Top 5 Hip Hop Albums of 2018

3. Nipsey Hussle - Victory Lap

I’m gonna be extremely transparent with y’all on this one. I literally forgot that Victory Lap came out this year because it dropped in February and I was still listening to music that came out last year, so my dumbass lumped it in with the later albums of 2017. So when I was going back through all the albums I had nominated for this list, I was reminded that Nipsey released in 2018. I hopped in my car, turned ‘Victory Lap’ and was completely reminded how tough this album. There’s no way I couldn’t reward this album with a spot on my list when I turned it on for the first time in at least 7 months and I remembered from the first note of the beat damn near every aspect of the album. Nipsey was not playing on this one, everything about ‘Victory Lap’ screams “listen to what I’m telling you, this is real shit.” I will always have a soft spot for albums that inspires me in any way and the one big thing I got from Nipsey was to work for your shit and motivate others to do the same. I think that the fact that I haven’t really spoke too much on the music is a testament to who Nipsey Hussle is as a man and someone I’ve been looking up too as kind of an indirect OG of mine for about 5-6 years now. I think this album has some of the best sequencing of any album to come out this year, nothing feels out of place. ‘Victory Lap’ is the story of a man who made it against all odds and it makes me feel like I can do the same.

Standout Tracks:

‘Victory Lap’

‘Dedication’

’Keyz 2 the City 2’