1) Murs/9th Wonder Sweet Lord
(Record Collection)

2) Atmosphere God Loves Ugly (Rhymesayers)

3) Dälek Gutter Tactics (Ipecac)

4) X-Clan Mainstream Outlawz
(Suburban Noize)

5) Cappadonna Slang Prostitution
(ChamberMusik Records)

Thanks to Luis at Amoeba Music San Francisco for supplying this week's Hip-Hop Top FIve chart of the best selling albums of the week at the Haight Street store where the new number one is the album Sweet Lord by Murs and 9th Wonder. It was recorded about two years ago by the Los Angeles emcee and the North Carolina producer but not first released until a few months when it was made available as a digital download only; the album is only just now available to buy on CD. 9th Wonder, who is one of the best and most in-demand hip-hop producers today, and Murs, who is among the brightest and most gifted lyricists in the genre, have worked together before. Most recently they collaborated on a few tracks off of Murs' major label debut Murs For President, released on Warner in late September. In the studio they have a wonderful chemistry. As Murs raps on the Sweet Lord track "Are You Ready?" -- "Welcome ye'all to the 9th Wonder, Murs' dream. Ghetto music with a purpose..two of the world's most respected musicians are now at work. I suggest you listen."

The rest of the ten track album is really, really good (you wouldn't expect less from the talented duo) and features such other standout songs as "Free," "It's For Real," and "Nina Ross." "Nina Ross," which is a very clever song, is one of those great hip-hop tracks that draws you in thinking it is (yet) another tale of a hip-hop guy scamming on girls or (in this case) on the one girl, Nina Ross. Instead Murs flips things up in this engaging tale. And as the story unfolds it turns out that Nina is the one in control of the situation and that the guy is the one been taken advantage of -- or rather being taught a lesson for his past sexist & explloitive attitudes & deeds towards women.

1) Q-Tip The Renaissance (Motown/Universal)

2) Common Universal Mind Control (Geffen)

3) 88 Keys The Death of Adam (Decon)

4) E40 The Ball Street Journal (Sic Wid It/Warner)

5) Atmosphere God Loves Ugly (Rhymesayers Entertainment)

Thanks to Inti at Amoeba Music Berkeley for supplying this week's Hip-Hop Top FIve chart of the best selling albums of the week. As with both other Amoeba stores, the current Q-Tip and Common albums are both still selling steadily. So too are 88 Keys and the "Ambassador of the Yay Area," E40. In addition to the former Jive Records artist's first release through Warner, E40 is also one of the 40 odd artists featured on the fantastic new hip-hop rooted but musically diverse compilation N.A.S.A. The Spirit of Apollo on Anti (more on this release later). Not on this chart but still selling well at Amoeba Berkeley, as well as elsewhere, and coming in at a close number 6, is Kayne West's 808s & Heartbreak (Roc-A-Fella Records). "I really like that album," said Inti from Amoeba, adding that, "It's a concept album and I always appreciate concept albums. And people are loving it and buying it."
 
This week's Top Five's newest chart entry, Atmosphere's God Loves Ugly, is in fact a reissue of the relatively slept-on 2002 release by the superb Minneapolis, Minnesota duo comprised of Slug (emcee) and Ant (beats). Atmosphere's stellar last album When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold (Rhymesayers) was the top selling hip-hop album at Amoeba Music for 2008. As time goes on and mainstream hip-hop gets more redundant and repetitive, it seems unique voices like Slug's (an intelligent, insightful emcee with a real gift for storytelling and flipping the script in a truly original way) over the dense innovative beats of Ant, rise to the top to get the attention they rightfully deserve.

Funny how time flies by. Already it is eleven long hip-hop years since Minneapolis, Minnesota hip-hop duo Atmosphere, comprised of producer Ant and emcee Slug (L-R in photo left), responsible for putting the Twin Cities firmly on the hip-hop map, dropped their debut album, 1997's Overcast!.

Last Tuesday they dropped their fifth studio album (and finest release to date): When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold on Rhymesayers Entertainment.

As you can imagine with this brand new album just dropping, both members of Atmosphere are pretty busy, caught up in their current tour which hits LA and San Francisco next week.  They will stay that way for much of the year as they promote this new release.  But in the past few days I had the opportunity to catch up with Slug, via email, to ask him about hip-hop, the new album, the word on a future Felt (with     MURS) album, and how it feels to be going strong eleven long hip-hop years later.  Did he ever envision himself being where he is now in his career?  "Ha. Yeah. I think our expiration date was somewhere in 2002 but I'm not complaining," he replied.  "I'll keep going 'til I get fired or replaced by a younger stronger, more attractive idiot."

 "Our approach musically was different.  We wanted to find a bigger but more minimal sound for this album," he says of how When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold is unlike previous Atmosphere releases, adding that,  "Lyrically, I wanted to write about other people's problems for once."  The new 15 track album (avail in two different packaged CD versions) is rich in ever-engaging, flawed character driven, tales, many tackling the issues of parenthood, like "In Her Music Box" and "Shoulda Known."  In the latter song Slug raps:

A quick glance at this week's Hip-Hop Top Five charts (all below) from the Berkeley, San Francisco, & Hollywood Amoeba Music locations (thanks respectively to Tunde, Luis, & Marques Newson) further proves what I've been feeling all along this year: that hip-hop is in one of the most exciting and healthiest states that it's been in for a minute. To my ears, nearly every new hip-hop full-length release dropping these days is quality shit. Sure, there's a few lemons here and there, but mostly new 2008 hip-hop is more likely to be on hit than sound like shit.

Another glance at these new rap charts also reveals that hip-hop has arrived at perhaps its most richly diverse stage in its 30 plus years.  It's as if in 2008 hip-hop has all grown up, multiplied, and gone forth and conquered the world (of music) with a wide range of sounds all qualifying as hip-hop today.  From the stripped down, style of Minneapolis' Atmosphere, to the bouncy hip-hop of the Bay Area's Lyrics Born (pictured above) with its funk foundation, to the trippy sounding Danger Mouse-produced new Gnarls Barkley, to the straight-up hard turntable hip-hop beats and cuts of DJ Quest, to the twisted soulful, ten-track, mostly instrumental,  grooves of the new one from the late J-Dilla -- a hell of a lot of musical territory is being covered under the hip-hop umbrella of '08.

HIP-HOP TOP FIVE @ AMOEBA MUSIC BERKELEY

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