Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2022
Another year, another bloodbath that ends with me stumbling out holding my list, covered in viscera, the guts of many an album I love dearly staining my hands. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic, but when the list of albums you liked enough to consider putting on a list has over fifty entries and you start having trouble with cuts when you get down to twenty, it certainly feels that way.
If there’s anything to note it’s that in years past, my lists have been more varied when it comes to genre. To me, that felt like growth. Loving things outside of my comfort zone and giving new stuff a try. This year, however, I leaned all the way into my home base genres (save for two) of hip hop, R&B, soul, and jazz.
What gives? Well, apart from 2022 being an exceptional year for the genres I love most, it was a tumultuous year for me personally, and I needed old comforts. We’ll get into more of that later, but as a result, the honorable mentions and the albums that almost made it are (mostly) littered with everything else. Matter of fact, here’s what that almost made it/did make earlier versions:
Beach House, Once Twice Melody
The Comet is Coming, Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam
DOMi & JD Beck, NOT TIGHT
Jockstrap, I Love You Jennifer B
Little Simz, NO THANK YOU
Nas, King’s Disease III
Petrol Girls, Baby
Some of those are a little more typical for me, but you get my point. If you’re wondering where your rock of any subgenre is or your hipster stuff that I loved as much as everyone else did, the honorable mentions are probably where you’ll find them.
Like all years, music struck it out of the park. And hey, save for the runner-up artist and the drummer of the hardcore punk band, there are no white artists! Not an intentional act on my part, but what’s not to love about that?
Runner-Up: Kenny Beats, Louie
I’ve had this creeping feeling now that instrumental hip hop albums are becoming increasingly disposable.
Just to be clear, they aren’t. There are still plenty of artists putting out incredible work, and I don’t want to throw them under the bus. This is one hundred percent a case of my perception being skewed by what’s in front of me, but what’s in front of me a lot of the time is the best selling hip hop albums on Bandcamp. A few big name indie releases that never seem to stop selling, some mash-up albums, a rapper or two from Lithuania, and someone’s beat tape, generally of the “chill beats to relax to” variety.
Of course, that’s reductive, and I’ll even admit that I’ve purchased a fair share of this stuff. However, it doesn’t always feel that way. It seems like thousands of budding producers have discovered that if you can find an old piano recording, throw some drums over it, maybe add a vocal sample if you’re feeling fancy, and loop it, you’ve got something you can sell. Again, this stuff isn’t bad, but when it’s all you see from instrumental hip hop, the form can’t help but feel watered down.
And let’s be real, there’s Dilla, Endtroducing, Nujabes, the mountains of Madlib tapes, and a few others. It feels like we’ve been chasing the same albums for years, with nothing actually pushing instrumental hip hop forward. It’s this environment that’s begs me to make the probably untrue statement that LOUIE is my favorite instrumental hip hop since Donuts.
Most beat tapes and instrumentals albums are basically just loops designed to get your head knocking. LOUIE provides plenty of moments to throw out your neck, but it also feels like an album of actual compositions. It also provides those precious beats to chill and/or study to, but without that feeling of homogeneity.
There’s a deeper kind of warmth to be found here. A complex bliss from a more nuanced emotional palette. When you listen to this album, you don’t think of the anime girl at her desk. You think about the actual human being who put this album together.
Unfortunately, a large reason why this is the case is because LOUIE is a tribute to his father, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2021. One would expect any art produced under such circumstances to be much darker. Or at least I would. I look at some of what I wrote around the time my stepfather was dying of multiple cancers and a it was pretty bleak. Clearly, however, Kenny handles things much differently than I do. His father must be a beautiful human being.
I’ll probably regret not putting this album on the list proper. The only reason I didn’t is because on some level, I always knew Kenny Beats was capable of something like this, whereas my number ten slot is going to someone who finally clicked with me after fuck knows how many albums. But still, this is an album I’ll be returning to for years to come. Lists are arbitrary anyway.
Favorite Songs: “Hold My Head,” “Hooper,” “Eternal”
10. MIKE, Beware of the Monkey
It happened! I finally get MIKE!
