Songs

GoldLink, Crew (ft. Brent Faiyaz & Shy Glizzy)
Of course DC finally gets a national hit right when I leave Virginia. I've been a follower of the church of Shy Glizzy for a minute, but this was something special - GoldLink is (was?) a legitimate regional star, a purely Mid-Atlantic phenomenon whose following within UVA's sorority scene I distinctly remember mocking. That's a twisted point of pride; I can make fun of him, of course, but a New Yorker better not dare to (also, he's improved greatly with time). It's incredibly rare for one single to be multiple artists' commercial peak, and that's something to celebrate; rather than any one star dragging the rest into the spotlight, this felt like a triumph that the whole DC scene could share in.

Christian Something, FIGHTRACISTSWITHHANDS
Word to Black Kray, Richmond rap might never get the break it deserves. The supposed gatekeepers of the avant-garde convinced me to listen to a solid ten hours of high-concept garbage that can't possibly touch this.

Mr Eazi, Leg Over
One of the year's essential vibe... z, and its best music video by far. I wish I was puzzled by the inability of actual African Afrobeats artists to break into the US market.

COOL FANG, VALLEY CHAIN
Ostensibly, this dude is my labelmate; objectively, this is the high water mark of guitar-based music. The types of emotions that one would feel in, like, middle school were certifiably bad, but it's worth revisiting that sort of rawness by way of the sound of the time.

Ralo, Calm Me Down (a.k.a. Calm Down Ralo)
The Martorialist said that Calm Me Down sounds like it was designed to soundtrack shanty town shootouts in the mythical blaxploitation spaghetti westerns that exist only in my head, and I don't have a ton to add to that. Southern rap right now is all about moral crisis, and it's refreshing to hear a record that extends the signification thereof beyond mere invocation and into the instrumentation itself. Ralo's an interesting figure in that he's widely recognized as having been rich before rap, a designation that gives him not only credibility but a sense of conviction; celebrating or grieving, it's never an act.

03 Greedo, Mafia Business
This was going to just miss the final cut, but on December 16th Drew Biebuyck died. I was at a coffee shop when I found out, and I listened to this the whole way home seemingly by instinct, stumbling a mile while barely keeping it together. Drew was my best friend, an incredible steadying force against the unpredictable, unending bullshit of the past year and beyond. Many of what I now consider the essential elements of my character were mere embryonic tendencies when I met him, belatedly emergent in light of the example he set. Two weeks ago we were driving across the Rockies in the dead of night; a week later, they swallowed him whole. I still can't believe it.

I don't know anything about 03 Greedo and Mafia Ray's friendship, but I do know that it gave us (something like) this:

Brazy he my n***a, he stay with this shit,
Tryna do it for a n***a that we can't forget, [...]
Man I swear I ain't cried in a hundred years,
Last night a n***a cried about a hundred tears, [...]
You can be broke, still act like you pull majority,
Man I swear without my Ray this life boring.

RIP Drew.

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Albums

Kelly Lee Owens, Kelly Lee Owens
I'm amazed that people keep finding little unoccupied niches along the spectrum between cold, snowy techno and warm, majestic beats. There are a few too many similarities for me to rule out that my enthusiasm for this album is an expression of my disappointment with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's, but that's good company to keep. Speaking of which, here's another comparison: this sounds like Andy Stott's Luxury Problems, but made by (and sonically, reconcilable to) a human.

NBA YoungBoy, AI Youngboy
There's a degree of disposability, at least a little self-imposed, among rappers who repeatedly hit the 3-4 mixtapes a year mark, which makes it all the more remarkable that AI Youngboy has stuck with me as long as it has. Releases like this tend to serve as a vehicle for one or two singles (Untouchable, in this case), but AI pulls the rare trick of a constantly-shifting set of highlights. I had Wat Chu Gone Do on all summer, Untouchable on all fall; even as the rest of the music on my phone has been switched out for the winter, I've discovered how unbelievably strong the back half of the tape is. To an extent, this is a parable about the merits of giving art the time it deserves; more immediately, it's overwhelming evidence that NBA YoungBoy is the most exciting rapper out.

Julie Byrne, Not Even Happiness
This was, and remains, an absurdly hard sell: yeah, sparse guitar arrangements, and - stick with me - Julie's softly-sung vocals are incredibly pretty. Maybe I've only got time for one of these albums a year and Julie got lucky. I doubt it. There remains something to be said for creating the definitive record of a well-established genre, and this might be it. What it might lack in ambition, it makes up for in execution. On top of that, it's incredibly easy to inadvertently listen to five or six times in a row (as I did when I first put it on) - at a breezy 30-odd minutes, it doesn't keep you waiting. As a result, the unbelievable and Julee Cruise-esque closer I Live Now as a Singer passes and your first instinct is to hear it again, not move on to the next thing.

Antwon, Sunnyvale Gardens
I wrote about this briefly on Tiny Mix Tapes, but it remains overlooked. Antwon's had his finger on the pulse of the rapidly-shifting underground for a while now, and continues to be its most reliable documentarian. Between this and Playboi Carti, it really feels like one could piece together Soundcloud's entire 2017.

Colleen, A flame my love, a frequency
Spread the word: do one interview with the Hip Replacement and you'll be venerated forever. Only joking, of course; it's with the utmost integrity that I proclaim A flame my love, a frequency one of the year's very best. Where the prior Captain of None sounded warmly analog, the instrumentation here is mechanized and generative, most likely because of the use of some very specific synthesizer that I do not know the name of. In a sense, that makes it even more engrossing; a sound is dialed in to Colleen's instruction, but how exactly it will manifest itself is unknown even to its creator. It's cool, to me, to imagine Colleen sitting in her olive factory as the machines whirr on, waiting for a phrase, a frequency over which she's moved to lay vocals.

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Hot Lines

This past summer, I volunteered a lot with an organization called cityWILD, which provides low income, culturally diverse youth with outdoor and environmental service learning opportunities that promote developmental themes of personal empowerment, leadership, and community participation, so when Baby Soulja said different cities in your state / you ain't ever heard of it... I felt that.

When Chief Keef said I don't wanna talk / she don't wanna text... I felt that.

When NBA YoungBoy said Mama ask for something and I tell her no / she tell me I ain't shit and act like I'm wrong / I'm runnin' that check up every time I'm gone / for Christmas I swear I'm a buy you a home... I felt that.

When Creek Boyz said anything at all in unison... I felt that.

When for the last 25 seconds of dothatshit! Playboi Carti dropped an entire sixteen of exhalations... I felt that.

When Lil Uzi Vert sprinkled some parenthetical self-doubt among the bravado of heard she talk to a ball player / but you know I keep it all player / (and I heard he ain't a star player) / I'm not worried I'm a heartbreaker... I felt that.

Lastly, I haven't yet had the opportunity to feel it when GoldLink says god damn, what a time / what a year, but I hope to soon.