2010 Mechy Awards: Hip Hop Album of the Year

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.

2010 Mechy Awards: Mainstream Hip Hop Album of the Year

The Nominees:

• Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty
• Freeway & Jake One - The Stimulus Package
• Ghostface Killah - Apollo Kids
• Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
• Nas & Damian Marley - Distant Relatives
• Reflection Eternal - Revolutions Per Minute

And the winner is...

Freeway & Jake One - The Stimulus Package

Whether The Stimulus Package was released on Rhymesayers or didn't have any hit singles, in my eyes, Freeway is still a mainstream rapper. There's really no such thing as an "underground label" anyway, only independent labels. This was Freeway and Jake One both performing as good or better than they ever have. If you don't want to accept that I'm calling this a mainstream album, Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty

2010 Mechy Awards: Instrumental Hip Hop Album of the Year

The Nominees:

• Clutchy Hopkins - The Story Teller
• Maker - Maker vs. Now-Again
• Oddissee - Traveling Man
• Paul White - Paul White & The Purple Brain
• RJD2 - Inversions of The Colossus
• Rob Swift - The Architect

And the winner is...

Rob Swift - The Architect

Rob Swift is the best DJ ever in a conceptual sense. While I think he could have executed the classical music concept of The Architect better, Rob Swift at 90% is still better than most. Without any real standouts in instrumental hip hop in 2010, The Architect was good enough to be the best.

2010 Mechy Awards: Hip Hop EP of the Year

The Nominees:

• Blueprint - Blueprint Who
• Cymarshall Law - Creator's Kid
• Digital Underground - The Greenlight
• Freeform Logistics and Lawrence ThreeOne - Overgrowth
• J-Live - Undivided Attention
• Moka Only - Isn't Over

And the winner is...

J-Live - Undivided Attention

Maybe this will end up being a bad choice, because if all of this tracks do end up on S.P.T.A., Undivided Attention becomes worthless. Just to cover myself, Cymarshall Law - Creator's Kid gets second place.

2010 Mechy Awards: Mixtape of the Year

The Nominees:

• Blacastan - Masters of Reality
• Donwill - Laura's Tape
• JFK - The Ninja Face
• Nuthouse - Camden High & Rising
• Ras Kass - A.D.I.D.A.S.
• The Are & Brokn.Englsh - ARE x B.E.

And the winner is...

Donwill - Laura's Tape

They're on par in terms of musical quality, but I prefer the mixtape to the album because it's so much more appropriate for the High Fidelity concept. There's some bias from me on this pick because High Fidelity is one of my favorite movies.

2010 Mechy Awards: Emcee of the Year

The Nominees:

• Cymarshall Law
• Hell Razah
• Homeboy Sandman
• Illustrate
• John Robinson
• Qwel

And the winner is...

Qwel

Qwel is kind of a rare case in hip hop. Most emcees have peaked within the first few albums/years of their careers. Qwel is 10 years into his career and pushing 20 albums, and he's still consistently improving. He still hasn't quite moved into my top 10 all-time, but two consecutive years as the easy choice for emcee of the year isn't hurting his case.

2010 Mechy Awards: Producer of the Year

The Nominees:

• The Beatnikz
• Factor
• Ide
• Maker
• Mr. Brady
• Necro

And the winner is...

Factor

Factor produced six and a half albums in 2010, and only one wasn't good and probably three were among the top 10 produced albums of 2010. He basically had producer of the year locked before the year was half over. The only problem is the caliber of emcees he works with. The best emcees he's produced albums for are Moka Only, Kirby Dominant, and a weak collaboration with Myka 9. He had some solid features on albums this year including NoCanDo, iCON the Mic King and Sole. A full album with one of them would be nice. Wishful thinking, Aceyalone or Qwel doesn't sound like too far of a stretch.

2010 Mechy Awards: Rookie of the Year

The Nominees:

• Blacastan
• D.Dove
• Freeform Logistics and Lawrence OneThree
• Grey Matter
• Iron Braydz
• Spear of the Nation

And the winner is...

Grey Matter

The obvious comparison for Grey Matter is Atmosphere, and while Atmosphere clones are nothing new in hip hop, Grey Matter is the first that actually seems to have potential to be as good as Atmosphere. As I said earlier, I don't picture them having much impact, but if they keep up the quality of their debut, it will be a shame if they don't get noticed a little more.

2010 Mechy Awards: Jazz Album of the Year

The Nominees:

• Bedrock - Plastic Temptation
• Chicago Underground Duo - Boca Negra
• Hamid Drake & Bindu - Reggaeology
• John Zorn - The Goddess (Music For The Ancient Of Days)
• Marco Benevento - Between the Needles and Nightfall
• The Dreamers - Ipos: Book of Angels Vol. 14

And the winner is...

John Zorn - The Goddess (Music For The Ancient Of Days)

After my complaint about hip hop albums not really being hip hop albums at the core, it's kind of hypocritical that I'm giving this award to a jazz album that isn't really a jazz album at its core, but John Zorn created an absolutely beautiful album in The Goddess.