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My stomach hurts and my throat is on fire. I wish I could sit on the toilet and re-read all seven Harry Potter books, but I can’t do that right now. I’m a working man. Kind of. I have to put in some good hours so that they’ll hire me at the end of this internship. I miss college so much, but I try not to dwell on the good times I took for granted — Halo 3 marathons and staying up until 3:00 with no repercussions. Time to be a grown up.

New York City is freezing and my blood is barely moving by the time I get to Penn Station. I get home at 11:00 and spare an hour of sleep to listen to LiveLoveASAP again. 2011 was rough. We lost Amy Winehouse, Gil-Scott Heron, Heavy D, and Nate Dogg. There were riots and protests all over the world. But I’ll sleep soundly tonight, heartened by the fact that my new baby cousin has all his toes and fingers and that this year, the following beats were dope.

As is tradition, we gathered some friends to each pick their five favorite beats of the year. 2011′s swaggiest are…

Pete Rock – Soul Brother #1

Big K.R.I.T. –  Mississippi maestro

Mark Ronson - DJ, super-producer, the man

Dave1 – 1/2 of Chromeo, expert funkateer, style guru, life long hip hop connoisseur

Waka Flocka – Hardest in the paint

Georgia Anne Muldrow – Stones Throw lady

Nick Speed – One of Detroit’s finest

PT PrimeTime – 1/3 of Untamed Ent (The 6 Day Equation)

HL – Droptops & Stacy Laptops

Jensen Karp – Pop culture junkie, Gallery 1988 owner, rapper pension plan beneficiary.

Craig S. Jenkins – Potholes In My Blog

Rebecca Haithcoat – LA Weekly

Joey – Straightbangin

And your humble editor, KNOBBZXL aka Evan Nabavian

Adele Adkins, Dan Wilson

Adele – Someone Like You

Big K.R.I.T.: You’d be hard pressed to find anyone that’s making music better than Adele right now. She is an amazing songwriter, producer and vocalist. I’d love to work with her.

Agallah

Agallah – Living In My Past

HL: In 2011 we witnessed enthusiasm for the ill-fated Dipset reunion dissipate into oblivion, leaving behind an unwarranted sequel to Boss Of All Bosses and several blasphemous golden-age Jim Jones freestyles as the final remnants of “the movement to move with.” Perhaps our collective listening ears dodged a bullet, because Harlem’s homecoming would’ve likely sucked dolphin dick with Dr. Dre and AraabMusik the steering helm. If the Dips were truly serious about recapturing that abrasive soul associated with their mid-aughts run, they would’ve considered recruiting the infallible Don Bishop Agallah. “Living In My Past” bears as much energy as anything I’ve heard on urban radio this year, while remaining undeniably New Yitty.

Alchemist

B. – Doo Wop (ft. Planet Asia, Killer Ben)

HL: Alchemist donned several ten-gallon hats in 2011, with each style being distinctly insular. He coughed up blunted ambiance for Covert Coup, delivered inclement paranoia on Black Cocaine, and donated apocalyptic boom-bap to Cats and Dogs. But most notably, Alan provided Blu with his most soulful canvas since “Til I Die.” Minimalism has always been most effective in the hands of those with discerning taste. It’s what separates “Doo Wop” from it’s lazy, awkward, contrived, vastly overrated bizarro incarnation known as “Otis.” This year, and arguably the twelve years prior, belonged to Alan The Chemist.

Curren$y & Alchemist – Smoke Break

Rebecca Haithcoat: It’s not the best song on Curren$y and Alchemist’s joint collaboration, Covert Coup, nor does the NOLA rapper stretch lyrically in it. But Alchemist has crafted the perfect getaway track for Spitta Andretti’s movie. The sleepy-eyed stoner has just pulled off the coup of the century (stealthily touring, collecting girls and both kinds of green at every stop, and blowing smoke in the faces of shady industry suits). As the sun sets on his baby blue Ferrari snaking down the coast, you realize he’s getting away with it. This is the song playing as the credits roll. “Yeah, lil homie y’all can get down, but I bet y’all can’t keep up.”

Roc Marciano – Hoard 90

Evan: We look to artists like Roc Marciano and Alchemist for their marshes of lo-fi fuzz, grit, dust, and dirt. That’s why the adamantine guitar sample on “Hoard 90″ pops out like a sword of light cutting through a blanket clouds. Roc Marc tries to play it as low-key as ever, but bars like, “Laughing as I advertise fabulous rhymes / All that vernacular is fly. / Caught your eye with just one try,” beam like golden revelations.

Ben Frank

Ben Frank – Ova (ft. Q-Mack)

PT PrimeTime: The reason I chose that one is because I can relate to that song a whole lot. That song right there is deep. It shows a lot of pain in that song also.

Listen: Ben Frank – Ova (ft. Q-Mack)

Beyonce, Jeff Bhasker, Kanye West

Beyonce – Party (ft. Andre 3000)

Nick Speed: That kind of reminded me of an 80s song. I just like how Andre came on it, plus I like the Slick Rick sample in. As many times as “La Di Da Di” has been sampled, I don’t think anybody actually took that part. Creative usage of Slick Rick in the beat. The tempo was dope, it reminded me of a Summer barbecue. That was real dope to me.

Big K.R.I.T.

T.I. – I’m Flexin’

Big K.R.I.T.: T.I. is one of the torch-bearers for southern hip-hop. He’s definitely someone I’ve always jammed. Being afforded the opportunity to produce and be featured on his first offering to the public after getting out was a blessing. I’m glad people are digging it the way they are.

Jackie Chain – Parked Outside (ft. Bun B, Big K.R.I.T.)

Big K.R.I.T.: Man, this beat went through so many changes. I spent a few days trying get the drums to hit the way they do. I had to layer them in a real intricate way to get that vintage sound out of them. Also, I had to get the original sample replayed and the musicians who did it nailed it. This definitely turned out to be one of my favorite beats I did this year.

Block Beattaz

Untamed Ent – Million Dollar

PT PrimeTime: The reason I picked Untamed Ent’s “Million Dollar Swag” is because of the energy that it gives off and the whole club feel, the whole radio feel. It’s energy, straight energy behind. A lot of people liked it. It’s always good to have energy.

Boi-1da (additional production by Noah “40″ Shebib)

Drake – Headlines

Dave1: Headlines, I think is incredible. That kick drum sounds fucking phenomenal man. That kick drum is unbelievable.

Brandun Deshay

Danny Brown – Pac Blood

Dave1: The way [he] flipped “Nautilus” by Bob James, and that song has been used to death. He used it with another filter underneath and they just gave it a new life.

Bronze Nazareth

Bronze Nazareth – King of Queens

Joey: Sample of the Year, not for its technical intricacy, not for its obscurity, not for its inventiveness. Merely because this joint knocks. Truly, this is hip-hop. The tempo is perfect, strolling along over the snares while Bronze spits in a relaxed cadence. You can’t help but nod your head, shake your shoulders, pump a fist, or maybe all three.

Clams Casino

Lil B – Motivation

Craig S. Jenkins: A major musical obsession began in earnest early in the year when I copped Based God’s Angels Exodus (which, fuck what any forgetful end-of-the-year round-up tells you, remains the best Lil B release of the 2011) and checked the production credits only to find one name listed. The name was Clams Casino, and the track was “Motivation”, whose titanic instrumental brews with Clams’ personal pet sounds: human voices stretched and manipulated until they sound like whales moaning, shimmering blankets of static-laced synth haze, and tribal percussion breakdowns. I never found out who produced the rest of the album, and I can’t say that I care. I’d already found my favorite producer of the year.

Cool & Dre

Game – The City (ft. Kendrick Lamar)

Pete Rock: Kendrick Lamar kills this record. The melodic sound of the beat and the singing make this one of my favorites of 2011.

