At the end of 2023, many music-related news outlets started declaring that hip-hop was dying or perhaps even dead. The genre had experienced a major surge throughout the 2010s, so great that it beat out rock-n-roll to become the #1 listened-to genre in music in 2018. It’s been able to maintain that ranking every year since, just as streaming music has become the only game in town, but the sizable lead it built up over the other genres has been declining in recent years. The number of chart topping hip-hop songs had dropped significantly while the genre became a reflection of the results of streaming on the whole: there’s less concentration on two or three huge artists while everyone finds and follows their own lane. Popular music on the whole was becoming homogenized.

Amazingly, that wasn’t the end of the story. In 2024, hip-hop saw popularity coalesce around a handful of artists (see Doechii at #18). With that focusing of excitement came the artists driving #1 songs and albums throughout the year, reinvigorating the genre. Tyler Okonma, otherwise known as Tyler, the Creator, was one of this artists that caused the turnaround of events with his phenomenal eighth studio album Chromakopia, coming in at #12.

I’ve been sleeping on Tyler for pretty much his entire career. I mean, I’ve known about him for a long time, but I’ve had very little bandwidth for hip hop on the whole, so I hadn’t paid him much attention. In past years when I’ve latched on to acts like Run the Jewels (#6 in 2020, #28 in 2014), they essentially fulfilled my hip-hop allotment for the year (I’m not proud, it’s just the truth). Not so in 2024 — I listened to more hip hop this year than I have since I first dabbled in the genre as a high school freshman trying to figure out his particular flavor of rebellion by listening to NWA and The Geto Boys in the late 80s.

There’s a few reasons I’ve listened to more hip hop in 2024 than in any previous year, and “the music just got better!” can’t be one of them, no matter how much it may feel like it’s true to me. The simple truth is I seem to have unintentionally allowed hip hop to have a bigger presence in my life. 2024 started with a birthday surprise from my wife, taking me to a listening party centered around Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. (I’d loved his Blonde album, (#4 in 2016) but hadn’t been able to give the earlier album much love, so I re-listened to it a lot in January of 2024.)

Secondarily, the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar leapt over the cultural divide and became a minor obsession for me. There were other smaller beefs (Charlie XCX and Lorde, Tyler and Childish Gambino), but the rift that grew between Drake and Kendrick that began in March of 2024, or back in 2011 depending on where you draw the line, slowly filled every bit of idle time I had, with me reading articles and podcasts (such as the always wonderful Dissect) and other non-music related content. Not only was I listening to more hip hop as a result, I was reading and learning more about it, too.

And likely the biggest reason for there being more hip hop in my life in 2024: my 16-year-old child has found a new love of hip hop, and has been listening to a lot of it recently. Having your teenage child grow into their own musical tastes that are separate from (but hopefully influenced by) your own, and then feeling compelled to talk to you about what they’re finding and listening to — that’s where the magic is. As a proud father who loves music, I’ll fall over backwards to accommodate any music-related ambition from my children. If they love Tyler, the Creator, I’ll be damned if I don’t love Tyler, the Creator, too. If they love Tyler’s past albums, I’ll love those, too (I’m looking at you, IGOR, which is cued up in my earbuds to listen to next).

Thankfully, Tyler is easy to love. Chromakopia is a rich, leaning-forward-into-the-momentum album that is a compelling listen. The number of guest stars on this album is astounding, including Top 31 past favorites Childish Gambino, Thundercat, Doechii, and Inflo, as well as future favorites GloRilla, Lil Wayne, ScHoolboy Q, Santigold, Willow, Daniel Caesar, Sexxy Redd, Teezo Touchdown, and Solange, and at least 20 other people. The production on the album, done by Tyler himself, along with the songwriting and arranging, is all-encompassing.

Hit play on the video above, for the song “NOID,” and you’ll get a taste of what I mean. The song, autobiographically concerned with the paranoia Tyler feels as his fame grows ironically larger, prominently features a sample of the Nambian band Ngozi Family’s song "Nizakupanga Ngozi,” from their 1977 album 45,000 Volts to great effect. Watch closely and you’ll see Ayo Edebiri from FX’s The Bear acting disturbingly psychotic with a gun. “NOID” is my favorite song on the album, so it’s convenient that it’s the only song for which Tyler made a video. “Balloon” featuring Doechii (#18 this year) is my 2nd fave, specifically because of Doechii’s appearance. That girl can do anything.

Nearing the end of the year, on Christmas Day, Tyler released “THAT GUY” – a freestyle remix of “Hey Now” from Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 album GNX, which only itself came out on November 22. Tyler seems to me that he’s mimicking Kendrick’s delivery style on the song. Or maybe my untrained ears are adding something where it’s not needed. Either way, I really like that beat, and Tyler’s verse on top of it is fantastic.

Chromakopia is wonderful. It’s still full of swears, but it’s much less than you’ll find on the Doechii album, if for some reason you found that a bit off-putting in her album. I am looking forward to giving IGOR a chance to ascend my “greatest regrets” list, for having not appeared on the Top 31 of the 2019 list when it really should have. And as for you, if you’ve not heard this new album yet, you know what to do.

