2005: We Reminisce Over You

posted on Jan 06, 2006

Whoa that was some egg nog. It knocked us out and postponed our year end wrap-up feature all the way to Three Kings Day. Sorry about that but at least you wake up on El Día de los Reyes with this gift in your shoes.

You may not have pondered this before but LISTS are actually the quintessential element of Hip Hop. If you don’t believe me just try naming the other elements without using a list. Because we all have such a huge crush on John Cusack we’re going to do our lists in the style of High Fidelity – Top 5s being the preferred format almost all the way through.

Now (as they used to say back in 2004) Lets Get It Started In Here!


Top 5 Comeback Attempts


Top 5 Comeback Attempts That Nobody Noticed

  1. Pras – Win Lose or Draw
  2. Special Ed – Still Got it Made
  3. Warren G – In the Mid-Nite Hour
  4. Memphis Bleek – 534
    Summer what? Memphis who?
  5. Choppa – Da Real Choppa
    You know who the 5 best MCs from Making the Band were? Dy-lan. Dy-lan. Dy-lan, Dy-lan, Dy-lan.


Top 5 Places that matter more to Hip Hop in 2006 than NYC


Top 5 Places that matter more to ‘06 Hip Hop than NYC

  1. New Orleans
  2. Houston
  3. Connecticut 1979-1983
  4. France
  5. pitchforkmedia.com


Top 5 Shootings of 2005


Top 5 Shootings of 2005

  1. Cam’ron
    In the Lamborghini. By the carjackers with the Dipset tape.
  2. Suge Knight
    At the party. By himself with the reaching for pocket change.
  3. A member of The Game’s entourage
    At the radio station by his boss’s boss.
  4. Obie Trice
    Just under the wire on 12/31. In a random place by a random person with a random gun who didn’t even know Obie was a rapper! Lord, random highway shootings are a breath of fresh air after all the rapper executions.
  5. An aspiring rapper, his cousin and a busboy
    In the pub, by staff employees of The Source who refused to play the rapper’s cd, with the magazine in a tailspin.


Top 5 Books of 2005


Top 5 Books of 2005

  1. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop by Jeff Chang
  2. The Wu-Tang Manual by the RZA
  3. Def Jam, Inc. by Stacy Gueraseva
  4. Rakim Told Me by Brian Coleman
  5. Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984 by Martha Cooper
    Technically this was late 2004 but it’s so good that we’re bending the rules for it.

Top 5 2005 Books We'll Never Read


Top 5 2005 Books We’ll Never Read

  1. Bling Bling: Hip Hop’s Crown Jewels by Minya Oh
    We do still love you Miss Info but come on now. An earnest book on Bling? Minya had the misfortune of releasing this book just before the Death of Bling Bling marked the death of that term for even the cultural late-comers. Two books on bling in one year is two too many.
  2. Hold My Gold : A White Girl’s Guide to the Hip-Hop World by Amanda McCall, Albertina Rizzo
  3. Cosmic Gangsta vs. The Reptilians: Galactic Hip Hop Poetry by Morse Donaldson
  4. Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wangstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America by Bakari Kitwana
  5. The Psychology of Hip Hop by Terence McPhaul
    McPhaul, a Mental Health Therapist and Personal Advisor to some of the world’s biggest entertainers, explains what the media only speculates about. The Psychology of Hip Hop outlines the complex maze of R. Kelly’s sexual indiscretions and the heinous exploitation of Hip Hop phenomenon B2K. In addition, The Psychology of Hip Hop answers questions such as, is Sean “P.Diddy” Combs really a Psychopath?


Top 5 Favorite Lines of 2005


Top 5 Favorite Lines of 2005

  1. At the superbowl Janet Jackson showed me a tit. Other niggas saw it but I felt she showed me it. – 50 Cent “Just a Touch”
  2. I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, maaaan. – Jay-Z “Diamonds are Forever Remix”
  3. When I was fucked up in the game you held me down. I’m still fucked up in the game and you’re holding me down. – Sean Price “I Love You (Bitch)”
  4. Fuck high school, I went to school high … even in junior high, I went to school high – Party Arty “Look at My Life”
  5. They claim you never know what you got ‘til it’s gone. I know I got it, I don’t know what y’all on. – Kanye West “Gone”


Top 5 Adult Contemporary Smooth Lite Artists Masquerading as Rappers


Top 5 Adult Contemporary Smooth Lite Artists Masquerading as Rappers

  1. Common
  2. Nas
  3. Talib Kweli
  4. Snoop Dogg
  5. Slum Village
    6. Honorable Mention: Queen Latifah (who switched it up as a rapper masquerading as an adult contemporary artist)


Top 5 Refreshingly Honest Album Titles of 2005


Top 5 Refreshingly Honest Album Titles of 2005

  1. K-Rino – Worst Rapper Alive
  2. LA Symphony – Disappear Here
  3. Busdriver – Fear of a Black Tangent
  4. Gruf – Hopeless
  5. Greenhouse Effect – Columbus or Bust


