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Trendy tracks that are also really good.

In which ATG carefully nourishes a monthly playlist of excellent hip-hop that is presently being touted by the streets bloggers. Flip the bass on that office Dell all the way up.


1. French Montana -- Whatcha Want
2. A.Dd+ -- Insomniac Dreaming
3. Kendrick Lamar -- Hol Up
4. Lushlife featuring Cities Aviv -- She's a Buddhist, I'm a Cubist
5. G-Side featuring Johnny Spanish -- Hot Sex and Cold Wine
6. Jackie Chain featuring Big K.R.I.T., Bun B -- Parked Outside
7. Big K.R.I.T., 2Chainz, 8Ball & MJG -- Money on the Floor
8. Jay Electronica featuring Mobb Deep -- Call of Duty
9. Stalley featuring Freeway -- Jungle
10. The Weeknd -- The Birds Part 1
11. Tal B -- Lost Gemz Freestyle
12. Rick Ross -- I Love My Bitches
13. Mr. Motherfuckin' Exquire featuring Danny Brown, Das Racist, El-P, Despot -- The Last Huzzah (Remix)
14. Freddie Gibbs -- Come Come (Kick Drums Remix)

Artwork by Joseph Devens.


It's hard to imagine nowadays with the Oprah canoodling, lifestyle blogging, and learned taste for indie rock, but Jay-Z wasn't always so antiseptic. Before "Beach Chair" and his current legacy rap period, Hova boasted a bruising batting average: ten ghetto anthems for every "Lobster & Shrimp" banana peel. Beyond the Bloomberg brunches or uptown art gallery openings with delicate bffs lies an increasingly-overlooked corpus banished in a Disney-like vault.

Jay-Z has hardened into a role model, an author, the Bohemian rap city's generous boss, and a sucker for love. He'll probably be an elected official one day. He'll probably be remembered as affectionately for foreign aid trips to the Congo as he is for hungry rapping.

Folks love to draw Jordan parallels in hip-hop, but Jay-Z is more Bill Russell -- the tireless laborer with more rings than anyone. Jordan left the court (at least the first two times) with a flawless record; like Russ, Jay-Z's had awkward, gangly moments of fatigue and error.

But the difference between sports and music, of course, is that in music the entire point is the journey, the work left for consumption. The sports winner immortalizes the present. You generally don't watch highlights of specific jumpers over and over. Jay-Z has made a double album's worth of terrible music (and that's just with R. Kelly), but he's also left behind a treasure chest of top tier, fully realized, expertly narrated albums.

It's why ATG believes that Jay-Z is the best rapper of all-time. There's an argument to be made about raw talent and iconography, a stupider one to be made factoring in wealth and branding, but because the G.O.A.T. conversation stems from music, the prevailing criterion must be the music itself. Biggie made two albums and the second one was spotty, Diddy-heavy. Tupac recorded urgently in order to fulfill an exploitative contract, and quality control suffered. Neither will stop the seekers from copying and pasting verses (over J Dilla beats, probably) long after we're gone. Who will remix "Money Ain't A Thang?"

The Blueprint III was Emmitt Smith on the Cardinals. It was playing catch with your dad during winter break, as he struggled to compose the spirals you used to have to go long for. It sucked. The long-awaited duet album with Kanye West will suck too.

Without touching any singles, ATG's inner circle spent weeks narrowing down hundreds of fantastic, somewhat deeper cuts into a spiraling, essential mix of Jay-Z at his most inventive, honest, dazzling, and charismatic. It's a mix meant to be consumed with the windows down, on the tro, during cookouts. No consideration was given to the scope of an individual track's project or date. These greatest non-hits are intended to survey Jay's entire catalogue from peak to peak. They're intended to make heads nod for more reasons than one. They are, as the man himself once taught us, for the culture.


SIDE A

1. A Million and One Questions / Rhyme No More
2. Can I Live
3. Heart of the City
4. December 4
5. Kingdom Come
6. U Don't Know [Remix]
7. Guess Who's Back
8. Never Let Me Down
9. Girls Girls Girls, Part II
10. Party Life
11. What More Can I Say
12. Takeover
13. Ignorant Shit
14. Renegade

 

SIDE B
 
1. It's Like That
2. Snoopy Track
3. Never Change
4. In My Lifetime [Remix]
5. Come On Baby [Remix]
6. Dear Summer
7. This Can't Be Life
8. So Ghetto
9. P.S.A.
10. Hell Yeah [Remix]
11. Watch Me
12. Watcher II
13. Black Republican
14. Momma Loves Me


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All photos by Callie Richmond for ATG.

Here's an itemized breakdown of the sites and sounds Reggie and I experienced during March's South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas. It was fun and intense. More importantly, hit the jump to sample ATG's avalanche of wonderful, exclusive photos taken and procured in the name of hip-hop.  

Reggie

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Ramon

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All photos by Callie Richmond for ATG.

First, the internal, editorial decision was made to give up on the medium and forgo a rundown about rap videos. There were some cool ones, but listing them wouldn't be indicative of what was being bumped in the clubs, the streets, the subways, the cars, and through the earphones. More importantly, there's no competition.

As individualistic and fickle as listeners continue to be, this year-end list is defined by uniting, thumping moments that kept everyone zoned out in headphone bliss for days on end. In 2010, heavyweights emerged and veterans forcefully pushed back, but not in a Raekwon v. Kid Cudi, two schools sort of way like last year. By now we all understand it's all good. With such a precondition firmly in place, creativity burned down regional barriers like never before. Save for New York City's inbred, traditionalist talent pool (good luck there pushing Vado, you guys), American rap soared and 2010 will stand along any year's genre output.