Hop to it.

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3.15.20 by Childish Gambino

Time for another digression. “This is America,” a song that came out nearly two years ago (!), is a perfect song. It’s only gotten more perfect as Trump’s presidency has steamrolled over our democracy while our collective blinders to the massive presence of white supremacy have been slowly and then suddenly removed. In the song, Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, brilliantly raps, dances, and displays in the video the symbolism of a hypocritical world that squeezes every last drop of joy and attitude out of black culture for its own selfish amusement while simultaneously pressing its collective knee onto their metaphorical and literal necks.

When the horrific facts surrounding the devastating and extremely avoidable deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of the police surfaced, in what was already shaping up to be an insanely difficult year, the not-really-melting pot of America boiled over. Protests and vigils and marches began happening at regular intervals (monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily depending on where you lived in the country, and even outside of it) and still continue today, albeit on a much smaller scale. The heat of the summer combined with an inability to leave the house due to Covid-19 lockdowns (as well as smoke from months-long west coast wildfires) blended into a literal fever pitch of anger. All the while, “This is America” played in the background in my head.

Things continue to escalate, as our racist president has made it painfully clear that the bigots and nationalists and white supremacists have his full, undivided support. They have been empowered, and they’re coming out of hiding in droves. I’m ashamed at my own surprise at the truth, that this truly is America. This is who we are.

These painful acts that happen again and again with greater and greater frequency, and each day more horrifying than the last — I once was blind, but now I see. This is America. 57% of the white voting population did so for Trump in 2016. Despite four years of constant disgust and disgrace, and despite 20+ million more voters being added to the rosters, that same 57% of whites voted for Trump in 2020. The vast majority of white voters — 73% more than voted for Biden — voted for Trump. This is America. Centuries of oppression and segregation and suffering. This is America.

And Mr. Glover captures it all in the space of 4 minute song.

This truth weighs on my conscience, and I strive to raise my children in a way that opens their eyes to it. I don’t pretend to have the power or knowledge to fix any of it. But I do know I won’t be letting that fucking genie get back in the bottle.

/digression

“This is America” doesn’t appear on 3.15.20, but the song has never appeared on any album. Despite it being the song that has continually bounced around my head throughout 2020, I feature it here as 3.15.20 is Glover’s first album to come out since the release of “This is America.” Plus I needed another opportunity to watch the video.

3.15.20 is Glover’s fourth Childish Gambino album, and only the first to appear on the Bacon Top 31. I suppose I, too, in a way have been coming out from hiding these past four years. The album doesn’t hook you so much as seep into your skin upon multiple listenings. In his review for allmusic.com, Tim Sendra summed the album up well, saying it is:

“a challenging, hooky, mysterious, and odd record that feels like it was built out of pieces left over from a collision between OutKast, David Bowie, Sly & the Family Stone, and Prince. Add in bits borrowed from Flaming Lips, Tyler, The Creator, and Lee Perry, and it’s a mad scientist’s take on modern pop with Glover at the middle alternately crooning with honey-dipped sweetness, rapping menacingly, crying out in pain, and telling tales”

The call-backs to OutKast and Prince are glaring, but it’s the more subtle nudges toward Bowie and Sly that really get you. This is a soundscape more than a cohesive album. “42.26” (most of the songs on the album are titled by the time stamp they exist on the album), previously released on the 2018 Summer Pack EP titled “Feels Like Summer,” is the most radio-friendly song, and well worth the price of admission.

Glover is supremely talented. He has the potential to join the vaunted EGOT crowd. (To date, 16 people have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award. Currently, Glover has only won grammys and emmys, but it wouldn’t be a stretch for him to earn the final two awards needed to complete the set.) He’s a performer, fully aware of his stardom and exploitation of the world around him for his own personal gain. But we’re all better off with him in the world, opening our eyes and reflecting back to us what I and so many other white people have ignored for far too long.

Rewatch the video above, often. Buy 3.15.20. And then use your power (and privilege) to make constant, significant, and lasting change.

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1. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
2. Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
3. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
4. folklore + evermore by Taylor Swift
5. Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault
6. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
7. Shore by Fleet Foxes
8. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger
9. The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens
10. Making a Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest
11. Dreamland by Glass Animals
12. A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
13. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz
14. Mordechai + Texas Sun EP by Khruangbin
15. Introduction, Presence by Nation of Language
16. Free Love by Sylvan Esso
17. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes
18. 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino
19. Women In Music Pt. III by HAIM
20. The Third Mind by The Third Mind
21. Superstar by Caroline Rose
22. Impossible Weight by Deep Sea Diver
23. We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches
24. Ultra Mono by IDLES
25. Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.
26. Thin Mind by Wolf Parade
27. The Loves of Your Life by Hamilton Leithauser
28. Palo Alto (Live) by Thelonious Monk
29. color theory by Soccer Mommy
30. Fall to Pieces by Tricky
31. Quarantine Casanova by Chromeo

Subscribe to the 2020 Bacon Top 31 playlist: Apple Music / Spotify
All Top 31s

#12 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Tyler, The Creator

#18 on the 2020 Bacon Top 31 — Childish Gambino