I’ve tried so many times before, and by “so many times,” I mean that I’m pretty sure I’ve listened to everything he’s put out starting with 2017’s May God Bless Your Hustle, and other than some individual songs here and there, nothing really clicked with me to the degree that I wanted it to. (That said, the song “coat of many colors” off his album weight of the world was one of my most listened to songs of 2020.)
I kept trying because it was clear from the get-go that there was something to MIKE, and it’s not just the increasingly big following he has in some music circles. He was obviously talented, and maybe more importantly, he had a very clear vision from an early age that seems to have resonated with a lot of other artists. Maybe my perception of the timeline is skewed, but there was MIKE, and then there were the Navy Blues and the Mavis and Earl Sweatshirt started rapping in a very similar vein.
But for me, it didn’t really work. The problem, I think, was that I prefer a sense of an arc when it comes to songs. If we imagine music as a line, I prefer songs that zig-zag and go up and down. MIKE, on the other hand, prefers a straight line. You get your loop (your very good loop, I should add), and then MIKE raps over it with his monotone delivery and lackadaisical flow. None of this is to suggest that his music was ever repetitive or boring. It’s just that it’s the very definition of an acquired taste.
With Beware of the Monkey, I finally acquired it.
I wish I had a particularly complex or interesting reason as to why this is the one that finally hit for me, but I don’t think I have one. MIKE is an artist for very particular kind of mood. A stream of conscious style of hip hop, only instead of that phrase being used to justify randomness to varying degrees of success, it’s much more introspective. There’s a certain joy in his music that comes from knowing how you feel and having the ability to express that while acknowledging the duality of your emotions. MIKE’s production is often warm and inviting, but while his lyrics can have the same qualities, they’re just as frequently melancholic and forlorn. On paper, it shouldn’t work, but it does. He’s very human in that way.
Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood to hear it all those times before. But it certainly doesn’t help that the sonic palette of Beware of the Monkey is the best it’s ever been on a MIKE album, and that’s saying a lot because production was never his issue.
I already want to go back and try all those old albums again. Maybe they’ll finally register with me and maybe they won’t, but I’ve wanted to like this guy for years and now I finally do. I’m surprised at how happy that made me feel.
Favorite Songs: “Eczema,” “Ipari Park,” “Stop Worry!”
9. Beyoncé, Renaissance
To be honest, I was sort of worried for Beyoncé.
“Worry” may be too strong a phrase. Beyoncé will know levels of wealth and cultural influence I could never dream of, and though fame comes with many pitfalls, there are presumably some perks, and she probably knows those so well that they must seem boring. My concern, however, was where she could go given the content of her recent output.
The self-titled album was a reclamation of Beyoncé’s artistry and, in a lot of ways, her body. Beyoncé eschewed the usual record label process and demonstrated her autonomy over her craft and her music thanks in large part to an album that largely embraces her sexuality. It was a statement. One that turned my entire college campus into a ghost time for a few hours. Next was Lemonade, an album that’s political weight is so well-established that saying anything about it here feels pointless. One could argue that her only two misses, if we can call them that, since Beyoncé are EVERYTHING IS LOVE and The Lion King: The Gift. However, the latter was a soundtrack album for a middling movie (of which the album and visual accompaniment are much better), and even if you didn’t love EVERYTHING IS LOVE, I don’t think many would call it outright awful. (Personally, I think it’s a little underrated. Emphasis on “a little.”)
My point is that the two successful albums are cultural and political zeniths, whereas the two “duds” (again, relatively speaking) are intentionally much less weighty. My question was, “What happens if Beyoncé decides she just wants to make straight-up pop again?”
There is certainly an argument to be made that Renaissance bears a similar political heft, only in a much different way. It is, to borrow a phrase from a much more outwardly political punk band, joy as an act of resistance. An album about leaving behind the trappings of capitalism and getting lost in the dance. That argument is one hundred percent valid. However, it’s not why I enjoy Renaissance.
Frankly, I enjoy it just because it’s non-stop fucking bangers.
You can throw all the burned-out millennial subtext you want at it. I’m just here for the immaculately produced pop and R&B. True, Renaissance doesn’t feel like the sea change some of her other works were. But it’s not trying to be. It’s just a fairly simple dance pop album that wants to be in the moment, and for that, I’m grateful for its existence. This may not have been as high on my list as it was for most people. But it’s still here, and it’s one of the albums I returned to the most in 2022.
