Halftime '10: The Best Hip-Hop Songs of the Half-Year; 10-6

10. "Flawless Crowns" - Raekwon



Like I was gonna leave this song off the list. The past couple years have found Raekwon in the midst of a second career renaissance, kick-started by the release of best friend Ghostface Killah's landmark Fishscale and continuing through last year's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Pt. 2, one of the best Hip-Hop albums of the decade. It's great to see Rae at the top of his game again; he released a damn good mixtape, Cocainism 2, a couple weeks back. This is my favorite thing he's released all year. A slight 2 and a half minutes and two verses, Rae spits wildfire, revisiting his Lex Diamond persona and finding several creative ways to tell the world that he sells crack. The real story here is the beat, which melds smooth jazz horns, a slinky bass groove and a glockenspiel to give what would have been a minor track a cinematic scope.

9. "Bet I" - B.o.B ft. T.I. & Playboy Tre



Though The Adventures of Bobby Ray was a slight disappointment as a whole, it works pretty well on a track-by-track basis. "Bet I" is the best showcase for the man's sheer rapping ability, as well as the most straightforward rap song on the record. B.o.B's greatest strength is his voice, and his ability to emphasize and stretch out individual words and syllables for maximum effectiveness in his flow, and he attacks the "b" sounds in his verse with a fervor that's absent in the rest of the record. As an added bonus, Bobby Ray brings along two of his ATL buddies, including label-boss T.I., fresh out of jail. Though T.I. grabs the headlines, Playboy Tre steals the show with his trademark drawl in the anchor spot, placing an exclamation point on an excellent song.

8. "As We Enter" - Nas & Damian Marley



"As We Enter" starts off Distant Relatives with a bang, diving straight into the good stuff and providing a succinct distillation of the album's ethos. "As We Enter" is the most purely collaborative song on the entire disc, with Nas and Jr. Gong trading off lines and finishing each other's sentences over a beat sampled from a song by Ethiopian guitarist Mulatu Astatke. While Nas and Marley attempt to combine political Afrocentrism with streetwise rhymes throughout the album, this song marks the only time when the contrasting styles are not remotely distracting or self-indulgent. The result is infectious and unmistakably the product of two distinctly great artists, that manages to exist outside of the shadow of Exodus or Illmatic.

7. "The Ghetto" - Freddie Gibbs



Much has been said about this song in blog circles, but I need to add my two cents. Gary, Indiana native Freddie Gibbs is one of the best up and comers around. He released one of last year's best mixtapes and has contributed some great songs and guest verses so far this year. "The Ghetto" is probably the best representative of the Gibbs aesthetic. Though less hardcore than most of his work, "The Ghetto" paints a vivid picture of his neighborhood and his childhood, as he reminisces about the small details about growing up in the hood, such as Sunday dinner at his grandmother's house and how his mother chose to ignore Freddie's drug abuse and dealing. In a just world, this would be a hit.

6. "Power" - Kanye West

(can't find a good youtube video)

Oh Yeezy. Yes, the man's an egomaniac and a headcase, but he's fucking talented. I don't really expect "Power" to reflect, too much, the overall sound of Good Ass Job!, but it's a damn good song. Kanye (or rather, co-producer S1) combines soulful handclaps and chants with King Crimson's classic "21st Century Schizoid Man" to create a unique and powerful (sorry) song. I'm a particular fan of the last minute or so, when all the elements of the beat come to a thrilling head, with a synth arpeggio thrown in for good measure. I await this album with open arms.

Halftime '10: The Best Hip-Hop Songs of the Half-Year; Honorable Mentions

Some big names have dropped some big albums so far this year, but you won't see many of them on this list. Most conspicuously absent is Eminem, who released an album that I don't like very much at all, but I'll touch on that another time. First, here are some honorable mentions:

"All Talk" - Kid Cudi - Cudi samples LCD Soundsystem's "Dance Yrself Clean" and Christian Bale's rant to call out his haters.

"The Product" - Freeway - My favorite song from one of my favorite albums of the year so far (The Stimulus Package), but it didn't make the cut.

"Thank God" - Danny Brown - Detroit rapper Danny Brown raps about Bridge Cards and food and various other Michigan-related topics over a intense, guitar-heavy beat.

"Light Up" - Drake ft. Jay-Z - If only the rest of the album had beats like this one - a slick piano intro gives way to droning synths and heavy percussion as Drake goes on about the usual suspects (life of the rich and famous) and a reverb-drenched hook. Lil Wayne apparently shares my enthusiasm for this track, as he contributed a guest verse to the remix over the phone from Rikers Island.

"Stylo (Remix)" - Chiddy Bang - Producer Xaphoon Jones strips Gorillaz' "Stylo" to its essence and and rapper Proto kills it.

"Massive Attack" - Nicki Minaj ft. Sean Garrett - Completely unrelated to the trip-hop group. This is among the most sonically inventive productions released all year, and when it's combined with Nicki's trademark insanity, it creates an irresistible earworm, reminiscent of Missy Elliott's work with Timbaland.

Most Honorable Mention:
"Al Bundy" - Intuition
It was very, very hard for me to leave this song off the list. Intuition is a clever wordsmith, weaving his flow through Dibiase's backing track with a sort of liquid cool, dropping references to Tom Petty, Jim Jones and, especially Married...With Children. Intuition has a style that could easily translate to the mainstream, but it looks like he'd rather remain underground, so he can have the freedom to explore his preferred artistic avenues. More power to him.