Their songs are very modern, very accessible and radio-ready, but they manage to avoid sounding like everyone else out there. The tape's long but there's no real filler almost every song could work as the next big single if it just gets the right exposure. At 23 songs, YBN: The Mixtape is overstuffed, but it proves these guys are an exciting, unique, super talented collective worth keeping an eye on, and that they've got way more where "Rubbin'Off the Paint" and "Bounce Out With That" came from. Meanwhile, Almighty Jay holds things down just fine with his groupmates, and he's started to come out with some fan faves of his own as well ("Chopsticks").
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He's less pop-minded but arguably the most technically skilled. YBN Nahmir was the first member to really start taking off, thanks to his addictive singles like "Rubbin' Off the Paint" and "Bounce Out With That" (both of which are on this mixtape), though lately YBN Cordae has been emerging as a new favorite. The members of the young YBN collective met while playing Grand Theft Auto online, and there's actually ten of them, but the core trio of YBN Nahmir, YBN Almighty Jay and YBN Cordae joined forces for the group's first mixtape, YBN: The Mixtape. Rap crews used to be regional groups formed by people who grew up together, but lately we're seeing rappers from all over the country (or world) meet up and form over the internet. Blurbs were written by me unless otherwise specified, and ranking is also by me so the order may not coincide exactly with BV's main Top 50. Some of these albums also appeared on BrooklynVegan's main, non-genre-specific Top 50 Albums of 2018 list, and blurbs from that list have been repurposed for the albums that appear on both lists. It was nearly impossible to narrow down all of the great stuff that came out this year, but I finally ended up with a list that I think are the 30 best (with 16 honorable mentions at the end).
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And while many of the big albums continue to clock in at taxing running times in order to game streaming numbers, 2018 had a clear trend of rappers making the artistic choice to go in the opposite direction and practice the art of brevity.
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But boiling beneath the surface was a countless amount of creative rap albums, from newcomers proving themselves, to veterans figuring out how to age gracefully from expertly executed throwbacks, to thrilling innovation from lively jazz rap, to unique concept albums to genre-hopping epics to out-there experimentation. And while some of the major players struck gold, the truth is that most of the year's biggest rap albums were just okay at best. 2018 was an insane year for rap - it's hard to think of a major rapper who didn't release something this year.