Best Albums Of 2016 So Far
We've officially stepped into the second half of 2016. And for our money, there's already been enough musical magnificence to last us until the ball drops. James Blake hit us with an entire range of feels. Kaytra's album proved to be the byproduct of a diehard Dilla/Madlib fan finding his calling in house. Kanye taught us that Rihanna and Nina and Sister Nancy can all dance on the same floor in his world, adorned in gospel's rich spirit, which seems to have been brought to the table by another Chicagoan wonder. Namely, Chance The Rapper, whose third full-length release was basically full-on benediction; a gospel-rap masterpiece, even. YG brought a gripping Compton epic to life like few could, and that's not even half of what went down in 2016 so far.
Like it or not, every person on this list commands their own singular sort of brilliance. And with albums still promised by De La Soul, Schoolboy Q, NAO, and yes, maybe even Frank Ocean, this year will prove to be just as exciting in its second half as it was in its first, even if we don't get that much-salivated-over Channel Orange follow-up. So let's look back at what we've seen and heard in the first six-month stretch, just so y'all don't forget how magical the year's already been. Keep in mind, the homestretch could prove to be just as eventful.
Kanye West - The Life Of Pablo
"Ima fix Wolves," Kanye tweeted out a week following the release of his seventh studio album, the beta-tested, potentially-incomplete, The Life Of Pablo. The album may not have had the most conventional roll-out, but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the most impressive bodies of work released this year. You can listen in virtually any sequence -- "Ultralight Beam" to "Frank's Song," "I Love Kanye" to the tacked on Sampha blessing "Saint Pablo," back again -- and it still seems inexplicably right. Like chaos itself, no safe angle of approach. And of coarse it's chaotic. How could the cumulative creative of efforts of 120 some odd contributing producers, writers, musicians funneled through a singular, potentially bat-shit crazy visionary be anything but. It's dense, sprited and a little psychotic, but whether you love the old Kanye or the new one, The Life Of Pablo delivered on all accounts. And just like every piece Ye's put forth, it mirrors the complexity and genius of that visionary at work in his time. - Zo
Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book
Chano's Coloring Book starts with a Kanye West collaboration, but not the obvious one. No, the third mixtape/album from Chicago's anointed son begins at the top of his big brother's 2016 release. "I made Sunday Candy, I'm never going to hell/I met Kanye West, I'm never going to fail," he exclaims in a destined prose. And with Coloring Book, it's arguable that he delivered on that promise. We've always known that Chance, with the right crew in tow, was capable of extraordinary things, but Coloring Book, even with its seemingly unrealistic gleefulness, is the product of much more than just the right personnel. It's the first time in recent memory where an artist has successfully bridged the worlds of gospel and hip-hop without diminishing either tradition. Something only Chance seems to have been capable of. Living up to every bit of hype that preceded it, Coloring Book is a true rarity that invokes sheer joy, and impossibly so. A light for his city and hip-hop at large. - Zo
James Blake - The Colour In Anything
I was on a bus to Baltimore when James Blake announced, and then quickly released, his surprise 2016 outing The Colour In Anything. For a blogger that cues the requisite scramble to make sure y'all hear it before I do. But once it was published, and I was afforded a rare three-hour gap to actually sit with this expansive suite, it was clear that three measly hours weren't going to cut it. And frankly, that's 's just what you'd hope for from Blake. With Frank Ocean and Bon Iver by his side, the thrills and chills are copious, moods range from hopeless to infatuated, and we're left knowing that it'll take much more than the travel time between our two favorite cities, no matter how far apart, to fully absorb the brilliance of his junior record. In fact, it might be time for me to book my next trip. - Zo
Anderson .Paak - Malibu
The artist formerly known as Breezy Lovejoy is riding a wave of acclaim and hype backed by certified skill and aplomb. The Oxnard, California native and recent Aftermath signee broke out thanks to his frequent appearance on Dr. Dre’s Compton album. Yet, it is on Malibu, his most assured and personal project to date, where he really captivates listeners. Expansive, informative, dazzling and dizzying with its equal amounts of star power (.Paak) and stellar guest features (The Game, ScHoolboy Q, Talib Kweli) — Malibu flows like Rudy Ray Moore rapping over tight production from the offspring of James Brown and Chaka Khan. - Kevito
Blood Orange - Freetown Sound
If your thing is haunting melody; lush, oceanic soundscapes and vulnerability made audible in falsetto soul...then you are probably already a Blood Orange fan, What makes Freetown Sound a standout is it's thematic coherence--a story as personal and insular as Lemonade in its own way, if less linear or narratively brazen. The epiphany here is less that Dev Hynes discovered a new sound by exploring his African roots--good headline but not exactly true--than that he seems to have taken this LP to explore a much more personal idea of "roots." There are sonic innovations at play here, adding new, if subtle differences to Dev's sound; a certain approach to polyrhythm that's more out of a film score by Philip Glass than a King Sunny Ade album, equally cinematic sound collages, echoey '80s dance rhythms with a muted AfroLatin owing as much to zouk and Eddie Grant's forays into Guyanese pop as they do the Compass Point All Stars Antillean New wave. But less than dazzling with catchiness or originality in their own right, these all feel like atmospheric elements skillfully tracing a personal journey a sort of audio novel that only starts in Freetown, Sierra Leone. - Eddie STATS
