Top 13 Non-2013 Albums of the Year

I have regular segment called Fresh Produce on the MusicVox on Vocalo Public Radio in Chicago every Tuesday. I highlight three to five new albums that are out that week. As such, I listen to at least five and usually closer to ten new releases each week, most of which I never listen to a second time. Even with all of this time I spend keeping up with the torrent of new releases, I still find time to listen to great older albums. To honor some of these older albums that dominated my year, I put together this list of my top non-2013 albums of the year in no particular order. Some are albums I’ve been listening to for years, and others are ones I discovered for the first time in the last twelve months. All of them are excellent.

 #1: Mr. Lif - I Phantom (2002)

Mr. Lif was one of my first favorite rappers. Mo’ Mega and the Emergency Rations EP were so important to me in high school, and Mr. Lif was more instrumental than almost any other rapper in getting me to really plunge into the world of hip-hop, but I didn’t hear I Phantom until a couple of years into college. Spurred on by El-P’s phenomenal work last year, 2013 has found me listening to a ton of Def Jux stuff again, and I Phantom has gotten the most plays from me this year out of that crop of exceptional albums. It’s a great album that follows a loose multi-part concept, and Mr. Lif proves that he is a remarkably talented rapper, especially on tracks like the second half of “Return of the B-Boy.” More than anything, revisiting I Phantom reminded me why I got into hip-hop in the first place. And “Live from the Plantation” helped me get through a lot of drives to a shitty job.

Spray Cans Vol. 011: Att Will - "Just Another Day in Compton"

Att Will - "Just Another Day in Compton" (Big City Records, 1993)

Although sampling is one of the most brilliant musical innovations of the last several decades, it does present two major problems. One is someone taking an extremely popular song and essentially lifting it wholesale without alteration in order to fuel a chart hit for yourself (call it the Diddy method). The other is the reuse of the same samples over and over again. There are many instances where this isn’t a problem, such as Leon Haywood’s “I Wanna Do Something Freaky to You” being used to create two very different songs in Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang” and Redman’s “Rockafella,” but more often than not, cats reusing samples that have already been used memorably before is not a good idea. Roy Ayers’ catalog is an embarrassment of riches, and “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” is both one of his best songs. In 1990, Grand Puba sampled the song for arguably the best song his group Brand Nubian ever made: “Wake Up (Reprise in the Sunshine).” Some other artists, including Common, Mary J. Blige, and Mos Def have made songs with an “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” sample since and these songs have been mostly effective, but now that it’s been over twenty years since Brand Nubian completely owned that sample, hearing it in a new song is frustrating. It shows that artists are either ignorant of hip-hop’s history (as might have been the case when it showed up on Flatbush Zombies’ occasionally great first mixtape last year) or they’re just lazy (as in the case of “Sunshine” from Sadat X & A.G.’s collaborative album from last year).[1]

There are a handful of samples that will never ever get old for me. If I was to make a very short list of these samples, Kool and the Gang’s “Summer Madness” would probably come in at #1. DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “Summertime,” Mad Skillz’ “Get Your Groove on,” Big Pun’s “You Ain’t a Killer,” Gang Starr’s “DJ Premier in Deep Concentration.” I could keep listing great songs that use prominent sample from “Summer Madness,” and that’s not even counting the interpolations, such as its appearance near the end of Summer Suite by the Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble, one of Madlib’s many Yesterdays New Quintet offshoot groups. So when I was scouring the internet for obscure funky west coast hip-hop a while back and clicked on Att Will’s “Just Another Day in Compton” and heard that familiar rising sunny synth line, I was sold.