Game – Good Girls Go Bad (ft. Drake)

Jensen Karp: More soul sampling on this one, it’s the highlight (“Ricky” is a nice second place) of a decent Game album that most people either ignored or underrated. Great claps lead the way, do yourself a favor and give this album a shot. I’m not a huge Cool & Dre fan, but this one sings for sure. Drake references Milhouse on the song, so even if I’m wrong, it’s worth that laugh.

Daedelus

Daedelus – Penny Loafers (ft. Inara George)

Evan: Inara George’s velvet purr makes my brain warm. Daedelus takes her beautiful cadence and drapes it with exotic drums, well-to-do strings, and burning synths. I knew when I pressed play on Bespoke that there would be at least one song that would own me for the next 8 months. “Penny Loafers” is for ballroom dancing on the sun, for house parties where expensive cheeses are served. Stop me before I start writing sonnets.

David Banner

David Banner – SWAG

Big K.R.I.T.: Shout to the big homie for spoon feeding people some healthy and hearty brain food. And, the beat jams.

DJ Burn One

G-Side – No Radio (ft. Bentley)

PT PrimeTime: “This shit ain’t for radio, this no BDS, this the shit that you listen to when relieving stress.” Basically, it’s hard. It’s something hard with G-Side. I like that.

Rittz – High Five

Big K.R.I.T.: Pure country rap tunes right here. This shit knocks. That Tommy Wright III sample flip worked out.

DJ Two Stacks

Kreayshawn – Gucci Gucci

Jensen Karp: Roll your eyes and shake your head all you want, but keep in mind this is a list of hottest BEATS, which has nothing to do with everyone’s most hated white girl. This beat is the main reason (along with the video director) Kreayshawn became a household name so quickly (keep in mind that household was destroyed in a earthquake 6 months later). Need proof? Listen to Lil’ Wayne’s version from the No Ceilings mixtape. I’m right, you’re wrong.

Rebecca Haithcoat: This song should play when 2011’s time capsule is opened. Two Stacks’ brew of warbly synths, yipped “mews,” a cartoonishly menacing undertone, and Kreayshawn’s own ridiculously catchy catchphrase “One big room, fulla bad bitches” is brilliant. Though not her own work, the lines couldn’t have been delivered any better by anyone else. It remains to be seen if she’ll be a one-hit wonder, and she has a nifty writer and Odd Future to thank for the layup, but she slam-dunked this one.

Exile

Bun B – Brolic

Georgia Anne Muldrow: This one is just ooozing funk. And the rhythmic space is incredible.

Harry Fraud

French Montana – Shot Caller (ft. Charlie Rock)

Waka Flocka: That’s the anthem right now. My brother French killing that right now.

Hit-Boy, Kanye West, Mike Dean, (additional production by Anthony Kilhoffer)

Jay-Z and Kanye West – Niggas in Paris

Nick Speed: That track right there was an original track. It kind of reminded me of a mix between a game show, like The Price Right, and they also had a little gospel sample in there. That’s the sample of some “The Baptism” I think is the name of the song by some Southern reverend. So I thought that was real creative, because it’s a keyboard beat with a little bit of gospel in there too. Not to mention they performed it like seven times every time they went out.

Dave1: What’s cool about Paris, that it never really kicks in. It’s always just kicks and snares and it’s cool, it’s a really elliptical programing, it’s so simple and clean. The first time I heard it I actually didn’t think it was that good and two listens in I was sold. [In the club?]  Yeah, that shit cray.

Tha Hydrox

Yelawolf – Hard White (Up in the Club)

Rebecca Haithcoat: Dixie’s silver-tongued hope darts in and out of this straight banger of a beat. An unapologetic club single, Yela nonetheless elevates it by basically shitting on every rapper who actually frequents the club with a precision of flow that’s unmatched. It doesn’t matter if you’re so drunk you only catch Lil Jon hollering, “Happy Birthday!” Whatever Yela’s saying in fast-forward coupled with the shotgun drum blasts will hype you up. They better not play this at a redneck hoedown in the Dirty.

Jahlil Beats

Meek Mill – I’m a Boss (Ft. Rick Ross)

Dave1: Oh man I love that, that’s bananas. That’s that 80′s, you’re [probably] surprised that I like all the kickboard shit. I couldn’t even tell if it was a sample or original. It’s got that original 80′s feel to it. Those are like those Just Blaze beats for the Diplomats, that’s what that reminded me of.

Justice

Justice - Audio, Video, Disco

Mark Ronson: This is what prog should sound like in 2012. The melody, chords, vocals, it’s fucking awesome. The tempo is slighty awkward to play it in my DJ set, I imagine it will probably take a dubstep remix to turn it into a dancefloor hit.

Just Blaze

Drake – Lord Knows

Jensen Karp: Under a choir that would make Tim Tebow satisfied, these drums could make even the worst rapper sound good (word to Rampage the Last Boy Scout). I’m assuming at least 50% of people asked to partake in these lists picked this song, and they wrote about it in great detail, so I’ll use this last sentence to promote my art galleries (gallery1988.com).

Wale, Meek Mill, Pill, Rick Ross, Teedra Moses – Self-Made

Craig S. Jenkins: Just Blaze pulverized pretty much everything he touched this year to the point where picking the best is really just a game of favorites. He caught me with “Self Made,” the Maybach Music Group album opener and title track, though. That live band largess, the hollowed out bits where he lets Teedra Moses’ vocals bleed into the fore, the bits under Meek Mill’s and Wale’s verses where he peels back a couple instruments and lets the keys and guitar vibe out, the alarm clock that announces Pill’s verse, the string section breakdown toward the end, the piano breakdown after it, the sample of Wings’ “Jet”… Like, fuck.

Rick Ross – I Love My Bitches

Nick Speed: First of all it inspired me to want to make a beat. Secondly, that also had a little gospel influence in it too to me, but it also had soul samples in it. The drums was crazy. He had a lot of drum fields and a lot of drum breaks. Not sampled drum breaks, but he had a lot of different programming. His loop might have been 16 bars or something. He definitely got his program on, like he always does.

Kanye West

Jay-Z and Kanye West – Otis

Pete Rock: The way they spit the song made me like the beat.

Kanye West, Pete Rock (additional production by Mike Dean, Jeff Bhasker)

Kanye West & Jay-Z – The Joy (ft. Charlie Wilson, Kid Cudi)

Pete Rock: This one made it because I produced it. Lol. The Curtis Mayfield sample does it for me with this record.

Mark Ronson: Kanye has been very grateful as of late to the legendary producers who gave birth to a lot of our styles, RZA, Q-Tip, and Pete Rock etc… And Pete’s been on fire the past few years anyway (check “Be Easy” and any of his tracks off ofApollo Kids). “The Joy” is a perfect example of Kanye’s gratitude paying off in spades for all involved: the Curtis vocal, the Syl Johnson “uh” for extra golden-era cred, and the sputteringly late snare, they all frame Kanye & Jay’s vocals and make this feel like long lost classic.

Download: Kanye West & Jay-Z – The Joy (ft. Charlie Wilson, Kid Cudi)

Knife Knights PLCRS

Shabazz Palaces – Are You… Can You… Were You? (Felt)

Craig S. Jenkins: The beauty of “Are You…,” of all of the latest Shabazz Palaces album Black Up, really, is the way the music pairs classicist hip hop production with the modern avant garde. “Are You…” takes what seems to be a simple chop and outfits it with shambling, intricate percussion and experimental electronic noise like some kind of retro-futurist take on modern rap.

Lee Major of The Inkredibles

Rick Ross, Meek Mill & Wale – Play Your Part

Jensen Karp: If you told me in 2010 that a Wale song would be on any list I’d compile, I would’ve laughed at you and told to clean my room (my room is messy, nothing to do with the music). I don’t know much about Lee Major or The Inkredibles, and I won’t Google either just to seem smarter, I’ll just say it’s a great beat in the fashion of J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League (a usual mainstay on my favorite beats list), and I love hearing D.A. on the hook as the whole thing just sounds very big. Good stuff, rich guys.

