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The 2011 Black Awards

The 2011 Black Awards

Here we are, the beginning of a New Year, with all sort of craziness on the horizon. With that said it’s always a good idea to take a look back at the previous and see where we have been…and where we are going. With that said, I bring to you the 3rd annual “Black Awards”

Album of the Year (Nationwide)- The Roots “Undun”

I feel like it has taken the entire career of the legendary band to make this album. Featuring some of Black Thought’s most potent bars yet, ethereal production, some up and coming stars guest appearing and a fresh visual concepts, Undun is the perfect album hip hop of 2011.

Honorable Mentions: Murs- “Love and Rockets Vol. 1”, Kanye and Jay-z “Watch The Throne”, Childish Gambino “Camp” Saigon- “Greatest Story Ever Told”

Albums of The Year (Arizona)- Span Phly- Nothing Last Forever

Span Phly’s 5th effort features some of his best production yet as well as potent bars. The overall tone of the album sounds like a Caribbean cruise with all the works, which perfectly matches Span Phly smooth yet powerful rhyme style.

Isaiah Toothtaker- Illuminati Thug Mafia
With one of the most creative hip hop albums in a long time with powerful visuals to match, Toothtaker leads the charge in avant garde hip hop with eclectic rhyme schemes and gut punching lyrics on top of space out production and hard beats.

Savant “Crash Course Series”
Not exactly an album per-say but rather a song series featuring amazing production from around the world and guest appearances from some of the biggest names in Arizona Hip Hop as well as across the nation.

Honorable Mentions: Natives are Restless “Humanists”, Mouse Powell “Where it’s Cloudy”

Artist Of The Year- Drake

A Lot of cats aren’t going to understand this choice, but hear me out. Drake has had the most consistent year: He was on one of the biggest songs(Grammy Nominated) of the year with “I’m On One” as well as countless features, his leaked tracks “Dreams Money Can Buy” and “Marvin’s Room” did better numbers than alot of rapper’s albums, plus the latter was remixed by every R&B artist that still exists. His album is a top selling album even outselling the kings, Jay-z and Kanye and is only surpassed by his “mentor” Lil Wayne. The facts don’t lie and while most of his music is designed to get in touch with women’s feelings, Drake can go in every once in awhile…listen to his verse on “Lord Knows”.

Honorable Mentions: Rick Ross, Jay-Z

Artist Of the Year (Arizona)- Random aka MegaRan

After quitting his job as a teacher to go full time rapper, Random has been on a roll. Releasing the very well received “Black Materia” Project with Lost Perception, Megaran took his talents and his team to The UK then later in the year to Japan. Random joined the Arizona Supergroup “Writer’s Guild” mid-year and had a major look in the scene as a result. Random just recently dropped “The Memorandum”, a collab album with long time associate Mr. Miranda.

Honorable Mentions: Isaiah Toothtaker, Badio, Mav of Sol Camp, Trap

Lyricist Of The Year (Nationwide): Kendrick Lamar

His Release Section 80. was able to bring light to his revolutionary-esqe content while maintaining his West Coast heritage. His rhyme scheme on “Rigamortis” proves that he can go as complicated as he wants to lyrically, while “Hiii Power” showed off a more straight forward approach. Kendrick Lamar is currently the most versatile lyricist in hip hop right now.

Lyricist Of The Year (Arizona): RoQy Tyraid

His track “The Culture is Back” solidified what those in know already knew…that RoQy is a beast. his sophisticated rhyme patterns with layered content put him on par with a Royce Da 5’9, except Tyraid has more focus with pinpoint subject matter and a tenacity that hasn’t been seen in years.

Honorable Mention: Savant

Producers Of the Year (Nationwide): Just Blaze

With his epic soundscape of Saigon’s “Greatest Story..”, we all thought that it was going to be a big year for Just Blaze, who already was coming off a great 2010. However he only produced a handful of tracks, mac miller, and Joell Ortiz being some of the blessed ones. Fortunately Just Blaze hooked up with Rick Ross, the king of beat selection. The result was a pair of beats that surpassed pretty much everything else in 2011. The fire posse cut “Self Made” and the Epic Choir assisted “Lord Knows” featured on Drake’s album. Just Blaze proved that it quality over quantity every time.

No ID
No offense to Big Sean but it was No ID’s amazing production that helped carry that album to the top. Not Satisfied with those results, No ID laced Common’s entire album to fantastic results. While doing that he also threw some hits to rhianna, J.cole, and the dynamic duo of Jay-z and Kanye West. It’s safe to say that he had a pretty big year.

Producer of the Year (Arizona): Lost Perception
Lost Perception of the Council Productions single handely changed the face of 8-bit/nerdcore hip hop with his amazing effort “Black Materia, a collaboration with the Nerdcore legend Random. By finding the perfect blend of nostalgia and the modern sound of hip hop today, LP created a soundscape for Random that reached epic proportions. Couple that with the rave reviews from critics, the fantastic fan reception and press from some of the electronic entertainment industry’s biggest magazines and websites and you have a beautiful thing.

honorable mentions: Span Phly, 21 the Producer, Lifted of the New FO’s, Habeaus Corpus

Newcomer Of the Year: Frank Ocean

This dude went from a mixtape to guest appearing on one of the biggest hip hop albums of all time in the span of a few months. He easily has one of the most anticipated releases of 2012 and the ladies love him. Frank Ocean is that dude right now.

honorable mention: Tyler the Creator

Video of the Year: Tyler the Creator- Yonkers

The simplest video are always the best, and the video for Tyler the Creator’s “Yonkers” is no exception.Acting as the the perfect introduction to his sick and twisted style, the video features a single shot of the young emcee as he plays with roaches, vomits, and hangs himself. The creativity oozes heavy in this effort and that’s what i appreciate the most.
Video of the Year (Arizona): Cutthroat Logic “We Own The Night”

Featuring a dias de los muertos theme, Firedancers, breakdancers, fantastic camera work and editing and a quality that hadn’t been seen yet by Arizona Hip Hop, Cuttthroat Logic’s “We own the Night” set the bar for Arizona Hip Hop in 2011.

