By Alex Dye

There are two main things to listen for when checking out a hip-hop album: solid rhymes and good beats. And the beats are just as important as the rhymes. They establish the tone and set up the musical landscape that inspires the rapper/emcee. No matter how dope the lyricist is, it will be incredibly difficult for them to carry bad instrumentation. Conversely, good beats can almost always cover up terrible rhymes. It doesn’t make up for them, but it certainly makes them more tolerable. 

A good producer can tell a story through beats, no vocals required. Which is one reason why you can find instrumental versions of many classic hip-hop albums. In the history of hip-hop, the beats were the focus, with DJ’s looping and repeating breaks for the b-boys to dance to, and emcees functioning mostly as hype men. As the medium has grown and evolved, instrumental hip hop has become a genre of its own worth paying attention to. Below are 5 incredible hip-hop (and hip-hop adjacent) albums that have been released this year that deserve your attention. 

Tri Magi by The Lasso, Jordan Hamilton, and The Saxsquatch
Released July 16^th on Mello Music Group

With an album title perhaps referencing the traditional Christmas story of the quest of the Magi seeking a great religious figure, Tri Magi tells the musical journey of three artists as they bring their unique instrumentation to the table and seek after a different kind of groove. Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer The Lasso (who already released a banger this year with 2121) brought together cellist Jordan Hamilton and avante-garde saxophone player The Saxquatch to create an environment that is both perplexingly different and yet not unfamiliar to fans of experimental jazz such as Mile’s Davis Bitches Brew and the works of Ornette Coleman. But unlike the aforementioned artists, Hamilton and The Saxsquatch lay down very clear melodies and hooks which take on the tone of free-jazz when played over the kaleidoscopic background set down by The Lasso. Some of the interesting sounds they create are the Middle Eastern melody line on “Born Tempo,” and the trippy and psych-influenced reverb on “Played Thrice.” The album ends with the track “Aural Flora” which has a wavy fade out and then abrupt slow down, like a record being turned off mid-song. 

The dueling harmonies of Hamilton and The Saxsquatch are striking and demand the listener follow along as they explore the hallucinogenic landscape created by The Lasso. And while the instrumentation leans more into the jazz world, the beats are what flavors this album with hip hop. The Lasso’s true genius here was making something that has a foot in both worlds while also creating something intriguingly new. Check out Tri Magi today on Bandcamp at thelasso-mmg.bandcamp.com and/or order the vinyl from Mello Music Group, released August 20^th. 

Between Days EP by Kiefer

Released April 23^rd on Stones Throw Records

Kiefer is a skilled pianist and producer who studied jazz piano at UCLA. Signed to Peanut Butter Wolf’s Stones Throw Records, which houses Madlib, another artist on this list, Kiefer has found a way to meld his talents on the keys with his love for beat-making. In his EP Between Days, Kiefer toys with traditional jazz chording, progressions, and improvisation overtop of vibe beats to create an album that is simply pleasant. It’s mellow but not sleep inducing. The melodies are smooth and relaxing but far from simple. Listening to Between Days is like drifting in a boat down a calm river. You’re present and aware yet relaxed and at peace.

The instruments used are primarily piano, synth, and drums, with the occasional guest spot (most notably Theo Croker’s fire trumpet solos featured on “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”). 

Switching between clean piano sounds and a variety of interesting synth voicings helps make the individual songs stand out from one another. “Labored Breathing” is probably the most unusual track on the album, alternating between long drawn-out notes and quick staccatos (with peppered in flatline beeping, sounding like, well, a woman in labor and mimicking the slow-fast rhythms of Lamaze breathing.)

Between Days closes with an amazing cover of Roy Ayers’ “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.” The original has deep roots in Hip-Hop history, as it has been sampled by everyone from Dr. Dre to Mary J. Blige to Joey Bada$$ to J. Cole (seriously, if you want to go down a rabbit hole Google “Everybody Loves the Sunshine samples”). Check out Kiefer on bandcamp and look for his newest LP When There’s Love Around to Drop on August 27^th on Stones Throw Records. 

Sound Ancestors by Madlib

Released January 29^th on Madlib Invazion

This next one is a doozy. To label Madlib simply as a “producer” would be a serious injustice. Madlib is like a mad-scientist (no pun intended), bringing together scores and scores of obscure samples gathered from his fiendish crate-digging and mashing them with bonkers beats to create monster mixtapes. He is truly the Beat Konducta (a series of albums he has released). There is no genre he is afraid to flip. Soul, funk, rock, R&B, classical. Madlib even went after the catalogue of legendary jazz label Blue Note on 2003’s Shades of Blue. 

He’s collaborated with some absolutely legendary players in the hip-hop game, including MF DOOM on Madvilliany, J. Dilla on Champion (as Jay Lib), and Freddie Gibbs on Pinata. When not choosing to be himself, sometimes he moonlights as his pitch-tuned alter ego Lord Quas, who is at the same time both hilarious and artistically serious. 

On his 2021 release Sound Ancestors, Madlib partnered with electronic producer Four Tet who was able to clean up and polish his insane creations. In a sea of collaborations, this was a project that truly highlights his genius. On Ancestors, Madlib Goes dives deep into the past to tell a story of the future of Black music. Using jazz interludes, tribal beats, spoken word samples, Latin flavor, soul, and even classical influences, it’s at once densely crafted and very listenable. And it rewards repeat spins. Each time I went through it I found something new to focus in on or another sample to look up. Where else can you hear a flute improvisation solo played overtop of crashing cymbals and call it “hip-hop”?