Favorite Songs: “Break My Soul,” “Plastic Off The Sofa,” “Virgo’s Groove”
8. Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems
Earlier in the year, I read a write-up about Soul Glo at The Ringer. The word that comes up a lot is “survival.”
Mostly, the article means that word in the sense of how much it took to make this album and see it get the light of day. There was a certain upswing to their career. Then COVID hit. There was a cohesive unit. Then one of the members had to step down due to sexual assault accusations. Most of the members simply wanted to live their lives. However, they’re a mostly black punk band in America, and so naturally, they had to raise $15,000 dollars for one of the member’s bail after being racially profiled while on tour in Missouri. Add on top of that the everyday nightmare of being alive in the late 2010s and 2020s, and it’s a small wonder anyone’s making anything, even more so if you’re of a people America tends to leave behind.
However, of course, the article gets into other kinds of survival as well. How do you make it through the day? What do you need to move forward? How do you cope with the trauma that’s been inflicted not just on you, but on those who came before you, and how do you stop yourselves from passing it on? If you pay attention to social media or the writing style of this album, the answer is with a sense of humor.
This album will make you laugh, provided you enjoy a little bit of gallows humor. Of course, you can just look at the song names, but even the lyrics themselves and the delivery provide their own kind of playfulness. They write about crushing political systems and mental health struggles with an irreverence that feels like a conversation between good friends, and it’s hard, at least for me, to not find it infectious.
And then you remember that they’re singing about crushing political systems and mental health struggles.
The latter has been on my mind a lot this year for reasons we’ll get into later. But for now, Diaspora Problems is one of the best punk albums I’ve heard in the last handful of years. Granted, I’m no expert in the punk field, but it seems to me that there’s a divide between personal emotion led music (your emo stuff, basically) and the more traditional political punk. When you’re black in America, the lines between the two aren’t blurry so much as they don’t exist. Diaspora Problems is a not-so-gentle reminder of that dynamic. It’s funny, but it’s only laughing to keep from crying.
Favorite Songs: “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?),” “Coming Correct is Cheaper,” “Spiritual Level of Gang Shit”
7. Denzel Curry, Melt My Eyez See Your Future
` What do we like about Denzel Curry? He’s obviously a stupidly talented person in a lot of ways, be it as a lyricist and a writer or whatever. (The difference being the former is about the construction of rhymes and the latter is about what he is constructing said rhymes about.) However, if I had to narrow it down to one thing, it’s his energy.
Denzel is basically the hip hop Energizer Bunny. A rapper with about ten rappers’ worth of spark to him. (He said as much himself in his episode of The Cave, albeit with language I cannot use because I’m white.) It’s an obvious trait he has to rap fans, particularly in an era where mainstream hip hop has gone in a much slower melodic direction. But given the response to his performance of “Bulls on Parade,” it’s become apparent to just as many rock fans as well. (The “rock/metal head reacts to X” economy was a fun thing to watch when that video came out. I can’t tell you how many comments I saw that are basically, “He should start a rock band.”
So what happens when you take most of that energy away? When he makes an album bereft of that boundless vitality and have him rap over (raises eyebrow) jazz beats? Paradoxically, his best album. At least thus far.
This isn’t to say that this album has none of that vivaciousness. It will absolutely make your head bob. It just does it in a different way this time. Before, you weren’t nodding your head to his work so much as you were rocking it with the raw spirit on display in his music. This time, however, it’s definitely more of a nod. When you’re listening to a perfect flow over a perfectly crafted beat. It’s the same energy, just channeled in a different direction.
And then there’s the content itself. Melt My Eyez See Your Future joins a, thankfully, ever-growing list of hip hop therapy albums. An album that sees Denzel contemplating where he is not just as a rapper in his lane, but as a human being, and he’s not always happy with the results. This is not the last therapy album on this list, but it does end in a much different place than a lot of other ones. Mainly, the act of looking in isn’t always as cathartic as we may want it to be. Maybe it makes things worse, at least for a little bit. Maybe to be where he is in hip hop, you have to take on baggage that may, in the end, not be worth it.
