Vibes 2021 Playlist - Song Selections 3

Back for some more song selections for the Vibes 2021 playlist. This time we’re looking pretty much at only hip hop/ hip hop adjacent artists, with two of my top 5 from my Spotify Wrapped this year (Mac at #1 overall and Tyler, the Creator at #2 overall). For the overall rules of the selection process peep the original post here. You know the rules for these posts: 5 artists, 2 songs each, probably more explanations than necessary for why those two tracks were selected. Let’s get into it.

1) Mac Miller - New Addition

Soooooo bending the rules for this one a little bit, as Mac Miller’s mixtape Faces was “released” on streaming (and vinyl) for the first time in October, despite the original mixtape being released in 2014. That being said, I’m counting it as a release and will be picking two songs off of the album, at the very least in respect to Mac Miller and his legacy; plus he was my #1 artist this year, so it’s personal too. I make the rules, get over it. This album is the entire mixtape from 2014, all 24 original tracks, along with a bonus track called Yeah. Off the top, Malibu, What Do You Do, and It Just Doesn’t Matter have some great flows and verses, but the beats are a bit too dissonant for the Vibes playlist. They all feature a sort of wobbling organ sound and it’s a little off-putting (which are reflections of the themes of the tune so they make sense, but they’re not vibey). For Friends, I really love Mac’s flow and the subdued beat, but the chorus of the “Miller Mac” just kills any vibey-ness of the song. Diablo, Insomniak, Thumbalina and Yeah are all a little too hype to make the cut. New Faces v2 kills me with the high pitched ringing, it is very grating to my ears. A lot of the remaining tracks are really great, have some amazing raps that really give an insight into Mac’s mental state over some really subdued and chill beats, mainly being carried by the percussion arrangements. A few tracks I really dig, but the choruses do some weird stuff in the chorus like reverb/repetition that took them out of the running; tracks like Angel Dust (which I love the lofi beat but the chorus straight up sounds like So Fresh, So Clean) and Polo Jeans. One track immediately jumped out to me to make the playlist, which is Colors and Shapes. This song is a great preview into Mac’s music later in his career, which pushes more singing than wrapping and the beat is so atypical that its great. The song is really powerful too, where Mac expresses how the pressure of his life is getting to him and he’s on the breaking point. It’s really moving. The other choice came down to two songs by the end of it, which are San Francisco and Rain. The hook of San Francisco is one of my all time favorites of Mac’s but the beat was just a little too simple and repetitive to me, so the edge ultimately went to Rain. This song has a great verse from Vince Staples and Mac each and the guitar loop with the vocal chop is really great. I’m like 99% sure I’ve heard that sample somewhere else, I just don’t know where.

2) Tyler, the Creator - New Addition

Following my number 1 artist of 2021 is my number 2 artist of 2021, Tyler, the Creator. Tyler released his new album CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST in June, which was his follow-up album from IGOR. This album is closer to Tyler’s earlier work, featuring more aggressive raps than both IGOR and Flower Boy. Compared to those two albums, I have CMIYGL better than IGOR but not quite as good as Flower Boy. Most of this album has songs that are too energetic and aggressive to be considered for the playlist, so let’s focus in on the few that I considered. Initially, I was looking at SIR BAUDELAIRE for the intro to the entire playlist, but after finding a better track and multiple listen throughs, this track didn’t hold up to the others. WILSHIRE is one of my favorite tracks of the year because of the story Tyler tells, detailing his attraction and near romance with a woman who’s in a relationship. It is the crux of the album where Tyler lays it all out to there and it explains the context of the rest of the tracks, but it’s a little too specific and personal for the playlist. MASSA and RISE! are two I really struggled with, as I love the mainly percussion driven beats and they both have some great verses from Tyler (and the chorus of MASSA is legitimately hilarious and great), but neither made the cut. RUNITUP has a great message, but was a little too slow for me. I nearly pulled a last minute audible and chose HOT WIND BLOWS because the beat is so unique with the flute and Tyler and Lil Wayne both have INSANE verses (probably one of my favorite Lil Wayne verses in years), but resisted that urge. The first choice ended up being pretty easy, the track WUSYANAME. The intro just hooks you immediately with Tyler’s “pick up line”. The track has a great chorus and a really great beat, sounding like early 2000’s hip hop, in my opinion. My other choice is SWEET/ THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE. This song is a great two for one, featuring a soulful track from Tyler describing his love interest as being as sweet as sugar that shifts in the back half to a dancehall/reggae-type beat that details Tyler’s frustrations that the timing of him and his love interest was off because of her relationship with another and the mixed signals he got from here. It’s a great juxtaposition of being so blinded by love in the beginning that you miss the red flags to growing bitter that you are being led on.

