To kick off the new year, fans heard the first collaboration between Kanye West and Paul McCartney, the beautiful ballad ‘Only One‘ dedicated to Kanye’s late mother, Dr. Donda West. However, according to rapper Ty Dolla $ign there is more Kanye and Paul to come. During his interview will Billboard, Ty revealed that another song has been recorded between Kanye and the legendary Beatle, which also features Ty himself and Rihanna. No exact word on a release date, but stay tuned for more details!
On December 15, 2014, D’Angelo’s nearly 15 year silence was broken. His new album Black Messiah dropped seemingly out of nowhere, garnering overwhelming and instantaneous acclaim. Pitchfork Mediafocused all their attention on the album, giving it an envied 9.4/10 “Best New Music” rating and plastering D’Angelo mentions all over the sight. They still can’t shut up about it, as goes for most other music publications, which is rare in a digital age where trends and albums come and go without much thought. Black Messiah is without a doubt bound to gain high marks amongst best of lists with the passage of time due to the immediate positive reaction to such a shock release. However, it is imperative to understand where such enormous hype and anticipation for D’Angelo came from. This R&B aficionado’s sophomore release is the genesis of his critical and even commercial obsession.
Stream the new project from SAVEMONEY‘s Leather Corduroys (the side-project of Joey Purp and Kami de Chukwu), titled Season. The 14-track Season contains features from Chance the Rapper and Knox Fortune, and has production from Odd Future’s The Internet (among others).
Peep the newest video from the Migos’ Rich N*gga Timeline’ mixtape (available here). Check out Atlanta’s Migos hanging out at a laundromat in the ‘Wishy Washy’ video below.
Last year Young Thug had his best year yet, and Rich Homie Quan didn’t have a bad one either. Although the two are currently on their Rich Gang Tour with Birdman, today we have another RHQ and Thugger collaborative banger, ‘Contemplate’. Stream the track below.
Last year we heard the stories of the secret Kanye West and Paul McCartney track, although much about the collaboration was unknown. Now it is finally here and it was well worth the wait. Fans of Kanye tracks like ‘Hey Mama’ and ‘Roses’ will love this one as ‘Only One’ is a beautiful ballad dedicated to West’s daughter North (Nori) and one of the best songs you may ever hear. While Paul McCartney’s exact contributions on the track are unknown at this time, he is there somewhere, and if you can’t remember another time the most famous Beatle had a song with a rapper… its because it has never happened (until now).
Sometimes an MVP is decide almost solely based on how they finish the season. Such is the case for 2014 and our Man of the Year, J. Cole. In what may have otherwise not been possible, thanks to a lackluster year in rap, J. Cole single handed saved rap music from having a disastrous 2014 and he did in just one month’s time and virtually out of nowhere. This is not to say that rappers like Big Sean, Childish Gambino, Run the Jewels and several others didn’t have a great past 12-months, but Hollywood Cole is the real MVP.
A$AP Rocky had an unfortunately quiet 2014. The good news is that this hopefully means we will get a bunch of new music from “the pretty motherf*cker” in the new year, and to give fans a preview, today Rocky ended his 2014 by giving fans the sequel to one of his first big tracks ‘Pretty Flacko’, simply titled ‘Pretty Flacko 2’. Stream the Nez & Rio produced track below.
It is hard to imagine what woman (or man) in music had a better year than our 2014 Woman of the Year, Lana Del Rey. In just a year’s time Lana has continued her way to the top by touring the world, recording tracks for some of your favorite directors, putting out her best and most critically acclaimed album to date and picking up a number of award nominations on the way.
2014 has been G-Eazy’s best year yet, and he is showing no signs of stopping. After a number of mixtapes and EPs, G-Eazy released his debut label studio album These Things Happen, debuting at number three on the Billboard charts. Followed by his From the Bay to the Universe tour (now on it’s second leg), G-Eazy has now given fans another treat to cap off his amazing year, three new songs. The tracks include ‘Show You The World’ ‘I Might’ and ‘Why Thank You’, and contain features from Too Short (among others). Check out all three tracks below.
The Early Registration 