1)  Messy Marv and Berner Blow (Blocks and Boat Docks) (Bern One Entertainment)

2) Exile Am/Fm (Traffic)

3) Camu Tao King of Hearts. (Fat Possum/Def Jux)

4) Cut Chemist Sound of the Police (A Stable Sound/Soul Kitchen)

5) Tha Dogg Pound 100 Wayz (Gangsta Advisory Recordingz Inc)

I would not be surprised if you were to look up the word prolific in the dictionary -- at least in the Bay Area rap dictionary -- and a picture of Messy Marv popped up beside the definition. The longtime Bay Area rapper has been consistently releasing new material at such an astonishing rate that it would appear that he never sleeps, never leaves the studio. If you recall just two short weeks ago the new Messy Marv overseen SF collection Thizz City was on the Amoeba Top Five chart. Now this week Marv is back with another new collaborative release, Blow (Blocks and Boat Docks), which shot straight to number one at the San Francisco Amoeba. Released on Bern One Entertainment, this collaboration with Berner features Messy Marv on every track, and is a sequel to their joint project Blow, released late '09. As the title and album cover above implies, this more of that drug slanging school of rap music.

As proven by the entries on the new Top Five Hip-Hop Charts from each of the three Amoeba Music locations (Berkeley, SF, Hollywood -- charts below by Tunde, Jason Chavez, & Marques Newson) hip-hop is very much alive and well. 

Not only that, but hip-hop, a genre known for its high turnover and tendency for chewing up and spitting out artists after a short shelf life, is instead demonstrating love for several longtime hip-hoppers with new releases. 

These include Prodigy, who started out rapping with Mobb Deep potna Havoc two long decades ago, The Roots, who've just dropped their ninth album, and E40 who is celebrating twenty years as a rap recording artist and just released the new Sick Wid It Umbrella: The Complete Second Season rap compilation with its appropriate Sopranos styled cover.

The Roots, who just get better and better as time evolves, have just released their ninth album Rising    Down. It's their eight studio album and second for Def Jam, and it's in big demand with music fans. The  Philadelphia based hip-hop band, who tore shit up September '06 at their Amoeba Hollywood instore, is the number one seller at both the LA Amoeba and at Berkeley, while in SF it is a close second to Atmosphere (another longtime hip-hop artist).  Following The Roots' Game Theory album in 2006, the new album culls its title, presumably, from the William T. Vollmann's book Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means, published in 2004. Rising Down features numerous cameos and guest shots ,including Mos Def, Styles P, Talib Kweli, and Common.