The best hip-hop albums celebrate classic styles with new approaches, blend rap with electronic, jazz, and soul, and push the boundaries of genre.
On Sundial, Noname raps like her voice is holding the sky from falling. Love of oneself and one’s community is a struggle front and center on the album.
It's tempting to proclaim this moment in black pop as something akin to 2018's political Year of the Woman -- Year of the Sista, if you will. But today's unapologetically progressive female black pop artists stand on the shoulders of a most impressive cohort from the '90s and early '00s.
From forward-looking electronic and experimental to new approaches in the ever-evolving R&B scene, from hip-hop and punk to rock and pop, 2018 bestowed an embarrassment of musical riches upon us.
From Kanye tweets to Drake and Pusha T diss tracks to literary masterpiece "This Is America", 2018 was quite the year for rap. But if we had to boil it all down to just 10 albums, we think these are the cuts that truly rose above and summed up 2018 the best.
Noname's Room 25 sees a brilliant writer finding her outlet, taking in the world around her, and spinning it into her own extraordinary web.
Noname's Room 25 is vintage neo-soul and future rap hand in hand; a soulful sanctuary for those turned off by the austerity of mainstream mumble rap.