Lex Luger

Waka Flocka – Round of Applause (ft. Drake)

Waka Flocka: This record is going to be big. All the ladies loving it. The clubs are on smash with this one for real.

M16

Young Jeezy – I Do (ft. Jay-Z, Andre 3000)

Pete Rock: Great bass line.

Madlib

Declaime – Apocalyptic Music (ft. Aloe Blacc)

Georgia Anne Muldrow: I love this track, it’s real involved. Madlib got the widest range in beats.

Freddie Gibbs and Madlib – Thuggin’

Evan: “Syringes, rubber bands, needles, the 60s.” That particular Ghostface refrain is what comes to mind when I listen to “Thuggin’” Maybe it’s the ambling psychedelia of the beat paired with Gibbs’ surgically precise flow. Maybe the high, clear staccato guitar (?) reminds me of “Verbal Intercourse.” Or maybe it’s just the hook, which perfectly matches the high I get from this track, “And it feels so good. And it feels so right.” People aspire to be Dr. Dre or DJ Premier. No one aspires to be Madlib because they know they’ve got no chance.

Mad Lion

KRS-One - AZTECHNICAL

Georgia Anne Muldrow: Amazing. It’s exactly the way a scroll should sound.

Martin “Doc” McKinney

The Weeknd – Wicked Games

Dave1: That’s crazy. It’s a Portishead hip hop thing. I mean listen, sonically what they’re doing, and it’s really tough for me to say this since I’m from Montreal, but Toronto is killing it this year. I tip my hat to them man, they are murdering the game production wise.

Nick Speed

Danny Brown – Detroit 187

Evan: Nick Speed told me that Danny first recorded this song in his low voice, but I’m so glad he switched to the insane high pitched cartoon voice. Combined with the brooding, tinker toy beat, it makes “Detroit 187″ one of the more delightfully weird tracks on XXX. Like getting lost in an asylum.

Noah “40″ Shebib

Drake – Free Spirit (ft. Rick Ross)

Craig S. Jenkins: Hip hop heads hate Drake like he stole their high school sweetheart and dumped her after he beat, but I don’t get it. He’s obviously just a harmless R&B guy who just happens to rap, and what’s more, annoying though he may be, he makes sure to surround himself with a talented stable of collaborators at all times. Producer Noah “40” Shebib is arguably the wind in Drake’s sails musically speaking, and his spectral touch made 2011 urban radio a very strange place. Non-album cut “Free Spirit” showcased 40’s knack for taking not-so-cool source material and turning it into moody pop. Here 40 takes an old school Sade track and flips it into muted, vaguely Southern boom bap replete with his trademark industrial-sounding drums, barely there bass, and light guitar accents.

Oh No

MED - Where I’m From (ft. Aloe Blacc)

Georgia Anne Muldrow: Song is baad! Oh No is one of the most consistent brothers doing it on the beats and that’s real.

Perseus

Mark Ronson - Record Collection 2012 (Ft. Pharrell, MNDR, Wretch 32 & Wiley) (Perseus Remix)

Mark Ronson: Of any remix of one of my songs, this may be my all-time favourite to actually listen to (outside of the club). I love the way he changed the chord progression and then cleverly tuned MNDR’s vocals to match it. And the arpeggiating synth sounds like something out of an 80′s Michael Mann film like “To Live & Die In L.A.” Gildeas from Kitsune commissioned this mix and as soon as I heard it, I had to find out who this kid was.

Pete Rock

Blu – The Clean Hand

Joey: Hip-Hop’s ghosts live on this track, the dusty, dulcet tones recalling the Digable Planets and Tribe, inviting everyone from early Busta to the late Biggie. Fresh though, “Clean Hand” enjoys some pop thanks to Blu’s sharp vocals and the lively undercurrent pushing the track forward. Most impressive, the beat holds its own against some of the best Pete Rock joints.

Quelle Chris

Danny Brown – Monopoly

HL: At this point you should certainly be familiar with Quelle Chris. After all, he was responsible for roughly 37.5% of The Hybrid’s brilliant soundscape. When I asked Quelle why he didn’t hoard “Monopoly” for his solo endeavor, he claimed the production simply didn’t fit into the mold of Shotgun and Sleek Rifle. Fortunately, it gelled perfectly with the zany atmosphere of Danny Brown’s XXX. In retrospect, passing this instrumental along to a more animated vocalist that could match its aggressive quirkiness proved to be an outstanding decision, and resulted in one of the strongest rap songs of 2011.

Rich Green

A.F.A.C – Left 2 Right (ft. PT PrimeTime)

PT PrimeTime: The reason I like this song is, I’m a big fan of Bravo and I’m a big fan of PT PrimeTime. I’m a big fan of myself. I like the energy in that song also. I like the way each artist was able to ride the beat with the flow and stay on cadence. Rich Green, he’s an awesome producer.

Riff Raff McGriff

Riff Raff McGriff – Moon Baby Morse Code

Georgia Anne Muldrow: This cat’s a boom bap genius. You can literally hear the morning mist on the battleground on this one.

Listen: Riff Raff McGriff – Moon Baby Morse Code

Salaam Remi

Nas – Nasty

HL: One of my huskiest beefs with fellow chip-toothed fanboys is their failure to muster up the testicular fortitude to defend Salaam Remi. This year ”Nasty” joined the ranks of classic street singles such as “Thief’s Theme” and “Made You Look.” Unfortunately, their latest collaboration never trickled down to the actual streets, and was confined to the virtual boulevards, avenues, and cul-de-sacs of the blogosphere. But lack of impact and influence shouldn’t detract from the quality of the record. Salaam provides a back-drop brimming with the type of grimace inducing low fidelity we’ve come to expect from southern California’s resident recluses, Blu and Madlib. So briefly suspend your unjustified hatred for Salaam Remi, pour a modest glass of cognac, light up a Cohiba Behike, and enjoy ”Nasty” in all it’s distorted glory.

Skywlkr

Danny Brown – Bruiser Brigade

Nick Speed: I had the album a little bit early, so the whole summer, I was just riding to that shit, we was getting drunk as hell, rolling downtown, attending wild parties, hanging with wild chicks and just listening to “Bruiser.” Just a laundry list of liquors and beers that he’s running down on that song and then not only that, but he had the Waka Flocka Flame adlibs added to it. For the beat itself, it had like a dubstep bassline, 808s, just the tempo. So it kind of satisfies my guilty pleasures. That was my party rocker for this year.

Southside

Wooh Da Kid – Feeling Good

Waka Flocka: Bricksquad Monopoly you already know. 2012 is gonna be big year for us. We taking over.

SpaceGhostPurrp

ASAP Rocky – Keep It G (ft. Chace Infinite, Spaceghost Purrp)

Evan: The ultimate riding tune, “Keep It G” glides on a serpentine trumpet melody that I’ll never get out of my head. I’m convinced that time slows down when I play this song. ASAP Rocky was the one rapper who broke out with a distinct sound that instantly made me a fan.

Download: ASAP Rocky – Keep It G

Spaceghostpurrp – Suck a Dick for 2011

Rebecca Haithcoat: Whether it’s the squealing synth, the muffled kick of the drum, or the fact that Miami’s Spaceghostpurrp chants “Suck a nigga dick fa 2011” for a full 45 seconds, his voice covered in a thick fuzz of reverb, this was my favorite in a year chock-full of anthems. Purrp’s is not the work of a prodigy producer cranking out purposefully lo-fi recordings in his parents’ basement — it’s messy, the song a C-section scarred-stripper dances to in the Deep South. Bucking rap’s traditional takes on oral sex, he directs shots neither at other rappers nor women. Instead, he shames those not having safe sex and reveals a feminist tendency. He really is straddling 1991 and 2011.

