I have been muttering under my breath at folks about resurrecting this blog for a while now - no promises regarding post regularity moving forward, but let's see how long this lasts.
2 years in rural Indonesia followed by 2 years in rural Ethiopia have meant that my ability to access the internet, let alone stay on top of my music game, track down new albums, and scour the web for the latest remixes and releases was severely compromised. That said, I still did my best to jam out with my fam out when the opportunity arose.
There are many reasons one could argue that 2016 was steaming, vitriolic pile of a year, but there were a few artists that managed to provide that desperately needed silver lining. I figured I'd start 2017, and unofficially start up the music blog again, with an unsorted list featuring a few artists that made last year easier for me to listen to. It should also be noted that since I was living in Ethiopia for most of the year, I have little or no idea of which albums were hot in the streets of the Western world.
Anderson .Paak - Malibu
I first came across Anderson .Paak while listening to a podcast called Song Exploder which deconstructs one song each episode, and features interviews with artists about their creative process. Mr. .Paak wasn't actually the artist being profiled, but dropped a verse late in the song that snapped my head back. I was cycling my way to a meeting with a government official, but I remember playing the song 3 or 4 times in a row, bumping my head like a damn fool. Needless to say the meeting went great. Sometimes you can't help it, when you feel it, you feel it.
Something about his soulful gravelly singing voice, his spot-on rap cadence, and his ability to drift seamlessly back and forth between the two (singing and rapping) caught my ear and held it.
Perhaps it's my personal lack of musical ability, but I'm also really impressed by his ability to maintain drum timing effortlessly while singing. I can't think of many other lead singer/rapper/drummers
I was inspired to look him up and was overjoyed when he dropped his second full length album Malibu later in the year. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think Malibu was one of the most underrated albums of the year, featuring a slew of guest appearances and multiple tracks I kept going back to, including 'The Season / Carry Me', probably my favorite track on the album:
Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
Chancelor Johnathan Bennett had an amazing year in 2016. I've been quietly following his career for quite a while as he released free mixtape after free mixtape online. 2016 finally saw Chance catch the mainstream spotlight with his album Coloring Book. This album definitely seemed to catch peoples' attention and with good reason - it was excellent.
Chance took his unabashedly religious approach to hip hop music to it's logical conclusion and produced a straight up gospel album that folks could, would, and should blast from their speakers at home. The great thing about the album was that it was mainstream enough to also get plenty of radio airtime and I'd wager it would sound just as at home coming from liberal-leaning pulpits across America as well. I don't consider myself religious, but this album was excellent, and I think that is ultimately the transcendent beauty of it.
Again, tough to pick a favourite track, but the exuberant single "Angels" was the first song I heard off the album and I was immediately sold:
An exuberant homage to the Chicago transit system
Jamilah Woods - Heavn
This album was also a sleeper surprise hit for me this year. I'd been aware of Jamilah Woods for a while as she is another Chicago native who has featured on a number of Chance the Rapper's previous releases. Her album Heavn was definitely a strong contender for my favourite of the year.
Heavn is one of those albums I will normally listen to cover to cover, because it flows so well from song to song. She's got a great voice, which was what I first noticed, but then I began listening to lyrics. I was floored. I like describe this album as an open letter to folks about what it means to be a black American in 2016. The broadly feminist lyrics flit nimbly from addressing issues of race based police brutality to blackness as a popular cultural force, from xenophobia and socioeconomic disenfranchisement to learned self-hatred and the complicated nuances of black identity...and that's just the first two or three songs on the album. I could go on, I feel like Ms. Woods is more than capable of speaking for herself, and puts it far more eloquently than I ever could:
Rosa was a freedom fighter
and she taught us how to fight
Ella was a freedom fighter
and she taught us how to fight
Audrey was a freedom fighter
and she taught us how to fight
Angela was a freedom fighter
and she taught us how to fight
Sojourner was a freedom fighter
and she taught us how to fight
Assata was a freedom fighter
and she taught us how to fight
2016 was a particularly challenging year for black folks everywhere and I found watching the race-related issues in the states and around the world unfold in the news headlines from my corner of northern Ethiopia was extremely difficult. It seemed like every morning brought new stories of egregious police brutality and disintegrating race relations, culminating with the US election. I'm not ashamed to say I cried to this album more than once this year, and feel it was one of the buoys that guided me through these strange and often troubling times. Here's to another shot at getting it right in 2017.
