Tyler, the Creator, Bastard
XL Recordings

Perhaps the best thing about “Tyler, The Creator” Okonma’s Goblin is that he has mastered the art of intimacy. Throughout this nearly hour-and-a-half therapy session, he sounds as if he is speaking directly to you. However, therapy sessions usually last an hour. By stretching the listener’s patience to its breaking point, and offering modest emotional returns, he impresses with his self-absorption instead of his catharsis.

Tyler’s breakthrough arrives in the final track, “Golden,” when he announces “I’m not crazy.” In the first track, “Goblin,” he subtly broadcasts that he’s capable of change in spite of the worrisome obscenities that will follow. “I’m not a fucking rapist, or a serial killer. I lied,” he says to his “therapist,” which is actually his own voice modulated to a low growl. Speaking to his “conscience,” he adds, “They claim that shit I say is just wrong/ Like nobody has those really dark thoughts when alone.” He doesn’t spend much time bidding for the audience’s sympathy because no one wants a pity party. He knows that what we really want to hear are the vicarious thrills of calling someone nigga, a bitch, and a faggot; of raping and cannibalizing women; and of entertaining an interest in Nazism (though that last point is less pronounced here than on his debut solo album, 2010’s “freelease” Bastard).

Goblin’s wanton blasphemies have been debated ad nauseum in the press and on the Internet. Without excusing Tyler’s lyrics, it’s worth noting that the history of hip-hop is littered with examples of hate speech, from Brand Nubian’s “Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down” (where Sadat X raps, “Fuck up a faggot/ Don’t understand their ways and I ain’t down with gays”) to Gucci Mane’s The Return of Mr. Zone (on “Mouth Full of Golds” he warns, “I’ll rape you like Chester” the Molester). The mainstream rap industry’s bridge to international pop ubiquity was built literally and metaphorically on the backs of women, and patriarchal dominance is central to its success. Gays and lesbians play central behind-the-scenes roles as label executives, stylists, and publicists – Odd Future DJ Syd the Kyd, who recorded and mixed much of Goblin, is an out lesbian. Thematically, they mostly end up as collateral damage and reduced to metaphorical slurs (though women are often employed for pornographic girl-girl-guy fantasies).

The difference between Goblin and incendiary classics such as Ice Cube’s Death Certificate and the Geto Boys self-titled debut is that Tyler doesn’t aspire to black revolution or even a crude kind of cinema verité. Tyler’s Compton is an exurban dystopia, not N.W.A.’s capitol of gangland tragedy. He plays Xbox in a mancave full of wet socks; he flaunts his designer streetwear in Goblin’s CD booklet. With so many toys to play with, Tyler’s “Radicals” aspires to nothing more than to “kill people, buy shit, fuck school.” At several points he talks about masturbation, invoking himself as just another bored teenager jizzing to the tits-and-hipsters in Vice magazine. And in “Yonkers,” he pictures himself on “some pink Xanies/ And danced around the house in all-over pink panties.” He angrily refers to his missing father. He loves his mother, but admits he can’t relate to her.

In spite of his many cultural signifiers, Tyler complains loudly about being pigeonholed. “We don’t fuckin’ make horrorcore you fuckin’ idiots,” he announces at the end of “Sandwitches,” denying the legacy of RZA’s mid-90s Goth rap project the Gravediggaz. “Listen deeper to the music before you put it in a box.” Many reviewers have aptly compared Tyler’s image to the cynical and androgynous skate rats in the 1990s film Kids. Just like critics overstated that film’s “youth gone wild” revelations, some have tried to paint Tyler as a cipher for What’s Wrong with Today’s Generation. However, anyone who has run afoul of Internet trolls or scrolled the comments section on a Nahright.com blog post will find Tyler’s inflammatory language depressingly familiar.

Tyler’s production techniques seem inspired by the Neptunes’ cracked-out landscapes for Clipse’s Hell Hath No Fury, and the neo-soul erotica of Sa-Ra Creative Partners. On “Yonkers” he sequences an arrangement that sounds like a swinging guillotine, and he weaves a haunting synth-funk groove for the instrumental “Au79.” The jarring, primordial beats serve as backdrops for his psychotic ramblings. He has a magnetic basso voice, and he raps with a growling leer. He flips rhymes with the casualness of someone who has grown up with hip-hop all his life, and is all too comfortable in its netherworld of hardcore niggas and submissive bitches. It might be strange to older listeners who remember when hip-hop first reached critical mass in the late 80s (or, god forbid, when it first broke nationally in the early 80s), and don’t necessarily take its stereotypes for granted.

