2011: A year Music Was Released and Listened To

Some of the staff of 100GoMW,YLS discussing this year's selections

2011 was a year much like any other year, but at the same time like a year all it's own...jk I'm not going to bore you with some long-winded intro. Since David Rees has covered everything else in his 2011 lists, we might as well breakdown what 2011 had to offer in Bay Area raps:

Things That Happened This Year:

-Sadly, Killa Keise was murdered in Novemeber of this year at the age of 28. Rest In Peace.

-Two new Mob Figaz songs came out with all five members on each track, but the promise of an all-new Mob Figaz album continued to fade just as the ceremony of innocence is drowned as we emerge from childhood (idk what that means).

-Kreayshawn became an internet sensation with "Gucci Gucci" and also became the first rapper out of the Bay to get a major label deal since Mistah FAB signing with Atlantic in '07 (oof).

 2011: The year you had to have a strong opinion about this person

-Roach Gigz began garnering national attention with the release of the excellent Roachy Balboa 2 and the mediocre Bitch, I'm a Player.

-Joe Blow emerged as Bay Area's brightest young star with the release of his stellar debut album, You Should Be Paying Me.

-Spice 1 released a new song and not enough people paid attention to it because Spice 1 is rapping fast about shooting people just like the good old days and it is everything that is right about Bay Area rap.

-Scoob Nitty got busted for counterfeiting and is looking at hella years behind bars. This dickhead felt the need to have a big laugh about it.

-Cellski released his first album in two years and it was pretty good.

-E-40 released two more Revenue Retrievin' albums and they were very enjoyable.

-Brotha Lynch Hung released part two of his three part album series about the "coathanga strangla" and it was good. Then he started beefing with Tech N9ne, but then they made up I guess?

LOL at this release date, only one of these releases made it out this year

-The Jacka released three new albums: one mediocre album, one bad album (his first bad album, for the record) and one okay album.

-HD had a noteworthy year, releasing five solid albums all while struggling to stay out of jail/not get shot again. 2011 also marked the rise of his Bearfaced Gang, whose talents were well displayed on the album, Finer Thangs.

-Lil Rue got kicked out of Livewire and gave the most unintentionally hilarious interview of the year.

-DJ Fresh had a productive year, releasing a handful of great albums (T-Nutty, HD, Shady Nate, etc.) and a handful of okay albums (Yukmouth, D-Lo, Keak Da Sneak, etc.).

Sorry Bro!

-DB Tha General continued to gain popularity and this blog continued to ignore him :(

-Main Attrakionz had a breakthrough year and quickly became indie music darlings all over the internet, with the release of 808s and Dark Grapes II marking the peak of their popularity and critical acclaim.

-Riding in on that Main Attrakionz wave was Shady Blaze, a fellow member of the Green Ova camp, who released tons of material this year and quickly became one of the most promising young rappers out of the Bay.

unrelated pic

-Messy Marv's shenanigans continued this year. He started beef with Too Short, which resulted in a handful of diss songs and then JT The Bigga Figga got involved for no particular reason.

-Lil B's popularity peaked with the release of I'm Gay (I'm Happy), but mostly because psuedo-intellectual "music journalists" wanted to use the album title as a jump off point for writing 2,000 word essays about homophobia in hip-hop culture. The hype around him has been waning since that release.

Best of 2011:

-Album cover of the year:

 Dope album cover. Too bad the music itself was mediocre at best.

-Internet Comment of the Year About Rap Music:
"Rap music is the worst rapper alive. people saying worst rapper alive are the worst rapper alive" (via hipsterrunoff.com).

-Internet Comment of the Year About Lil B:

-Music Video of the Year:


To be honest I don't really watch any rap videos because they rarely are anything more than a rapper standing outside of their shitty neighborhood with a bunch of dudes (holding a fistful of money optional) lip synching the words to their song. Seeing what sort of fashion rappers are sporting does not interest me because I am not a homogaysexual and seeing shots of decrepit neighborhoods does not fascinate me because I am not a sheltered white teenager from Palm Beach, FL. With that said this video is cool because there is a concept and violence and shit.

-Best rap line of the year:
"I got a cold stare, hoes love that shit." from:


MondreM.A.N. "Is That Yo Life"



-Best Picture of an Asian Kid in a Plastic Bag of 2011:
This is my favorite internet picture of the year for reasons I will never be able to fully explain.

