The best hip-hop albums of 2018
Image: Photo: Cardi BPhoto: Vince StaplesPhoto: Earl SweatshirtGraphic: Libby McGuire Music Features Best Of 2018
Noname, Room 25
If hip-hop were a rowdy room dominated by shit-talkers and attention-seekers, as it sometimes feels, Noname would be the quiet one in the corner who, when prompted, torches everyone with a quick, understated line. People lean in when she speaks her mind, partly because of the easy way she delivers sharp, heady observations and partly because she raps at the volume of an intimate conversation. Technically her debut LP, Room 25 finds her opening up about her newfound success, sex life, and home in L.A.—a coming of age in jazz-rap watercolors. [Kelsey J. Waite]
Pusha T, Daytona
From deep within the dust-choked pocket of “The Games We Play,” Neighborhood P offers Daytona as his “purple tape.” It’s not quite that—for one, it’s short as a sneeze compared to Raekwon’s kingpin epic—but the menacing verve is there, as are references to “[doing] the Fred Astaire on a brick.” Kanye has always excelled as an editor. Daytona is him paring the sharpest nihilist in the game down to novella length: nothing but action, barbs, and heat. [Colin McGowan]
Saba, Care For Me
Saba’s been one of Chicago’s hardest-working rappers for years, turning every mixtape or cameo alongside friends like Chance The Rapper into opportunities to raise his profile and his game considerably. But even after a strong solo debut in 2016, few could’ve predicted the impact of follow-up Care For Me, a devastating meditation on loss that marks Saba’s much-deserved breakthrough. Here his agile, emotive flow and life-and-death lyricism reach new heights, nowhere more so than on the epic eulogy “Prom/King.” [Kelsey J. Waite]
Vince Staples, FM!
Few people can do more in eight bars than Vince Staples, whose verses are always these diamond-tight pieces of craft, every syllable placed exactly where it should be. The 22-minute FM! finds our crown prince of concision at his most caustic, turning a stretch of spring-loaded tracks and exclamatory song titles (“Outside!”) into a bracing snapshot of Long Beach life, full of evil-genius hooks (“No Bleedin,” “FUN!”) and hauntingly taut verses (“When Johnny died, all I had was shows booked,” from “Tweakin’”). [Clayton Purdom]
Tierra Whack, Whack World
It feels a little like cheating to call Whack World a rap album, so elastic are Tierra Whack’s style and flow. It’s even weird to call it just an album when it’s an equally brilliant visual experience and shrewd marketing move, its one-minute tracks tailor-made for Instagram. This subversion of expectations is essential to Whack’s art, of course—is she mourning an actual “dog” in “Pet Cemetery” or her “dawg” Hulitho?—and it’s why we’ve all been returning, beguiled, to push Whack World past 2 million views this year. [Kelsey J. Waite]
Honorable mentions
Cupcakke, Ephorize and Eden
Chicago’s queen of sex-positive rap self-released two albums this year, both full of her signature hi-hat beats and funny, filthy couplets. [Katie Rife]
Hermit And The Recluse, Orpheus Vs. The Sirens
Ka raps exclusively in 70mm, here turning the myth of Orpheus into another midnight saga of lonely samurai, scorched landscapes, and bars that deserve to be whispered, like a prayer. [Clayton Purdom]
Jay Rock, Redemption
Jay’s the bedrock of Kendrick’s longtime label, Top Dawg Entertainment, and Redemption is his best album, an unflashy, haunted, and ultimately triumphant Watts come-up story. [Clayton Purdom]
J.I.D., DiCaprio 2
The very music of DiCaprio 2 seems to defer to J.I.D., its big, opulent productions morphing and making way for his snaking black-out flow. [Clayton Purdom]
Maxo Kream, Punken
For all its skittering trap hi-hats, Punken’s got a surprisingly old heart, full of recurring characters and shaggy-dog stories and hyper-specific, diaristic detail. [Clayton Purdom]
Nipsey Hussle, Victory Lap
After a decade of grinding out mixtapes, Los Angeles stalwart Nipsey Hussle finally took his Victory Lap, full of exuberant beats and verses wrenched out in that inimitable, weathered howl. [Clayton Purdom]
Rico Nasty, Nasty
Kenny Beats throws Neptunes funk, screaming electric guitars, and atomic bass booms at Rico Nasty, and she tears literally every one of them to shreds. [Clayton Purdom]
Sheck Wes, Mudboy
Mudboy’s the rare massively hyped debut that delivers on its promise, introducing a wild-eyed shit-starter of an emcee with a killer ear for beats. [Clayton Purdom]
Travis Scott, Astroworld
Travis Scott finds the middle ground between Grimes and Rae Sremmurd, somehow making the Beastie Boys, Thundercat, John Mayer, Drake, and Stevie Wonder all melt together like hallucinations in a never-ending Houston night. [Clayton Purdom]
SOB X RBE, Gangin
Gangin is the type of shit you crash a rental car to, a careening, headlong blast of music delivered by four young rappers who, in the tradition of so many young men before them, keep egging each other on to increasingly delirious heights. [Clayton Purdom]
57 Comments
I really felt over sad bastard music this year and have engaged in that struggle to start keeping up with bunnyrabbit hippity hoppity, which also sparked my renewed interest in the albums I listened to as a kid (De La Soul, LL Cool J Walking With a Panther, Digital Underground, all those great old MTV videos like US3 Cantaloop). It really is tough, there really is just so much! But it’s been good, the music is just more musically adventurous and progressive than Mumford and Sons releasing the Fleet Foxes EP from a decade ago. From the white pop people when they are involved I am hoping that we get less Maroon 5 on hook support and more of like a St. Vincent/Noname collaboration.Also glad not to see Minaj shouted here, she seems so off now, and petty af
Minaj album was kinda bleh so it was a logical omission. Cardi won 2018 (since they insist on it being zero sum game for female MCs)
that armand hammer album fucking rips.
No votes for Froggy Fresh?
It’s long and pretty dense, but if you give it a chance Drogas Wave by Lupe Fiasco is a really good album. Maybe try listening to WAV files before diving in
1. Pusha T – Daytona2. Vince Staples – FM!3. Gucci Mane – Evil Genius4. Common – August Greene5. Lupe Fiasco – DROGAS Wave6. Saba – Care for Me7. Meek Mill – Championships8. A$AP Rocky – Testing9. Jay-Z & Beyonce – Everything Is Love10. Shad – A Story About a War
The absence of Gucci Mane on the AV Club list is surprising. Man, that’s a good one. Also, I’ve listened to Daytona about 300 times so far this year.
Testing had to be one of the top albums of the year, and not even a mention?
Mudboy is a terrible album
Swimming for emotional impact, thoughtfulness and just outright beauty. DROGAS wave for stunning attention to detail, incredible concept and Lupe Fiasco being Lupe Fiasco at his best. both huge omissions from this list
Swimming is legitimately a beautiful, top-tier rap album.
yeah, probably my winner for the year as far as production goes (Some Rap Songs is its only real competition there). a gorgeous album made tragic by the circumstances.
hmmm yeah this website for dumbass crackers has a list of hip hop albums they’d like us to check out
Dumbass crackers love hip hop!
That Saba album is very underrated. I expected to see it all over the best-of lists for the year and have been mostly disappointed. Glad to see it here.Speaking of Chance The Rapper’s friends whose music I’m enjoying more than Chance The Rapper, Noname’s album is great and Joey Purp’s album was justly omitted, despite having a few killer tracks.
Shad, “A Short Story About A War” – drop everything in your life and go find it.
Damn, so little critical love for Tee Grizzley this year. I thought Activated was great.
Ice Cube’s “Everythang’s Corrupt” is surprisingly fucking banging given his last couple efforts.
No love for Brockhampton, eh? Maybe my favorite hip hop release of the year. Along with Noname, which was included.Also, Tierra Whack is awesome, but this is one case where the gimmick/hook is less interesting the more you hear it. At first it was like “Whoa, a 15 minute album with 15 1-minute songs? This I gotta hear!” but now I just wish the songs were longer and further developed.Also, cheers for the Cardi B appreciation. It’s really easy for people to hate her, maybe somewhat understandably given her brash public persona and the fact that she’s been everywhere for the past two years. That said, I think she’s really charismatic and I enjoyed most of the songs on her album.
Denzel Curry needs to be on this list
Phonte – Charity Starts at Home
Completely ignoring TA13OO and Kids See Ghosts, in favor of touting Invasion of Privacy and a collection of Vince Staples B-sides. This list is borderline depressing.
Pretty good list, although it’s missing JPEGMAFIA and I will never understand the love for Cardi B. She sounds like literal vomit to my ears.
I know we’re supposed to hate Kanye, and I’ll admit it can be hard to separate art from artist, but Kids See Ghost is undeniably great.I wouldn’t consider myself a Hip Hop expert but if I had to predict what the future of the genre will sound like my money is on the sound Kanye and Kudi created.I FEEL FREEEEEEEEEEEE!
I was driving the first time I listened to it. I had to stop on the side when Kanye starts to make gun noises in Feel The Love, it was just too overwhelming to focus on the road.
I love that a few months earlier a comedian got viral by mocking rappers trend of unintelligible and onomatopoeic lyrics (The Ting Goes) and then Kanye turns it up to 11!It’s a pity he couldn’t deliver on his promise and kept churning those mini albums and keep out of politics.
Did Everything’s Fine by Jean Grae and Quelle Chris not make the list because it’s on the overall best album list?
The fact it wasn’t even an honorable mention has to be a mistake.
I really, really wanted to like this more than I did. It’s definitely a great record, but it just didn’t make me want to replay it.
How in the world are Culture 2 and KOD not on the list? They both launched in the beginning of the year and are still charting. I guess best and most listed to are not together on the Venn diagram.
“…affirming Earl Sweatshirt’s status as one of our greatest living rappers.” Seriously? Not taking anything away from Earl, he’s good, but by any objective assessment that is a ridiculous statement. With the obvious exceptions of Biggie, Pac, and Big L, pretty much every rapper is still alive. So the AV Club thinks that Earl Sweatshirt is on of the greatest rappers ever? Might want to calm down a bit on that one.
Don’t forget ODB and Eazy-E.
MC Trouble, Cowboy, Big Pun, Pimp C, Lil Peep, MCA, Mac Miller, XXXTentacion I guess, Proof, Prodigy, Nate Dogg…Do DJs count? Because then we have Scott LaRock, Jam Master Jay, Dilla, Guru…
Yeah, I was limiting myself to MCs, or I would have definitely added Jay and Dilla. Can’t believe I forgot MCA and Nate Dogg. In any case, it’s certainly not just Biggie and Pac by now.
The point of the post was not “Here is an exhaustive list of every dead rapper”. It was to point out that claiming Earl Sweatshirt is one of the greatest living rappers is ridiculous.
milo’s budding ornithologists
czarface meets metalface
paul barman’s (((echo chamber)))
nostrum grocers
grae & quelle’s everything’s fine
Swimming and Drogas Wave are my favorites of the year, and definitely feel like they should have at least made honorable mention. But it’s almost all made up for by the love for Greedo
Y’all really not gonna put Kanye and KSG in top albums? Your liberal bias is insane
Skyzoo’s “In Celebration of Us” is by far my favorite release of the year.Followed by:Evidence – “Weather or Not”Masta Ace/Marco Polo – “A Breukelen Story”Tenacity & D.R.U.G.S. Beats – “Discussions”Apollo Brown/Joell Ortiz – “Mona Lisa”Pusha T – “Daytona” (would be Top 3 if Rick Ross didn’t fuck it up)Crimeapple – “Aguardiente”Czarface/MF Doom – “Czarface Meets Metal Face”Apathy – “The Widow’s Son”Kev Brown – “Homework”But, I like big drum sounds, and so I’m uncool.
