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E-mail: dalatudalatu@gmail.com

A People's List

Hey, I did one of these Pitchfork lists (Buy Converse shoes people! I have, you should too!). I don’t think my list is too surprising, and I tried not to have it filled with too many albums from 09-11 (you know me from ages 17-19), but that was kind of hard not to do, and would’ve been disingenuous anyway. There are 50 albums/mixtapes here, and I’m pretty fine with the order, even though the order outside the top 30 could easily change.

But I did want to highlight “Aquemini” (Outkast), “Trap Muzik” (T.I.), and “Starshipz and Rocketz” (G-Side), because I cannot write about multiple albums in the final list. 

“Aquemini”: Simply put, I could quote this entire album for either what it says about life, what is says about rap music, what is saying about Outkast as artists, or just to say that “Sade is in my tape deck, and now I’m moving in slow motion” never stops sounding amazing.

“Trap Muzik”: T.I. on this album is in a place that he obviously could never quite return to. Coming off a (commercially) middling major label debut; he wants all who listen to do better than himself, not get caught up in the life that he had been living and the mistakes he has made. I enjoy materialistic and pompous rap, but way that T.I. looks at himself, and sees that he isn’t a worthy role model cannot be an easy admission, when being a major label rapper is the goal for so many rappers and people.  

“Starshipz and Rocketz”: The G-Side duo of (ST 2 Lettaz & Clova) have progressed as rappers since this 2008 album, but the aspirations for success and the desire to do it a legal and responsible way is as fucking inspirational as rap can get. And, the title track has one of my favorite rap lines “NASA trying to make it to Mars, while Ghetto kids got their faces to stars, praying to God, wondering if they gone make it a star, they just playing their cards, we on the block, we ain’t never seen an astronaut , so I looked up to the nigga with the fattest knots”.

Here is the rest of the Top 10:

1. Outkast - Aquemini

2. Deerhunter - Microcastle

3. Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair

4. T.I. - Trap Muzik

5. Lil Wayne - Dedication 2

6. M.I.A. - Arular

7. G-Side - Starshipz and Rocketz

8. Gucci Mane - From Zone 6 to Duval

9. Crime Mob - Crime Mob

10. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

  1. notveryarticulate said: People still sleep on the G-Side. Instant classic, I listened to it not stop for a year after it came out.
  2. dalatu posted this