-Rapper name of the year: Tie between Lil Goofy and Young Ridiculous, both are equally awesome. Be on the lookout for Big Preposterous' new mixtape dropping in early 2012.

-Sacramento Rap Song of the Year:

T-Nutty "Young Criminals"



Sacramento rap had a solid year in 2011, with the realese of quality albums by Brotha Lynch Hung, X-Raided, T-Nutty, and Hollow Tip & Smigg Dirtee. This song right here has got that futuristic retro mob sound, if you know what I'm saying.

Top Ten Songs of 2011:

Source sample

1. Lee Majors ft. T-Wayne, The Jacka & Yong Lox "Red Wine"

Who would have thought looping the first 10 seconds of a Lady Gaga song backed by an 808 drum beat would result in the biggest Bay Area club banger of 2011? There is a remix of this song with more popular rappers on it, but it's not as good and all of the rappers just name different things that are red in their verses for some reason. Lee Majors had a great year in 2011. Too bad this song will never get too big because it copyright infringes the shit out of a popular music artist.

2. Young Chris ft. Lil Kev "Trippin'"

Do you know who Young Chris is? Probably not. He is a member of Young Hustlaz, a rap group that is practically unknown outside of the fact that Young Gully is a member. On this song, Young Chris makes the perfect pop-rap song for 2011, channeling all the cocky bravado of the most popular rappers on the radio, without ever taking himself too seriously or trying to emulate self-importance (i.e. Drake and Kanye). The ironic part is that this radio-ready track is probably the most obscure of the ten; it hasn't even made it's way onto youtube.

3. HD ft. Hen Sippa & Lil Rod "Chickens"

While "Claustrophobic" off Fresh, best displayed HD's impressive songwriting skills, "Chickens" showed HD's talent for making excellent energetic mob music  (plus "Claustrophobic" only had a single "SMACK," while this song has the full "SMACK SMACK" ad lib). There's something really endearing about Hen Sippa as well, with his monotone, sloppy raps revolving solely around drinking cough syrup. The whole Bearfaced Gang display a lot of raw talent, all of their songs sound rough around the edges, including this track, but it somehow still works perfectly.
4. E-40 "Takin' Em Back"

The best 40 Water song of the year featured E-40 being E-40 for three and a half minutes over a beat that has little more than a thumping bass line. No other rapper can fill out a song like Earl, any other rapper over a beat like this one would be hella boring. Mad props to E-40 making music this amazing this late in his career.

5. San Quinn "Big Bank"

San Quinn had a really weird year, especially when you consider the release of The Redemption of Quincy Brooks, which was easily the worst album I listened to this year. San Quinn has always had a good-guy rap persona, but that has slowly been changing these past couple years and is perfected on this song, in which Quinn raps about kidnapping children and mailing their cut off fingers to collect ransom over a enormous, triumphant beat. If San Quinn were to release an album full of material in this same vein as this next year it will easily be the album of the year.
There is a music video for this song too, which features San Quinn looking really stiff and so high he can barely keep his eyes open.

6. Joe Blow "The Dopest"

The Mob Figaz musical output this year was iffy at best this year, but The Jacka's protege seemed to carry the torch of making mob music that is equal parts introspective, intelligent, grimey and hard as fuck. The amount Joe Blow developed as an artist in 2011 is downright impressive, going from forgettable features on Jacka's releases to one of the best Bay albums of the year. In an interview last year he explained that his rap name stems from the fact that he is just a regular guy and is not bent on getting rich and/or famous from the rap game. That ideal is reflected in his music in which a sort of humbleness accompanies even his most boastful claims. In other words Joe Blow is a chill bro who happens to make great music.

7. Main Attrakionz "Perfect Skies"

This song just makes me feel good on the inside (nohomothobro), with the piano sample backed up by angelic female vocals. Main Attrakionz did not have a single song that perfectly defined their sound like in year's past, because they took their music in so many different directions in 2011. This song just happens to be my favorite out of a long list of Main Attrakionz tracks worthy of the top ten list.

