Like I just declared on twitter, making ‘Best Of’ lists and ranking art, music, film etc. is kind of retarded but they do help to make you think about how you engage with art: what really moved you and why (and… how much, maybe??!). That being said there’s probably more interesting ways to curate and classify art (and life!) as others may be proving.
That being said, here’s part 1 of my top songs as featured on The Kitchen in 2011. The key clause here is as featured on The Kitchen. With maybe a handful of exceptions, every song on this list was covered on the blog during the past year. That means, do not take this as even being close to a comprehensive list of the top-selling, most-played, popular or even ‘best’ songs of the year as far as culture, the world, Canada, the ‘hip-hop nation’, the blogosphere or any other kind of continuum or community you can dream up or configure goes. These are simply tracks and songs that entered my consciousness via whatever means that I felt strongly enough to take time to then share via this blog. That’s it!
Another quick note about the rankings, such as they stand. The Top 10 is a pretty good rendering of what I felt were my 10 favorite songs and unquestionably the #1 pick (when you see it – soon come…) was my #1 by a country mile. You can also be sure that if a record was #14 I pretty much liked it more than #34. But #14 vs. #17 or # 42 vs #50? Take those respective placements with a grain of salt. On another day with my mood different or some other different set of factors at play, those relative rankings and placement coulda been a lot different. Not gonna get into a lot of description about each of the tracks either, I’ve written about most of them before and will try to link back to where I did that, but if we wanna get into a discussion about my picks and how they stack up, hit the comments sections and let’s do this!
And with all that said, leggo….
54. Meek Mill – Hip-Hop Flashback
53. E40 – F-ck ‘Em
52. Herstory – Jack Dat Body
51. Busta Rhymes – 80s Baby feat. Wyclef Jean & 50 cent
50. Shabaam Sahdeeq – Sicker Than Your Average
Originally posted HERE.
49. Oun P – What Chu Talkin Bout (remix) feat. Lloyd Banks, Fred the Godson & Jadakiss
Originally posted HERE.
48. St Joe Louis – Show For It
47. Humans – Wake Up
Wake Up // Humans by Lucy vs. the Globe
46. iLLo feat. Bone – Bop Head
45. Sade – Moon and the Sky (remix) feat. Jay-Z
Originally posted HERE.
44. Azealia Banks – 212
43. Katalyst feat. Stephanie McKay – Day Into Night
Katalyst – Day Into Night Feat. Stephanie Mckay by Duendiness
42. Jammer – Back to the 90s
[audio: http://different-kitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/02-Back-to-the-_90s-radio-edit.mp3]
41. Spectre – Black Widow feat. Lai Lo
Black widow by Spectre, The Ill Saint
40. Bow Wow – Young, Rich N Dangerous
[audio: http://different-kitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Bow-Wow-Young-Rich-Dangerous.mp3]