Snap to It

For the record, the Commish would like to point out his own notable '06 trend: "The return of good albums," he says. "Hip-hop has been lacking in album quality for the last two years, but this fall has been tremendous. Great full-lengths from Jay-Z, Nas, Clipse, Outkast, Game, Snoop and UGK are closing out the year with a bang. Who says albums are dead?"

• 

  Jibbs jabbed in 2006.

Subject(s):

The Year in Music

It was the year of the British — sort of.

In fairness, 2006 can't be counted as the sort of watershed 12 months we witnessed two years ago, when Dizzee Rascal, the Streets and their grimey countrymen planted the Union Jack in hip-hop's bloated American carcass. Mike Skinner was only at three-quarters strength on the Streets' The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living, but his Cockney wisecracks were still more fun than three-quarters of his Yank counterparts. The wee, witty Lady Sovereign — Def Jam's nod to the British invasion — took care of anyone Skinner failed to offend. Meanwhile, one of the most slept-on releases of the year came from UK vets New Flesh. Universally Dirty mashed up dancehall, grime and even soca to give British hip-hop yet another brand-new beat.

It was the year of deep thoughts and the year of partying (and, sometimes, deep thoughts about partying).

There's room for both viewpoints now in hip-hop's increasingly diverse underground, which is good news indeed. Critical darling Spank Rock might have merely made Too $hort safe for all the eggheads who thought they were too $mart for him the first time around, but even so, was there an album more fun in 2006 than the high-concept, low-art Yoyoyoyoyo? Didn't think so.

Fun in their own thoughtful ways were albums from the Bay Area's Ise Lyfe, whose SpreadtheWORD suggests that he might someday take over Mos Def's mantle as hip-hop's activist poet laureate, and Georgia Ann Muldrow, an adventurous Los Angeles artist who reassembles urban music in novel ways on Olesi: Fragments of an Earth. Both discs make great soundtracks for the parties in your mind.

It was the year of self-promotion.

Well, every year in hip-hop is the year of self-promotion, but today's kids certainly have it down. Ask Jibbs his favorite hip-hop trend of '06, and he barely blinks before answering.

"I would definitely say that the hottest trend," he offers, starting to chuckle, "was people that got their chains hangin' low."