Atmosphere - Painting

This is from Atmosphere’s outstanding album When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. Painting’s instrumental is one of my all time favorite beats from Ant, which is definitely saying something.  I heard this on NPR a while ago.  It was one of the instrumentals they used for a transition.  They’ve actually used a few of Ant’s instrumentals for transitions…just one of the many reasons why I love NPR.  As always, Slug’s lyrics are profound and sync up to the beat exceptionally well.

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My Song Rating: 9.0 out of 10

Apollo Brown & O.C. - Prove Me Wrong

I have tons of respect for pretty much every project Apollo Brown has ever done.  His beats are simply phenomenal.  The instrumental for this song is mesmerizingly beautiful, and is one of my favorite Apollo Brown works.  O.C. lays down some steady flow with exceptionally well put together lyrics that really make you think.  Around this time last year Hassaan Mackey & Apollo Brown released an outstanding collab album called Daily Bread, and I deemed it one of the best hip-hop albums of 2011.  It was easily in my top 10 for 2011. 

This is my song from Apollo Brown’s new collab album Trophies, which is also an extremely solid album, but it suffers from the same problem that held back Daily Bread from being a true classic…variety.  Each song has a unique beat, but each beat is approximately the same tempo, and the accompanying flow’s delivery is very straight forward and doesn’t stray far from a constant rhythem.  I feel Trophies suffers from this even more than Daily Bread, but I still deem this album very enjoyable and an overall 8.4 out of 10.  O.C.’s intelligent lyrical content makes up for the mundane flow, and prevents the album from being just another average 2012 release.

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My Song Rating: 9.2 out of 10

Jedi Mind Tricks - Saviorself (ft. Killah Priest)

This is one of my favorite JMT tracks.  It represents their style exceptional well…really raw with a lyrical punch. 

“I paint flows with the feathers from the wings of angels

Red ink from saint blood, nigga, you ain’t thug

Stay high off that dead weed, in the mind is where I plant seeds

To grow fruit, of king’s so brute, of army troops”

This is from their album Legacy Of Blood.

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My Song Rating: 9.4 out of 10

Kanye West - Everything I Am

Barack Obama summed up Kanye pretty damn well when he recently said “Kanye is a jackass, but he’s talented”.  Regardless of how you feel about Kanye, he’s one of the most talented hip-hop artists ever.  I’m not saying I’m a die hard Kanye fan, but I have a very strong appreciation for a lot of the music he makes.  I believe his best album is Graduation. Every song on it has a distinguished sound, and this provides an amazing variety you rarely see in an album.  Not to mention a bunch of the songs on it are easily some of Kanye’s best overall works. This is my favorite song off of Graduation, and one of my all time favorite Kanye West songs.  It’s a truly beautiful piece of audio art, and a classic in my book.

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My Song Rating: 10 out of 10