The Nominees:
- Hell Razah - Heaven Razah
- Homeboy Sandman - The Good Sun
- IDE & Skavenger - Addicted to the Vision
- Qwel & Maker - Owl
- Ron Contour & Factor - Saffron
- Super Chron Flight Brothers - Cape Verde
And the winner is...Qwel & Maker - Owl
The biggest problem with hip hop in 2010 was that so many artists focused on trying to be creative, original, innovative and complex, but they seemed to think that the way to do that was to almost not be hip hop. For example, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the consensus best hip hop album of 2010 primarily because of the production. Good hip hop production should first and foremost be a good "beat". When I hear Kanye's production on MBDTF, most of the time I'm thinking 'it's good, but is this really even a beat?' That's why Owl is the best album of 2010. It has all of that creativity, originality, innovation, and complexity, but at it's very core, it's 100% pure hip hop.