Bleakness or not, however, it’s always nice to see someone take a creative risk and have it pay off. Even though it’s not the (fully) joyous celebration of the internal you may want it to be, thanks to how much Denzel switches things up, it can’t help but feel like a step forward. Experimentation. You love to see it.
Favorite Songs: “Melt Session #1,” “Walkin,” “John Wayne,”
6. Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen
A sub-theme of this list: Artists with a breathtaking amount of talent finally releasing something transcendent, be it in their own name for the first time or someone who’s been around for a bit finally clicking with me or whatever. So far, we have Kenny Beats with LOUIE, MIKE with Beware of the Monkey, Denzel with Melt My Eyez See Your Future (though granted, he’s been on my lists before and some would argue he already has a list worthy albums under his belt, an argument I’m not necessarily opposed to), and now here we are with Sudan Archives.
I first found out about Sudan Archives via her self-titled EP in 2017. I never listened to that project all the way through, but “Oatmeal” came up in my shuffle later that year and it took a long time for it to leave my rotation. She put out Athena and a few other EPs, but I didn’t listen to them because… I don’t know why. I was being stupid. Then one day, I was walking back from the grocery store and saw a small billboard for Natural Brown Prom Queen right around the corner from my apartment. After finding it dope that this artist I was aware of is getting billboards now (though granted, I live in LA where such a thing isn’t uncommon), I gave it a shot.
God, what a fucking album.
I really don’t know what to say here, honestly. It’s an album bursting with so much creativity in so many different directions that I feel like I would need to write a book to get all my thoughts down. It’s arty pop that’ll put a smile on the faces of the snobbiest of music snobs and those who just want to dance. It’s achingly romantic in spots and filthy in the best possible ways in others. It’s an album you can sit back and admire the complexity of just as easily as you can crank it on your bluetooth speakers and have yourself the best pre-grame ever. It is, simply put, all things.
I have some thoughts on the state of R&B that I want to talk about later in this list. (With my number two album, specifically.) But to give you a little preview, there’s a feeling that’s become increasingly rare in that space, and that is of something entirely new. Natural Brown Prom Queen is something entirely new and then some. Just so much raw talent and charisma aimed in so many angles that it almost doesn’t feel of this world.
I know I didn’t really say anything of substance here. But I don’t need to. All you have to know is that I love this album and every list that didn’t include it is a failure.
Favorite Songs: “Selfish Soul,” “ChevyS10,” “TDLY (Homegrown Land)”
5. Conway the Machine, God Don’t Make Mistakes
Speaking of not being included in lists…
This is something I try not to get too angry about. Not every music critic is going to recognize every album on their lists, and frankly, when some stuff gets included on my list that doesn’t get included on others, I might earn some cool points. (He said on the blog that probably has negative foot traffic at this point.) It’s a dumb thing to get upset about. Yet, the only lists I saw God Don’t Make Mistakes on is Fantano’s and Rod from Dead End Hip Hop’s.
Question for music critics and list makers out there: What the fuck? Is it just because it came out early in the year? Seriously, what does this man have to do?
God Don’t Make Mistakes is everything a hip hop fan could possibly desire. Do you want some grimy ignorant street shit? Conway’s got you covered. He always has you covered on that front, so it would be more accurate to say that he continues to have you covered on that front, and trust me, there’s plenty of that to be found here. Do you want intricate lyricism and amazing technical bars? Once again, Conway’s got you covered. In a year where some of the best hip hop albums are also the most confessional and mental health focused, Conway has one of the most deeply personal albums of any genre of the year. So if you’re a fan of emotions, Conway’s got you covered there as well.
Struggles with mental health, his feelings on being boxed into a corner and having his sole defining trait as a rapper, and even the death of his infant son get discussed with a soul crushing clarity that isn’t frequently associated with hip hop. (Though it should be.) It’s an album for the streets, just like every other Griselda release. But more importantly, it’s an album for adults. A work from the perspective of someone who has lived more life than the vast majority of his peers and makes you feel every moment.
Which isn’t to say that isn’t approachable. Far from it. However, there’s also an emotionality to it some may not be expecting given the grimier music they may be used to from Conway. Of course, anyone who listened to From King to a God could see it coming. But this album reaches whole new levels of darkness and emotional turmoil.