Top 5 Spoke-too-Soon Album Titles of 2005


Top 5 Spoke-too-Soon Album Titles of 2005

  1. Vanilla Ice – Platinum Underground
  2. Living Legends – Classic
  3. U-god – Mr. Xcitement
  4. The Perceptionists – Black Dialogue
  5. Vast Aire and Mighty Mi – The Best Damn Rap Show

    6. Honorable Mention: Slim Thug – Already Platinum


Top 5 Events of 2005


Top 5 Events of 2005

  1. Kanye West states “George Bush does not care about black people” on live TV.He could have also added that in fact nobody cares about black people including most black people!
  2. Vida Guerra’s cell phone is hacked and naked pictures of her hit the Internet. By comparison, the Paris Hilton phone hackers suddenly look like the people who brought you an old fruitcake for Christmas. Oddly, mainstream media completely ignores this #2 story of the year.
  3. The Lox threaten to drop a refrigerator on Puffy
  4. agent b vs Guru’s album cover. In March the upcoming Guru album cover leaked on to the web and it was an atrocious Matrix ripoff with Guru holding a dove and a sword. agent b posted a killer parody of it at Guru’s forum. The Guru camp were defensive at first but then were won over by agent b’s critique and changed the cover completely. We still think they should have used the Bruce Willis version.
  5. Celebrity Wig-outs. Yes eating disorders and hitting people with your cell phone are making a comeback but the best wig-out of the year is definitely Tom Cruise’s train-wreck month promoting both War of the Worlds and his perfectly normal relationship with Katie Holmes.


Top 10 Favorite Hip Hop Albums of 2005


Top 10 Favorite Hip Hop Albums of 2005

  1. MF Grimm – Scars and Memories
  2. Beanie sigel – The B. Coming
  3. Kanye West – Late Registration
  4. DJ Muggs vs GZA – Grandmasters
  5. Sadat X – Experience & Education
  6. Sean Price – Monkey Barz
  7. Edan – Beauty and the Beat
  8. Quasimoto – The Further Adventures of Lord Quas
  9. Danger Doom – The Mouse and the Mask
  10. Count Bass D – BEGBORROWSTEAL

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Comments for "2005: We Reminisce Over You"

  1. Hilarious! And the only place I’ve seen give year-end props to the criminally slept-on Sadat X LP.


    — The ILLatino    Jan 6, 01:58 PM   

  2. Fucking hysterical.


    — Ty    Jan 6, 04:42 PM   

  3. Shout out to Hashim at HH Blogs for pointing out this post to me…fam..I had an ephiphnay yesterday between the yak and the stress….bridge the poly to the HH and your year end HH events reminded me of that Idea….good lookin’ fam…I see you…


    — Reninatronix    Jan 7, 01:44 AM   

  4. classic, I’m putting this on my top 5 list of top 5 lists of ‘05.

    sidenote:

    >>Special Ed – Still Got it Made

    where the hell was I for that?


    — eskay    Jan 7, 01:45 AM   

  5. Hillarious. And finally people are calling out Nas for his Double Fantasy-esque happily married milktoast rap of late. Get on that rough shit Esco.

    Although I do claim credit for the first pre-Agent B Guru parody. Sadly it’s doomed to whither in the shadows of messageboarding history, much like a bad Kev Brown/Jay-Z remix album.

    Props on the lists.


    — Sach    Jan 10, 11:52 AM   

  6. i need that parody. i saw that bs cover and was glad when they changed it. your imageshack files dont work


    — de    Jan 13, 08:16 AM   

  7. de,

    I hope too many people didn’t miss it. The ImageShack link worked just last week.

    agent b just sent me his local copy of the image and it’s been posted to our server so the link should work now.


    — rafi    Jan 13, 12:34 PM   

  8. Good lists, but K-Rino is hardly the worst rapper alive.


    — Big Walt    Jan 23, 09:23 AM   

  9. This was hilarious!!! and really on point. haha.


    — mo    Jan 30, 01:44 PM   

  10. great site and great analysis in the review sections.

    pitchforkmedia.com??? these dance rock-electroclash-bailefunk-baltimore house-southern rap-oakland rap-genre riding critics have made their mark in being the tastemaker for indie rock and little else. these reviews written in smug and abstract terms, especially on southern records which are blatantly simple, only give way to what is really going down with indie rock critics; a desperate plea for street cred.

    after only covering underground hiphop of the early 90s with generating far mroe fanfare than actual fans of the genre (ie aesop rock, it’s true) and pretty much deaf, dumb and blind on the mixtape scene and the south overall, now i read comments on the genius of lil wayne and how brilliant he is.

    guess you guys also missed out on that reggaeton thing for a few years, huh?


    — anmolb    Feb 3, 10:22 PM   

  11. Congratulations on totally missing the joke.


    — Rafi    Feb 4, 01:38 AM   

  12. Hilarious list. A little harsh on Common, Nas, et al, no?


    — big fella    Feb 7, 06:29 PM   

  13. my new favorite OhWord post. Almost in time for the ‘06 version


    — Billy Sunday    Aug 31, 11:54 PM