Best Rap/Hip-hop in National

Kanye West

'Yeezy owned 2010 insofar as it was impossible to avoid the groundswell of hype surrounding his comeback masterpiece, the humbly-titled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The thing is, though, that his overreach was in many ways a gift. His kitchen-sink approach — lush orchestration, outrageous beats, and a parade of guest stars — made for a must-hear album at a time when the rest of the music world (rap or not) had begun to abandon the album format as an antiquity. That said, the shock tactics of Kanye's Christmas confessional LP Beautiful Dark now seem downright quaint when compared to the subsequent release of Odd Future's Tyler, the Creator's slash-and-burn, offend-a-thon Goblin. In a genre that has always favored the confessional, Mr. West and the OFWGKTA goons have shown that there is always room for some pushing if the goal is to use rap's rawness to reveal the darkness within.

RUNNERS-UP:
2. Ghostface Killah
3. Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA)
4. Rick Ross

by DANIEL BROCKMAN

Kanye West