As a rapper, Tyler’s capable enough, but his technical skills pale in comparison to Eminem, whose serial killer schtick on The Marshall Mathers LP fomented the kind of indignant protests and amoral industry buzz that now surrounds Goblin. With so many precedents before him, it’s not easy for Tyler to shock listeners and precipitate what Jon Caramanica of the New York Times correctly labeled “culture wars for a generation that hasn’t previously experienced them, that didn’t realize culture wars were still a possibility.” By delivering his shocks early and often, Tyler wears down, upsets and eventually outrages his audience, conjuring an impressively discomforting anomie.

Goblin’s nadir and/or high point arrives during “Tron Cat,” when he raps about raping a “pregnant bitch.” (Several lines earlier in the song, he contradictorily claims, “I’m not a rapper, or a rapist, or a racist.”) He claims himself “the blackest skinhead since India.Arie” and adds, “Said fuck coke so I snorted Hitler’s ashes.” And for extra thrills, he says you can catch him in the attic “taking photos of my dad’s dick.”

But overall, Goblin is not a pleasurable listening experience. Some of the songs are truly awful, like the swag-rap roundelay “Bitch Suck Dick” with Odd Future compatriots Jasper Dolphin and Taco. (OFWGKTA’s guest appearances seem irrelevant here, save for a few inspired vocals by R&B singer Frank Ocean.) Other tracks aim closer to raw and unfettered anguish. Some of Tyler’s feelings are couched in the everyday hustle for celebrity, and of the predictable alienation that results when he finally achieves it. “Now you want to be nice because the labels want to sign me?” he asks on “Nightmare.” “Fuck that!” He rhymes about being stressed out and suicidal. He refers to himself as a goblin, a demon, a genie, and a unicorn.

On “Her,” Tyler obsesses over a next-door neighbor with heartbreaking sincerity, poking her on Facebook and gabbing with her on the phone and in video chats. “I know she’s who I’m thinking of,” he raps, adding that he wants to take her like a pirate. “Her name is my password.” It’s not enough to dispel Tyler’s Madonna/whore complex, but it marks halting progress. Unfortunately, Goblin isn’t a real-life therapy session, and the audience, not Tyler, foots the bill.

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This is an extended version of a review originally written for Rhapsody.com.

TOKiMONSTA, Creature Dreams
Brainfeeder

With Creature Dreams, TOKiMONSTA makes a few tweaks to her neo-trip-hop adventures, most impressively adding loud drums to “Day Job’s” guitar loop, and then closing out the track with an unexpected blast of noisy feedback. She manages a few other modest twists; including a disorienting synthesizer intro for “Moving Forward,” if only to head off an incipient threat of repeating herself (the intro to “Stigmatizing Sex” sounds like “Bready Soul” from 2010’s Midnight Menu). TOKiMONSTA’s stock-and-trade remains buttery instrumental hip-hop that hearkens to the golden era of DJ Shadow and Ninja Tune’s beats and pieces, and she delivers on that count with Creature Dreams in spite of its creeping familiarity. There’s even a song with guest vocalist Gavin Turek called “Little Pleasures.”

Outasight, Figure 8
Warner Bros. Records

Outasight’s Figure 8 sounds like many things: a little Drake on the career summary “Life Or Something Like It,” and a bit like Mike Posner (or at least Cee-Lo’s pop-soul hybrid) on “Maybe Next Time.” “Lately I’ve been trying my best, but maybe it ain’t good enough,” he sings on the title track, echoing the “patiently waiting for fame” complaint too often heard in the pop/rap Zeitgeist. Truthfully, the long-gestating Philadelphia musician has internalized so many styles and voices that he has begun feeling towards an identity of his own. His years-long stint in label development hell generates some hard-won rewards, including a genuinely rousing performance on “Everything,” if not necessarily a memorable song.

Download the Figure 8 EP at outasight.bandcamp.com.

When I worked on my ill-fated project compiling the top 100 hip-hop albums of the 2000s, I learned a valuable lesson: Contemporary history is difficult to quantify. We often make judgments on what we think will have lasting value, but only the passage of time determines that.

Still, good music is good music – or is it? This year brought quite a few albums that divided audiences and critics. They made us question what makes up quality hip-hop, and whether that term exists in a classical sense anymore. Is it B.o.B and his overly determined forays into big-tent arena rap? Or is it the bloviating Rick Ross and his fatuous tales of Mafia-like dominion? As rap fans with a jaundiced version of reality, we’re supposed to venerate the latter and condemn B.o.B’s crossover strategies. Street rap signifies the underground, keeping it hardcore, and staying true.

