My 10 Favorite Albums of 2022
The Records I Can’t Stop Thinking About
Throughout 2022, I kept a note in my phone of my favorite albums I’d listened to from this year. These were albums that maybe impressed me upon my first listen, or albums that grew along with me during the year, or even albums that represented a certain time and place. Some of these albums I listened to once. Others I couldn’t stop coming back to. Some of them were critically acclaimed. Some weren’t. That’s why I called them my favorite albums instead of pretending I could name the “best” albums of the year.
As I’ve done since 2015, in a pursuit that’s important to me and me alone, I took on the process of selecting my 10 favorite albums released this year, as well as a hard-fought selection of honorable mentions. These aren’t in any particular order as I believe the rankings can distract from what I feel to be most important, which is sharing the music I loved most this year.
As my Spotify Wrapped rudely revealed, Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind is the album I listened to most in 2022 and, going into November, was without a doubt one of my top albums of the year. However, after Drake suggested Megan Thee Stallion was lying about getting shot by Tory Lanez on Her Loss, I decided not to play his music anymore. As my friend and one of my favorite writers Nicolas-Tyrell Scott wrote for i newspaper:
“It would be dishonest to suggest misogyny in hip-hop, or the wider music industry, is anything new. Drake’s contemporaries J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar have infused subtle and overt examples of it in their music.”
Later in the article, Scott goes on to say:
“…unlike Cole and Lamar, Drake’s music is arguably getting worse and more lazy. The casual misogyny just emphasises his lack of progression and development.
Today, there are millions of options for rap lovers across a range of genres. Drake’s status as pop music’s rap orbit, and the king of commercialised hip-hop is beginning to wane.”
In setting aside Drake’s music, I freed myself to spend time with projects from artists whose songs sounded more interesting and, in some cases, whose perspectives and values aligned more closely with mine. Halfway through November, I began scheduling different albums I wanted to listen to for the first time or revisit as I began narrowing down my favorite albums list. Instead of naming Honestly, Nevermind among my favorite albums and drawing more people to an artist and album they’re most certainly already familiar with, I decided to exclude it from this list and share albums I feel confident I’ll be able to keep returning to.
Without further ado, here are my 10 favorite albums of 2022:
Vel Nine: Freakjet
The homie Hanif Abdurraqib does a thing on his Instagram Stories where, every now and then, he’ll field questions from his followers about topics ranging from sneakers to basketball to music. On the day I started scheduling out my album listens for the rest of the year, I saw Hanif was taking questions on 2022 in music. Someone asked him the best “track one side one” on a rap album this year and Hanif named “This I Know,” the lead track off Vel Nine’s Freakjet, which starts with a fantastic sample from Love & Basketball.
I had never heard of Vel Nine but the 15-second snippet of “This I Know” Hanif posted on his story sent me scrambling for the search bar on Spotify. In a year full of wonderful rap projects, Freakjet stood out. Vel Nine’s flows are varied and distinct, and the soul-sample-heavy production creates the perfect stage for her verses. Coming from Los Angeles, Vel Nine finds a way to somehow sound like New York and Chicago while still staying true to her California roots. With a total runtime of 21 minutes, Freakjet is an album you can effortlessly run back, falling in love with something new in each rotation.
WESTSIDE BOOGIE: MORE BLACK SUPERHEROES
Within a little over a month of each other, two Compton rappers released albums about facing their shadow selves and wrestling with fame: Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers and Westside Boogie’s More Black Superheroes. Earlier this year, I wrote about Kendrick’s album and the missteps he made in attempting to get his message across. Westside Boogie’s album didn’t make those same mistakes. More Black Superheroes is what I wanted Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers to be. As Dylan Green shared in his Pitchfork review:
“Like Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Superheroes is a concept album from a thirtysomething California rapper putting themselves through musical therapy. What distinguishes the project is Boogie’s earnestness, which makes his struggles feel tangible.”
I love on “LOLSMH II” when a woman’s voice comes in between the verses and says, “It ain’t no way you still a bitch ass nigga and you be in therapy.” Unfortunately, I hear me saying those words to myself more often than probably healthy. But it’s real! I also love that on the next song, “CAN’T EVEN LIE,” we get a top-tier Soulja Boy verse with the most Soulja Boy bar: “Got rich off computer, bitch.” I could keep going but my last shoutout goes to Mamii for her vocals on “NONCHALANT.” Without a doubt one of my top songs of the year. Truly perfect melodies.