Song of the Year: Jay-Z and Kanye West- Otis

While not the album of the year, Watch the Throne does have a few gems on there. While “Niggas in Paris” featured a new sound and a infectious hook, it was the soulful Otis Redding “featured” “Otis. Featuring production that brought us back to Yeezy’s “College Dropout” days, brash, but warranted claims from Jiggaman (“I Invented Swag..”) and outrageous, yet entertaining declarations from Kanye (I made jesus walks, i never going to hell), “Otis” is the opus of Watch The Throne, and proof that these two men can claim the throne.

Honorable mentions: Eminem and Royce Da 5’9 “Fastlane”, Kendrick Lamar “Hiii Power” Childish Gambino “Not Going Back” Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne “I’m On One”
Songs of the Year (Arizona) Will Be Revealed at a Later Time ;)

Hip Hop Story of the year: Death of Nate Dogg

Nate Dogg is the number one hook man in hip hop, period. His runs includes some of the greatest hip hop songs of all time and he has work with pretty much everyone that has matter in hip hop. His death came from nowehre and sent shockwaves throughout the entire hip hop community. there will never be another voice like his and he will surely be missed. R.I.P. Nate Dogg

Honorable Mentions: Death of Heavy D/Sylivia Robinson,/Gil Scott/Slim Dunkin R.I.P
Story of the Year: Death of Osama Bin Laden

The alleged mastermind behind the single most horrific incident in American History was taken down this year by a navy seal team in Pakistan. As a result, Al Qaida has slowly been dissolving and all is right in the world….wait, what….oh. Oh well, Team America, fuck yeah.

Honorable Mentions: The Tucson Shootings, Occupy Wall Street Movement

4 months ago 4 notes

Tagged with: #Lists #Awards #The Black Awards #Hip Hop #Opinions #The Roots #Drake #Jay-z #Kanye #Chlidish Gambino #Isaiah #Savant #Span Phly #Natives Are Restles #Arizona #Random #Kendrick Lamar #RoQy Tyraid #Tyler The Creator #No ID

The Natives Are Restless (The Black Review)

By Jaron Ikner

4.0 out of 5.0

I honestly believe that putting together a group album is one of the hardest things you can do in Hip Hop these days. You have to be able to coordinate and organize the lives and schedules of everyone involved and make sure that everybody is on the same page if you really want it to work. It’s understandable why most groups nowadays are a collection of solo rappers (ala Odd Future) instead of full on groups, it’s just easier that way. With that said, Tucson, Arizona’s super rap group “The Natives Are Restless” manage to put together a fine piece of work with their new album “Humanists”. The Natives, consisting of Habeus Corpus, Eral, and Danjor James, are one of the more cohesive groups to come out of the city and their new project manages to hold a place mark as one of the best to come out Tucson, as well as Arizona, in a long while.

The first thing that caught my ear was the Top notch production provided mostly by Habeus Corpus. Habeus is relatively new to the production scene but manages to lace some grimey, yet polished beats for his brethren. Tracks like “Blow Em Off”, “Marveling”, and “The Worlds Broke” showcases Corpus’ tenacity for dope drum sequencing over smooth sampling. However it’s the track “New Leaf” that is the standout track, production wise: featuring ethereal synths and a soulful piano roll, this track does the best job of showcasing the groups cohesiveness and ear for good music. The track oozes with emotion and the lyrics do a great job of amplifying that.

Lyrically, each of the members hold there own, but it’s Eral that stands out as the star of the album. Falling right in the middle of the Habeus’ off-kilter yet intriguing rhyme patterns and Danjor’s laid back but potent punchlines, Eral displays a tenacity and hunger that commands attention. Not to say that the other two members don’t deliver some high quality verses on the project: Danjor James’ verse on “Planet X” is a deadly one and one of the best i have heard from the young emcee, while habeus destroys “The Natives The Restless” with a dizzying verse. On the track “Exist” The Natives enlist the help of one of Arizona’s best wordsmiths, Brad B of Drunken Immortals and The Insects fame, who proceeds to drop one of illest verses on the project. The mysterious and rarely seen General X makes short work of the track “Character Assassination” as he continues to solidify his position as one of Tucson’s best lyricist.

One of my biggest gripes with the album is the actually subject matter, while tracks like “New Leaf” “The Natives are Restless” and “Greed, Sloth, Lust and Envy” display a clear direction and topics, a lot of the verses on the album seem interchangeable with a lack of focus. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as every track on the album is solid, however, a few of the songs feel like the same song over a different beat. Individually, each track stands very well on it own but when placed side by side on an album it’s hard to gather an overall theme of the album. I feel like the album centers around them being good emcees, which is fine, but at the same time the lack of an overall direction makes the album feel like a collection of good songs rather than album with an message or point behind it.

Overall, This album is great jump-off point for the young group. Solid production and potent verses carry this album and it provides a great introduction for the team. I feel that if the group can take more risks and have a broader range of subject matter on future projects they have the potential to really make a mark on the not only the Arizona Hip Hop Scene but the Underground Hip Hop Scene in general. With that said, Tucson should be proud of The Natives are Restless for creating a strong soundscape to nod your head too. Keep an eye on these kids, they could be a major problem here very soon.

7 months ago 7 notes

Tagged with: #the natives are restless #Humanists #Tucson hip hop #Hip Hop #Arizona