Why Hip Hop Didn’t Suck In 2013

AUSTRALIANS MADE SOME GREAT RAP ALBUMS

The list of great records this year coming out of Australia was hard to fathom and keep track of. You may not have heard many of them because idiots won't give it a chance. Dialectrix made what is probably one of the greatest Australian hip hop albums of all time – it barely blipped due to limited promotional funds or realistically, an incredible narrow mindedness from 'proper' hip hop fans in this country and a refusal to even give anything Australian a chance. Elefant Traks continued to do amazing stuff, the Jimblah album will hopefully be one to make it into the history books. Remi is freaking destroying the place and you really should go out of your way to check him out… but it's gonna be hard to avoid him next year anyway.

Spit Syndicate, Horrorshow, Mr Grevis and so many others released well realised, thought out albums that received varying degrees of attention, and dudes like Cam Bluff, Plutonic Lab and Chasm showed that there's many more reasons to get excited about international-quality producers then just celebrating M-Phazes getting on an Eminem album. Awesome Sydney rockers She-Rex took a leaf out of MIA's book and made a genuine crossover record with rapping and guitars that didn't suck at all. Legends are coming back as well, Resin Dogs did an EP, Lazy Grey has some shit coming, and there's even rumours Pegz might be on the comeback trail – bring it on!

Jimblah

The mainstream music industry won't even accept the fact that hip hop is the biggest musical genre in the country by a countless factor. Dudes like Kerser from Sydney and T-Dub from Brisbane are the very definition of the democratisation of the music industry. They get ignored from the press because critics and proper industry types won't give them a look in, because they have done shit their own way, making music that actually appeals to their peers.

Kanye West

KANYE WEST

Kanye West records one of the most unconventional 'new' sounding hip hop records of a generation and is berated by the media and held accountable for every word as if he is some kind of, ahem, messiah on trial for criticism. I wonder why he's pretending to be one. If you need any convincing of the level of complexity behind Kanye's curation of the album check out this awesome mixtape comprised of the samples he used, it's a very nice companion piece (permission to skip Beautiful People granted). Even this guy thought Yeezus was amazing, bless his tarnished, resting soul.

The record is amazing on so many levels. He takes ridiculous sex rhymes to their ultimate, hilarious conclusion. He talks about fisting for Yeezus' sake.

The albums closing lines, “Jerome's in the house/watch your mouth” are the biggest clue of all. By referencing the character Jerome from the sitcom Martin, he makes fun of, and takes on the role of the stereotype of black virility – who incidentally was also quite partial to a mink coat. The hivemind at RapGenius suggests this is a wink to the audience, one that unfortunately was lost on so many who want to jump on board the 'what a douchebag' bandwagon. “Hurry up with my damn croissant!” Anyone taking this shit seriously is certainly discounting Ye's own disdain for the lyrical sameness of modern pop hip hop and he's trying to do something about it.

In a year when Jay-Z released the most lyrically pedestrian album of his career, Kanye is going so far over most heads its embarrassing. All we can hope is that he sees the need to keep fucking with rap fans/critics/radio DJs/idiots enough to let us in on another dozen records or so. Oh yeah in his downtime he also made Pusha-T's My Name Is My Name, which would have been record of the year if not for the aforementioned myriad reasons.

Earl Sweatshirt

PROMOTERS ACTUALLY GAVE US SOME GIGS

As disturbing as it is to hear a bunch of white uni students yell out the 'n' word at a Flatbush Zombies gig, is pretty fucking amazing that a bunch of Brooklyn kids can tour Australia without even having an album out. While big tours keep fucking up, street level shit is flourishing. We got to see 100s do his amazing record Ice Cold Perm live. Smoke DZA, Yelawolf, JoeyBada$$, Earl and Tyler, A$AP Rocky and heaps more all made the long flight and the effort to get here. When people get hung up on the big budget cancellations they're ignoring the fact that we really are getting more amazing acts than ever before.

OLD DUDES MADE SOME RAP ALBUMS

“It's a young person's game,” says every self-respecting rapper when they approach, or heaven forbid exceed, 30 years of age. Guess how old 2 Chainz is? Thirty fucking six! Imagine the idea that someone with some life experience might have something more to rap about then fucking and drugs.

Well okay, 2 Chainz might be a bad example for that particular statement, but even Danny Brown is 32. His album Old is a masterpiece of lyrical and musical complexity, and would never have happened if he believed that he should have quit making music at 30. Jay-Z is 44 and Eminem is 41. So should you only keep going if you're already successful, should old rappers who haven't cracked it big just retire quietly? That's fine as long as you wanna stop pretending you're doing it for anything other than respect and money. Not about the music then hey?

BRING ON 2014, PEACE!