This led to his major label debut to be massively weighted down by expectations, which, as nearly always, led to the initial criticism that plagued him his whole career: “he’s not captivating enough”. Storming in off a slew of impressive mixtapes and a Jay Z co-sign, he only trailed Drake in terms of hype at the turn of decade. Cole was (outside of the often ridiculed sub-group of Cole fans who hold no one above him) underrated in the 2010s. Skrillex)” is a perfect example of Rocky’s unique input into the drama, while “1 Train” remains the last great NYC posse track that I can recall, 7 years later. However after his blisteringly hot debut in 2011 Rocky proved his staying power in the form of his own musical prowess, and – perhaps more importantly – an ear for the next sound, even if it falls outside of the borders of Harlem rap. Flower Boy wasn’t a concession to these genre-pressures, but rather Tyler fully converting us to stans of his endless talent with tracks like “See You Again” and “November”Ī master of self branding, from a legendary hip hop hood, and with looks to match, it’s easy to see how A$AP Rocky became one of the most hyped stars of the 2010s. Along this trajectory, Tyler continued to show brilliant moments like Wolf’s “Partyisntover”, and Cherry Bomb’s “2SEATER”, however remained at an arm’s length to most hip hop heads given his brash style and controversial persona. Tyler had maybe the most transformative 2010s of any hip hop artists, from the cringe-inducing Goblin (2011) to Grammy nominated IGOR (2019). Without further adieu, pour up a drank, grab the salami and cheeseboard, and peep the top 50 hip hop albums of this decade, you multitasker you: If you are like me – and the thousands of other hip hop music bloggers/critics – it also mean that it’s listicle time, baby!īecause what’s art if it’s not shoved into a queue ripe with personal biases by a Twitter egg with maybe a hundred followers? Well for starters, its basically impossible to stay up to speed on the hundreds/thousands of hip hop albums that get released yearly – its a tough job but somebody’s gotta do it – and you’re getting pretty tired of falsely nodding when your younger cousin is asking if you “on that new Carti”? Also, what else are you really doing this holiday break – other than atrophying into your parents couch – that’s more rewarding than getting into mental hypotheticals of beating me up after I list Joey Bada$$ ahead of Young Thug?īut really, the reason I am bringing back WillBlogForHipHop on its 9 year anniversary and out of a 5-year hiatus is completely selfish – to catalog things so when I’m 80 (and still bumping Outkast non-stop btw) my cyborg brain and blood-boy powered body can log back in and appreciate my passion for the genre of hip hop music. I hope you are all savoring these penultimate moments of the 2010s, a period where it’s natural to reminisce about an arbitrarily measured period of time.