Coco & Clair Clair: Sexy
I recently read an interview Steffanee Wang did with Coco & Clair Clair for Nylon where Coco shared, “I feel like our music is… We can’t even say what genre it is. We have a hard time describing it, so I feel like other people have a harder time digesting it.” That was me. When I first listened to Sexy, I had no idea what to make of the Atlanta duo’s music. It didn’t help that the intro track “Cherub” starts with Coco saying:
“Fuck the NRA, but I’ll blow your fucking house out
With a gun, baby, I don’t give a fuck, your lights out”
Coco then follows this up in the second verse with:
“Rapping on this Runescapе type beat
Thinking ‘bout someone who’s been tryna try me
Stay steady eyein me, is that a glizzy or you happy
To see me”
As my friend Carter DM’d me, “It’s like, super tongue in cheek, silly ass pop music. I love it.” In their Nylon interview, Coco confirmed, “I guess it looks effortless because we’re just having fun doing what we love to do.” Now, when I listen to Sexy, that’s what I hear and I keep wanting more. Clair Clair’s hooks are infectious with my favorite performance coming on “Lamb” featuring Porches, which is one of the best songs of the year. I also love on “Bitches” when Clair Clair says, “The only bread you pussies get is a yeast infection.” Coco & Clair Clair follow in the Atlanta tradition of writing bars you immediately want to share online, theirs feeling more like viral tweets or Tumblr posts than Instagram captions.
BabyTron: Bin Reaper 3
BabyTron was another new artist for me this year and quickly became one of my favorites. I heard Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli from The New York Times drop BabyTron’s name for the first time on Popcast. When I finally got around to pressing play on Bin Reaper 3, the first thing I noticed was how fast the beats, and in turn BabyTron’s raps, were. For the Perfectly Imperfect newsletter, Coscarelli shared about BabyTron’s music and described it as “punchline Detroit rap about scamming over sped-up ’80s samples,” which is perfectly put. Bin Reaper 3 features starkly recognizable samples of Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” on “Wake Tf Up” and Kurtis Blow’s “Basketball” on “AirTron,” a song on which BabyTron drops 18 NBA players’ names. As an avid basketball fan, I’m a sucker for obscure NBA references, and BabyTron delivers.
A few of my favorites:
“Spikes on the Loubs look like a porcupine
Feel like D. Mitch, flying ‘round with the .45” – Myspace“Need a jersey that say, “Maravich,” how I pistol tote
Why the fuck he didn’t shoot? I think his pistol broke” – Myspace“See my mans tryna cross me, all them fake vibes
Had to stand over dog like AI” – Drake & Josh“Smoking Scottie Pippen in a pair of Mikes
If it’s up, boy, I’m Gerald Green, heard you scared of heights” – AirTron
Reminiscent of the Blog Era days, and in the same vein as Griselda, BabyTron rapidly releases music and visuals to match—dropping both Bin Reaper 3 and MegaTron this year on top of four mixtape releases last year. Having recently received shoutouts from Detroit rappers Boldy James and Tee Grizzley on the RapCaviar Podcast, BabyTron has a bright future ahead. Until his next release, I’ll keep watching his freestyle on Kenny Beats’ The Cave and thinking about these bars on “8th Wonder of the World”:
“Wouldn’t change a thing about the journey, shit, it made me me
I only had one plan, not no ABC
I knew I’d be a rapper, I was circling anything on that ACT”
Bad Bunny: Un Verano Sin Ti
Back in June, my little brother graduated from high school. And of course, we had a dance party to celebrate. My dad is Jamaican, and my stepmom is Puerto Rican. So it wasn’t a matter of if Bad Bunny would get played; the questions were more like “when?” and “how many times?” Un Verano Sin Ti had just dropped a month prior and everyone was still finding their favorite songs. That night, the crowd favorite was “El Apagón.”
The song starts, “Puerto Rico está bien cabrón, ey, está bien cabrón,” which translates to “Puerto Rico’s fucking great, hey, it’s fucking great.” When the track first begins, Bad Bunny’s cadence is steady and measured for a little over a minute until the song bursts open at the 2:15 mark.
¡Puerto Rico está bien cabrón, está bien cabrón!
Immediately, every one on the dance floor started jumping around, clawing at one another, yelling along with whoever was closest to them. Bad Bunny’s music makes me want to be near my people. His upbringing is so evident throughout Un Verano Sin Ti as he bounces between different sounds and deliveries. Another household favorite is “Tití Me Preguntó.” At least once a day most days, Elizabeth and I will look at each other and say, “Selfie, say ‘cheese,’ ey!” Un Verano Sin Ti is an album that will be showing us new facets of itself for a long time, into 2023 and beyond.
Beyoncé: RENAISSANCE
I won’t say much here because I’ve written about RENAISSANCE in two essays this year: one about “CHURCH GIRL,” sexuality, and the Black church, and another on “HEATED” and Beyoncé and Drake’s mutual admiration for each other. You can read them here and here. I will, however, highlight the homie Kayla’s words from my favorite essay of the year, I Feel Like Falling in Love, about “CUFF IT” and the boundaries that free us:
“I believe Cuff It is a testament to the space that is created when the necessary conditions for playfulness have been honored.”
RENAISSANCE feels like an exercise in playfulness. For a monumental artist who’s often perceived as being all about her business, it’s refreshing to hear Beyoncé let loose on this album and fully take on a sonic aesthetic we’d never heard from her before.
“What I’m really wrestling with here is that it does not feel like a coincidence that one of Beyoncé’s most sonically playful albums — one that fizzes right on the tongue, crackles right at the feet — is also one of her most meticulously crafted,” Kayla writes. “The sequencing of the album is flawless, as each song melts into the next the way leaves take to September.”
