2015 End of the Year Urban Music Awards – Part 1- Best Album

This year our Urban department has decided to share a recap of our favorites of 2015 with ya’ll. There have been a lot of great hip-hop albums, songs, videos, and performances that we thought were notable. This year we witnessed Kendrick Lamar make history with To Pimp a Butterfly, an album that would find its presence in protests, college classrooms and playlists around the world. We also witnessed Lupe Fiasco release one of his best albums ever, and drop some of the craziest bars of his lifetime.

We also witnessed Dr. Dre drop a solo album after the longest hiatus ever and the myth of detox. We saw Future take over the game dropping mixtape after mixtape and anthem after anthem. Meanwhile Drake remained a hitmaker whose tracks crushed mainstream radio. On the local tip, Rey Resurreccion, City Shawn and Ziggy dominated hip-hop from a San Jose perspective dropping impressive projects, two in the case of City Shawn. But there was also great contributions from the likes of Yates, Craig White, Anthony Dean and others who made noise in the 408. From a Bay area perspective we saw Iamsu, Locksmith, Young Gully, Erk tha Jerk, Nio Tha Gift, Willie Joe and Nef the Pharaoh all dropped solid bodies of work, while newcomers Caleborate, Jeff Turner & Beejus also made some noise. 2015 was also the year that the Bay area suffered its biggest loss in hip-hop since Mac Dre, as legendary emcee The Jacka passed. The emcee had blessed us with two projects in late 2014.

Artists such as Fashawn, Skyzoo, Chuck Inglish, Sahtyre, Chuuwee, etc. all proved why they are household names in hip-hop and on our airwaves by dropping solid content. In this article we are going outline our favorite albums, songs, and other awards according to several of our DJ’s. We also witnessed the emergence of R & B acts such as Bryson Tiller, Russ, SIr, Anderson .Paak as R & B began to make a comeback nationally and started to play more of a role in our programming as well.

The Jury:

How it works is the 8 of us picked our top 5 albums, top 10 songs, Best Music Video of the year, Best New Artist, Best Producer, Top 5 Bay Area Artists and Best Live Performance of the year. The results are below, but first let’s meet the panel:

 

1. StrongArm – Sundays 6-10pm (Former Urban Director, Best Song Transitions)

2. Abeltron – Wednesday 6-10pm

3. T-Lo – Alumni, Still Does Fill-Ins.

4. Shiva Diva – Wednesdays 6-10am (Best On-Air DJ, Best Recorded Show Promo)

5. Mr. Ghost – Fill-In King (Most Involved in Multiple Departments, Most KSJS Spirit)

6. DJ Analog – Mondays 6-10pm

7. Dee-Tr3yn – (Promotions Manager, Mondays 2-5pm )

8. The Barhemian – (Mondays 6-10am, Best Urban Show, Best On-Air Voice)

THE PICKS!

(Click on any album cover to purchase album)

Best Album

 

1. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly

Picked by: StrongArm, T-Lo, Shiva Diva, DJ Analog, Dee-Tr3yn & Abeltron.

2. JR & Ph7 x Chuuwee – The South Sac Mack

Picked by: StrongArm, Shiva Diva, Mr. Ghost, The Barhemian & Abeltron

3. Vince Staples – Summertime 06′

Picked by: Mr. Ghost, DJ Analog, Dee-Tr3yn, & The Barhemian .

4. City Shawn – Forever 2

Picked by: StrongArm, Mr. Ghost, The Barhemian & Abeltron.

5. Lupe Fiasco – Tetsuo & Youth

 

Picked by: StrongArm, Shiva Diva & Dee-Tr3yn

Other albums picked by our panel:

Sahtyre – LSD:Saga

Picked by: StrongArm & Shiva Diva.

Dr. Dre – Compton

 

Picked by: Dee-Tr3yn & T-Lo

Down 2 Earth – Wildfire

Picked by: T-Lo & Abeltron.

City Shawn – Smoker No Joker

 

 

Picked by T-Lo & Dee-Tr3yn.

Dom Kennedy – By Dom Kennedy

Picked by: The Barhemian & Shiva Diva.

Mick Jenkins – Wave[s]

Picked by: Mr. Ghost.

Rey Res – Heart of the City

Picked by: T-Lo.

Big K.R.I.T. – It’s Better This Way

Picked by: Mr. Ghost.

Earl Sweatshirt – I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside

Picked by: DJ Analog.

A$AP Rocky- At.Long.Last.A$AP

Picked by: DJ Analog.

MacMiller – GO:OD AM

 

Picked by: DJ Analog.

Bryson Tiller – T R A P S O U L

 

Picked by: Abeltron

Aka Frank & Iamsu! – Biggie Smalls EP

 

Picked by: The Barhemian.

Check out The rest of our awards as we will talk about our picks for Best Songs, Video of the Year, Live Performance of the Year, Producer of the Year, Bay Area Artist of the Year and Best New Artist.