10 Acts Who Defined Urban Music In 2017

For all the hype surrounding Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift in 2017, the most trailblazing music came from R&B, soul and hip hop artists (again). That serial gamechanger Drake even introduced the "playlist" as a format with More Life. Indeed, the zeitgeist is about curation.

The generational divide in urban music deepened, with traditionalists railing against synthetic beats (avant & B, trap and cloud rap) and mumble rappers. The various irreverent 'Lil' rappers (Lil Yachty, Lil Pump and the late Lil Peep) were added to a long list of supposed hip hop destroyers stretching back to Vanilla Ice. At the same time, the seasoned Jay-Z and Eminem realigned themselves by way of soul-searching on 'event' albums as worthy of thinkpieces as any nouveau Kendrick Lamar opus. Still, in the age of the singer/rapper, some figures (ok, DRAM) are rejecting the 'rapper' label as simply too restrictive.

Crucially, R&B and hip hop artists have continued to air politically-potent music, leading the Trump resistance (G-Eazy actually proffered Love Is Gone). Hip hop is addressing its latent homophobia – Tyler, The Creator possibly coming out on the mellow Flower Boy. And MCs like Vic Mensa and Logic are raising awareness about mental health matters.

In Australia, hip hop and soul is booming, with acts both classicist and experimental. Among the buzziest this year were the singer/MC/poet Sampa The Great, rootsy diva Caiti Baker, and future soulster Jordan Rakei.

These are 10 acts who defined 2017's urban music.

1. Kendrick Lamar

In 2017 Kendrick Lamar was unassailable as an MC. He followed To Pimp A Butterfly with another zeitgeist album in DAMN. – led by HUMBLE. (delete Skrillex's EDM remix). Lamar explored shifting perspectives on race, fortune and fate – his one-word song titles like philosophical riddles. He also journeyed from cosmic jazz into a (post-)trap psychedelia. (9th Wonder flipped Hiatus Kaiyote's Atari for DUCKWORTH.) Amazingly, Lamar made Bono cool – sampling U2's then-unheard American Soul for XXX. (Lamar shows on the band's Songs Of Experience.) K-Dot closed the year with the reverse-order DAMN. COLLECTORS EDITION., underscoring the LP's theme of temporality. He's gotta win the Grammy for "Album Of The Year" over Lorde.

2. Kehlani

The mainstream media fixates on Beyonce and Rihanna, but a fresh wave of R&B singers are busting into the pop consciousness. In early 2017 California's Kehlani Parrish unveiled her debut, SweetSexySavage, putting a modish twist to throwback '90s hip hop soul with Miguel producers Pop & Oak (and sampling Aaliyah twice!). She's likewise cameoed on successive blockbusters from Post Malone, Stormzy, Calvin Harris, Eminem and her old Oakland homie G-Eazy. The charismatic star toured Australia with her band mid-year. A survivor of recent personal trauma, Parrish endeared herself to Aussies by wearing a T-shirt with the Aboriginal flag and expressing her support for the 'Yes' vote in the marriage equality plebiscite.

3. Cardi B

The year's hottest newcomer? Belcalis "Cardi B" Almanzar. The Bronx, New York rapper is a modern Cinderella – being all about rags to riches to draggings, femme empowerment, and subverting ratchet tropes. Belcalis launched her professional career as a "stripper hoe", finding fame through Insty, then reality TV. However, signing to Atlantic in early 2017, she's left her greatest imprint with that street banger Bodak Yellow (Money Moves) – booting Taylor Swift's Look What You Made Me Do from the US#1. Belcalis has since relished a record-breaking run of hits – guesting on G-Eazy's No Limit and Migos' MotorSport (Offset is her fiance). Expect Belcalis' album of "Gangsta Bitch Music" in 2018, on the back of her latest single, Bartier Cardi (featuring 21 Savage).

4. SZA

In 2017 SZA (aka Solana Rowe), the First Lady of Top Dawg Entertainment, finally presented her official debut, Ctrl – striking a quixotic Mona Lisa pose on the cover against a verdant landscape and abandoned, obsolete computers. A new mass audience, familiar with Rowe mainly from Consideration, her duet on Rihanna's ANTI, was beguiled by her "glitter trap" blend (think: auteur-pop, trapsoul and indie). Rowe – a black, Muslim, female millennial from suburban America – wrote drolly about life, desire and selfhood. She first went platinum with her subliminal Travis Scott-featuring single Love Galore. Time magazine declared Ctrl its "Album Of The Year" and Rowe is up for multiple Grammys. The star – bound for January's FOMO Festival – has even revitalised Maroon 5, gracing their hit What Lovers Do.

5. Miss Blanks

The Australian hip hop scene has typically been dominated by white, Anglo, cishet dudes – but that has changed dramatically with the arrival of rap queens Tkay Maidza, Sampa The Great and Mallrat. Especially buzz in 2017 was Brisbane's Miss Blanks (aka Sian Vandermuelen). As an Australian trans woman of colour, she's brought socio-political nous to conversations about Australian pop culture. But, with a background in fashion, she's also added high-end glamour. After breaking through with Clap Clap, Vandermuelen lately dropped the EP Diary Of A Thotaholic via Sydney bass producer Moonbase's TRENCH Records. It contains booty jams and boss ballads. Vandermuelen will rule Laneway's stages this summer.

6. Eminem

Eminem's comeback Revival is polarising – but isn't that his mojo? In fact, Marshall Mathers has yielded his most compelling – and politically-charged – work. This self-proclaimed "poor white trash" kid from Detroit has challenged his fanbase like never before, disavowing those Stans who are Trumpers. But he also espouses a new mode of fEMinism, deconstructing dysfunctional relationships and toxic masculinity in such songs as Bad Husband, an open apology to ex-wife Kimberly "Kim" Scott, and the Ed Sheeran-led River. Increasingly literary, Mathers is disdainful of mumble rappers in the quasi-trap Chloraseptic (with Brooklyn's PHRESHER). Ironically, despite previously blazing a remix of The Weeknd's illwave The Hills, Mathers has retained a conservative rap-rock sound on Revival (largely courtesy of Rick Rubin). Had Slim Shady solicited any of Detroit's numerous electronic producers (Proof's old pal Moodymann?), he could have out-weirded Vince Staples' Big Fish Theory.

7. Stormzy

Grime became ever more international in 2017, with Drizzy affording Giggs and Skepta unprecedented exposure on More Life. The grime community played a pivotal role in the UK general election, too, rallying behind Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Yet Stormzy (aka Michael Omari), infamous for Shut Up, made history with Gang Signs & Prayer the first grime album to top the UK charts. (His R&B single Blinded By Your Grace, Pt 2, with MNEK, is a contender for the Christmas #1.) Oddly, Omari guested on Linkin Park's One More Light. Alas, the South Londoner was called out for old homophobic tweets – but he recanted and apologised. The grimester, last here for Splendour In The Grass, is hitting Oz NYE festivals – as is his upstart cuz Nadia Rose.

8. Sampha

While UK soulsters Sam Smith and Rag'n'Bone Man majorly crossed over in 2017, Sampha Sisay received the accolades for Process. The Londoner has long been in-demand as a collaborator – working with Drake, Kanye West and Solange. But, on Process, he shared a personal narrative about loss, resilience and transcendence. And Sisay refined his post-dubstep aesthetic, with its dichotomy of acoustic and clubby elements. He delivered an affecting ballad in (No One Knows Me) Like The Piano – a spare tribute to his late mother. He deservedly won the Mercury Prize.

9. Kelela

This year Vince Staples and Kelela Mizanekristos both unleashed IDM (intelligent dance music) albums in spirit. Mizanekristos' debut album on Warp, Take Me Apart, was transgressive – being less 'R&B' than amorphously post-genre. (She liaised with underground producers Jam City and Arca, Adele cohort Ariel Rechtshaid, and The xx's Romy Madley Croft.) Disrupting industrial, techno and garage paradigms, Mizanekristos wrote intimately about love and sorrow as a queer black woman. Yet she also used Take Me Apart as "a platform" to discuss, and dissect, the ways in which pop culture industries exploit black women. Mizanekristos was billed on Gorillaz' Humanz – and found a fan in Bjork. Don't sleep on her sublime Blue Light video.

10. Birdz

The Aussie hip hop scene has never been as diverse. But its most powerful statement in 2017 came from the Melbourne-based Birdz (aka Nathan Bird), an Indigenous storyteller aligned with Adam Briggs' Bad Apples Music. A Murri and Butchulla man from Katherine, Northern Territory, Bird thematises racial identity, heritage, struggle and survival on his debut Train Of Thought. Especially resonant, his song Black Lives Matter tackles Australia's legacy of institutionalised brutality. For Bird, the personal and political can be cerebral – and poetic.