“BREAK MY SOUL,” a single I didn’t love when I first heard it, takes on new life as “CUFF IT” and “ENERGY” flow seamlessly into it, rounding out a DJ set for the gods. That three-track run refuses to remove its foot from my neck. And that’s okay. As Kayla closes her essay, “I think Beyoncé knows love requires an annihilation of sorts, knows we will survive it, knows we might even be in the mood for it.”
Pusha T: It’s Almost Dry
We couldn’t find an Uber. Elizabeth, Mary, and I drove two hours to Cleveland for Kid Cudi’s Moon Man’s Landing music festival and got to the hotel with only a few minutes to spare before we needed to leave to ensure we got there in time for Pusha T’s set. We stopped at Grandpa’s Cheesebarn on the way, but of course we did. It’s the Cheddar Church. After 10 minutes of trying to get a ride, we finally snagged a Lyft. The driver darted between cars on the highway, took backroads downtown, and got us to the festival right as Pusha T was performing “Let The Smokers Shine The Coupes.”
I don’t know if you’ve ever walked up on a Pusha T festival set as he’s rapping in front of a DJ booth made to look like stacks of packaged narcotics, but it’s a top-five feeling in life. Euphoric, really. It’s Almost Dry captures Pusha T at the peak of his powers. Queue his maniacal laugh on “Open Air.” His crack raps are better than ever, and we even get an always-welcome Clipse mini reunion on “I Pray For You.” Earlier this year, I wrote about Pusha T and Malice coming together for a set at Pharrell’s Something in the Water music festival. While we didn’t get that kind of moment at Cudi’s festival in Cleveland, Pusha T’s set solidified for me that It’s Almost Dry will be in rotation for years to come.
Ethel Cain: Preacher’s Daughter
Ethel Cain is my favorite introduction of 2022. Shoutout to the homie Emme for putting me on. Since I pressed play on Preacher’s Daughter for the first time, I immediately felt emotionally connected to her music. “American Teenager” sounds like so many of the songs I heard at my megachurch in high school but the lyrics feel more like something I’d utter now, years removed from my last church visit:
“Jesus, if you’re there, why do I feel alone in this room with you?”
Whenever I play Preacher’s Daughter while working or getting ready for bed, I always look forward to the text from Elizabeth, “Are you listening to worship music again?”
Yes. Yes, I am. And I’m worshipping at the altar of Mother Cain. And by “worshipping,” I mean I’m lying on the floor trying to stop myself from crying listening to “A House in Nebraska”:
“Your mama calls me sometimes
To see if I’m doing well
And I lie to her
And say that I’m doing fine
When really I’d kill myself
To hold you one more time”
Smino: Luv 4 Rent
Luv 4 Rent soaked into my day-to-day like rich double-butter moisturizer in freshly washed curls. In Tirhakah Love’s interview with Smino for Vulture, he writes, “That stewardship of self both in hair and skin is rooted in the very same familial bonds grounding [Smino’s] musical acumen.” You can hear the care in Smino’s voice, and among his collaborators, throughout Luv 4 Rent. I find a new favorite song every week but right now I can’t get enough of that three-track run of “No L’s,” “90 Proof,” featuring J. Cole, and “Pro Freak,” with Doechii, another one of my favorite artists from this year, and Fatman Scoop.
Smino feels like one of the artists I embraced more this year because his values seem to align closely with mine. On the topic of fame in his Vulture interview, Smino says, “I don’t give a fuck about none of that shit. But it’s just happening… So it’s like if you don’t want something and you get it, it’s a blessing. I must be supposed to do something with it.” Smino continues, “Tryna use my influence for more than just making people make music different. I want people to make different decisions.”
Luv 4 Rent helps me imagine what music can be, what hip-hop can be.
“You gotta tear shit down to build shit up.”
Stormzy: This Is What I Mean
Free. That’s the word I’ve heard most when people talk about how Stormzy sounds on This Is What I Mean. I’ve never been big into Stormzy’s music but the homie Nathan, a big fan of UK rap and R&B, anticipated this would be one of his favorite projects of the year—and the album definitely exceeded my expectations. From the first time I listened to “Fire + Water,” I knew I was witnessing something special.
Nathan wrote about Stormzy’s emotional vulnerability on This Is What I Mean in another one of my favorite essays from this year:
“In a world of ‘fuck that bitch’ and a million Drake records about being devious about your ex, it is quite refreshing to hear a man say ‘I love you, I always will because we had something special and that means something.’”
In the same vein as Tyler, The Creator’s IGOR, Stormzy, content with not having to rap or be the focal point on every song, approached This Is What I Mean with one idea he wanted to execute masterfully and it feels like he made this album exactly how he wanted to. I know he has to be proud with how this project came together.
“You’re now tuned into my magnum opus” – My Presidents Are Black
Honorable Mentions:
Listen to my favorite songs from my favorite albums of 2022:
