ATG chatted with consumate hip-hop ornament Fonzworth Bentley over at BET. Reggie's Q&A interview goes deep.

ATG spoke to Atmosphere's rapper half, Slug, over at the City Paper. Dude is nice. Literally, he's a swell guy.

 

ATG spoke to exceptional Detroit producer/slightly-less-exceptional-but-wholly-dope rapper Black Milk over at the City Paper.

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.

Reggie on a friend's dignity-eroding, social media-based challenge taken on for the benefit of a summer internship. He puts the thing in generational context, it's a great read penned for The Awl.  

The biggest summer hit of 2009 was from an unknown Canadian breaking hearts without an album. This year found its cultural cornerstones scored by big rap songs from big rap albums. Whereas summer '09 became book-ended with would be comebacks from Raekwon and Eminem, 2010 hip-hop has seen its brightest stars converging on the opportunity to top charts. Drake sold nearly half a million in a week. Em over 700,000 copies of his sober, wordy work. I heard Rick Ross's Teflon Don blaring from four separate outlets (car, truck, nice car, loudspeaker) on one August night walking between Bloomingdale to the New York Avenue metro, and through to Dupont Circle.

Detecting an inviting climate, second tier rappers like Paul Wall and Guilty Simpson and Curren$y got their songs carbon manifestations available in stores and moved away from the tired formula of converging with stupid blogs to build buzz. M.I.A. sort of crashed and burned after a high profile New York Times piece tore into her guarded public image and reviews of her third album soured after the near-comic level of blind fanaticism that blanketed her old stuff.

Interesting comebacks surfaced: white people loved Big Boi's return to form. Rhymefest, after teasing El Che for three years, finally got a chance to see another commercial release tank miserably. Bun B's otherwise regional release elevated to national news when The Source awarded Trill O.G. its once prestigious five microphone rating. The last five mic rating this eroding-in-relevance rag handed out? Lil Kim's The Naked Truth. The award did lead rap fans down warm memories of how fraudulent and stupid The Source has been since the late '90s.

With the climate covered, ATG prepped a list of top summer albums. But the writers split over finalists while carb loading at Tom's Restaurant Monday night. This before transferring colors and taking trains out to Yankee Stadium, where most of the list hung out and exchanged anthems behind unifying, bright colors and sunglasses at night. The tight-knit fraternity became, for better or worse, an indistinguishable mob of hitmakers. So, here are the songs that got me through the move, the heat, the job search.


J. Cole - Villematic

Nas - Last Real Nigga Alive, Pt. 2 (Power, Paper, Pussy)

Drake featuring Jay-Z - Light Up

Ron Isley featuring Lauryn Hill - Close to You (Cover)

Yelawolf - Looking For Alien Love

Big K.R.I.T. featuring Yelawolf - Hometown Hero (remix)

Blu - So Perfect

Yelawolf featuring Gucci Mane - Wanna Party

Trek Life - Ready to Live

Rick Ross featuring Jay-Z, John Legend - Free Mason

Curren$y - Breakfast
 
Eminem - Cinderella Man

Badio - Kiss the Sky

Big Boi featuring Andre 3000 - Lookin' For Ya


Now back to mid-September.

Reggie penned his first feature for The Awl recently. It's a categorical analysis of celebrity offenses and their respective roads to public redemption. It's a fairly shallow analysis but the graphic is cool and as a blog post, it kicks ass.

Congrats bro.

I caught up with Prince George's County's Oddisee and West Covina, California's Trek Life just as their collaborative LP, Everything Changed Nothing, hit stores. It's a well-pieced effort worth your time.

Check out the interview in the City Paper.