I was wondering if anyone else would bring up the Ace album… I’m literally on the last track of my first listen through it (just remembered it was supposed to drop and probably already had) at this moment. It’s pretty damn good, I might like it more than Disposable Arts… I don’t know when exactly it dropped but I haven’t seen a single mention of it *anywhere* and it’s too good for that…
The outro with Marco Polo’s mom? Legit made me sniffle. I think I actually like The Falling Season the best out of Ace’s second act, but this might surpass it.
Really solid front to back and I like that it works as a duo record. The beats are excellent, maybe the best he’s had to work with in 25 years. I couldn’t really get into Falling Season but I think part of that was I was worried he’d just fall into reminiscing on glory days instead of remaining clever and topical. It’ll age well though I think.I’m liking wanna be, American me, fight song, sunken place, you and I and Kings most.
The Czarface/Doom album is great. Other albums I really liked that I haven’t seen mentioned:Homeboy Sandman and Eden: Humble PiOctavian – SPACEMANJoey Purp – QuarterthingDel and AmpLive – Gate 13Don’t know if it’s hip hop, but I also loved the ElQ (EL-P and QOTSA) mashup ToToM
Two obvious omissions:Denzel Curry – Ta13ooTrouble and Mike WiLL Made-It – Edgewood
No JPEGMAFIA?No Avantdale Bowling Club?Not even a dang honorable mention for Kids See Ghosts?!?!?!Glad to see both of CupcakKe’s albums get the mention, but come on.
I know this is going to be super controversial, but the new Black Eyed Peas album is pretty great. I am just as surprised as anyone, but with tracks like Constant, Back 2 Hip Hop, and Sound the Alarm, they actually managed to pull off a fantastic hip hop album. Did the AV Club even review it? I can’t find that anywhere, which is surprising because they are a big name. I know, this all sounds insane, and it is, but this album is way better than it had any right to be. Just check it out and give it a fair shot.
Four Fists – 6666 and Sims/Air Credits/ICETEP – Arteria Verite are at the top of my list, but Doomtree has been my favorite group of people for going on 10 years now so I’m a little biased.
No love for the Black Panther soundtrack? It’s not airtight obviously, ranging from bad bits (Future’s verse on “King’s Dead”) to fantastic bits (Kendrick’s verse on “King’s Dead” :P), but an honorable mention seems fair, given its scope and lift.
We agree! But we gave it a shout on our list of the best film music a couple of weeks ago: https://www.avclub.com/the-best-film-soundtracks-of-2018-1830669719
That’s what I get for skipping the soundtracks article! Thanks for the correction.
“cruelly trapped in its carceral state”
So it’s cruel to send traffickers to prison now? Or is that only if they can rap?
I like a lot of the stuff listed here, but I’d also like to give a shout out to 9th Wonder. Jamla is the Squad II has proven to be fairly enjoyable imo. https://open.spotify.com/album/2K0JdsaYMJbNuY4qh7kC7XOtherwise, I listened to a lot of J.I.D., Pusha, and Cardi.
My history of metal and punk have convinced me that an album being longer than 30 minutes means that some filler was left on the tape. This is why, to me, Daytona is the perfect rap album. No skits, no intros where dudes are just shouting their name and the producer’s name, no excessive hooks or excessive guest spots. It’s just Push, his bars, and a couple WHOOPS and YUGHS.
Peggy, where you be at?
so Pusha T and a lot of innocuous stuff that is safe for white people to listen to without getting their feelings hurt. A+ for the predictable list
Not even a mention of Kamikaze? Wow…
Will there come a time where it makes more sense to group R&B with Hip-Hop, rather than Pop? I feel like half of “Hip-Hop” now is just R&B with singers who have tattoos on their faces and talk about drugs.
I’m not complaining, it’s just an observation.