1) The Past is Still Alive / Hurray for the Riff Raff / 2024
Because I grew up around a lot of rich, racist country-loving folks, I’ve had a lot of trouble sinking into good folk and country my whole life. I never thought 2024 would be the year folk and country albums would dominate my listening for long stretches. Hurray for the Riff Raff is the culmination of this new turn for me. A queer boricua cowgirl crooning about fentanyl, love, and highways, Hurray for the Riff Raff frequently pushed my despair into the sublime, transforming my grief into nostalgia. The first song “Alibi” reminds me of the worst times of my life, but not the terror and sickness, but the love of friends like Gionni Ponce during those times. These songs convince me to love, to dream, to try against the odds.
Favorite Lyric: I used to think I was born into the wrong generation. But now I know I made it right on time to watch the world burn with a tear in my eye to watch the world burn I’m right on time.
2) I DREAMT I FOUND A RED RUBY - Francesca Wexler - 2024
Francesca Wexler’s music makes me feel like my most beautiful, intelligent, and heavy self. Top-notch pen game with a complex range of queer emotions on lush beats. The music feels like the best sort of edible high in the summer sun. I literally feel warmer when I listen to it. This was my soundtrack for the entire summer, including my trip to Guatemala and El Salvador where I fulfilled my lifelong dream of reading the book I wrote on my mother’s life in the homeland surrounded by loved ones and comrades.
Favorite Lyric: All my angels work the night shift.
3) GNX - Kendrick Lamar - 2024
It’s painful to watch so much of hip-hop culture be saturated with rappers’ lowest vibrations, completely self-abandoned to gluttony, amorality, egoism, and horrifyingly bad politics. Kendrick’s presence in the culture this year felt like a rare voice of authority trying to carve out a pocket in the culture where bangers and reason could co-exist. I was surprised by how much the fury and hatred he unleashed during the beef spoke to my own frustrations with the US at large and how much I needed that release valve. As ugly as the beef got, it was incredibly impressive to watch Kendrick remain grounded and emerge a fuller artist. GNX is some of my favorite Kendrick for its playfulness and groundedness.
Favorite Lyric: Starting to see spaceships on Rosecrans. I see the aliens hold hands. They wanna see me do my dance.
4) Lonestar Luchador - That Mexican OT - 2023
That Mexican OT feels like the first true heir of Big Pun’s legacy. That Mexican OT combines mariachi chillidos with Pun-level wordplay in a classic Texas country lean. Lonestar Luchador is brilliantly crafted with hilarious Ralph Barbosa skits and conceptually tight-knit songs that dive between bravado, trauma-dumping, and just pure fun.
Favorite Lyric: I had to congratulate her parents cuz they made em a bad bitch.
5) DEIRA - Saint Levant - 2024
Rapping and singing in English, French, and Arabic, Saint Levant is the Palestinian lover boy you didn’t know you needed in your life. Because who said surviving and resisting a genocide can’t be sexy af. These dreamy tunes made my Chicago summer days magic, without asking me to stick my head in the sand either. Thank you to Lin Flores for turning me onto this.
Favorite lyric: I hear the sounds of the bombs in our sleep, but I never in my life heard the sound of defeat.
6) Dark Times - Vince Staples - 2024
Vince Staples deserves just as much love as Kendrick. I think he is who people think J. Cole is. This is spiritual psychedelic rap, the album ending with a woman’s vision of the universe’s slow struggle to the perfection of our souls. I love Vince because he has a way of holding the agony of living and making it bearable, his calm steady voice slowly sinking into your subconscious. I don’t typically find his songs catchy, but after a few listens, I get hooked by the feeling and the space it opens in me to feel peace. This album traverses all sorts of heartbreak with ten toes planted in the concrete.
Favorite lyric: I don’t need your flowers, I’m living. The first time I saw a million dollars I squinted.
7) Few Good Things - Saba - 2022
Saba taught me how to move through a Chicago winter with this album. The soundscape couldn’t fit the city better. The project dropped in 2022 when I was distracted by JID, Pusha T, and Amindi. I’m glad I returned to it though because this album is every bit as worthy and incredible as those three. Dominated by blue-gray soundscapes and gritty lyrics about how weird it is to survive and thrive in a burning world, Saba’s growth in this project is incredible.
Favorite Lyric: I got everything I could ever need / and i try to keep that in mind / whenever i meet a man trying to sell a dream
8) Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying - Labi Siffre - 1972
December 2023 I crash land in India full of PTSD symptoms and the shock of the move to Chicago still fresh on my nervous system. Labi was a crucial part of my healing as I cherished the unimaginably cool moments with my new family, ate delectable food, and fell deeper in love with Anushka. I listened to Labi while practicing a difficult set of new qi gong movements and breathing through the pain. The opening song allowed me to enter a space of reverence with my loves and losses, and the rest splayed playfully out, setting me up for my year of exploring folksier sounds. Shoutout to the student who turned me onto the project.
Favorite Lyric: I am free man and my father he was a slave. I have been broken but my children will be saved. Saved for the fire of man’s desire. Saved for tomorrow with today’s sorrow. Saved for a Jesus who does not need us. Saved for the lovers I pray they will discover.
9) Chromokopia - Tyler, the Creator - 2024
Tyler’s paranoia-packed album came just in time to shake me out of my fear of the ever-rising tide of fascism with lyrics that are equal parts soulful and mischievous. It’s great to hear Tyler be his whole queer self on such energetic production.
Favorite lyric: give a fuck bout pronouns, I’m that n**** and that bitch.
10) Hells Welles - Jesse Welles - 2024
I found Jesse Welles through his song about the assassination of the UnitedHealth CEO, and his politically sharp folk with biting satiric lyrics has won me over so powerfully, he slid into this last spot in the final minute. He’s equally capable of making me seethe, laugh, and cry with croons that are equally soulful and goofy. He has a whole album on nature, giving odes to bugs, trees, and whales and two others making political commentary on everything from the genocide, cancer, modern-day slavery, and more. I’m just happy to have found someone as angry and silly as I feel most days.
Favorite lyric: the dead don’t feel honor, they don’t feel that brave. They don’t feel avenged. They’re lucky if they got graves.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
La Isla - Rels B
Mind Blade - Malev da Shinobi
Antitesis - YoungShiva
Cowboy Carter - Beyonce
Please Don’t Cry - Rapsody
If My Wife New, I’d be Dead - CMAT
Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going - Shaboozey
Alligator Bites Never Heal - Doechii
Javelin - Sufjan Stevens
The Long Game - Marlon Craft