Listen: Spaceghostpurrp – Suck a Dick for 2011

Swizz Beatz

Rick Ross – The Transporter

HL: “The Transporter” was born out of the short-lived “Monster Mondays” promotion series, which oddly never lead up to an actual project. Quite frankly, I find it difficult to believe Swizz Beatz had a hand in this beautiful composition. But assuming he actually pounded this out on the MPC, God bless him for inspiring Rick Ross to channel his Deeper Than Rap era alliteration and flamboyant mafioso imagery. Unlike the bulk of Swizzy’s discography, ”The Transporter” isn’t repetitive, but in fact quite layered and capricious.

Download: Rick Ross – The Transporter

T-Minus

Drake – Make Me Proud (ft. Nicki Minaj)

Waka Flocka: I like this song because it just shows my ladies I’m proud of what they doing. Going for theirs. Ya know?

Drake – The Motto (Ft. Lil Wayne)

Mark Ronson: I first heard Seb Chew play a leak of “The Motto” on London’s Rinse FM and it was the first beat in recent memory that made me go, “Who the fuck made that?” There’s not one drum sound or sample in it that you haven’t heard before and you could say that it’s a distant relative of some classic Too Short shit; however, it’s still wholly original in its own right. Plus, there’s a snare on the downbeat–which is hard as fuck to get away with in a club track. And the icing on the cake is that Drake sounds like he’s having a ball on the track, a rare occurrence on Take Care. Anyway, once I looked up who had made this track, I realized that T-Minus had already produced my other favourite hip-pop track of the year, “I’m On One”–which reminds me of Art Of Noise go Trap.

T-Minus (additional production by Noah “40″ Shebib, Kromatic)

DJ Khaled – I’m On One (ft. Drake, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne)

Dave1: I think T-Minus is my producer of the year, I’ve been telling that to everyone. You saw what he did right? He did “I’m on One” he did fuckin “She Will.” But yeah, so T-Minus, “I’m On One,” number one beat of the year. The keyboard lick, when it really kicks in…you’re waiting for it. It’s crazy man, all the change ups, and it’s still sort of subdued. That’s my shit.

Pete Rock: I like the beat and the sampled sound they used on this joint.

Tyler, The Creator

Tyler, The Creator – Yonkers

Jensen Karp: Although the whole album was a minor disappointment, nothing hit harder in 2011 than Tyler’s first real jump into mainstream, both lyrically and behind the boards. Stabbing chords, spastic drums, screeching hook – this painted the picture that would take the streets/malls/Hot Topics by storm, without any commercial structure or precedence. The pop anti-pop. Say what you will about Odd Future, but to ignore the lane, the sound, the groundwork they created this year would just be hating.

Rebecca Haithcoat: Hitchcock would have wanted this sparse, creepy opening strain to preface the shower scene in Psycho. Tyler exacerbates the effect with his equally ominous and sexy voice, which sounds like he just swallowed his rage but it’s barely contained. Plunked piano chords lend the song a wistful melancholy, a perfect contrast/complement to the callousness/vulnerability of the lyrics. If I were a 15-year-old misunderstood, teased male, I’d play this over and over while plotting my revenge.

Nick Speed: That beat right there was like a rebirth of the Wu-Tang movement. I think that that kind of brought back that sound to the forefront in the mainstream where it was getting attention from people like Pharrell and MTV. They took it back to not only Wu-Tang, but 90s independent hip-hop 12″ college radio kind of sound. And they actually brought that to the people where it was acceptable in a mainstream or commercial world.

Dave1: It has that WuTang feel, it’s like look man, I just recognize when I see guys like Tyler, ASAP, Danny Brown… I come from the underground, I came up with the underground. This gives me that feeling again, I mean I’m 33 and I’m waiting for a mix tape to drop on Monday like a fucking teenager? What the fuck is wrong with me?! For something in music to give me that feeling again, it’s been a while in hip hop.

Tzarizm

9th Prince & Midaz – ThunderCats

Joey: Like walking through a valley of terror. The drums climbs high, the discordant synthesizers menace the shit of a listener, and it blares along like an assault. In an age of crooning Canadians and threadbare tough talk, something so elemental, grimy, and raw commands special respect.

Wiley

Wiley – Numbers In Action

Mark Ronson: If you took Ying-Yang Twins’ “The Whisper Song” across the Atlantic Ocean and filtered it through the lens of a generation of UK grime music, it would sound like this. Like “The Motto”, i doubt there’s much in this beat that can’t be found in a Roland drum machine, but the way it’s crafted is wholly original. It’s an instant neck-snapper.

Young L

Young L – How I Got Here

Young L – Loud Pockets (TIE)

Craig S. Jenkins: Young L is the future. He does whatever he wants behind the boards. Left field drum patterns? Sure. Ear-splitting synths? OK. Whole mixtape of songs sampling nothing but Imogen Heap? Why the fuck not? Of the three projects Young L released this year, Domo-Kun, followed was probably my favorite, closely followed by Praktica. That’s mostly thanks to ratchet ass instrumentals like  “Loud Pockets” and “How I Got Here”, both of which cleverly pit swatches of wonky synth melody against impossibly massive drums. Crank this shit up to max volume and dumb the fuck out like I’m doing as I write this. BASS!

The Roots always have great singles and they tend to pick guests that are both buzzed about and talented. They got a verse from Wale for “Rising Up” back when he was positioned to be the next big thing and they got Big K.R.I.T. for “Make My,” where he atones for the rap star lifestyle. K.R.I.T. shows his gentler side that appears on songs like “Dreamin,” but that he can’t bring to Tity Boi songs. Black Thought doesn’t put as much feeling into his verse and has some out of place lines like “Praying like a mantis.” Touching.

via Okayplayer

Starlito’s newest mixtape Ultimate Warrior is a swirl of ambition, regret, and base desire. It’s more a mass of new material than a proper street album, but no less entrancing for it. The Nashville rapper is wildly charismatic and raps in lyrically dense bursts. Even when he adopts familiar topics – drug dealing sagas and misogynist romps – he sits on top of them and sneers at them. Or he transcends them by telling the stories with genuine feeling rather than going through the motions.

Ultimate Warrior starts with “#UW,” a title track for the hashtag age and a confrontational and cheeky introduction. Vitriolic peaks excuse the lack of a hook. Starlito raps from the back of his throat in a strangled croak that sounds like he’s about to throw up. The anticipative beat serves a hostile, outspoken loudmouth. “Antonio Montana” opens with Starlito reciting Scarface lesson number one, “Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed,” before breaking into a cackle. He wavers between sardonic and aggressive throughout Ultimate Warrior.

The hi-hat charged beats are a departure from the haughty sample-based production on Renaissance Gangster but for once, I don’t miss the East Coast influence. Starlito works with artists I’ve ignored or long since written off like Drumma Boy, Coop, Fate Eastwood, Don Trip, and Young Buck, but he finds great performances in all of them. The beats are violent and destructive and the riling anthemic hooks are a testament to Starlito’s talent as a writer.

“Young & Restless” is the tape’s first reprieve from the battering tone and it’s the most soberly dark track on Ultimate Warrior. Starlito meticulously tells the story of a friend who was killed when a drug deal went sour. He speaks not as a dubiously appointed narrator, but as a helpless friend who worries about suffering the same fate. “Thousand Eyes” rides the ultimate dealer-turned-rapper high and Starlito and Don Trip feed off each other’s energy.

I tend to like every other Starlito project. I found the Step Brothers mixtape with Don Trip too jokey and flippant and the beats not very good. Ultimate Warrior has a sense of humor too. The title references an old professional wrestler and the garish, primitive cover art shows that Starlito doesn’t take himself too seriously, even on his darkest songs.

Wale is the biggest name on Ultimate Warrior and the perfect guest for “I’m a Mess,” where he, Starlito, Don Trip remorselessly acknowledge their womanizing. Starlito raps his best witticism on “Pissed Off,” a torrent of shit-talking in the name of an incarcerated partner, “I’m pissed off, put your tuition on my ignition / Two years at Vanderbilt, that’s what my shit cost.”

