Association

I like to associate music with memories.
So it's no doubt a lot of these memories involve rap music.

How in eight grade, almost everyday in the Winter I walked to school listening to Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. And every day that Spring, I either listened to Childish Gambino's EP or Culdesac. Listening to Das Racist on the Q train. Kendrick Lamar on a Thanksgiving spent in New Jersey. Wu-Tang Clan at my grandparent's house in North Carolina. Madvillainy on the band trip bus to Albany.

Let's backtrack to the very first rap album I bought. I bought My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on a whim and from some insistence from a neighbor who was a New Zealand native. See, before I had MBDTF the only thing close to rap on my iPod was Papa Roach. I was also mad that Pitchfork made MBDTF number one on their best of 2010 list and not Titus Andronicus' The Monitor. So, I really mean it when I say I bought it on a whim. And I loved it. The horns of "All of the Lights", the Bon Iver guest spots and RZA's crazy verse on the end of "So Appalled".

Yet, the rest of the rap coming out that year didn't compel me like MBDTF did. But then I read the Spin story on Donald Glover's rap under the name Childish Gambino. Listening to Gambino threw me into the world of underground rap. From there, I even bought Tyler, The Creator's Goblin on vinyl.


And now, it's 2013 and rap has already changed since 2010. Das Racist have broken up. DOOM sent even more DOOM posers to shows. Big Baby Gandhi quit rapping. On the Christmas Eve of 2012, young up and comer Capital STEEZ killed himself. He was 19.

But hopefully with a new year, the positives will outweigh the negatives. There's many new faces, and plenty of rappers who have been around, ready to make 2013 their year. Joey Bada$$ and his Pro Era crew, bring the N.Y.C. sound back to the days of boom-bap. Milo, who could be considered nerdcore, but his worldviews and philosophy make you think of more than just his quirkiness. Le1f, who makes murky dance beats and raps over them. Cities Aviv, who's excellent Black Pleasure  was one of my favorite rap albums of 2012, raps through a wall of noise and makes his voice another instrument. Antwon, who's excellent End of Earth was also one of my favorites of 2012, divides his albums between sweet cloud rap, and what could be considered "industrial-hardcore-punk-rap".


Here's to a new year.
And hopefully, Madvillainy 2 will be released.

-P $wag