MY MUSIC OF 2016

While Rolling Stone magazine chose to give their album of the year to what felt more like a moment-in-the-year than an album, we do things differently round here: we just go with the music and not the following (no disrespect to Beyonce’s Lemonade, I hear it’s still a popular drink…).

WE GOT IT FROM HERE… THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE – A TRIBE CALLED QUEST

Rather than go out on a swansong and leave us yearning for nostalgia, A Tribe decides to go out on a peak after an 18-year absence. You won’t hear fans saying, “Oh, we prefer their earlier work.” This is up there with their first 3 certified classics and even though the two that came after that didn’t get as much respect, it’s all been leading to this. Ain’t no tears here, just respect for one of the greatest groups that ever touched a mic!

ANTI – RIHANNA

Rihanna sure surprised people with this album. For fans of the songstress, this album left some distressed as she skipped the usual bubble gum sexed-up songs and tried being as some have said, “an artist”. For those who don’t usually pay Rihanna any attention beyond her singles, this was their album. Every R&B artist seems to have that one album, where they sonically change sound, even if not completely. Rihanna just ticked the box with this one!

THE LIFE OF PABLO - KANYE WEST

''We on a ultralight beam, we on a ultralight beam! This is a God tale! This is a God tale... this is everything!''

Honourable Mentions:

UNTITLED UNMASTERED – Kendrick Lamar

Lamar kicked off the year by dropping this gem in February. It had in my opinion songs that should’ve been on To Pimp A Butterfly, but were left out on the cutting room floor for whatever reason.

4 YOUR EYEZ ONLY – J. COLE

Jermaine does his Beyonce and drops his latest album with no announcement, but an itunes pop up. 4 Your Eyez Only probably isn’t going to attract any new fans. For those who complain that Cole is boring (who are those people?), he is on his continuous musing and rambling, for those who have nothing to complain about a little Cole every now and then, this reaffirms his place in the holy trinity of today’s generation of rappers alongside Kendrick and Drake. Besides, the album’s for our eyes only!

THE END OF A TRIBE: A LOOK AT A TRIBE CALLED QUEST’S LAST ALBUM

Sentiments aside, I don’t think you’ll hear an album as good and relevant this year as A Tribe Called Quest’s We Got It From Here… Thank You For Your Service. The album dropped in the aftermath of the American election where Trump turned out to be the winner and the lyrics of songs like We The People seem to predict the wave of hate that came with the man’s campaign and eventual ascent to the presidency. Lyrics like, “All you Black folks, you must go/ All you Mexicans, you must go/ And all you poor folks, you must go/ Muslims and Gays/ Boy we hate your ways/” speak to the hate rhetoric spewed during this last American election.

The album is also the last featuring Phife Dawg who died early this year and during the process of completing the album (the crew pay tribute to him on Lost Somebody). While I take my hip hop influence from everywhere, Tribe’s first three albums had an impact on what music could sound like for me and not to mention the rhyme patterns of rappers like Phife and Tip played a part in teaching one how to put lines together.

Their final album here is a great farewell as it features everyone that has been a Tribe member aside from the main trio of Phife, Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. There’s occasional members Jarobi White and Consequence and of course honourary member, Busta Rhymes all over the album.

There are the great guest features ranging from Jack White to the legendary Elton John (on one track for that matter) to the usual rap drop-ins from Andre 3000 of Outkast to Kendrick Lamar among others. There’s the introduction of new voices like soul singer Abbey Smith alongside veterans like Marsha Ambriousa on Melatonin.

It is a sometimes politically charged album with songs like the aforementioned We The People and Moving Backwards, the latter which at some point tackles the recent surge of police brutality against people of colour, “Police killing niggas everywhere, maybe we should get some guns too.”

Mention must be made of the prophecies of some Phife’s lines, on Conrad Tokyo it seems like the deceased rapper peeked into the future as he mentions Trump and the SNL hilarity that eventually followed his win.

The only thing missing from this album is a production credit from core member Ali Shaheed Muhammad who was allegedly busy working on the Luke Cage soundtrack, hence the entire production of the album is largely handled and overseen by Q-Tip. One can’t help but think of all the members, perhaps Tip wanted the reunion more than anyone and he wouldn’t be wrong for it.

The album ends with Donald, a reference (and tribute) to one of Phife’s alter egos, ending out a true hip hop legacy. The truth is they don’t make rap albums like these anymore, making it the more special. You on point y’all?

THE RISE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN NAIJA

Since the resurgence of Nigerian music in the late 90s, the industry has created all sorts of sound, mostly by infusing the old (traditional) with the new (Hip-Hop, R&B, Pop, etc) and with the rise of such Pan-African music channels such as Channel O, MTV Base & Trace Urban (now better known as Trace Naija), African musicians have been exchanging sounds and continually being influenced by each other as they collaborate across the continent. 

Most recently, EDM (Electronic Dance Music) has risen to be the world’s most predominant music genre overtaking Hip Hop as the sound of the youth and in Hip Hop, Trap Music has taken over as the predominant sub-genre. And while African music is on the rise internationally, you may ask where does that leave Afro-beat or its present descendant, Afro-Pop? Just to be clear, Afro-beat is quite different from Afro-pop, while any music made in the latter can be said to be of the former, not all the former is of the latter. 

And while Electronic music is quite popular now, it wasn’t always the case. In the 90s, most of it was quite cheesy and tended to come from Europe. A lot of the most interesting Electronic music was being made in the sub-genre of House and Techno and interestingly from America* (House first grew out of the Detroit scene). Flash-forward to a decade or so and European DJs who were conquering Ibiza decided to take over America by infusing their electronic sounds with urban sounds of America and thus reinvigorating the genre (as a side-note, rapper/producer P. Diddy saw this invasion coming long before most people did and so did Will.I.AM of the Black Eyed Peas who capitalized on it right as the takeover began). 

Likewise, Afro-pop (that genre that was coined to describe African music that infuses any and everything) was catching up too. While House music was a staple in South Africa and perhaps to some lesser extent in East Africa, it didn’t take long for Naija to catch up to both its South African and European/American counterparts.

While Afro-pop is still (unfortunately, as some might argue) the reigning genre out of Naija, a few Afro-Electronic producers and stars have risen from the country. One such example is Benie Macaulay and his cohort Tomi Thomas whose song Parolz is a fusion of Afro-beat and South African House**. Surprisingly this song hasn’t gotten quite the same attention as its Afro-beat counterparts on the charts... or the clubs, but all great genres start slow and small. Hopefully the Afro-Electronic sounds of Naija don’t go mainstream quick and burn fast as Garage music did in the U.K.

*With such music acts as C&C Music factory, Snap & Robin S, whose hit song Show Me Love would later be turned into a Hip Hop hit for Kid Ink by D.J Mustard. The same D.J Mustard will turn a slowed down instrumentation of Snap’s Rhythm Is A Dancer into an R&B hit for singer Jeremih.

**Another Electronic song to check out is Amnesia from Distrikt Matter who is primarily an R&B singer, but tried his hand at production on this one, most likely using Garage Band.