Best rap album of 2018

Derek Jambor ’20, Business/ Ad Manager

The year of 2018 has been an exciting year for hip hop, with new albums dropping from Lil Wayne, Travis Scott, Juice Wrld, Post Malone, and many other popular artists. Many people had debates on what album was the best of 2018 so far, and the pool results varied. The people were given four options which included  Carter V by (Lil Wayne), Goodbye & Good Riddance by (Juice Wrld), Astroworld by (Travis Scott), and ****bongs & Bentleys by (Post Malone). I left the poll out for one day, and after the results were finalized, it came out to be 35 percent thought Carter V, 27 percent thought “Astroworld”, 9 percent thought Goodbye & Good Riddance was the best, and 29 percent thought ****bongs and Bentleys.

To most people, these results were not a surprise since Carter V has had so much hype, and it lived up to it. Some rappers tend to build up for their albums in order to increase sales, but they cannot live up to the hype. Therefore, all the albums besides Carter V did not win the poll because they had too much hype.

Junior Jacob Newman said “Carter V was the best album of 2018,” when asked why he thinks it is the best, Newman said, “His flow is really good, and he is my favorite artist.” Clearly, lots of other people felt the same way as him since Carter V won with 35 percent of the vote. That was Lil Wayne’s first album dropped since 2011, and it exceeded fans’ expectations, and this played a big part as to why his album landed on the top spot. The Carter V had a meaning behind his songs. For example, he sang about his mom a lot because he really cared about him, and she raised him to the man he is today.

A lot of people thought that the other albums were somewhat overrated, and were not as good as they thought they would be. They all had similar beats, and were not very strong lyrically. In order to produce a good album, you have to be able to have something that people will always enjoy listening too. Granted some of the songs on those albums are fire, but you have to have more than just two or three. For example, Astroworld from Travis Scott had only a couple songs that really caught people’s attention. These songs were “Sicko Mode” and “Yosemite”. He created good beats for both songs, and wrote strong lyrics for both. Students everyday continue to listen to those songs. It was a shame that he only had a couple good songs on the album considering it took him three years to construct the album.

All in all, the people have spoken, and it was clear that Carter V has so far been the best rap album of 2018.

Photo courtesy of Hip Hop XD