However, there wasn’t much actual underground music in 2010, or at least little of it that made an impact. We all know what happened to Definitive Jux. Even Fat Beats, which closed its remaining stores in New York and Los Angeles to focus on online retail and an independent label, needed Decon Records and E1 Music to get Black Milk’s Album of the Year in stores. With the notable exceptions of Stones Throw and Duck Down Records, surviving indie labels such as Mello Music Group, Interdependent Media, Tres Records, Galapagos4, Doomtree Records, Fake Four, Inc. and many others drew cursory attention.

To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention, either. The action was with the majors such as Def Jam, which brought Curren$y (albeit via a distribution deal with Damon Dash and DD172), the Roots, Big Boi, and Kanye West. These were the albums I repeatedly listened to, wrote about, praised, criticized, and generally wrestled with.

Let me return to Definitive Jux for a moment. When El-P established the label ten years ago (after cropping up on late-period Company Flow releases such as Little Johnny from the Hospitul) with the classic Company Flow/Cannibal Ox double 12-inch single “D.P.A. (As Heard on TV)”/”Iron Galaxy,” he joined a scene that prided itself on creating a sound unheard on the radio, and unseen on BET. I’m not the only one who found irony in the fact that criminally underrated artist Tim “Sole” Holland left his Anticon start-up around the same time that El-P put Definitive Jux on hiatus. Though rivals, both exemplified a mood of wild (and often undisciplined) experimentation that has since receded. In its place has risen old-school revivalism, an ethos carried from the college dorms to the streets, and often accompanied by a moralistic, finger-wagging dismissal of post-Golden Age rap.

Nostalgia may fuel online repositories of boom bap and Dirty South. But when indulged too often, it can lead to a culture’s death. No one wants hip-hop to become the post-modern equivalent of jazz. As much as I loved it, I certainly don’t want to return to the summer of 2001, and The Cold Vein and cLOUDDEAD. I also don’t hold illusions that indie hip-hop is ideologically or musically better than mainstream, major label-backed rap. 2010 exposed the lie to that myth.

Besides, this was a great year for hip-hop. While I focused on crossover epics and, to a lesser extent, the international beats ‘n’ bass scene, others found pleasure in the many excellent mixtapes that hit the Internets. In short, there was a little something for everybody.

However, no epoch is all-inclusive, and I missed the sundry underground innovators of years past. Where are you at, my friends? It’s time to step your game up.

1. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Roc-A-Fella

Kanye West’s fifth album is a motherfuckin’ monster indeed, at least in regards to critical acclaim. The album has appeared on most year-end lists, and drew perfect ratings from Pitchfork.com (its first for a new release since Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) and Rolling Stone.

As I’ve stated before, I don’t have much use for ratings. West’s album is far from perfect; its weakest moments betray West’s self-indulgence, including an extended Auto-Tuned aria at the end of “Runaway” that sounds like a crying jag, and an overly long comedic sequence by Chris Rock at the end of “Blame Game.” Some critics have countered Fantasy’s hype by charging that West is essentially repeating ideas from earlier albums, such as Graduation’s narrative of a romance falling apart under the flashing lights. But this is basically a wash. Great and not-so-great artists have long defined themselves through a constant theme, from Jay-Z’s obsessive focus on his business acumen to Rick Ross’ fatuous Mafioso persona. Kanye West’s has addressed the power of his celebrity before, and he revisits and refines that topic on Fantasy with excellent results.

2. Curren$y, Pilot Talk
DD172

Of all the breakout albums this year, Curren$y’s major label debut may be the biggest surprise, as well as the least assuming. Ski Beatz does a marvelous job on the boards – sorry Hiphopdx.com, he, not Lloyd Banks, deserved Comeback Artist of the Year honors – but the New Orleans rapper achieves linguistic feats that requires multiple listens. He doesn’t necessarily say anything insightful, but that seems beside the point. Pilot Talk is packed with great songs, including “Skybourne” and “Address,” that resonate beyond its intended audience of smoked-out rap nerds.

3. Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma
Warp

The L.A. beat scene reached critical mass, and Steven Ellison’s Cosmogramma was its locus. Much like the fast-forward UK electronic scene, whose artists tend to absorb trends and fads, he has absorbed others’ innovations into his sound signature: Cosmogramma draws from Sa-Ra Creative Partners’ catalog, and he even poaches their bassist, Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner. As a result, Cosmogramma sounded dreamy and contemplative here, while 2008’s Los Angeles replicated the mellow stress of dubstep. (It even sounded tepid at times, which is why it wasn’t my top pick this year.) FlyLo’s influences are many, but he still sounds like no one else – when the double-time shuffle step and 8-bit volleys of “Computer Face//Pure Being” kicked in, you knew exactly who was behind it.

4. Drake, Thank Me Later
Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown

Is it R&B or hip-hop? The wonderful thing about Thank Me Later is that Drake merged the two genres so seamlessly. He doesn’t use R&B melodies for cheap fuck-me tunes, but to conjure a sense of romance. Much like Common, Drake has a deceptively smooth tone that has led some listeners to underrate him. He may rank low in internal rhyme schemes, but he doesn’t flow off beat, either. He seems to establish real emotional connections with his paramours, even when it’s in the context of a one-night stand or failed relationship. Perhaps Thank Me Later’s soft tone makes some male listeners uneasy, but it has a lovely mood that he sustains from beginning to end.

5. Big Boi, Sir Lucious Left Foot: Son of Chico Dusty
Def Jam

I gave this album a mixed review when I first heard it. I reconsidered my opinion when I accepted Sir Lucious Left Foot for what it is, not what I wanted it to be. Big Boi is a craftsman, so it’s no surprise that he assembles Sir Lucious Left Foot much as he did the Speakerboxxx half of OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. What it lacks in vision it makes up for with sheer inventiveness. Big Boi illustrates his greatness with tech bass riddims and mock-serious operatic arias, and he crams dozens of guests into his showcase without ceding the spotlight to others. Sir Lucious Left Foot is a kinetic delight, but it lacks the soulful emotion of Big Boi’s best OutKast work.

6. The Roots, How I Got Over
Def Jam

Questlove told interviewers that he wanted to make an album about reaching the early stages of middle age. Most of How I Got Over achieves that. It has a melodramatic, weary tone and bunches of lyrics bemoaning the state of the world. So why did Questlove dispel this mood at its end with two awkward street cuts, “Web 20/20” and “Hustla”? These songs are mere braggadocio; they’re intended to conclude How I Got Over with an optimistic epilogue, but they’re not good enough to pull it off.

After I posted my thoughts last summer, I received an email from someone who thought I didn’t like How I Got Over. Actually, I liked the album a lot. But endings are important, and occasionally they’re a dividing line between a standout work and a genuine classic.

7. Yelawolf, Trunk Muzik 0-60
Interscope

Yelawolf has improved exponentially since his “Kickin’” days by honing a fast and choppy bounce flow and a ragged Deep South accent. The original Trunk Muzik mixtape, released on the Internet as a free download in January was decent. However, the retail version improves on it with a handful of new tracks that sharpen Yelawolf’s tales of broken homes, country-fried meth dealers, and box Chevys.

8. GonjaSufi, A Sufi and a Killer
Warp

Sumach Valentine spent years on the fringes of the L.A. hip-hop scene, cranking out CD-R releases, before transforming into GonjaSufi for this bizarrely entrancing album. He sings over psychedelic beats from the Gaslamp Killer, Flying Lotus and Mainframe in a voice that sounds like a wizened croak. The recently deceased Captain Beefheart would most certainly approve.

9. Strong Arm Steady, In Search of Stoney Jackson
Stones Throw Records

Madlib’s planned 2010 deluge didn’t turn out as planned: he only managed nine out of 12 planned entries in his Madlib Medicine Show series. Yet between those recordings, various Yesterday’s Universe releases and production gigs for Guilty Simpson and Strong Arm Steady, he still produced over a dozen albums. I didn’t come close to processing it all, but In Search of Stoney Jackson was the best of what I heard, blending his manic soul loops and disembodied ghetto voices with Strong Arm Steady’s hard rock talk. For all his talents, Madlib is at his best when focusing on others’ voices, and not just the ones in his head.

10. Onra, Long Distance
All City Records

From an earlier review:

If Onra freely (and masterfully) exploits the current Zeitgeist for all things boogie funk, he seems to have found his identity within it. His acclaimed Chinoiseries only emphasized the difficulty of replicating Dilla and Madlib’s loop aesthetic. 2009’s 1.0.8 had a frantic, hurried feel; unlike fellow Europeans such as Dorian Concept and Hudson Mohawke, he seemed uncomfortably toying with glitch funk. Long Distance certainly has its glitch elements – check the appropriately titled “Wonderland” for proof – but it’s nestled in a seductive dance floor groove. Onra’s true home, it seems, is in the thick of the night light haze.

