Top Albums of 2013: #20-11

#20: The Delfonics - Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics

Due to his prominence as the bandleader of the Roots, Questlove is in the rare position where he can try to make a record with Bill Withers and end up with Al Green as a consolation prize. With his work revitalizing the Delfonics, Adrian Younge deserves to jump up to that level, allowing him to work with some of the greatest and most prominent artists in the history of soul. Younge absorbs old music with the ear of a great sampler, flipping old film soundtracks and obscure break-filled R&B nuggets into his own compositions. When this instinctive method is paired with an unfairly forgotten soul legend like William Hart, the resulting album sounds like it was made in a world where seventies soul and nineties hip-hop somehow developed simultaneously. Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics sounds completely out of time, a record some future crate digger will be mystified by.

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 #19: Inspectah Deck and 7L & Esoteric - Czarface

Insepctah Deck’s verse on Gang Starr’s “Above the Clouds” remains one of his career best. It was also a tantalizing view into what a member of the Wu-Tang Clan could sound like over more traditionalist New York boom bap as opposed to the groundbreaking RZA sound that the Wu generals mostly stuck to during the group’s best years in the ‘90s. Czarface, Deck’s full length collaboration with 7L & Esoteric, shows how great it could have been if any of the generals had made a more straightforward boom bap record back then. Deck sounds revitalized here, turning in the second best album of his career (for all its detractors and its couple of weaker songs, his first album Uncontrolled Substance remains the most underrated Wu album of the ‘90s). Esoteric remains a very good emcee in spite of his general lack of personality, but the stars here are Deck and 7L’s head-knocking beats. Czarface manages to be both an enticing alternate history and a strong revitalization for one of the best rappers who never quite managed to pull off a satisfying solo career.

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Chance the Rapper - "Good Ass Intro"

This is going to come off as contrarian, but I’m still not sold on Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap mixtape and I actually think his debut 10Day is better. The problem for me is that I’m still struggling with both his beat selection, which often leaves me unimpressed, and his vocal delivery, in which he seems to be emphasizing the more grating aspects of his voice in a way that he never did before. Still, the hype surrounding Acid Rap has surpassed that of nearly every other rap record of the year,[1] so I’m still trying my best to get into it. I thought Chance would never resonate fully for me, but right now I’m on my fourteenth listen of “Good Ass Intro” in a row and it’s finally starting to come together. “Good Ass Intro” is a hubristic title in two respects: first, most songs don’t declare how good they are in the fucking title; and second, it’s a subtle[2] nod to fellow Chicagoan Kanye West’s intended title for his follow-up to Graduation, Good Ass Job, that was scrapped when some ex-girlfriend made him all weepy and he made 808s & Heartbreak instead. The cockiness it takes to compare himself to an artist of Kanye’s stature and embrace his own high self-image simultaneously should be infuriating, but the song is so incredible that concerns about cockiness are rendered invalid. This is the kind of song that makes careers. Call it his “Bonita Applebaum” or his “I Used to Love H.E.R.” or his “Universal Magnetic” or his “Fuck Your Ethnicity” (if you’re into the ‘Chance the Rapper is Chicago’s Kendrick’ argument), but regardless of what you call it, this is the sound of a potentially great artist arriving.

Acid Rap can only go downhill from here since “Good Ass Intro” is one of the best rap songs of the year so far. Not only is it amazing, but it has given me faith in Chance as an artist that has made me willing to overlook my reservations about him as a rapper and songwriter. He’s still only twenty years old, and he’s got a long way he can come to live into his hype, but I’m finally willing to admit I was wrong about him.

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[1] I really hope I’m not the only one still listening to Indigoism, but damn if that hype didn't die down quickly. It sometimes feels like I'm the only one left.

[2] It’s subtle, but I doubt it’s unintentional since he repeatedly references getting a good ass job near the end of the song.