There are missteps on Ultimate Warrior – the token pop singer hook on “Stuck Wit Ya” and the obnoxiously titled “#LolBitchPowPowPow” – but they’re drowned out by a relentless rapper who never loses his voice. The tape wraps with two of its strongest tracks. “Gotta Whole Lotta” is a defiant look back at hard fought success and “Right Now” is an absolute reflection on hard times and humble beginnings. It’s this humanity that distances Starlito from every other passionate, quick tongued rapper. Every surge of anger and pit of weakness is felt in his voice as well as the content of his lyrics.

via grindhard apparel

Let’s see if Wale ever makes music like this again. If he tried to make this song today, it would need a J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League beat and at least one verse from Meek Mill.

Wale on his Boy Meets World swag. When ML brought Wale to his first Washington Capitals game, he got really excited when we asked him about his favorite Saved by the Bell episode. Watch the video for “The MC” below for some more traditional rap video imagergy. Both off More About Nothing.

I got in touch with producer Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Daniel Merriweather, Duran Duran) three weeks ago to talk about his favorite beats of the year. After he thoroughly educated me (I’ve listened to “Katy on a Mission” 40+ times), Mark was nice enough to field some questions. I was surprised to find out the Grammy winning, actress dating musician is just as disillusioned with pop music and celebrity antics as us normal people.

Twitter

I have a really hard time with celebrities or famous musicians sending each other tweets across the thing when they could just get each other’s phone number. I always accuse Wale of being guilty of that. Like ‘Yo Diddy, what are we doing tonight?’ which I just think is like, ‘OK, you have his phone number, you could text him.’

Yelawolf

I would listen to [Trunk Muzik: 0-60] over the new Eminem album fucking any day of the week and I’m not comparing [Yelawolf and Eminem] because they’re white. It’s got the same rebel spirit and a lot of the same pain and passion, all that thing, but it’s got such a better– it’s light and he’s got a sense of humor about things and he has clever lines and stuff like that. Eminem’s just become this moan-y, whiny like, ‘me, me, me’ thing. It’s like, ‘dude, you’ve fucking got 50 million in the bank, what is still so horribly wrong?’ But anyway, that’s not for me to say.

Record Collection and radio

I don’t think Record Collection fits in anywhere, to be honest. I don’t mean that like I’m wearing it as a proud flag, I’d more than fucking happy to have my records on the radio. But I just think that– obviously we’re on the radio in other countries. “Bang Bang Bang,” it was a hit in England obviously, but it was my first hit in Australia and Germany and New Zealand and Japan and places like that, which is quite strange because kind of a left field single. It’s got a weird form, and it’s got a sing and then a rap and then a chorus and then a rap and then a sing, do you know what I mean? But anyway, I think people like it just because it’s a good record, it’s got a good beat, whatever, I don’t want to get too into it.

But I don’t listen to the radio. I can’t listen to it. I mean, I listen to Hot 97 occasionally if [Funkmaster] Flex is playing and I just want to hear what’s going on. Flex and Enuff, Peter Rosenberg. There are people that are really good DJs on there.

But the music

But the music, it’s gotten to the point where it’s so watered down on the radio that a song like “You Be Killin Em” by Fabolous sounds like fucking “Come Clean” by Jeru the Damaja. It sounds like the most hip-hop thing that was ever made because in context, what else is being played? It’s just such a fucking oasis.

And I’m not like a grumpy hater, somebody who doesn’t like stuff that’s popular at all. It’s just that when I started DJing in clubs in kind of like my peak, it was in a really amazing place at the most commercial hip-hop was arguably the best. The stuff that was the most accessible was Jay, Dre, Snoop, even the beginning of Fabolous and that New York era up to T.I. and Outkast and stuff.

And then–

And then there was a dumb down takeover that happened about three or four years ago and I was DJing the tail end of that, going to Vegas and playing a one and a half hour string of songs that sound good in the club and I didn’t really mind playing if you have a good way to put them together in a set that’s clever. But you’d never want to hear them sitting at home on a Sunday. There’s not much depth or soul to the music.

It’s basically what disco was in the late 70s. Soul music evolved into disco and then people found a formula. They’re like, ‘Oh, people like this, it sounds good in the club, and then they want to listen to it the next day, so we have the formula.’ And all of the soul music became, for the most part, 120 beats per minute with the same strings and the same cheesy hooks about dance routines and stuff. Back in the 70s, no one was suddenly like, ‘Oh, we’re in the disco era now, cool! It’s Tuesday, now it’s disco era!’ It took five, six years for people to revisit that era and see what it was just like it would take six years after the war to make a Vietnam movie or a Desert Storm film.

Prognosis

I think ten years from now when we write the book on music, or we start to write it, on this era, I think this will be looked at as the time when we don’t call it hip-hop anymore, it will probably get its own name. I know we’ve kind of flirted with names like snap music and other stuff, but I really think most of this stuff isn’t really hip-hop anymore. It’s just it’s own form of something.

I was listening to the 80s station on Sirius the other day and I was like — even the songs we kind of laugh at because the 80s was a bit easy to make fun of because visually it was a little ridiculous and whatnot — the songs were still pretty good and there was some substance to it. And I was thinking, who the fuck is going to want to listen to the 2010 channel twenty years from now to hear these records back to back? I don’t think that many people.

One of the harbingers of that to me was when the industry word turned from good to hot. ‘That’s a hot record’ instead of ‘that’s a good record.’ You could see the sea change happening there.

The minute you start doing house club versions of “The Time of My Life” and then rapping over it, I might as well be DJing a Bar Mitzvah with a drum machine in my pocket.

Optimism

Obviously, there’s things like Jay Electronica that are still beams of hope. I’m optimistic because whenever the ship stays around too long and gets super stale, it just kind of comes back around.

I play with Q-Tip. He does a party on Friday at the Ace Hotel, so whenever I’m in town I do that. I enjoy that. But the thing with the band is, we did a couple of shows in New York and a couple in LA with Miike Snow, but it’s such a big band and it’s pretty expensive that unless we really started moving some major fucking units, it would be hard to justify the expense of bringing the band, but I’ll probably do some DJ stuff. Me and Q-Tip are talking about maybe touring together as a DJ team or some kind of entity and I’ll be touring a lot overseas in Australia and stuff a lot [in 2011].

But there were some bright spots. Christopher Nolan continued to push the boundaries of film for the better. The World Cup justified AM drinking. And “The Dude” won an Oscar.

As always, the (good) music never stopped. The year will best be remembered for Kanye’s second-semester ubiquity, from his tweets to the leaks to his almost-masterpiece. Eminem solidified his comeback, with the only album (besides Taylor Swift) that sold well this year. Dame Dash continued his own resurrection, too, cleverly hopping on the Curren$y bandwagon. Janelle Monae finally released a full-length, which was arguably the year’s best. Big Boi proved his independence worthwhile. B.o.B. went pop, which is good for him, I guess. And Jay-Z rapped over a Pete Rock beat. God is good, sometimes.

Special thanks to Devin Chanda of Scheme Engine and The Smoking Section for blessing us with the introduction.

