 2020 was kind of a rough year for music. Delays, disappointment and dick riding. The holy trinity. I mean, we really only got a whole lot of red because Carty got exposed for being an absentee father. Given, that's a pretty small price to pay for jump out the house. But once the year was over, there wasn't that many stand-ups that people talk about today. Uzi's initial release was disappointing. Legends Never Die felt like a fan project. And let's be honest, did anyone know that Big Sean released? On my tombstone, it's gonna say, I deserve to be here because I signed Big Sean. Now, don't get me wrong, there were many good albums released in 2020, but it was just missing those big releases. I'm talking about 2013, Che. 2013 was a brilliant year for music. And 2021 may actually be the year to compete with a number of colossal albums we've been given. Boys were certified lovers. Don Toliver's load was widely enjoyed by men everywhere. And there is still no sign of Frank Ocean. Where the fuck is he? So sit back, relax, start a beef with an actual child. As we look back on this year in music, welcome to Ibi's 2021 Spotify Wrapped, Apple Music Extravaganza, listening party one of three, sponsored by Tidal. And a video that's gonna be held behind a $200 paywall. Games the game. Jermaine Cole? I think it was Metro Boomin who said it best when he said, if you can truly listen to J Cole all the time, then you have yet to have the pussy that will change your life be real shit. Jermaine is the most humble man of all time. What other rapper will dress like is a homeless man fiending on the streets of New York but has the amount of money to buy pizza or franchise hanging out the back of his pocket? Let's talk about the off-season. As the first big boy release of the year, the bar was low. Now contrary to some heat that Jermaine takes, I really do think he's one of the better rappers out there. But For Your Eyes Only was literally six years ago. And that was the last time I really think Cole released anything of his talent. And when Jermaine releases an album, it can go into one or two categories. And I'm undecided on this one because it has some absolute stone cold bangers. Pride is the devil. Let go of my hand. Baz and Cole are yet to miss together in my eyes. But there's just so many forgettable tracks that they all kind of blend together. I listened to this album a week ago. And if you put a gun to my head and ask me to hum the melody of three of the songs, I'm fucking dead. I will say this though, my life had me doing some ratatouille type shit in my head. Strong, strong contender for song and feature of the year with that verse from 21. But if I'm being honest, you gave me a choice between this and one French Montana song. I'm picking this album. I don't think I've ever listened to a French Montana song. I'm like, what is it fuck me for? Now, let's be, obviously, I mean, everyone knows this. It's the baby and Jojo Siwa, two veterans of the rap game, both really coming to the height of their powers. And if I'm being honest with you, it seemed like it was inevitable for these two pillars of the rap game to collide at some point. And once it happened, only one of them could come out on top. The baby did draw first blood with arguably the most unnecessary bar of all time directed in a freestyle towards a child and he can take that one to his grave. No one's taken the title from him. But in all fairness to Jojo Siwa, the baby lost all credibility as soon as his height was born to the question. Why did this happen? Honestly, 2021 was like a fever dream. Drake, the kind of guy to tell you nothing suspicious or against the Geneva convention happened on Tianan square, 1989. Boys were certified lovers this year and that's a fact. Now listen, I've had my gripes with Drake and how disappointing I found his last couple of albums. But in my heart, listen, I'm a fan. Take care, nothing was the same. Thank me later and even some parts of views are some of my favorite rap albums of all time. And really, I had my hopes up for certified lover boy. I wholeheartedly wanted and foolishly believed that Drake was to go on and reinvent his music to show how much he's grown, not just as an artist, but as a person. Learning from his beefs with some of the biggest players in the industry. As a public figure, as a father. I was stupid, look at that fucking cover. That visualizer haunts me to this day. Why do they keep looking at me? Certified boy lover does have some really good highs. Knife talk with 21, puppy's outside. I miss you too with Cuda as a personal favorite of mine and fair trade with redacted. We can't speak about him yet, it's not allowed. But the problem with certified cousin lover is that they're just so many skippable and boring tracks. Songs like just the generic Drake cut and paste classic. Obviously taken from the thousand songs he spammed during the views era. Chuck them in the vault with a couple of microjacks in futures and called it a day. Out of the hour 26, I'd say that he really only needed about 45 minutes of that. Now listen, I'm implying that Aubrey, Drizzy, Drake, Graham released more lukewarm songs for their very sake of impacting his streaming numbers. Yeah. Yeah, I am. Yeah, you guys are stupid, are you crazy? Are you dumb? Which one? You can pick one. Overall, certified brother lover is safe. It'll appease the Drake fans and a lot of his mainstream followers. But is it as good as DJ Academic says it