Right on schedule. For this edition, J. Couch and I break down the divisions into separate nuggets of streaming files. This way, you don't have to sit through a 50-minute podcast. Even if said podcast culminates with a perfect Super Bowl matchup, as ours did in 2009. We'll do the AFC on Tuesday, the NFC on Wednesday, roll out big predictions and playoff trees Thursday.


Today, a thorough examination of the NFC which stands for "Notably Finer Cities." There's Kansas City, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Cleveland; then there's Seattle, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta. I'd much rather live in San Francisco than Oakland. The AFC boasts the two best quarterbacks, the best defenses and the overall better football culture, but its best teams stem from Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Foxborough. All this without making a Cleveland or Buffalo joke about ugly women.

Good thing football is big enough for the relative disparity in resources and population to mean little. Any other sport, the Packers moved to Orlando decades ago. But I digress, enjoy our considerately arranged podcasts.

NFC West

NFC South

NFC North

NFC East

Right on schedule. For this edition, J. Couch and I break down the divisions into separate nuggets of streaming files. This way, you don't have to sit through a 50-minute podcast. Even if said podcast culminates with a perfect Super Bowl matchup, as ours did in 2009. We'll do the AFC on Tuesday, the NFC on Wednesday, roll out big predictions and playoff trees Thursday.


One in three American televisions tuned into the NFC Championship; Brett Favre against America's Sweethearts in January and the Greek tragedy that unfolded. There are likely several million stories of drunk goons stumbling home and elated fans falling in love and the dying wishes of elders being fulfilled. A watershed game in the only sport that suffocates our attention span. A galvanizing moment.

I was just happy to see Brad Childress lose. Some friends were watching down the street and two of the bigger personalities put $50 on the game and the broadcast yielded to an enormous pissing contests between rivaling, would-be alpha males. One guy chanted "who dat" to no end. Words were exchanged. He was left at a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Around here, there's no better sport to follow. A perfectly-structured league that offers cyclical hope to every participant and its sympathizers, that culminates with satisfying and empirical endings. A game devoid of major controversies polluting the results we see with doubt; we can talk ourselves into reasonably believing as much at least. A game built for gambling. A game for the weekends. A game for the brown leaves, for the blizzards. A game for once-in-a-lifetime celebrations. A game for picking up where we left off: Saints-Vikings, Cowboys on the cusp, San Diego hoping to not choke away another home playoff game, Carolina finishing strong and for their lameduck coach. A game for new beginnings: estranged protege Aaron Rodgers facing the mentor, Detroit in capable hands, Mike Martz draining the genius part from his crazy genius moniker.

Onward to predictions!

AFC West

AFC South

AFC North

AFC East

Did you know our web guy is also a talented author, can dunk a basketball and is a delicate craftsman with respects to segueing a mean playlist? Well, Jeremy Hurd, said web guy, is a maestro. Thankfully, he's on his New Jack Swing tip and made us a brilliant mixtape for that drive outta town. I'll let him elaborate, though he egregiously left out the Bobby Brown cut from "Ghostbusters 2."


I was inspired tonight by a series of YouTube videos bearing the same name. This is a collection (can't really call it a mix because it's only in alphabetical order) I made paying tribute to what I sincerely believe is one of the best genres of music ever. This is by no means meant as a comprehensive retrospective of the genre, but I think it's an essential compilation for anyone who feels the same affection I do for the late 80s/early 90s. 26 fantastic gems from some of New Jack Swing's finest artists. From the not so obscure (Bobby Brown, SWV, R. Kelly) to the almost completely obscure (Me 2 U, James Williams, Michael Cooper) and beyond.

Hope you appreciate it. Hope you love it.


Tracklist + link, you know, after the jump and shit. Have a safe start to summer. Make sure you got some marquee hip-hop. Drive safely.

You floated the river, studied and rode through the Wendy's drive thru to the last one, and with summer basically here (especially in the south where spring is but a ten day bridge to miserable heat), ATG maximizes its brand with a sequel.

For the uninitiated, the concept is fairly straight-forward: a rundown of the best hip-hop songs we've been enjoying during the opening months of the year. No politics. No favors. No DJs. No drops. No scrubs.

First Quarter Face-Off II ups the ante by splitting the jams down the Mason Dixon: the two-part volume is broken up by North and South sides. We thought this would be especially timely given recent, redundant north/south jabs from the rap world. ATG will elaborate on the petty squabbles later, but suffice it to say we think most regions (specifically New York, Texas, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, D.C., the Carolinas, Hunstville, Memphis) are producing quality rap, and we've divided FQFOII geographically primarily to showcase individual strengths.

Disc 1 represents soldiers of the North: Lloyd Banks, Fabolous, Freeway, Drake, Styles P, Nas, Lupe Fiasco etc. Disc 2 brings it home with the South's proudest sons: Big Boi, Little Brother, Young Jeezy, G-Side, Bun B, Big K.R.I.T. Jay Electronica and many more. Both sides bang. As for a winner? That's for you to judge.   

Photo by Callie Richmond for ATG. Crappy illustration by Ramon Ramirez.

ATG saw lots of wonderful and exciting hip-hop in Austin over the week and decided a collection of commemorative mp3s was in order. The artists included performed, hustled, stood out during the conference.

Tracklist + download link after the jump.