3) Abhi The Nomad - New Addition

So fun story, I actually heard this artist because my friend sent me a snapchat of her cat walking along to one of the songs from Abhi’s album Abhi vs The Universe. I was like hold up now, that’s catchy as hell, let’s explore this artist, and lo and behold I stumbled across the album. Always looking for new music. Abhi has a really great sound, it’s a mix of hip hop, indie rock, and pop with some hints of electronic music. Like most albums I’ve perused for songs thus far, every song on here could have made the playlist and I struggled selecting them. I’ll just cut to the chase for Abhi; I selected Bag and Good Luck. I liked Good Luck a lot as a showcase of Abhi’s sound, it has a lot of great elements like some solid raps, a catchy as hell beat with the guitar flares and simplistic drums, and a nice extended chorus. The whistles and vocal layers were a nice little touch. Bag was the aforementioned song from the friend’s snapchat and has the most straight up electronic influences of any song on the album. This was my first exposure to Abhi and it’s a great one. Listen to those synths and tell me it’s a vibe, plus the lyrics tie perfectly into the vibe: “Me? I got the bag on up”. Basically the whole album reminded me of the sound of Whethan’s album Fantasy from last year, so if you liked that album, you’ll love this album. It just has more hip hop elements and slightly fewer electronic elements.

4) DMX - New Addition

Unfortunately, the hip hop world lost another legend this year with the unexpected loss of DMX in early April. Following his passing, a posthumous album titled Exodus was released in May. Literally while writing this, a collection of X’s greatest hits, called DMX: The Legacy was released, but seeing as it’s just a “greatest hits” style album, I will not be considering it. Back to Exodus, most of the tracks on this project are the classic aggressive DMX sound, but there are a few tracks that I considered vibes. There were three total under consideration: Hood Blues, Take Control, and Walking In The Rain. Letter To My Son was just a little too heartbreaking to me. On my initial listen through, I only zeroed in on Take Control and Walking In The Rain, but after the second listen through the jazzy style beat on Hood Blues really stood out to me. With three in the mix, I struggled to make the cut to two. I really struggled with Take Control because I thought it might be relying a bit to much on the sample from Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing. Ultimately, the beat is just too smooth to not make the cut and it has freaking Snoop Dogg on it, he’s like the definition of chill. As X says in the intro “This some sexy shit right here, baby”. That made it be down to Hood Blues and Walking In The Rain. I decided on going with Hood Blues because I found the jazzy elements of the beat to be more interesting and unique than the more downtempo and simple beat of Walking In The Rain.

5) Silk Sonic - New Addition

At long last, the musical match made in heaven of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak as the group Silk Sonic, released their album An Evening with Silk Sonic. And let me tell ya, it is great and mixes beautifully. The group is only those two (although they use more performers for live sets) and blends funk, hip hop, and pop beautifully with Bruno Mars playing guitar and piano, Anderson .Paak playing the drums, and both contributing lyrically and for the production. What I really like about Silk Sonic is that they capitalize on their respective strengths, like Anderson .Paak still has some room to rap on the tracks. Again, this was a very difficult selection process where I had to listen at least six times to choose the two best songs. I passed up on Leave The Door Open and Smokin Out The Window as I wanted to pick a few of the lesser known songs from Silk Sonic instead of their most popular hits. I went with Fly As Me and Skate as they were a little more up-tempo than the rest of the tracks, which I would put squarely in the realm of “baby-making music”. 777 was nearly selected, but it was a little to frenetic for me to choose. The bassline in Fly As Me immediately pulls you in, then the horns kick in, THEN Anderson .Paak’s sultry smooth raps carry you away. Add some of Bruno Mar’s melodies in and man you have a catchy song. Skate has a some great strings (which again reminds of like ABBA or something, like I also said referring to SG Lewis in the last song selection post) and Bruno Mars has a bit more play on the track than in Fly As Me.

That’s it for this post, I more or less hit my goal of cutting down how extensive my explanations for the tracks are. I am running out of time to get the playlist done by New Year’s but I’m doing my best, we’ll see what happens. Let me know what you think and hit me up as always if you have any suggestions.

Much love.