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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NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK

Jazz is very slowly working its way into my listening habits. I’m still put off by a lot of the more freeform works, but when it provides some recognizable structure I’m able to really enjoy it (see Thelonious Monk’s Palo Alto Live, #28 in last year’s Top 31). The lone jazz entry in this year’s Top 31 comes from an unexpected duo: 22-year-old Frenchwoman Domi Louna and 19-year-old Texan JD Beck, known collectively as DOMi & JD BECK.

The cool kids / aliens have been making music together since they met in 2018, when they were presumably 15 and 18 year old prodigies in their respective fields. You could be forgiven for expecting their music to be the result of some computer-based output, but then you see them perform. Check out their Tiny Desk Concert from August. The frenetic pace of Beck’s drum playing and DOMi’s keyboards, it’s all real and very analog.

The duo were picked up pretty early on by Anderson .Paak, who featured them as backing musicians starting in 2019. There’s more early evidence of their work together behind Thundercat and Ariana Grande in this Aqua Teen Hunger Force video from the all-streaming 2020 Adult Swim Festival. That video is so enjoyable to watch, both DOMi and JD BECK, as well as Thundercat’s leadership and Grande’s nonchalance. Pitchfork labeled the duo “the 100 gecs of jazz,” which feels spot on.¹

The album contains a who’s who of guest stars, from the aforementioned Anderson .Paak and Thundercat, to Mac DeMarco, Busta Rhymes, and Snoop Dogg, and jazz luminaries Herbie Hancock and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. The duo also have the power of Anderson .Paak’s production company behind them. See the video for “TAKE A CHANCE” shown above. It was directed by .Paak, and features he and the duo on an album-related heist.

The duo’s screen appearances are fun and nonsensical, and make me love them more. On top of the video above, another high-profile video was created for their song “SMiLE.” The video was also directed by Anderson .Paak, and stars a heavily made up Mac DeMarco as jazz musician McBriare Lanyon, the fictional mentor of DOMi and JD Beck, and for whom they are throwing a surprise birthday party. Thundercat, the late comedian Teddy Ray, and a slew of .Paak-related folks all show up to the party.

Give NOT TiGHT a listen. It might not be your cup of tea, but it’s hard to argue with DOMi and JD BECK’s musicianship and ease with which they flow out of your headphones.

^{1. 100 gecs were criminally underrated by me, appearing at #29 in 2019. They should have been in the top 10 that year. I’ll probably look back on this DOMi & JD BECK review and feel the same in a few years.↩}

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27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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

#26 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — DOMi & JD BECK