That alone doesn’t make it worthy of anyone’s praise, mind you. It’s that combined with everything else it does, which is basically perfection. It’s funny because this isn’t the last album on this list that I felt was way too underrepresented in critics’ top 10 lists. But this is the one that bothered me the most. Conway deserves more and better.
And Jill Scott’s verse!!!!!
Favorite Songs: “Stressed,” “So Much More,” “Chanel Pearls”
4. Silvana Estrada, Marchita
I share (*checks*) five of my top ten entries with Fantano this year. (Specifically, this album, God Don’t Make Mistakes, Natural Brown Prom Queen, Diaspora Problems, and the next entry.) Of those five albums, this is the only one I wouldn’t have found were it not for The Needle Drop. So thank you for that one, Fantano!
I’m stalling a bit here because I’m struggling with what to say. I don’t have a particularly deep or interesting reason as to why I love this album the way I do. It turns out the Spanish language is a beautiful language to sing, and when you pair it with some beautiful sparse production and a beautiful voice like Silvana’s, there’s really nothing else that needs to be said at all.
Like a lot of albums not in English, I debated whether or not I wanted to look up a translation of the lyrics. But like usual, I opted to leave it a mystery. The entire appeal of this album for me is a sense of fleeting beauty, but the beauty doesn’t have to be fleeting because I can return to this album anytime I want. Thank god we record music.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to say here that isn’t just me repeating the word “beautiful” and it’s many variations and synonyms. Sometimes when it comes to albums, you have to dig deep to find what you love about it. Sometimes you really don’t. Marchita is just a transcendentally beautiful album.
Favorite Songs: “Te Guardo,” “Tristeza,” “Casa”
3. JID, The Forever Story
I still don’t know if it’s J.I.D or JID. The artist himself says the former, but I prefer the latter and he doesn’t seem to care when interviewers say it, so I’m rolling with JID until he says otherwise.
Anyway, earlier, we were talking about artists finally meeting their potential and releasing the works it seemed like they were always meant to release, and JID is perhaps the best example of that on this list.
Like most people, my first exposure to JID was The Never Story. Like most people, I thought it was a very good album. I maybe didn’t like it to the extent that some people did, as I saw it on a lot of year end lists and stuff like that. But JID’s skills as a rapper were beyond question, and there was clearly something there. After all, when you’re blending tales of hardship and personal strife with Nickelodeon cartoons and a singular sound and flow, you know you have something special on your hands.
Same can be said for DiCaprio 2. More off the wall production. A more pronounced sense of social awareness and sharpness. More… everything. Honestly, the only reason I didn’t put that on my list is arbitrary brain bullshit. Some sounds just click with me and some I can appreciate while not getting to my heart, and DiCaprio 2 was in that latter category. I don’t know why.
The Forever Story got to my heart faster than most of the albums that came out this year. That may seem obvious given its placement on this list, but some albums are growers that take you a bit to learn to love (See: the next entry) and some you love the moment you hit “play,” and this is very much one of those albums.
I think what makes this album stand out from his previous works is the heart at the center of it. JID’s never been one to shy away from a certain kind of emotionality, but this one embraces a raw pathos his previous works never quite reached. There’s a lot of love to be found on this album, but the exploration of that love is complex and doesn’t always come in the form you think it will. On “Crack Sandwich,” JID recounts a story of him and his siblings going to war with a bar over their sister being hit in the mouth. It’s a moment of bonding, albeit in an unconventional and not entirely healthy sense of the word. A few tracks later on “Sistanem,” he recounts how his relationship with one of his sisters has become strained.
Love, as JID portrays it, is complex. The same feelings that send you to fits of righteous (and, honestly, kind of justifiable) violence also lead to the deepest hurts when relationships turn sour. And the causes of the strain are equally fleshed out over the course of the album. The perils of money and fame. The hunger to make a name for yourself at the expense of everything else.
Of course, these subjects have been discussed ad nauseam in hip hop, but rarely are those feelings tied to something so tangible and so vividly described. The medicine goes down hard, but everything else about this album is so gorgeous that you might not even notice. And it all ties back to one of my favorite feelings you can get from listening to music. When someone drops a truly great piece of work, and you get to say, “Finally!”