8. Lil B "Dopeman Hunter"

The obvious choice for the best Lil B song of 2011 would probably be this, this, this or even this (goddamn Lil B made some great music this year), but I kept coming back to this track. What makes "Dopeman Hunter" the best Lil B song of the year? This simple formula: absolutely sinister beat + drugged-out, subdued, hypnotic raps + the most ridiculous ad libs you've ever heard that include "ROSIE O'DONNEL" and "ANDERSON COOPER" = one of the best rap songs of the year! Peep this hilarious description of the song's lyrics for more info.

9. AP.9 ft. Dubee "On The Block"

Not to be all like "look at all these obscure songs that made my list," but this song is off an unreleased AP.9 album that was posted on the Bayontop.com message board earlier this year. This track is easily better than anything on the Relentless double album and the best Mob Figaz-related song of the year. AP.9 is not too versatile of a rapper, but when you give him some banging mob music he always knows what to do with it. Listen to that fucking beat! I can't really use proper English to describe how hard it slaps. Also Dubee's verse sounds like he has an evil sneer on his face during the entirety of the song. Easily one of the sickest songs of 2011, if this track doesn't put a mean mug on your face and make you thinking about shooting the shit out of your enemies then I don't know what the fuck will.

10. Young L "Loud Pockets"

Best beat of 2011, hands down. Every time I hear this song my head starts bobbing and before you know it I'm dancing to it in an embarrassing fashion. It got a decent amount of attention and apparently got played on MTV a bit, which is great news. I see no reason why Young L shouldn't be a bigger deal than he already is.
The song has a dope music video too.

Here are those 10 songs zipped up and chipped out:

DL: 100 Grand on My Wrist Top 10 Songs of 2011

I guarantee these songs will change your life, idk if it's going to be for the better or worse, though.

Album of the Year:
This was not an easy decision to make, in fact things got pretty heated in the office debating which album would be number one

Brotha Lynch Hung and E-40's albums were really good, but they weren't better than their 2010 releases. Mobbin' Through the West was great, but had a handful of recycled songs, which disqualified it. So at the end of the day it came down to:

Main Attrakionz- Blackberry Ku$h

Most people prefer 808s and Dark Grapes II  to this, but it just didn't have the same replay value as Blackberry Ku$h to me and plus had a couple throwaway songs on it ("Vegetables" was stupid imo).
The EP is the perfect format for most genres of music, including rap. How many flawless 60+ minute rap albums have you heard in the last few years? I'm guessing not too many. Rap music is a singles-driven genre now more than ever and in a time when an album having a handful of great songs and a handful of throwaway tracks equals one of the best albums of the year, Main Attrakionz released a flawless eight song EP, putting them on the radar of just about every rap fan over night. What really makes this release is that track after track the best duo ever are experimenting with new sounds that they completely nail each time. Each of the producers bring something entirely unique to this project and Mondre and Squadda seem to know what to do with each piece of music. I could go through every track but this post is already 1,000 words too long, so just listen to it already.
There's also a bonus disc to this album floating around which complements the EP quite well. Both releases are highly recommended and get the 100GoMW,YLS stamp of approval.

If I see anyone wearing these dumb glasses on New Year's Eve things are going to get ugly

Things To Look Forward To in 2012:

-The world ending
-A new Mob Figaz album (although I think the world will end first at this point)
-3 new E-40 albums (!!!). When I first heard this announced I was like:

But E-40 is in a nice groove right now, so he can release 8 albums this next year as far as I'm concerned, they'd probably all be dope.

-More dictators getting deaded

Almost everything that I put down on last year's list of things to look forward never came out, so that kind of sucks, but whatever.

To Wrap Things Up:

2011 was a really good year for Bay Area rap, rappers from around here gained more national attention than ever before, which is rather surprising considering how insulated the scene has been for such a long time, but then again as the rap business has evolved into something that requires an independent hustle the Bay is in the perfect position to prosper.

Thanks to everyone that visits the blog, the number of hits this site gets a day more than quadrupled this year, but more importantly more people are commenting on the site than ever, which is something I really appreciate. The entire staff of 100 Grand on My Wrist would like to wish you a happy new year! My limo just arrived, got to go to exclusive VIP New Year's parties now, ttyl.

What do you think of these songs and the album of the year?
What are your favorite Bay Area rap songs of 2011?
What is your favorite Bay Area rap album of 2011?
How much longer before Bashar al-Assad has to flee the country or is killed by his people?