If you listened closely, you caught a lot of great music this year. If not, we’ve got you. We gathered our friends to tell us their five favorite beats of the year. DJ Eclipse got to pick six because he’s special. You can find part two here. Forming today’s musical brain trust we have…

Mark Ronson – DJ, super-producer, “the best-connected man in pop”

DJ Eclipse - DJ, La Coka Nostra, host of Rap is Outta Control on Sirius/XM

Jackie Chain – Mr. VIP, his mixtape Who Da Mane is out now

Daedelus – underground LA beat man

Will Power – producer of Yelawolf’s Trunk Muzik, the most buzzing mixtape of the year

Block Beattaz – Alabamian monster production duo

DJ Burn One – country rap expert, DJ, producer of Starlito’s Renaissance Gangster

Moss – producer for Ghostface, Raekwon, and this year’s At Last with Eternia

Von Pea – rapper, producer, 1/3 of Tanya Morgan, his album Pea’s Gotta Have It is out now

Paul White – maker of incredible beats

6th Sense – underground NY producer

Zilla Rocca – rapper, producer, your favorite blogger’s favorite blogger (Clap Cowards)

Jerry Barrow – NODFACTOR.com and TheUrbanDaily

Brandon Soderberg – No Trivia

Aaron Matthews – Canned Thinking

Joey – Straight Bangin’

HL – Droptops & Stacy Lattisaw Tapes

Ivan Rott – Hip Hop is Read

Craig Jenkins – Prefix Magazine and Potholes In My Blog

And your Metal Lungies editor in chief/youngest in charge, KNOBBZ aka Moose

Ahmir ‘?uestlove’ Thompson

The Roots – Doin’ It Again

6th Sense: How I Got Over is another classic in The Roots catalog. That and Kanye’s album were my favorites this year. I could’ve picked anything from The Roots album but I chose this one cause it’s so big! Sample a live John Legend recording? Sure, why not! And shouts to Jason Goldstein on the mix.

Ahmir ‘?uestlove’ Thompson, Jeremy Grenhart, Karl B. Jenkins

The Roots – Now or Never (ft. Phonte, Dice Raw)

Joey: Let those of us now in the throes of our youth’s twilight take a moment to thank the Roots. A song about the turmoil of change, the ambivalence of growth, the onward march of time did not have to be so generously paced, so dulcetly scored. Ahmir et al. might have opted for a song that was severe and lurching, self-aware and self-indulgent as it sought to lecture and mean something. But the Roots, as usual, were smarter than that. Serious but still fun, and walking swiftly rather than sauntering or sprinting toward the abyss, “Now or Never” is the quintessential grown-folks rap song. Stripped of its poignant rhymes, the track would likely succeed as this kind of champion all the same. The drums are insistent but sparse in a fashion that calls a listener to attention but doesn’t crowd him. We must own up to who we are, but we aren’t going to be judged. These percussive demands echo across a commodious keyboard landscape that is soft enough to be accommodating. The track creates a canvas. Thompson, Grenhart, and Jenkins then fill it with brisk cymbals and an ever waning hint of guitar. Collectively, the elements are a wonderful mixture that captures the pivot for which the song is intended. Luckily, it’s not such a sudden change, nor such a severe referendum.

Anonymous Twist

Theology 3 – IT’S THEO3

DJ Eclipse: This is my sleeper joint of the year. Not as many people are familiar with either the MC or producer compared to the other names on my list, but damn this track bangs! One of those records made for DJs to cut up. Good to see the art form isn’t lost on the youth.

AraabMuzik

The Diplomats – Salute

Brandon: Previously known for last year’s screeching, mini-epic, “Get It In Ohio,” off Cam’ron’s Crime Pays, AraabMuzik spent 2010 producing pretty much everything Cam rapped on, and making a name for himself with live MPC performances that are more like avant-garde noise workouts than anything hip-hop-related — or maybe he took rap back to when it was a little closer to avant-garde noise? Sampling Nosferatu’s “The Desolate One,” a chunk of goofy trance that already has New York hip-hop in its sonic DNA (Nas’ “Hate Me Now”), the young producer turns it into the theme from Psycho (love that scream that drops at just the right moment) for the Lex Luger generation: all horror movie atmosphere, with drums that pound like 90s rap and skitter like 2000s rap.

Audible Doctor

Joell Ortiz – Battle Cry (ft. Just Blaze)

DJ Eclipse: This joint was dope out the box, but the Just Blaze’s mixed version of AMD’s beat just made it stand out that much more. And Joell tears this track up. Blaze’s adlibs hype it up that much more. Good build up of anticipation until Joell starts. Banger for sure.

Baths

Baths – ?

Daedelus: Another new sound on the scene was Baths LP Cerulean, wherein his own vocals against never easy beats became quite a blunted uplift.

Beanz N Kornbread

Paul Wall – Round Here (ft. Chamillionaire)

Will Power: This beat is infectious. Paul Wall and Chamillionaire killed the hook.

Benga

Katy B – Katy on a Mission

Ronson: Benga and Skream and a few of those other producers have been making underground records for awhile, but I feel like this is probably the first one with a female vocalist and actually becoming a fucking big pop record. I guess you could sort of count Skream’s remix of La Roux as the first dubstep kind of pop remix, whereas Katy B is like an artist to come out of that scene. [The song] basically shows that [Skream and Benga] can make a hit for Britney Spears or anybody. That sound has suddenly become so ripe and it’s certainly the most exciting thing on British radio when it comes on. The first time I heard dubstep, it was hard for me to understand what separated it from other genres, because it’s got elements of hip-hop and drum and bass, but I guess the thing is the throbbing huge sub bassline that makes it special and I guess the style of the drum programming. That was the breakout pop hit of that dubstep scene.

Bink! (additional production by Mike Dean)

Kanye West – Devil in a New Dress (original version)

Zilla Rocca – He might wax his chest and do anthills of cocaine off Icelandic linens now, but at his core Kanye West is still a soulful loudmouth from the suburbs of Chi-town who is a master of utility. Case in point, bringing in Bink! for “Devil in a New Dress.” It’s been almost a decade since The Blueprint, where Bink!’s contributions “The Ruler’s Back,” “All I Need,” and “Momma Loves Me” rivaled anything from young ‘Ye and Just Blaze. My Dark Twisted Fantasy walks the ladder of excess like Bad Boy’s expense account in 1998, but “Devil” is simple, elegant, and gorgeous. The Smokey Robinson sample “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” takes center stage. It’s drenched in nostalgia and mournful soul. When that beat kicks in, you forgive Kanye for all tantrums and radical impulses and misguided attempts to become a world-turning avante garde rap artiste because he had enough sense to fly Bink! out to Hawaii and snag this effortless banger.

Download from Kanye West: Kanye West – Devil in a New Dress (original version)

Kanye West – Devil in a New Dress (ft. Rick Ross)

6th Sense: Early on in the year, The Kid Daytona brought me over to Bink!’s place ‘cause they were working on some stuff. At some point, Bink! just started playing beats and this beat came on. To this day, I use my reaction to that beat as a litmus for other beats. I started LAUGHING. Hard. That’s how ill the beat was. For months I would tell close peers about this Smokey Robinson beat that Bink! had. Thank you Mr. West for killing that beat and making a classic with Bink! He’s such a talented dude, he can play every instrument, and I’m looking forward to all the new stuff he’s got coming.

Big K.R.I.T.

Big K.R.I.T. – Now Or Neva

DJ Burn One: The epitome of country rap tunes in 2010. K.R.I.T. has been honing his production the past few years and joints like this prove just how cold he is. 80s inspired funk over southern drums. What more could you ask for?

Big K.R.I.T. – Country Shit

Will Power: I love this beat. I’m a Big K.R.I.T. fan for the beats and rhymes!

Black Milk

Black Milk – Deadly Medley (ft. Royce da 5’9″, Elzhi)

Joey: The twang in the melody sounds as though someone made a mistake while playing. Only, this is a rap track produced by a masterful sampler. The music is not original, nor was it re-created in studio. Within those re-calibrated parameters, then, that notable fissure in the music’s purity instead might suggest that the plastic of a tape got stretched out ever so slightly, and this contaminated the sound as it was transferred from a tape deck to a computer. A tape would make sense; “Deadly Medley” is dusty. It sounds like you’d need a pencil to fix. Only, that wouldn’t be right, either, because the original Blackrock joint from whence this music comes is just as screwy. Once you learn that, the track’s brilliance finally comes into focus. Stretched across booming drums in a fashion that makes the melody seem like a hide set out for tanning, those distorted notes absorb punishment and emerge well worn. Accommodating intense rapping from Detroit’s finest, “Deadly Medley” sounds old but new, and passive but powerful, almost like the city, itself. “Medley” also stands as a microcosm for Black Milk’s singular talent: no one is as adept at imbuing creaky soul with modern vitality.

