2018 Rap Awards

An entirely new process during the Rap Up this year for me was selecting rappers for these various awards. As you keep scrolling, you will notice they closely mimic the NBA’s end of season awards. (If this and the Shawn Kemp/Russell Westbrook references last post did not clue you in, I love basketball.) Aside from ranking the albums of the year, I thought this would be an interesting exercise in reflecting upon the year in rap. Especially since this process considers factors beyond the quality of the album, including popularity. However, I still do not currently have a formal process for selection, so I will take time to explain the selection after each award. Let’s get to it.

1st Team All-Rap

• Saba

• Noname

• Vince Staples

• Cardi B

• Travis Scott

Saba, Noname, and Vince Staples are the most obvious choices for this team. They had the top three albums of the year in my estimation. However, the other two slots get interesting. Albums four and five were Mac Miller and Earl Sweatshirt. However, both Cardi B and Travis Scott had undeniably spectacular years. They dominated the popular consciousness of rap music and both put out great records in Invasion of Privacy and Astroworld respectively. The quality of those two records plus the respective artists impact on pop culture and various features cemented them as 1st team All-Rap players.

2nd Team All-Rap

• Mac Miller

• Earl Sweatshirt

• Jay Rock

• Black Thought

• Pusha T

The top three here again make sense given the album rankings. Mac Miller, Earl Sweatshirt, and Jay Rock had the next highest albums. Pusha even makes quite a bit of sense here. His EP slotted him high and he had the most spins and attention he has had in years as a result of the beef with Drake. He smoked Drake quite easily, which fed into hype for his record and kept in the spotlight. He delivered on that hype The Black Thought pick was a result of the two incredibly solid EPs. The three-song run from “History Unfolds” through “The New Grit” on Streams of Thought, Vol. 2 was as good as any last year.

3rd Team All-Rap

• Swae Lee

• Future

• Ka

• cupcakKe

• City Girls

Swae Lee’s half of SR3MM was as strong as any work he has done, he put together great work on Rae Sremmurd’s joint disc of SR3MM, and he was one of the most sought after features in 2018 adding something solid to every track he jumped on from work with Nicki Minaj to Metro Boomin’ to Rich the Kid and more. Future’s Beast Mode 2 was a great tape, he curated the soundtrack for SuperFly around his sound, and he was another great add to songs for features including 6LACK, Meek Mill, Jay Rock. Ka was an obvious pick because of the strength of Hermit & The Recluse’s record. cupcakKe was another easy pick because of Ephorize plus Eden landing in the top 100 as well. For the last spot, Roc Marciano and City Girls were neck and neck. Roc Marciano released three quite solid albums this year, with the highest slotting in at 37. City Girls released two records this year, with the highest slotting at 27. One of the biggest differences between the year of these two are both artist’s relative impact on the rap game. City Girls – for being as new as they were to the scene this year – landed in a more significant way than any of Roc’s albums, despite his rapping prowess. It could be argued that the consistency across Roc’s albums is enough to earn him a spot there, but I did not think anything he put together this year was as good as Period and with the addition of impact and some consistency across both City Girls records, they earned that spot over him.

Rap Game MVP

Cardi B

This was a two rapper race for me: Cardi B and Travis Scott. The only name tangentially related to rap who belonged in the category in terms of impact as those two is Post Malone. His obnoxiously lengthy record of sanitized trap music was middling at its very best though. Beerbong and Bentleys couldn’t hold a flame to Astroworld or Invasion of Privacy. That made this a two person race. From there, it was as simple as the ranking of those two albums. They were both great. The production on Astroworld still floors me. The variety and how well Cardi B could jump on each sound continues to impress. There’s a combination of slower, more intimate tracks, the obvious hits, and some that exist somewhere in the middle. Cardi’s ability to keep you on your toes and her enormous popularity exiting 2018 solidified her as the MVP of the year.

