Worth a Listen: New music by Jay Rock, Money Trees Deuce

2014 Honorable Mention Mixtapes

2014 may have been a shallow year for the music industry but free Hip Hop was as strong as ever. So strong was the competition in fact that it took us here at World Hip Hop Culture extra time to cut our list down to 10. The majority of the tracks on this Honorable Mention list were in consideration for top honors, serving as a testament to the strength of 2014's mixtape scene. Here are some of the gems that narrowly got beat out.

Revenge of the Dreamers - Dreamville Egos & Expectations - APB The Drive In Theatre - Curren$y FASH-ionably Late - Fashawn INSA - Mellowhype The Water[s] - Mick Jenkins Mainstream Music - Taylor Bennett If you were expecting Chance on this album you would have been disappointed. Taylor Bennett is not his older brother and there's something beautiful about his ability to produce an album like Mainstream Music with similar sensibilities to those of 10Day or Acid Rap and come up with something so astoundingly different. It's another amazing debut for the youth of Chicago. The Modest Anomaly - Clark Sage, Metallic Butterfly - Princess Nokia, The Love Project - Tunji Ige,  This was an intriguing year for underground and independent artists, shown by the quality of projects that got some big hype like Princess Nokia's Metallic Butterfly, moderate notoriety like Tunji Ige's The Love Project, and even projects like The Modest Anomaly that got almost no love. These are artists operating at their own pace by their own rules and producing some great Hip Hop. 

Bongo Flava group Mandojo and Domokaya from Tanzania.

It's finally here. 

Ugandan Hip Hop Collective Bataka Squad.

Worth a listen: Ray Gun - Badbadnotgood + Ghostface Killah ft. MF Doom

Worth a Listen: SoulMatic - Cookin Soul x Nas Spanish Production Team Cookin Soul tackled the 20th anniversary of Nas' Illmatic with a smooth remixing of the classic album.

Andrew E from the Philippines.

German rapper Lance Butters

New music by Scottish Alternative group Young Fathers.

Irish rapper Rejjie Snow.

In Response: The Case of Lil Dicky vs. Hip Hop Frat Rap. The black sheep of American Rap. I've argued both against and in favor of the rap subgenre. I've shifted everywhere from praise for artists like Vonnegutt to guilty pleasure listens like OCD: Moosh & Twist to outright disgust with the lyricism of frat rappers like Sammy Adams. Frat Rap is one of the most polarizing of rap genres because it is a genre that fancies itself part of Hip Hop where nearly everyone else involved with Hip Hop will deny it as a true representation (or representative in any way to be frank). So how can a genre that no one thinks is Hip Hop be Hip Hop? Well until recently I just claimed it wasn't, or else I claimed Frat Rap was dead. The label "rap" makes it easy to dismiss things that are closely related to Hip Hop as not part of Hip Hop culture. If it's not contributing to the self-defined culture then it's not Hip Hop. But we can still say they're rapping because after all, they are. Problem solved, right? But then came Lil Dicky. I wasn't a fan at first. I still don't care for him very much. But Dicky did something I never expected from Frat Rap. He innovated. He pushed his medium further than those before him had. Maybe, just maybe, Lil Dicky is a Rap artist. So does that make Lil Dicky Hip Hop? Does that mean Frat Rap could be Hip Hop?

He's got potential to be K Dot and T-Pain cosigned like The Lonely Island. He can craft lyrical works with depth like Gambino or Chance. He's showing glimmers of hope. I'm not ready to call him Hip Hop. A couple good accidental(?) tracks and some chuckles throughout his career aren't enough to sell me on Frat Rap as a bastion of Hip Hop Culture. But if Frat Rap is moving in the direction of Lil Dicky I think it's only a matter of time before someone puts together the whole package and we get some genuinely thoughtful, artistic, and meaningful college-inspired Hip Hop. And it trips me out that it may all be because of Lil Dicky. by Trevor Wilson

Rap Group Prussic from Greenland.

Formidable by Belgian artist Stromae

Icelandic Hip Hop group Forgotten Lores.

British MC's Akira the Don and Envy.