the best hip-hop songs of 2007 (#25-21)

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you... I’ve got three lists I want to write about the last 365 days in music, and this is the (beginning of) the first one. These are the best hip-hop songs of 2007 (i.e. my favourite):

25: sway
“EVERY MAN (FOR HIMSELF) (feat MR HUDSON)”

Akon quietly signed Sway to his Konvict Muzik imprint earlier this year, although judging from the sombre (guilty?) introspection of “Every Man (For Himself),” whether Sway considers this a step forward or two backwards is another matter. The song is the sound of an emcee taking a deep breath—or perhaps gasping for air—before the next leg of his career. The title alone sounds like an attempt to rationalize his decision to side with a major label, as if Sway is trying to convince us he’s making the right decision. But we need not be swayed—we already know what he could do with a “proper marketing budget.” Sway, on the other hand, might be the one who could use some reassurance.
[One for the Journey EP]

24: kanye west, nas, krs-one, & rakim
“CLASSIC (BETTER THAN I’VE EVER BEEN REMIX)”

When “Classic” first came out, the song invited one question: did Kanye West stumble into the wrong recording booth? Haters lamented that the Louis Vuitton Don didn’t deserve to be on a song with three rappers routinely mentioned in Greatest Of All Time discussions—especially over a DJ Premier track!—but once the dust settled, not only did people realize that ‘Ye managed to keep up with his elders, he nearly outclassed them too. Over dusty boom-bap production that sounds like every Premo track from 1995-99 and unlike any of them, the rappers play to their strengths, and it’s effortless. Then again, Premier did make Lil’ Dap and Melachi sound like the microphone didn’t hate them. But Kanye’s verse here would sound hot over any beat, unlike any those weed carriers ever dropped.
[single, Better Than I’ve Ever Been 12”]

23: el-p
“POISENVILLE KIDS NO WINS / REPRISE (THIS MUST BE OUR TIME)”

“Poisenville Kids No Wins / Reprise (This Must Be Our Time)” best encapsulates El-P’s dystopian B-boy aesthetic on an album where every track is like a favourite nightmare (no Arctic Monkeys) that you can’t wait to wake up from until you realize that they’re not nightmares at all. El-P might sleep once you’re dead, not that El-P gets much sleep as things are now; remember, sleep is the cousin of death. And although the world might seem fucked-up beyond repair through his bloodshot-red eyes, the alternative to all of this is even less enticing. As El-P resolves: “And if I live, you have to live, whether you like this shit or not.”
[I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead]

22: the game
“WONDERFUL LIFE”

While The Game’s brand of gangsta rap often veers close to caricature, “Wonderful Life” cruises (and really, “cruises” is the only way to describe it) down an different highway entirely, at a comfortable click—because make no mistake, that driver of this G4 is a pro. The same tropes of your typical West Coast fare are still present, and in particular Jayceon Taylor’s own personal emceeing, err, habits (the gratuitous namedropping, most specifically), but this crumb is the most satisfying of all the morsels that dropped from the plate of Doctor’s Advocate leftovers this past spring.

Perhaps most tellingly, it’s the only non-Dr. Dre track (if we believe the others are, in fact, produced by the ‘Doc) of the bunch. In an ironic twist, Buckwild (if we believe “Wonderful Life” is, in fact, produced by Buckwild) assembles a more authentic West Coast track than logic dictates a New York producer should be able to. “Wonderful Life” is a case of symbiosis between producer and emcee; Game sounds totally at home navigating the weird guitars, and being so relaxed allows his charisma—truly an overlooked weapon in his arsenal—to breathe and permeate every pore of the track. Sort of like a good bag of Cali green.
[unreleased]

21: touch and nato
“BRAND NEW”

“Brand New” is not announcing the birth of a new generation of hybrid rap songs that are one part subversive battle rap, two parts psychological braggadocio, and all parts fresh. “Brand New” is a declaration that Canadian rap is no longer the that kid who follows his older brother and his friends everywhere they go and apes their style. Canadian rap might still be the runt of the litter, but as Touch and Nato prove on their debut Intelligent Design, maybe the rap gods got the prophecy wrong. No longer a second-rate facsimile of American rap, but a separate and worthy entity on its own, Canadian rap is indeed brand new—and it’s been here all along. Auditions are still being held for the rap Steve Nash, but I don’t think the candidates that have emerged will be content with that comparison. They’ll be gunning for a different animal altogether.
[Intelligent Design]