1st Team All-Rookie

• Cardi B

• Noname

• Joey Purp

• Buddy

• City Girls

The two most questionable inclusions for this list are obviously the two Chicago rappers, Joey Purp and Noname. Both have projects – and critically acclaimed ones – to their name. Joey’s iiiDrops was released in 2017, while Noname’s Telefone was released in 2016. However, neither of these were studio albums. Both artists released their debut albums this year, which explains their inclusion in the Rookie team. This rule may change moving forward given I have had to ask myself the question “how many mixtapes until you are not considered a rookie?” No matter how you spin it, that answer is always subjective. Perhaps next year I will work to come up with a more efficient system. However, at the moment Noname and Joey stay and their work is recognized once again. Cardi B is the most obvious choice here given the strength of her album and her popularity. Buddy and City Girls had the next two highest rated rookie rapper albums of the year, making them the front runners for the next two spots.

2nd Team All-Rookie

• Tierra Whack

• Octavian

• Rich the Kid

• Chuck Strangers

• Rich Brian

Tierra Whack not getting a spot on 1st team All-Rookie may be a decision I will regret, but her album was just behind Buddy’s, which is the only reason for the selection. The next four were the next four highest rated rookie albums released this year with the exception of Rich Brian. He gets the nod for a combination of his work on Amen and 88rising’s Head in the Clouds. I did not slot Amen high enough to make the top 100, but it certainly was not a bad album. Even from the time that record came out to when 88rising’s record, you started to see some of Rich Brian’s growth. There is no reason to expect that to stop going forward. His rookie year was nothing to balk at and he’s already teased dropping new music in 2019, so he shows no signs of slowing.

Rookie of the Year

Cardi B

We had some spectacular rookies this year: Buddy, Tierra Whack, Noname (if you might consider her that) and even more. None had anywhere close the impact in combination with output than Cardi B. She is also another rapper who released mixtapes prior to Invasion of Privacy, but did not blow up in anywhere near the way she did in 2018. She stole the spotlight from established rappers, and for that deserves a nod at Rookie of the Year position.

Most Improved Rapper

Cozz

When Cozz released his first album in 2014, I was not doing the Rap Up, but I did listen to it. The whole record was decent, but didn’t blow me away. I was impressed with his rapping ability but other than the collaboration with J. Cole (“Knock Tha Hustle”), I did not return to that album much. Effected is a much different story. I already wrote up a blurb on that album, but something that bears repeating is just how much better of a rapper and storyteller Cozz got over that span of time. He always had that potential, but he is starting to realize it. Turns out that time off between albums (save features on other projects) did him a world of good. I cannot wait to see where he goes next. Interestingly enough, the only other rapper I was considering for this was Bas, his label running mate. I just thought his Too High To Riot was too good to usurp the leap that Cozz made.

Rap Label of the Year

Dreamville

If Rookie of the Year was not the easiest to call, this is the one. There were only a few rap labels that released multiple records and none did so the way Dreamville did between Cozz, J. Cole, JID, and Bas. They smoked the competition, all being in the top 60 and 2 of which being in the top 30. Compared to each of their last records, the Dreamville crew also all showed improvement, some of which included the biggest jumps I have ever seen in my years of the doing this.

Rap Game Feature Royalty

Cardi B

Given the year she has had, did you really expect anyone else to sweep the awards like this? Cardi B had a remarkable year, and this award is as deserving as the rest. Between her work with Rita Ora and Maroon 5, there were few rappers that had the crossover impact that she did as well. Swae Lee, 03 Greedo, and Future all gave her a run for her money, but there was no feature that carried the weight of a Cardi B feature in 2018. For that reason, she gets the crown.

As this being the inaugural Rap Awards, there will undoubtedly be changes moving forward. One thing I have decided to add going forward is a spreadsheet cataloguing who wins which award each year. This will be an interesting exercise to look at who racks up the most awards, all-rap team selections, and more. Perhaps a more formal process is in store too. I may even consider expanding this so that I am not the only one involved in deciding. I am thrilled about the possibilities, but for now, these are our esteemed winners. I am sure they will be happy to receive their notice in the mail.

As always, thank you for reading, and let me know what you think of the awards and who won your MVP award.