Samiyam - Animals Have Feelings
You can't keep the terms "beat tape" and "Stones Throw" in mind without thinking of some of the best to ever do it. Namely, J Dilla's departing gift, Donuts. If Dilla's deathbed masterpiece proved anything, it's that you can move mountains with the right arrangement of minute-long morsels. So when I heard Samiyam's fourth full-length project, it was difficult to escape those parameters without imposing a heavy task on the album (match Donuts or be gone!) But if Donuts is the father of the modern day beat suite, Animals Have Feelings is most certainly one of its many offspring, and could even be viewed as an update on the design. It's 46 minutes of bone-crushing, stank-face-inducing beats, peppered with fully-fleshed-out compositions (featuring Earl Sweatshirt, Action Bronson and Jeremiah Jae) all bearing the mark of a young master at work. And it only proves a longstanding suspicion: that Stones Throw's roster of producers is simply unfuckwitable. - Zo
Kamaiyah - A Good Night In The Ghetto
The essentials for a good party: drinks, friends, music and snacks. Kamaiyah knows this which is why the album art for A Good Night In The Ghetto has her arriving at a friend’s place with a handle of liquor and a bag of chips. A Good Night In The Ghetto basks in its regionalism: Bay Area’s YG and Netta Brielle make appearances; the Hyphy Hoochies provide some comical interludes; and most of the production offers a new and refreshing take on G-funk, gangsta rap and hyphy music. What you’re left with is a project that is so fucking fun — west coast blunts and solo red cups fun. Matter of fact, why am I still typing? I’m going to go get a 40 and dance to “Fuck It Up.” I suggest you do the same. - Elijah Watson
Kaytranada - 99.9%
It's been 2 or 3 years now since Kaytra was one to watch, a year since he was the dude making soulful electronic dance music that blended the best traditions of post-Dillan drunkeness and beatcloud culture with the most progressive and blacktronic elements of house, Detroit techno. But DJs are not rockstars and even with (or especially because of) Skrillex making Justin Bieber pop hits, the leap from saving lives on the dancefloor to making coherent albums is almost always an awkward one. Dance-inspired or even beat-centric artists are often faced with the choice of abandoning their core sonic values to make more conventional pop songs--or of making records that are more compilations or megamix than LP. If anybody was going to give Kaytra the framework to leap gracefully, it was XL. But it's important to point out that all the odds were still stacked against him bringing a set as brilliant as 99.9%. What it proves is that not only can he teach the robot to dance, teaching the robot dance is part of a larger program; an ecstatic, even utopian vision of black music that speaks to something much deeper than regular old pop song structures. Though 99.9 explores a variety of tempos and textures, Kaytra still brings dancehall brilliance and never replaces it with conventional radio-format expectations instead preferring to let the contributions of Anderson . Paak, Vic Mensa, Karriem Riggins and others lead his rhythmic sensibility down more interesting rabbitholes. If Kaytra's discog comprises mostly dance tracks which--analyzed as a body of work--out a Glowed Up vision of the future, 99.9 succeeds because it connects those same dots with a much more varied palette. - Eddie STATS
Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered
Our first taste of what was to come from Untitled Unmastered was December 2014, when Kendrick Lamar performed what would become “Untitled 03” on The Colbert Report. We assumed that the track would be on To Pimp A Butterfly. We were wrong.
Thanks to the insistence (and persistence) of Lebron James, Top Dawg dropped Untitled Unmastered, a compilation album consisting of Butterfly b-sides that further showed just how far Lamar wanted to go. Unmastered is cohesive but not as fully fleshed out as Butterfly. Where the latter experiments in theory, the former experiments in practice. Through Unmastered you get a better sense of how fun but challenging Butterfly probably was. The sounds, themes — to create a body of work quite like Butterfly is no easy feat and Unmastered is a testament to that. Overall, Unmastered is a jam session with just the right amount of lit and insight. - Elijah Watson
YG - Still Brazy
YG is still plagued by his real world life on his second album, Still Brazy. After being shot by an unknown assailant and then attacked at video shoot, the album serves as a chronicled status update of YG the cog in the gangland machine and YG the semi-famous performer from Bompton. Executive produced by Terrace Martin (To Pimp A Butterfly), Still Brazy drips with that G-Funk-y, West Coast flavor. Armed with an economical rap style, YG swats rookie rappers and NARCs away (“Still Brazy”), examines his shooting incident (“Who Shot Me?”) and black-on-black crime (“Blacks & Browns”) — all in a finely crafted album. - Kevito
Beyonce - Lemonade
Beyonce is a gift and she treats her music as such. Part spectacle, part surprise, Beyonce has the power to stop the world (more figurative than literal), which she did with her latest release Lemonade. Like her self titled album from 2013, Lemonade is a visual album with every song complemented by a video. There’s a lot happening on here: the dissolution (and redemption) of love; the day to day mistreatment black people in America endure; and celebrating being not only black, but a woman — and a very powerful woman at that.