And here’s the rest of the list:

11. Rick Ross, Teflon Don
Def Jam

12. Qwel & Maker, Owl
Galapagos4

13. B.o.B, The Adventures of Bobby Ray
Atlantic Records

14. Madlib, Madlib Medicine Show No. 1: Before the Verdict
Stones Throw Records

15. Black Milk, Album of the Year
Fat Beats Records

16. Ana Tijoux, 1977
Nacional Records

17. Reflection Eternal, Revolutions Per Minute
Warner Bros. Records

18. Nas & Damian Marley, Distant Relatives
Def Jam/Universal Republic

19. TOKiMONSTA, Midnight Menu
Art Union/Listen Up

20. Skyzoo & Illmind, Live from the Tape Deck
Duck Down Records

Ghostface Killah, Apollo Kids
Def Jam

Ghostface Killah treads familiar ground on Apollo Kids, offering few if any hooks or choruses, long-winded sixteen-bar verses that could double as freestyles, and crusty soul loops as an accompaniment. Even the title pays homage to a single from his classic Supreme Clientele. He’s capable of more sophisticated stuff, as fans of past peaks like Fishscale will attest. To spice things up, Ghost recruits street-hop stars like Joell Ortiz, Busta Rhymes, Jim Jones and various Wu-Tang affiliates. Highlights include “Troublemakers,” “Street Bullies” and “Starkology.”

Qwel & Maker, Owl
Galapagos4

Owl is proudly out of step with the rap race, but Qwel & Maker’s classical hip-hop values deserve a wide audience. A prickly veteran of Chicago’s indie-ground, Qwel rhymes in splendidly discursive statements, but has learned to dial back his loquaciousness. The underrated producer Maker complements Qwel with detailed soul collages, but doesn’t overwhelm his morality tales on “The Game” and “Gin River,” the latter a poignant story of a lost girl searching for a father figure. They work in close harmony, taking Owl from the gloriously weary tour diary “El Camino” to the hard grooves of “Gambling Man.”

Ana Tijoux, 1977
Nacional Records

Chilean rapera Ana Tijoux’s second album doesn’t sound like anything current. It’s antiquated, recalling 1990s jazzbo classics such as MC Solaar’s Prose Combat and Digable Planets’ Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space). Hordatoj and Foex’s beats create a quiet space for songs like the politically-themed “Sube” and the modestly boastful title track, and Tijoux sometimes whispers her rhymes as if she’s rapping in a library. This may sound terribly boring, but it’s not. Tijoux’s 1977 is a cool delight, and her impressive lyrical performance will draw you in whether you speak her language or not.

Reflection Eternal, Revolutions Per Minute
Warner Bros.

It has taken a decade for Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek to resume their partnership, but Revolutions Per Minute sounds like the two never parted. In spite of his freelance assignments for G-Unit and other thug rappers, Hi-Tek resurrects Reflection Eternal’s jazzy hip-hop with ease. Kweli chimes in with topical songs, from the excellent “Ballad of the Black Gold” to the revolutionary call “In This World.” On “Just Begun,” the two lend the spotlight to Jay Electronica and J. Cole, two newer voices and the inheritors to Reflection Eternal’s legacy of conscious hip-hop.

Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma
Warp

Though based in Los Angeles, Flying Lotus has the trend-absorbing drive of a European electronic producer. His 2008 breakthrough, Los Angeles, deconstructed UK dubstep and bass; but Cosmogramma turns to the future soul of his native city, and the spiritual house music of Theo Parrish. During its quieter songs like “MmmHmm,” he allows bassist Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner and harpist Rebekah Raff to take over several passages. But even Thom Yorke, who appears for an inspired vocal on “…And the World Laughs with You” can’t overshadow Flying Lotus, whose sound signature on this surprisingly reflective work is indelible.

Kid Cudi, Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager
Universal

Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager doesn’t have anything as catchy as “Day ‘n’ Nite,” but it consistently hits the sweet spot with tracks like “Scott Mescudi vs. the World” and “Don’t Play This Song.” It’s moodier than Man on the Moon, too. Throughout, he ruminates over loneliness and fame’s toll while fans ask “Can we tag along?/ Can we take the journey?” Kid Cudi clearly has a high opinion of himself (pun intended), but he seems less of an egoist than his mentor Kanye West (who appears on the divisive “Erase Me”). And with his unique hybrid of emo, hip-hop, and contemporary R&B, he truly sounds like no other.