Black Milk – Black and Brown (ft. Danny Brown)

HL: I was once told by a stoner that Album of the Year blew his high due to “all those fuckin’ drums”. Although I don’t indulge in the funny cigarettes (D.A.R.E. class of 1993), I can definitely identify with the critique. That’s not to say the instrumentals are horrible (individually they’re each admittedly well crafted), but as a collective the beats become quite repetitive with the exception of “Black & Brown”. The kicks on this song are indeed thunderous, but in a good way. Not in the way that gives me the urge to jump through a wormhole, travel back to September 2009, and jam at least half the pads on Black Milk’s MPC.

Block Beattaz

Jackie Chain – This is Not Enough (ft. Assasyn, Mali Boy)

Jackie: Who was that sample by? Tots or tits or toto or tutu or something? But that “This is Not Enough” beat is one of the hardest beats I’ve heard this year.

Boi-1da

Drake – 9 AM in Dallas

Moss: The best song on Drake’s album to my ears. I have to tip my hat to what 1da managed to do this year.

Bossman

G-Side – I’m Sorry

Block Beattaz: Used vocals as an instrument. Low tight bass with great track and vocal manipulation.

Cardo

Wiz Khalifa – Mezmorized

DJ Burn One: More cowbell. Every beat could use more cowbell. Apparently Cardo agrees, because he mixed one up on here with a fuzzy synth lead and a jamming sub bassline. The perfect backdrop for Wiz Khalifa’s blunted melodic tales.

Block Beattaz: Great album opener. Laid back, but aggressive. He delivered the verses as designed by the track.

Christolph & Free

The Niceguys – Toast

Craig Jenkins: I have always wanted my own superhero theme music, but I could never find a band that was willing to be paid in french fries and PBRs. Sucks, right? Luckily the Niceguys came out with this banger. Those horns sound downright triumphant, and the more attentive listener will notice how the keys play a quiet melodic counterpoint to the epic brass. Also, the marching band rendition of Steely Dan’s “Do It Again” that’s folded into the fray pleases my inner 70s pop fan greatly. I would love to see a picture of what my face does whenever this song comes on. I must look ridiculous.

Daft Punk, Pharrell Williams

N.E.R.D. – God Bless Us All

Ronson: I was doing a photoshoot for some French magazine with Pharrell and he took me in the back room and [they were] trying to finish the N.E.R.D. record. So he played me some stuff and I was pretty blown away. And I’m surprised it hasn’t made a bit more of a splash. I think it’s just more of a sign of how fucking horrible and homogeneous radio has become. The thing about N.E.R.D. records is, usually that’s where they indulge their sort of live side and they usually have a lot of musicality. What I like about this record is that it has a lot of the musicality, but it has those hard drums that remind me of the Clipse records like “Cot Damn” or “What Happened to that Boy.” The beat is kind of hard and it’s got beautiful chord changes and stuff.

Damian Marley

Nas & Damian Marley – As We Enter

Ronson: It says it’s produced by Damian Marley, which, I mean, I don’t know if he was hunched over an MPC or cracking the whip on some little kid producer Puffy style, but it doesn’t matter really. It’s just a fucking great beat. There’s a certain kind of hip-hop beat that’s dying a slow death. When you think of like a great sample and some tough drums – it doesn’t have to sound like a golden era record, but I feel like “As We Enter” kind of did that. It’s like tough drums, got that horn break — it doesn’t hurt, of course, that Nas and Damian Marley are going back and forth and they’re in two completely different dialects, but they sound like they could be EPMD or Smif-N-Wessun. They’re obviously supposed to be going back and forth. They just go so well together. I just love that track. That’s probably the record I played out the most in my DJ sets this year as well.

DJ Burn One

Starlito – GH

Brandon: Like Curren$y and Ski Beatz’s Pilot Talk series, Starlito and DJ Burn One’s Renaissance Gangster is what happens when a casually brilliant rapper and a quietly experimental producer enter collaborative mind-meld mode. “GH” is closing credits music with somber Quincy Jones chords pulsing through a haze of almost in-the-red Aphex Twin-like electronics. The drum programming is elaborate and full of counterpoints and quiet shifts in tone — it’s more like Burn One’s composing than beatmaking here. In the same year that Kanye West sampled Aphex Twin (“Avril 14th” on “Blame Game”), Burn One just made his own melancholy, melodic rap beat in the vein of Richard D. James.

DJ Clark Kent & the Remedy

Rick Ross – Super High (ft. Ne-Yo)

JLB: With so many people eating off of the sample-resurgence it was nice to see one of the original don-dadas get his due on the radio. The way he put some octane to a sliver of Enchantment’s “Silly Love Song” to help RAWSE make a…silly love song is just perfect.

DJ Burn One: Hear that bassline? yeah – best of the year.

DJ Premier

Big Shug – Spit Six

DJ Eclipse: I don’t think any year could go by without having a Premier beat in the top 5. Many joints to choose from of his catalog this past year as well, but this one he gave Shug is definitely a head nodder. Different from a lot of the other Premo produced joints he put out this past year.

Joell Ortiz – Project Boy

KNOBBZ: I breathe differently when I listen to this song. The beat constantly builds toward a violent outburst, but never reaches it. It’s definitely not bombastic enough for a killing spree. Rather, “Project Boy” is for when you’re twirling the blade in your pocket, trying to picture your landlord with the lower half of his face missing. Tense. Menacing. And I grew up in the burbs!

Don Cannon

STS – Fuck A Hook

JLB: Jay-Z must be kicking himself for passing on this one. Electric guitar has been a punchline in hip-hop thanks to the GZA bus, but cannon seamlessly layers it with piano, synth, and alternating kicks and claps to make one of the most slept on beats of 2010.

Dready

Young Jeezy – Stop Playing With Me

Brandon: All that party rave trash from your favorite hipster DJ or cornball South African joke-rap duo should sound this ruthless and indefatigably A.D.D. There’s your typical Jeezy track hidden inside of this one (the booming synths, the epic simple drums), but Dready just piles on the sounds, while folding it all into a loop, so there’s still something for your ears to latch onto, and enough open space for a groaning, monstrous rapper like Jeezy to fit-in his talk-raps. Sci-fi movie sounds squeak and wail, a dying battery keyboard provides melody every once in a while, and a chipmunk vocal climbs to the top of the mountain of noises before then falling back into the mix. There’s maybe an e-mail alert sound in there too?

Drew Byrd

Dom Kennedy – Me Again

Ivan: Produced by L.A. beatsmith Drew Byrd, “Me Again” is a fitting outro to Dom Kennedy’s From the Westside with Love, one of the year’s greatest mixtapes. The beat really resonates with me as Dom’s nostalgic lyrics and delivery are perfectly complimented by wistful soundscapes and a sonant soul sample. It’s beautiful.

Droop-E

E-40 – Back in Business

Brandon: Droop-E hands his dad some nutty Bay Area slap with film noir movie clips in lieu of a chorus. Those samples could’ve been finely-chopped, EQ’d, and whatever else until that Cagney-esque “we’re back in business” was all we hear, but Droop-E lets some of the melodramatic, doom-filled Hollywood score and the grit of the aged audio sneak into the track. This is a legendary streetwise rapper and his tripped-out, beatmaker son (who got to be a producer weirdo because his dad was a streetwise rapper) in concert with one another: That gloomy gangster movie score snippet is a weird sonic flourish and a subtle way to hint at the sort of dread E-40 has always sneaked into his crime rhymes.

Drumma Boy

Waka Flocka Flame – No Hands (ft. Roscoe Dash, Wale)

Jackie Chain: I thought that beat was real hard. I always liked the song, I like Waka, I like Roscoe Dash, I like Wale, so I thought it was an usual and good collabo. I thought they all complemented that beat pretty good. My homies the Motion Fam shot the video. The beat, the song, the whole package – I thought it was a real good look this year. I fuck with Drumma Boy too.

