Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day. Not best. Not most influential. Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow. Just my favorite, ranked in order.
Today’s a triple post, because unforeseen (and very happy) circumstances prevented me from keeping up on my list. But the hustle never ends.
17. ka - the night’s gambit
It’s easy to draw lazy comparisons between Brownsville's Ka and Long Island's Roc Marciano – they’re both top-tier word artists, remarkably adept at scrawling lyrical pictures of New York ghettoes, and they’ve clearly got close to zero need for the spotlight. But while you can practically see Roc spraying his words from side-to-side like one of his song’s AKs, dealing out rapid-fire rhymes like a deck of cards, Ka moves much more deliberately. Each line’s almost whispered, nearly obscured by the halting guitar loops that he relies on for his production, and while Roc drags you right into the action, Ka’s the one sitting across the table from you in the aftermath, telling you what he saw. The Night’s Gambit isn’t driven by aggression, but it’s just as cinematic and gripping as the work of his frequent collaborator. I could go on and on about how haunting Ka’s music is, how his lyrics dig themselves into your brain, how his declarations that “if this ain’t meant for me, nothing is” seem to be vacillating between defiance and resignation. It’s hard to tell whether Ka’s stories are brags or confessions, and indeed, he seems to flip between the two depending on the song. But whatever it is, it’s powerful.
17. busta rhymes - “thank you feat. q-tip, kanye west & lil wayne (prod. busta rhymes)”
While Kanye West and Lil Wayne don’t actually kick any lines, instead being relegated to hype man duties, “Thank You" might actually benefit from the lack of 21st century star power. By letting Busta and Q-Tip take the spotlight, the two get to kick up the charisma and chemistry that made Busta such a frequent collaborator with A Tribe Called Quest. The jazzy, high-tempo instrumental’s the perfect soundscape for the two rappers to drop a couple decades, flowing like it’s 1993 all over again. I’m a sucker for any song that discards hooks in favor of eight-bar cypher trade-offs, but it works truly to perfection here. It really is like they’re having tons of fun – Busta even sinks into his Jamaican accent for his third verse. Maybe it’s the perfectly-timed usage of Alicia Myers‘ "I Wanna Thank You" as a sample mid-song, but it’s impossible not to let the song’s infectiousness roll you along. Shake ya hips.