Favorite Songs: “Sistanem,” “Can’t Make U Change,” “Money”
2. Yaya Bey, Remember Your North Star
R&B, to me at least, has spent the last handful of years addicted to “vibes.”
It’s hard for me to describe what I’m talking about, or even where this “trend” started, and even if it’s still around. At some point, there was the post Weeknd’s Trilogy trend of vaguely trappish not so vaguely toxic male driven R&B. (Jeremih and Ty Dolla $ign and stuff like that.) Then after a while, probably somewhere around Blonde, the vibe changed. The men were filtered out, and in their place was a more female oriented mellower kind of R&B. One that was chasing a more passive listening experience. Your Jhene Aikos and your Kehlanis and a whole slew of other acts that dropped similar sounding projects and then, most of the time, vanished.
To be clear, the timeline as laid out above isn’t fully accurate. Artists from one side of the dynamic were definitely putting out material at the same time as the other. This also isn’t to say that either of these styles of R&B are inherently bad. “Don’t Tell ‘Em” is a lot of fun in the right environment in spite of itself, and as far as the vibey R&B, I’ve loved more than my fair share. Elah Hale’s Room 206 and Alycia Bella’s Muse are both stand out, and you can even point to my beloved self-titled Lianne La Havas album as an example, though I would disagree. I would also say that, of course, I’m being reductive. But if you pay attention to R&B, you may know what I mean.
Again, these chilled out R&B albums are not worthless by definition, but there is a glut of them, and I can’t help but feel frustrated. Blame artists chasing Blonde. Blame record labels chasing CTRL. Whatever the case may be, there are simply too many artists chasing the same emotionality, and it pushes aside people who are doing something different. Artists like Yaya Bey.
To some, Remember Your North Star may feel a bit scattered. A little too fragmented, what with the shorter song lengths and musical influences that jump from genre to genre without much warning or, seemingly, logic. But listen a little closer. What you’ll hear is an album from an artist who’s clearly been crushed under the weight of masculinity finally breaking free. Someone who’s rarely experienced a non-compromised expression of love, causing her deep anguish and despair. You begin to understand that the splintered feeling of the album is not only intentional but vital to understanding what this album’s trying to do. After all, when you’re in the pits, rarely are your thoughts clear or cohesive.
Yet somehow, Yaya Bey emerges as one of the wittiest and most confident R&B lyricists I’ve experienced in years. There are songs, like “keisha,” that are master classes in larger-than-life R&B braggadocio, while others, like “don’t fucking call me,” are so flippant about the mental cesspool the men in her life have sent her to that you can’t help but laugh. On any other album, this would seem manic and inconsistent. On this one, however, it makes perfect sense and wouldn’t work any other way.
The most surprising part of Remember Your North Star is that at its core, it’s still a fundamentally positive album. Despite all the bullshit she’s been through, it still finds a sense of peace. Thus, in its own way, it’s not only one of the most aspirational music experiences I had in 2022, but also one of the most human.
Favorite Songs: “keisha,” “don’t fucking call me,” “street fighter blues”
1. Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers
I started therapy in 2022.
It was a long time coming. It shouldn’t have been, as it’s a step I should’ve taken years ago, but what can you do? The combination of that and the medication I’ve now been prescribed has made my life noticeably better. They haven’t cured everything, but they’re not supposed to. In fact, “cure” is the wrong framing. The whole point of cognitive behavioral therapy is to form new pathways of thinking when your old ways led to a diminished quality of life, at least in the mental sense. New pathways are being formed. Slowly. But they are being formed.
It’s hard. In some ways, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
It’s pretty easy to know that you’re dumb. What’s less easy to know is that your entire conception of what “dumb” even means may also, in fact, be dumb. In order to change this about yourself, all you have to do is divert your entire way of thinking and how you interact with the world around you. At best, it’s really dumb process. At worst, it can be actively painful.
And so we have Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, a therapy album that perfectly captures that transitional period towards a forever moving target you’re probably never going to fully hit. A warts and all glimpse into an artist’s mind. In a year where I’ve finally dived into my own mind head first, this album hit me like a freight train.