El-P

El-P – Meanstreak (In Three Parts)

Zilla Rocca: El-Producto makes future pain funk, but 2010 saw him start whipping cats from the BDP boombox with a dash of reasonable radio, and dare I say accessible, options. His remix of Justin Bieber’s “Baby” proved what we all feared–this guy could one day potentially rule the minds of unconscious pop lovers if his mass damper was tuned into that frequency. “Meanstreak” is a cat batting around a helpless mouse: Part 1 sounds like a hectic train-dodging outtake from I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead. Part 2 lifts the Zapp drums we grew up on from “Bounce to the Ounce” and instead of EPMD-ing with moooree bounce or paying homage to Biggie’s favorite west coast destination, he spills a rolling synth from “Lost in Space” everywhere. Part 3 finds the Rick Rubin/LL Cool J tribute in full swing, but instead of “Going Back to Cali”, El-P takes us to Dune in a drop-top with Dade County donks rattling the nightmare strip. Yeah, just another go ’round from the pioneer of indie hip hop who slips absinthe and paranoia in the party punch.

El-P – Drunk with a Loaded Pistol

Craig Jenkins: El-P has always had a knack for dense, cinematic beats, and he really put his foot in “Drunk with a Loaded Pistol.” I like how the music here resembles the title. The ticking clock, the somber synths, the chunky bass, the frantic double-timed snares, all these things on top of one another sound like a kind of personal hell. A word of advice: go out, get bombed, put this track on, bug the fuck out.

Elvis Williams, Polow da Don

Usher – Lil Freak (ft. Nicki Minaj)

Block Beattaz: Stevie wonder sample used perfectly. Track is intense and suspenseful. Low end bubbles during the whole ride.

Ronson: I think the way that they flipped the Stevie Wonder sample is really clever. It’s weird because, that sample that they used is just the turnaround in the Stevie song. But out of context, it’s something that sounds all sinister and kind of Middle Eastern. It almost sounds like it was lifted from “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin or something. It’s just dope. I like Polow da Don, I like his drums. This was the first time I ever heard him flip a familiar sample and taking Stevie Wonder, it better be fucking seriously dope or it seems like a bit of a waste. It’s definitely stacking it up against you when you’re sampling Stevie, because it’s gotta be so different from the original that it’s great. You don’t wanna just loop up the horns from “Sir Duke” and have someone rap over it. It would be fucking horrible.

Fly Union

Fly Union – We Out

Von Pea: Speaking of Car Music, I can’t NOT nod my head to this. I’ve tried and it’s impossible. Fly U is really good at making cool music for you to ride to…even if you’re on the train. In a perfect world this would be a hit song and I’d be tired of hearing it by now, but instead I’m on listen 100 in my iTunes.

Flying Lotus

Flying Lotus – Do The Astral Plane

Daedelus: More housed then the rest of the fantastic Cosmogramma, Flylo’s jacked swing was my summer soundtrack.

Flying Lotus – Computer Face//Pure Being

Craig Jenkins: The week Cosmogramma dropped, I could be heard for miles around declaring it to be the album of the decade. I’ve eased off the trigger a bit since, but I’m no less blown away by the way Flying Lotus blends so many genres together and still manages to sound so effortlessly good in the process. “Computer Face//Pure Being” is full of seemingly incongruous sounds: skittering, rickety dubstep drums, airy 8-bit synths, cartoon sound effects, and beats with shifting accents. It shouldn’t work, but it really does.

Frank Dukes or Statik Selktah

Reks – This or That

or

Ghostface Killah – Purified Thoughts

Moss: Tie because both used the same sample almost the same way. Just a dope sample.

Gaslamp Killer

Gonjasufi – I’ve Given

KNOBBZ: A lot of great albums fizzle at the end but A Sufi and a Killer wraps with a psychedelic dirge about unrequited love, punctuating the album with a wild eastern melody and beautiful instrumentation. Don’t get antsy and skip because of the long intro. “I’ve Given” is well worth the wait.

Georgia Anne Muldrow

Georgia Anne Muldrow – The Language of the Flame

Paul White: Love Muldrow’s magic music, really inspiring for live stuff!

Illmind

Skyzoo & Illmind – Speakers On Blast

JLB: It was hard for me to pick just one beat from this album, but anyone that can take filtered chimes and and bit crunch them on an AKAI s20 to make it sound like a sample should be applying for for MENSA membership post haste.

J Beatz

Big Boi – General Patton

Craig Jenkins: OK, so the whole 808s-and-a-sample thing has been done to death by now, (see: the Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, and Young Jeezy catalogs for evidence), but “General Patton” seriously knocks. I like how J Beatz lets the drums function as the bassline, while the orchestral hits and compressed horns smack you in the eardrums. This is some old storming Normandy shit, some real hostile takeover music. How could Big Boi not spit acid on this?

J Dilla

J Dilla – Bars & Twists

Paul White: Stupid ill beat, the imagination and creativity here is amazing!

J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League

Rick Ross – Aston Martin Music (ft. Chrisette Michele, Drake

Will Power: Real classy shit.

Jackie Chain: I mess with J.U.S.T.I.C.E. hard too. Everything I’ve heard from J.U.S.T.I.C.E League pretty much is good. They’re real talented cats. They was on my DJ Smallz mixtape. They’re real musical. They use a lot of intricate sounds and they go a route a lot of producers don’t go. A lot of their beats could be R&B songs. It was just something I could really ride to. I actually had that as my ringtone for awhile and I only use my own shit for my ringtones. When it comes on, it just makes you feel good. If I had an Aston Martin, that would be my theme song. Even when I was rolling in the Jag. Usually I like the hard BMF style beats, but that’s a real nice riding song. Something when the sun’s out, roll the windows down, roll the windows down, roll one up and just ride out. You could play it back to back.

J.R. Rotem

Mann – Buzzin’ (ft. 50 Cent)

Ivan: What can I say? This one’s a guilty pleasure. Who else would’ve thought of sampling Nu Shooz? No, really. All bets seem to indicate that J.R. Rotem is the rightful heir to Puff Daddy’s “take hits from the 80s” throne (who’s Diddy?). And the track’s fire. I dare you to stop yourself from bopping your head and snapping your fingers to this one.

Jack Sample Pros

Pac Div – Don’t Mention It

Von Pea: The groove of this track is just so damn cool. Pac Div is probably best known for the 808 old school Cali beats, but on this project there was a little bit of everything and the closing/title track was my absolute favorite. I don’t know if that lead trumpet is a sample or a well EQ’d keyboard, but it’s hypnotizing. The bassline is like the audio version of sitting in a hot tub. Add in the drum track borrowed from Mr. Yanceys “African Rhythms” (fellow Dilla heads be quiet, he sampled and he can be sampled, it’s all good) and it all makes for a great finale.

—
Check out part two here.

Hold it, that’s a Janelle Monae sample. “Neon Valley Street,” to be exact. Dope track, but I feel like they should have asked me before they sampled my wife like that.

The verdict is still out on J. Cole, who’s a solid rapper, but hasn’t done much to distinguish himself from the legions of competent rappers. His mixtape, Friday Night Lights drops today.

Also, watch out for J. Cole on the next Beat Drop. Long. Over. Due.

Peep it at DreamVillain (J. Cole’s spot)

Def Jam is that last place you should check for R&B, but Chrisette Michele, who has provided hooks for Nas, Jay-Z, Game, and Rick Ross, gives an emotional and extremely polished performance on her new mixtape. “Black Boys Still Die” is as powerful as the title suggests and “Its Not You Its Me” is a lighthearted funky breakup song. She also accommodates different generations of hip-hop fans with awesome renditions of Wale’s “90210″ and KRS-One’s “Step into a World.”

Download: Chrisette Michele & Lem Payne Love Thy Brother

The video for Raheem DeVaughn’s “The Greatness” showcases the lovely ladies of DC. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice ML’s DJ01 rocking a limited edition Washington Capitals fanny pack.