SPIN’s 50 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2015
To call 2015 hip-hop’s greatest year of the 2010s still manages to feel like an understatement. Hip-hop was so strong this year, so bursting with vital information and ideas and emotions, that it singlehandedly gave another genre a comeback — rappers’ newfound affinity for jazz got people listening to Kendrick Lamar-approved saxophonist Kamasi Washington and Chance the Rapper’s main man Donnie Trumpet after the music America was built on reached its all-time sales nadir.
But more importantly, rap became the “black CNN” again, through Vince Staples’ “I ain’t never run from nothing but the police” and Kendrick’s “The blacker the berry, the bigger I shoot.” Hedonists like Future revealed the darkness behind their hard-partying. The growing profiles of Lizzo, Junglepussy, and DeJ Loaf will help end the practice of only one female rapper being heralded at a time. Even pop-rap received a newfound respect thanks to Fetty Wap, an inexhaustible fount of charisma and hooks. With Kendrick leading 2016’s Grammy nominees, and Chance performing (incredibly) on SNL — despite only releasing music you can acquire for $0 — rap impacted the world more than ever in 2015, as it deserved to. Here are 50 reasons why.