is? No. Academic, did it cure world hunger? I don't think so. And for that reason, I'm out. Call Me If You Get Lost is definitely an album that was released this year. And honestly, I kind of enjoyed it. And I'm not even that big a fan of Tyler's stuff. The vibes are immaculate. Aided heavily by some of the best merch and aesthetic for an album I've ever seen. Will I elaborate further on that actual music? Of course not. We do a little trolling, it's called, we do a little trolling. What I will say, however, is I cannot wait till the new influx of Tyler fans discover his old music. Personally, I got no problem with it. But I can guarantee you, there's a large portion of his fans that if they listened to Troncat just one time, the literal head would explode. It's a weird tangent I know, but it's crazy how long he's been in the game. And there's entire parts of his discography that sort of go missing and people forget about. Overall, decent three for me. Are you fucking dumb? You guys, you heard about this disease? King of New York, King of the World. A small time, hardly known newcomer to the game Nas has hit it out the park yet again with King's Disease 2. It encapsulates most of the things I wanna hear for a Nas album, while still pushing him a bit music-wise. However, it did have Eminem talking about Santa Claus for about two minutes on EPMD. Standard Eminem feature in the current year. I give that a world as yours out of 10. And now to the most coveted award, my rapper of the year. And to no one's surprise, it goes to Smiley. The flow, the uniqueness, he really just has come into his own. When Drake co-signed him, I was skeptical. But as soon as I heard that first song, ooh, I was hooked. Prada and Gucci don't go together, Louis and D.R. Pure, lyrical poetry. I don't know how the fuck this guy has a career. They may have killed Pac, but not the idea. Speed Runtime, baby. Sook Sonic gives Kidsy Ghost a run for its money by being arguably one of the best 20-minute albums I've ever heard. A very solid release with very little fat. And man, just look at these two. I kinda love them at the Grammys, come on. I wanna sort some cocaine with them. The house is burning by Ezio Rashid. Rashid was okay. I heard a lot of hype about this album. And when I got round to it, in a word, I'll be honest, I thought it was kinda mid. Holy shit, guys. T-Lop 5 released The Life of Pablo 5. We'll fucking skip in two to four and we're going straight to number five. Pierre, would you like to come out here and explain as to why for one week you ruled over the world? You couldn't go on the internet without hearing something about this album. But then, it vanished. I hadn't heard a single word about this album after those seven days. And that's not to say it's bad. It was good. It's fucking Pierre Bourne. And he made a very solid album. He still ain't got shit on retro though. You want some more? Juice World definitely released an album in 2021. I don't hate my life enough to enjoy Juice World like that, though. If you bump in that from the morning, man, more power to you, I hope you get out of that dark place. Overall, I thought it was definitely a Juice World album. An improvement on Legends Never Die, but CCP propaganda sounds better than that. Dr. Dre caught a lot of flak, however, of his apparent disrespect to him in the song he did for the GTA V Master. But I figured it out. He didn't mean no disrespect. He was just so thirsty. He did like a world of juice. He wasn't even talking about the rapper. He just wanted like a Mario girl that said to juice theme world. And honestly, can you blame him? If you guys could have one whole world of juice, what flavor would it be? Don Toliver's load was something I enjoyed so, so much. Now I heard the boldest man of all time, Anthony Fantano, did not enjoy the load. But honestly, I think he's got to be a load aficionado. Comparisons to his breakout album, Okay, I Pull Up, are bound to be made. And the general consensus that I heard was disappointment, but I disagree. Whilst the writing on the album does need some serious work, the production, the hooks and the melodies have only improved in my opinion. I really enjoyed this sort of Don Toliver. But what stands out on this album the most is the production. Now, once you get Mike Dean in that booth, it's raps, you're gonna get something decent. But he went above and beyond on some of these songs. Shout out, Mike Dean. If anyone's harping this world, I hope it's him. I don't know why, but I always thought Don Toliver was fat. There might just be a retarded moment for me, but I always thought he was like a rod wave looking dude. He's not. And when I found that out, I was kind of disappointed. His voice just sounds like he'd be like a fucking like a big dude, a little fatty, I'm sorry. Best verse of the year, and it's overwhelmingly 3000 on life at the party. Though a couple of 21 tracks do come close. Without a doubt, this is one of the most heartfelt and beautiful verses I've heard in a very long time. The pain and emotion of him describing how much his mother and family really meant to him, almost confessing and begging for one last conversation with her is something that really just stood out to me. Wow, a whole section without a joke. We really are maturing. Always knew I wasn't gonna be gay. Now listen, that's called motherfucking bars nigga. You know nothing about that. That right there, that's real fucking hip hop. This is that real shit. Upon Punk's