1) Lil Wayne  The Carter IV (Cash Money/Universal)

2) The Throne (Jay-Z & Kanye West)
     Watch The Throne (Def Jam) 

3) Casual The Hierophant (F.B.M.G.)

4)  Game The R.E.D. Album (Geffen)

5)  Smoke DZA Rolling Stoned (Fat Beats)

Again this week much thanks go to E-Lit at Amoeba Music in Berkeley for taking time to talk with the Amoeblog for the latest Hip Hop Top Five chart entries plus an overview of the numerous new underground hip-hop releases, in both CD and vinyl formats.  These include Open Mike Eagle's Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes, the full-length by Candy's 22 in CD format, A Girl and Her Gun ("drugged out country & western rap music" - as E-Lit describes the unusual rap release), the ever prolific Blu's (of Blu & Exile fame) latest remastered version of Jesus, and Kirby Dominant & Factor's Champagne Nightmares on Fake Four Recordings. Scroll down a bit to check out the video for the album track "Orca" off the duo (also named Champagne Nightmares) off this fine latest pairing of the unique East Bay emcee with the Canadian producer who first joined creative forces back in 2004 on One Way Ticket on Side Road Records. Their new video was directed and produced by Stuey Kubrick in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

2009 was another good year for Bay Area rap/hip-hop, with a string of new releases dropping over the past twelve months, including the thirty four full-length releases listed below. Appearing in no particular order, these choices are based mainly on releases culled from the Amoeba Music San Francisco Weekly Hip-Hop charts compiled by Luis at the Haight Street store over the past year. Not every single Bay Area hip-hop release is included here (feel free to nominate any worthy omissions in the comments below), but many of them are, and they give a good sense of the vibrant Bay Area music scene for the year of 2009.

Three albums appeared on early 2009 Amoeba Hip-Hop charts but did not make the list below since they technically were each 2008 releases (released late last year):  E40's The Ball Street Journal, released on Sic Wid It and distributed through Warner Brothers; San Quinn's From A Boy To A Man (SMC/Fontana); and Keak da Sneak & San Quinn's Welcome To Scokland on Ehustl, which combined the best of "the Sco" (San Francisco) with the "O" (Oakland) on an album that was extremely popular in the Bay in '09.

North Oakland rapper Mistah F.A.B. may not have released a new solo album in 2009 but he did pop up on countless other artists' releases over the past year, including most recently on The Grouch's just released Three Eyes Off The Time. Mistah F.A.B  appears on the CD track "Already" with hella popular Fresno emcee Fashawn. F.A.B. also appeared on Fashawn's critically & commercially acclaimed official debut album, following a string of mixtapes, Boy Meets World on Loud, which was a hit at all three Amoebas. Mistah F.A.B. also released joint full-length projects in 2009 with both the Alchemist and Glasses Malone, with whom he unleashed The Sideshow CD.