The album begins with “There is No Time-Prelude” which uses a spacey and galactic phaser effect to set a mysteriously intriguing tone for what is to follow. The next track, “The Call” samples “Bargain Day” from The Twilights in 1969. He flips this British psych rock Christian themed song into a funky head-nodder. 

Standout track “Road of the Lonely Ones” samples obscure 60’s soul group The Ethics haunting melody. “Two for 2-For Dilla” is a shoutout to former collaborator and auteur producer (who will be heavily featured in the next two hip-hop instrumental albums). And “The New Normal” sounds like a demonic synth line from an Atari game. 

As with any Madlib project, he uses samples, samples, samples galore. Yet everything comes together with incredible cohesion, thanks to Four Tet’s mixing and mastering. This album will definitely be making its rounds in the end of the year “best-of” lists, not just for instrumental or hip-hop categories, but for all music. 

You can check out Madlib’s Sound Ancestors at madlib.bandcamp.com and on all major streaming platforms. 

The final two albums on this list are odes to your favorite producer’s favorite producer: J. Dilla. You might wonder, is it overkill to feature two albums covering the same subject? First, each of the artists come at Dilla’s legacy from a unique angle which makes each listening experience different. Second, each of the albums are killer in their own right and deserve attention. And third, you can never spend too much time listening to Dilla and Dilla-inspired projects. 

You might now be asking “What if I’ve never listened to J. Dilla?” Stop what you’re doing right now, put on Donuts, and then come back to the review. 

Okay, now that’s done, even if you’ve never intentionally spun a Dilla record (before now), you’ve surely heard his influence all over the hip-hop landscape since the mid-90’s. 

First up is:

Komfort Food by BoomBaptist, Elaquent, and Juicy the Emissary

Released February 5^th, 2021, independent

Starting with the cover featuring a box of brightly colored donuts and Krispy Kreme font, a fun play on Dilla’s most-acclaimed album Donuts, the producers are clearly approaching this project playfully but with reverence. 

Komfort Food is not a simple tribute album. It is a reworking and reimagining of classic Dilla beats and samples. For instance, Juicy the Emissary takes Dilla-produced De La Soul boom-bap song “Stakes is High” and flips it into a horn-laden jazz track. “Toucan Wing” drops a touching ‘rest in peace,’ a reminder that as we celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the release of Donuts we also remember that it’s been 15 years since Dilla’s untimely death due to complications from lupus. “Wing” ends with a siren sample (Mantronix “King of the Beat”), which is used all over the Donuts album (and is subsequently employed in “Gobstopper). “McNasty in Brazil” gives a Latin flavored take on “McNasty Filth” from the Jaylib project, closing with a loop of the original’s hook, which maintains the power of the original but gives it fresh new life.

One of the strengths of Komfort Food is cohesion. It gathered three producers, from three different places, each approaching the subject matter with his own style, and yet if you didn’t know it, you could easily think this was the work of one artist. Dilla was the master of seamlessly transitioning between tracks, and Komfort Food strives towards and largely succeeds in emulating this feature. 

All of this being said, Komfort Food is a good and proper homage to the master of flipping samples and beats and a jam, even for the Dilla-uninitiated. You can check it out at any of the producers’ bandcamp pages and on all streaming platforms.

SSR45 003/004 by Soul Supreme

Released on July 2^nd, 2021, independent

Soul Supreme is an Amsterdam-based keyboardist and producer whose projects largely focus on reimagining classic hip-hop songs and artists. Released as two 45’s, these 5 tracks are jazz interpretations of Dilla produced tracks that stick closely with the source material.

“Let’s Ride” takes the Q-Tip track, which was already a stellar jazz song featuring a great drum kit beat and clean jazz guitar and reinvents it using keys and trumpet. 

The new version of “Runnin’,” originally by Pharcyde from Labcabincalifornia, sounds like an elevator muzak version of the song (from the funkiest, coolest, best elevator ride of your life). Mix in syncopated beats, synths, flamenco guitar, and a smooth sax solo, and you have something so familiar yet elevated to another level.

His take on “Feelin Good,’” an unreleased Slum Village track that loops a jazzy vocalist singing “you know how I feel,” captures the feeling of the OG loop, adds even more swing (if that’s possible), and cycles through improvisational solos from trumpet and keys.

“Officially in Love” is a mash-up of Jaylib (Dilla and Madlib) “The Official” and Slum Village “Fall in Love.” Supreme drops in the Mantronix “King of the Beat” sample to signal the transition between material, and yet it all feels cohesive. The song ends with a cheeky, Mr. Roger’s-esque piano melody. 

“Still Shinin’” covers the Busta Rhymes track, which layered Busta’s trademark biting vocals overtop of a very understated but brilliant jazz tune. In some ways, although this is maybe the least interesting track musically of the five, it might also be the most important as it brings to the forefront the beauty of Dilla’s original work that was vastly overshadowed by Busta’s voice. 

Soul Supreme does not take as much of a ‘creative license’ with the source material as Komfort Food does. Although the two projects are similar in theme, their methods and goals are different, which results in two very different but equally enjoyable records. You could hear SSR45 003/004 played throughout an afternoon at a coffee shop or as incidental music on NPR and have no idea you were listening to reimaginings of some of the best hip-hop of the 90’s/early 2000’s. Because of the style of Soul Supreme, this may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But I found it to be utterly delightful. You can check out this project at soulsupremerecords.bandcamp.com as well as on other streaming platforms. 

So there you have it, five not-to-be-missed instrumental hip-hop albums released in the first half of 2021. In this list you will find something for everyone, from jazz-heads to old-school boom-bap fanatics, to people who really enjoy riding the elevator for the music. And if these works are any indicators of the creative potential from producers in 2021, we have a lot to look forward to in the coming months.