In case you missed it, Sach O of Oh Word touched down briefly last week, taking a break from trying to find Manuel Noriega in the Philippines (He has a mansion?) to bless the blogosphere with one of his hilariously entertaining rants. If you’re too lazy to click over, the gist revolves around the assertion that Portishead and Erykah Badu have pretty much bodied all hip-hop made in 2008. Dart Adams of Poisonous Paragraphs fired back in the comments section with his claim that there have been 50 worthwhile rap records released this year and then wrote this post where he pointed out that “hip hop is far from dead, but the way we used to hear it and become exposed to it may be dead forever. If you’re not scouring the internet or the bloggerverse for that new shit then chances are you have no idea what (if any) new Hip Hop albums dropped last Tuesday.”
Personally, I’m somewhere between the two. Yeah, Badu and Portishead dropped two monster records this year that pretty much sonned nearly every hip-hop full-length. But Bun B, El-P, EMC, Elzhi, Metaform, Why? and The Kidz In the Hall have all made albums that I would’ve happily purchased had the Internet not turned the music world into a cheap all-you-can-eat buffet. Moreover, the year has produced a bonanza (yes, a bonanza) of great singles, many of which are on albums still forthcoming (in theory).
So if you’ve glossed over most of what I’ve posted this year in hopes of the rare chance that I’ll make fun of the Iron Sheik or something, the muxtapes are below. I purposely omitted songs that were on my first tape, so “Royal Flush” didn’t make it despite being easily one of the year’s best songs. Next time, I’ll do best non-hip hop stuff for the four of you into that sort of thing. In the meantime, peep the tapes below to find 24 of the finest rap songs made by rappers that contain rapping, sometimes in rhythm, occasionally on-beat, often high. In the words of William Mulholland, “There it is. Take it.”
The Passion of the Weiss Muxtape #3: The Best Hip-Hop Songs of the Year Part 1
The Passion of the Weiss Muxtape#4: The Best Hip-Hop Songs of the Year Part II
