Jaded, My Tummy

So ummmmmm, I made a few changes to my top 2016. I realize I still listen to some albums more than others (Common, Blake, Elzhi, Leimberg over Schoolboy Q), but also I finally got around to listening Love & Hate. Jesus fucking Christ that album is good. Plus, Danger Mouse, aka Brian Burton, had his hands all over the production for the album. He's come so far since producing beats for an unknown rapper named Gemini. I've also found myself listening to Blonde a lot more. I got over the drums thing. There. I admit it.

1. Solange - A Seat at the Table
2. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
3. Jack DeJohnette/Matthew Garrison/Ravi Coltrane - In Movement
4. Kaytranada - 99.9%
5. Beyoncé - Lemonade
6. Kendrick Lamar - untitled. unmastered.
7. Jeff Parker - The New Breed
8. Michael Kiwanuka - Love & Hate
9. Common - Black America Again
10. Josef Leimberg - Astral Projections
11. dvsn - SEPT 5TH
12. James Blake - The Colour in Anything
13. Anderson .Paak - Malibu
14. Elzhi - Lead Poison
15. Schoolboy Q - Blank Face LP

Honorable Mentions:
Maxwell - blackSUMMERS'night
Esperanza Spalding - Emily's D+Evolution
Theo Croker - Escape Velocity
Frank Ocean - Blonde
Rihanna - ANTI
Jamire Williams - /////EFFECTUAL

We don't need any more writers as solitary heroes. We need a heroic writer's movement: assertive, militant, pugnacious.

I haven't gone to bed yet (it's 7:37AM right now); just reading and thinking and reading and writing and more thinking. So, I decided I will post my top albums of 2016 up. Why the fuck not? I've been working on it and finalized it earlier this morning. My list reminds me that, despite having expanded my tastes in music over the last 10 years beyond just hip hop, jazz, and R&B, I still am pretty much beholden to that holy trifecta of contemporary black music. My list. In order. For your eyes (all 10 of you, LOL):

1. Solange - A Seat at the Table
2. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
3. Jack DeJohnette/Matthew Garrison/Ravi Coltrane - In Movement
4. Kaytranada - 99.9%
5. Beyonce - Lemonade
6. Kendrick Lamar - untitled. unmastered.
7. Jeff Parker - The New Breed
8. ScHoolboy Q - Blank Face LP
9. Josef Leimberg - Astral Projections
10. Common - Black America Again
11. dvsn - SEPT 5TH
12. Anderson .Paak - Malibu
13. James Blake - The Colour in Anything
14. Elzhi - Lead Poison
15. Maxwell - blackSUMMERS'night

Honorable Mentions:
Esperanza Spalding - Emily's D+Evolution
Theo Croker - Escape Velocity
Vince Staples - Prima Donna EP
Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith - A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke
Rihanna - ANTI
Yussef Jamaal - Black Focus
Jamire Williams - /////EFFECTUAL

I really, really wanted Emily's D+Evolution in the list instead of in HMs, but I guess it was not meant to be. Lead Poison might be the most slept-on album of 2016.

Last note: I may do some write-ups for these and post them over on my Medium page. Please check that out.

Arguably one of the greatest writers of our generation, Ta-Nehisi Coates recently tweeted this statement:

Ok. So I'm gonna take the year to try my hand at this fancy book writin' stuff. See y'all in '18. Take us out, Queen... pic.twitter.com/kLISnrMJE9

— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisicoates) January 2, 2017

Exciting! Does this mean we could be getting another book within the next year or so from the author of the brilliant Between the World and Me (2015)? There has not been any other book in recent memory that I can enjoy each and every single time from re-reading random passages. In the form of a letter to his only son, the book can be difficult to go back and navigate after reading it. But when I do, I get lost, engulfed in his prose — the beautifully crafted, poignant, assured, politically exigent, intellectually biting, bold prose. I don’t need to make the lofty comparison to that great American writer, because another one, Toni Morrison, ever the authority, does so for me and for us, unequivocally: “I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates.”

The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people's interests.