But it’s all pieced together so well that you’re left with an album that is creative, innovative and uncompromising, the Queen B swinging Hot Sauce with a confidence and freedom that’s not only refreshing, but empowering. - Elijah Watson
Oddisee - The Odd Tape
At this point, Oddisee fans are continuously satisfied by the hip-hop journeyman and his creations. With The Odd Tape, the PG County to Kings County transplant has infected ears using his light touch of jazz spread over a soul-fueled, early ‘90s hip-hop foundation. All the grooves featured on this effort are on point, never wasting a beat or the listener’s time as Oddisee gives us gorgeous beat switches (“Live From The Drawing Board”), exciting vibrations (“Out At Night”) and a pure explosion of magic (“No Sugar No Cream”). Balanced and measured only in a way that Oddisee can freak it, The Odd Tape is always on, never off and certainly a strong candidate for our forthcoming year-end wrap-up. - Kevito
KING (Self-titled)
Co-signed by legends such as Stevie Wonder, Kendrick Lamar and the late, great Prince Rogers Nelson — KING are the royal ambassadors of dream pop, funk and R&B that the world needs more of in its life. Rich and transformative, KING’s entire effort is a modern tribute to the days when talent like Janet Jackson and Jodeci ruled the airwaves. Fueled by airy vocals, supremely placed synths and stellar songwriting from the trio, KING’s sensuousness has the feel-good appeal, the pure creativity that is sure to relate to audiophiles who are looking for that ole’ thang to return to the masses. - Kevito
Santigold - 99¢
On 99¢ Santigold took all the fierce, punky rebellious energy of her first two records, and channeled it into a whole new form of pop art. Her sophomore LP was titled Master of My Make Believe and abounded with regal metaphors, but even though 99 is equally full of double-edged anger and bemusement about her new place inside the machine of pop culture, it is still the first time Santi sounds like she is truly ushering in an entirely new regime, as opposed to just singing to herself as she tears down the old. What it has in common with the other two albums is that it's a vending machine chock full of joints--"Can't Get Enough Of Myself"; "Banshee"; "Chasing Shadows"; "Who Be Lovin' Me" that would be your all-time shit no matter what year or phase they were released in. - Eddie STATS
Esperanza Spalding - Emily D+Evolution
Esperanza Spalding’s virtuosity is undeniable. But on D+Evolution it’s put front and center: a fearless 12 song album that shows Spalding going in so many musical directions at once, built on a foundation of funk. Contextually, D+Evolution was something of a rebirth for Spalding. After 2012’s Radio Music Society she took two years off from creating music. “See this pretty girl / Watch this pretty girl flow,” she sings confidently on D+Evolution opener “Good Lava.” Time paid off; she came back stronger than ever and it’s evident as soon as the album begins.
In Prince’s passing D+Evolution feels even more important than it already was, because you can hear his influence throughout — not just musically but in the fearlessness and freedom of it all. Spalding has and will continue to fight for uncontrolled creative expression, and D+Evolution is a testament to that. - Elijah Watson
Rihanna - ANTI
Let's just start with the obvious: ANTI is a hell of a record and despite some internet shade, possibly Rihanna's best, most fully realized statement to date. That's not to backhand any other corner of her catalogue...it's been long established that RiRi's global pop star status was earned, and by two things. The first is her ability to excel at almost lane she swerves into--Dancehall Queen, American Idol sweetheart, lonely in the crowd Club Diva, gothy bad girl. You may not have enjoyed or explored every corner--but she's delivered a TKO in each. The second of course, is simply her willingness to put in more Work (work, work, work, work) than you. Which brings us to ANTI. In spite of the Brand X title, it comes across as Rihanna's most confident thesis of her sound, not the various sounds she can deliver but the unique swirl of dusted dancehall singjaying and shoegazing trapsoul (see "Same Ol' Mistakes") that she wants to deliver. The cast of collaborators (SZA, James Fauntleroy, Boi1nda) she assembled to realize that sound evince a precision and fearlessness to match her new give-a-fuck confidence. There's only one (Drake) that could be described as a 'feature'. The rest are innovators and craftspersons at the top of their respective games, cutting specific diamonds to fit specific settings on Rihanna's crown. - Eddie STATS
Honorable Mentions:
River Tiber - Indigo
Robert Glasper - Everything's Beautiful
JMSN - It Is
Domo Genesis - Genesis
Corinne Bailey Rae - The Heart Speaks In Whispers
Jack Garratt - Phase
Majid Jordan
Skepta - Konichiwa