initial release, I'd say I found it disappointing. However, like so much music nowadays, it takes time for me to really appreciate it. I feel like this is a sort of thug I can really get behind, as the main themes behind this album are maturity and growth. At times, it's clear that this is exactly what he's going for, with tracks like Stupid Slash Asking, Stressed and Hate the Game, but it's met with a couple speed bumps along the way which kind of killed that vibe and direction. It leaves me caught in between two minds here. You have thug taking his music in a whole different direction, while still leaving a couple generic thug hitters in there. Overall, Punk grew on me with each listen, but what will always kill me is that it's shown me what I could've had and then doesn't fully deliver on that promise. The jaded individual inside of me can't continue to talk about these albums where you'll at least find some sort of enjoyment. I've got a hate. It's so hard why I did my brain that I just got to spread this discontentment. Some people are put on this earth to do great things. I was put on this earth to fucking hate. Culture three, is it just me or the Migos? They lost that touch. That infectious repetition of words just doesn't hit the same anymore. I really think it comes down to stagnancy in their music as the novelty has pretty much just worn off. And when you compare it to the almost impeccable first installment, the very good second one, this one really does come up short. And like all bad albums, they have a really shit Drake verse on them. So there's really no surprises. Culture three all but confirms that takeoff is really the only Migos we need. Like the other two other studio for like a logic, logic came out of retirement. Guys, you remember that? No, neither did I. To every yin, there's a yank. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. To every certified lover boy. There's a Donda Deluxe, I'm sorry. Hurry up goons, don't kill me, I'm sorry. Now we both knew this was coming. It was really a question of how long I would be able to contain myself. I won. We got the album, but at the cost of his family. Small price to pay for jump out of the house. Reflecting on Donda pretty much a year later, the whole experience, even if you didn't like the album, you can't knock the uniqueness of the rollout. There's few rappers out there that could sell out an arena multiple times for an exclusive look as an album that hasn't released. There's even fewer who could be two hours late to their own show. Play a clearly unfinished version of the album with a faulty sound system inside said stadium. And then sell it out again two weeks later, while still being late to their own show again. I'm so fucking sick of looking at this screen. I get PTSD. All while livestreaming getting a fucking haircut. All in all. That's just some yeh shit. The set design throughout the shows as well really did make this rollout special. The goons, him being ascended towards heaven and the closing shot of him running out of his burning childhood home to reunite with Kim in a wedding dress that didn't age the best. Never abandon your family. It's just basically DTF. Bro, please, bro, why are you doing, Reuniting for the first time in almost a decade with Jay-Z on jail was definitely one of the highlights of the album and here in general, paired with assembling an all-star cast of features from baby Kim and Jay-Electronica to holding five-year-old forward's family at gunpoint for that off-the-grid verse. The features on this album in some respect helped kinda tackle the main issue with Donda and that's the length. At 27 songs standing at almost two hours in length, it's a fuckin' long-ass album and listen, I love his work but I'm not happy with the length but at least content with it. There's not one song bar maybe the pop-smoke tribute that I didn't at least enjoy to some extent at first. There's definitely a case to be made that there's a couple skips on the album and there's no denying that but for a project to be this long and to explore so many genres throughout it and still sound this good, is actually incredible. You had Kanye on a drill track I'm asking you Motherfucker, we got Hurricane. It's been a long fight. It's been a long fight and I just had to have a warrior spirit. But did you guys notice that Hurricane is like literally Hurricane? The weekend's first verse is the calm before the storm. Little baby, the waves rise and winds hit and on the weekend's second verse, it's calm again. Then Kanye, the storm starts again and then with the weekend, everything resets to calm. I think we need to line up a lot of Kanye's dance and shoot them in the fucking head. I'm begging you, man. Go outside. Take her. Take her while needed break. And I gotta say, free my boy, Ann Clemens. He ain't locked up, I just want his vocals back. Donda overall, I thought was, come on, my favorite album of the year. Let's not, I'm not even gonna joke about it. I really enjoyed the album. I thought it was great. Solid eight to nine out of 10. And although some people would say there's been very skippable tracks and that some of it is quite mid, I pretty much enjoyed most of it. Believe what I say, heaven and hell, praise God. Those three I gotta say, probably my top three favorite tracks. But he got Soulja Boy off of moon. Zero out of 10 worst album of all time. No, you can't be on my mama album. Buck you Kanye, I love you Pete Davidson. Good night.