The power of Hip-Hop in odd years (2013, 2015 and 2017)

Well, I just woke up and suddenly ran through my computer searching for music to listen to, I actually didn’t know what to listen but I wanted to listen to music. That’s when I opened a folder of Hip-Hop music and I didn’t even decide what to listen ‘cause I saw a lot of Hip-Hop albums, most of them took me back to the times I used to debate with my friends about which album is the dopest.

So today’s post is about Hip-Hop in the years of 2013, 2015 and 2017. I chose those years because I think in my opinion that in these years the rappers came hard to a non-declared war through their music. So let me just talk about it separately:

2013 – The controversial year

This was a big year musically, and I am talking in general. Do you remember when Kendrick Lamar stopped the world with his “Control” verse? Yeah! That was in 2013. The same year Drake came back from a long break with his smash hit “Started From the Bottom” and had everyone yelling “started from the bottom now we here”. In 2013 everyone sang about a “Crooked Smile” or a “Power Trip”.

We saw the first steps of Jay-Z and Kanye West separation when they both released their solo albums “Magna Carta” and “Yeezus” respectively. And I still listen to Yeezus until today. We saw Big Sean having a great year with his “Hall Of Fame” album, right after the release of the single “Control” which had the whole Hip-Hop culture shocked. And because of that we saw dozens of songs coming out aimed to one rapper – Kendrick Lamar. J. Cole fired at Kendrick in “TKO” remix, and Drake fired at “The Language” even though he denied that the verse or the song was talking about Kendrick Lamar’s Control verse.

But anyway, in terms of albums releases, we still had Drake’s “Nothing Was the Same”, competing with J. Cole’s “Born Sinner”. We witnessed the arise of ASAP Rocky with his debut album “Long Live ASAP”, and let’s not forget about Lil Wayne’s “I Am a Human Being II” which is in my opinion a beautiful and complex album. In the same year, the king Eminem came back to the game with his Marshal Mathers LP2 and knocked off all the new generation releases coming out that year.

But, we saw Childish Gambino bringing new vibes and the album which I call “the album of the future” titled “Because the Internet”, meanwhile DJ Khaled, as he always do, came to the competition with his “Suffering From Success” LP. What to say about French Montana’s “Excuse My French”? B.o.B’s “Underground Luxury”? And the goat Ryan Leslie unleashing his “Black Mozart” masterpiece.

We also had a chance to see Juicy J bringing his trippy life with his “Stay Trippy” LP and the beginning of the YMCMB fall with the release of “Rich Gang” album.

Well, 2013 was a hell of a year in Hip-Hop and the debates with my friends didn’t come to an end ‘cause the releases were always coming and coming, and ahhhh, 2 Chainz dropped his B.O.A.T.S II Me Time and Meek Mill with his best mixtape ever “Dreamchasers 3”.

2015 – The ghostwriting year.
LOL, 2015 was Drake’s year with no doubt. The dude kicked off the year with “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” mixtape and making 2015 a competitive year for the upcoming releases. But, there was Meek Mill whom was also working on his second album “Dreams Worth More Than Money” which dropped months later, and he came with ghost writing allegations aimed at Drake LOL. And this is how Drake took advantage to turn 2015 his year, with the double diss records and later a collaborative mixtape with Future, who also released his “Dirty Sprite 2” album, and so the duo ended up recording in 6 days the “What A Time To be Alive” mixtape and becoming the hottest rappers of the US at the time.

But, in the other hand we can’t forget the talented rapper Kendrick Lamar who also dropped his “To Pimp A Butterfly” LP and was able to collect a lot of Grammies with this album. We had an opportunity to hear a beautiful album “The Album About Nothing” by Wale which I think was the best of 2015, and Kanye West took his time to assist Big Sean’s biggest release “Dark Sky Paradise” PL. In the same year ASAP Rocky came back with his second album “At Long Last ASAP”, which took too long to come out due to the death of ASAP Yam, the leader of the ASAP Mob.
But the rapper who caught my attention was Travis Scott when he dropped “Rodeo”, a different vibe from what everyone was doing at the time and this is how he started to kill everybody in the game.

And we also had The Game with “The Documentary 2”, DJ Khaled again with “I Changed A Lot”, and the biggest news here are the releases of “TRAPSOUL” by Bryson Tiller, “SremmLife” by Rae Sremmurd and G-Eazy with “When It’s Dark Out”. Tyga came with consisted album “The Gold Album 18th Dynasty”. Lil Wayne with 2 releases “Sorry 4 the Wait 2” and “Free Weezy Album”.

2017: The Competitive year.
This was in my opinion the biggest year among all of these 3 I chose here. I am not going to say a lot about 2017, because it still fresh and I guess anyone knows what happened. But, the most interesting thing I noticed was the arise of new artist, and the competition was so serious that Drake in 8 years was knocked out of the Billboard Charts!

Well, Drake once again released something… and he called it a playlist “More Life” – that’s why he didn’t make to the Grammys I guess. But he did claimed 13 Grammys at the Billboard Awards and breaking Adele’s record. So, DJ Khaled released what I call his second big and mature album “Grateful”, I say the second ‘cause the first one was Major Key. And hey, Future dropped 2 albums in a consecutive weeks LOL, “Future” and “HNDRXX” – hey, those albums are both self-named.

To be fair, 2017 was Migos year too, we can’t deny they had the best album of the year in terms of quality, yehh I’m talking about the “Culture”. 2 Chainz too with “Pretty Girls Like Trap Music”, and the master Jay Z came back with “4:44” and shouted everyone mouth out. Although Kendrick Lamar dropped his “DAMN” album, which is an incredible one, 21 Savage got into the game with his debut album “Issa” surprising everyone for not including the smash hit Issa.

But, I was also surprised by Wale with his “Shine” album, and I consider Wale one of the few smartest rappers of US. The other good album is “Jungle Rules” by French Montana and “Paranoia – A True Story” by Dave East, and there is “True To Self” by Bryson Tiller. The collaborative album between Travis Scott and Quavo could’ve been better, they did not surprised me with their “Huncho Jack Jack Huncho”.

Those are just a few albums I selected to talk about and take you guys back to the time. Obviously there are a lot of albums I did not include here, but comparing to the other years, in my opinion Hip-Hop was so high and competitive in these years.