Much discourse has been made about two of the more controversial aspects of this album, specifically Kendrick’s use of a slur to make a point on “Auntie Diaries” and the disconcertingly prominent presence of known abuser Kodak Black. I’ll never try to convince anyone who isn’t cool with these aspects that they’re wrong. They’re not. Far far from it. As a cis white male, there are certain kinds of discrimination and hate that I’m never going to be on the receiving end of that I’ll never fully comprehend.
The only thing I have is that the transition period I’m talking about is ugly. You will have to confront yourself and your limitations. Of course, that doesn’t mean that certain people have to be paid or receive goodwill that they didn’t earn. However, I also think it’s important to remember that none of these things are ever going to be simple, nor were they ever to begin with. I don’t think Kodak Black should’ve been on the album. I found what he had to say meaningful. To dismiss everything Kodak has to say is justified. To not engage with it is to, on some level, not confront the issue. Yet, I’m not sure whatever point there is to be made is worth making if it includes giving Kodak a platform. I don’t know how to make peace with the fact that all of these things are true.
The same goes for the use of the slurs. I think the song could’ve been just as effective if he didn’t use them. I also think there are a lot of people out there who are looking for a way out of their old way of thinking, and they need to be reached in a language they understand, despite the fact that said language is horrifying. Everyone is on their own path away from their demons. Some are just further along in their journey than others. Yet, the argument for including those slurs is a purely intellectual one in the face of the non-rational. A justification to rationalize a creative choice that didn’t factor in empathy. Again, I don’t know how to make peace with the fact that all these things are true. (And while we’re here, I don’t agree with his opinions on cancel culture either, but I’d just make the same point.)
The human experience, as it turns out, is not concerned with binaries or the mutually exclusive or the simple. I can make peace with what this album is doing. Many can’t or won’t, and that’s valid.
For me, it was not only poignant to my recent experiences, but thoughts and feelings I’ve been having for years even before I started therapy. For one, in the wake of #MeToo, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with our relationship with fame and the famous. We build people up because that’s what we’re expected to do, and then we tear them down when they don’t meet our expectations. On the flip side, you throw your support and admiration behind someone you think is worthy of it, then they turn out to be an abuser and it breaks your heart. This dynamic isn’t working for us, and it’s a dynamic Kendrick wants to actively destroy with this project. Making people think about that is album of the year worthy in and of itself.
But Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers has so much more to offer. Hell, it has everything to offer. But for me, it’s an album that came when I was struggling. I continue to struggle. But seeing someone else go through it, and articulate it so well, gave me more comfort than I can describe.
Favorite Songs: “United in Grief,” “Father Time,” “Mr. Morale”
Honorable Mentions
Adeem the Artist, White Trash Revelry
Alvvays, Blue Rev
Animal Collective, Time Skiffs
Ari Lennox, Age/Sex/Location
Backxwash, HIS HAPPINESS SHALL COME FIRST EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SUFFERING
Beach House, Once Twice Melody
Black Country, New Road, Ants From Up There
black midi, Hellfire
The Comet is Coming, Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam
Danger Mouse & Black Thought, Cheat Codes
DOMi & JD Beck, NOT TIGHT
Earl Sweatshirt, SICK!
Elucid, I Told Bessie
Ethel Cain, Preacher’s Daughter
FKA twigs, CAPRISONGS
Flo Milli, You Still Here, Ho?
Freddie Gibbs, $oul $old $eparately
Jockstrap, I Love You Jennifer B
Joey Bada$$, 2000
Kilo Kish, Americal Gurl
The Linda Lindas, Growing Up
Little Simz, NO THANK YOU
Lizzo, Special
Meridian Brothers, Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento
Nas, King’s Disease III
Natalia Lafourcade, De Todas las Flores
Nilüfer Yanya, Painless
Open Mike Eagle, a tape called component system with the auto reverse
Otoboke Beaver, SUPER CHAMPON スーパーチャンポン
Petrol Girls, Baby
R.A.P. Ferreira, 5 to the Face with Stars
Rosalía, MOTOMAMI
SAULT, AIR
SAULT, AIIR
SAULT, Earth
SAULT, UNTITLED (God)
The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention
Smino, Luv 4 Rent
SZA, SOS
The Weeknd, Dawn FM
Westside Gunn, 10
Wet Leg, Wet Leg
Weyes Blood, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
Will Get To Someday
Too many to count.
