of “Guillotine” or the booming, jittery glitch fest, “Lord of the Game”, from their Priuses. But whatever. We found Exmilitary’s cavernous, flagrant thump extremely abrasive and totally impossible to stop listening to.
	Yelawolf: Radioactive Despite several unbearable pop moments (“Let’s Roll”, “Made In the USA”, “Radio”… ugh), vocals by Kid Rock (gawd) and one-too-many Grammy-winning producers (you don’t need ‘em, bro), Yelawolf’s debut (non-mixtape) LP, Radioactive, is pretty dope. It’s the menacing boom of tracks like “Hard White” and “Growin’ Up in the Gutter”; the worthy experimentation on cuts like “Animal (prod. by Diplo)” and “Slumerican shtizen”; guilty pleasures like “Good Girl”, “Write Your Name”; and the sick mean swagger of “Hall Pass” that leave a lasting impression here.
	Random Axe: Self Titled Brooklyn MC Sean Price teams up with detroit natives Guilty Simpson and Black Milk on Random Axe. As if that weren’t enough, the guest lost here includes Roc Marciano (who contributes a verse to album standout “Chewbacca”) and Danny Brown (who steals the show on “Jahphy Joe”). WIth all that high-watt, underground star power our expectations were high for Random Axe. And while the album never meets those expectations, it’s a solid LP packed with gritty samples, worthy experimentation and a steady dose of boom-bap that we found very hard to cut from our list of 2011 best albums.