2015 End of the Year Urban Music Awards – Part 2 – Best Song

December 26, 2015
Urban Department
HIp Hop, Music, News

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. From a Bay area perspective we saw Iamsu, Locksmith, Young Gully, Erk tha Jerk, Nio Tha Gift 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:

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)

We hope you enjoyed yesterday’s post which outlined our picks for Best Album of the year. In this section, we are going to outline our picks for Best song of the year.

THE PICKS! (Each of us picked our top 10 songs of the year, they are all listed below, with the ones picked by the most DJs listed first).

Kendrick Lamar – Alright (prod. Pharrell & Sounwave)

Picked By: StrongArm, T-Lo, Mr. Ghost, Dee-Tr3yn, The Barhemian & Abeltron.

2. Vince Staples – Norf Norf (prod. Clams Casino)

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

3. Beejus – Too Much Slap (ft. Oops)

Picked by: Shiva Diva, Mr. Ghost, Dee-Tr3yn, The Barhemian.

4. Rexx Life Raj – Sincerely Annie (prod. Ben Manlove)

Picked by: T-Lo, Shiva Diva, Mr. Ghost,

5. Future – Trap Niggas (prod. 808 Mafia)

Picked by: StrongArm, The Barhemian

6. BJ The Chicago Kid – Church (ft. Chance the Rapper & Buddy)

Picked by: Shiva Diva, DJ Analog.

7. David Banner – My Uzi (ft. Big K.R.I.T.) (prod. David Banner)

Picked by: T-Lo, DJ Analog.

8. Jay Rock – Vice City (ft. Black Hippy) (prod. Cardo, Yung Exclusive)

Picked by: Mr. Ghost, DJ Analog.

9. Big K.R.I.T. – 86 (prod. Big K.R.I.T.)

Picked by: Mr. Ghost, DJ Analog.

10. Lupe Fiasco – Deliver (ft. Ty Dolla $ign) (prod. Moe’Zart, Marcus Stephens)

Picked by: StrongArm, Dee-Tr3yn.

11. Kendrick Lamar – King Kunta (prod. Sounwave, Terrace Martin)

Picked by : Shiva Diva, Dee-Tr3yn.

12. Post Malone – White Iverson (prod. FKi)

Picked by: T-Lo, Dee-Tr3yn.

13. SIr – Jay-Z (prod. J Lbs.)

Picked by: Shiva Diva, Dee-Tr3yn.

14. Big K.R.I.T. – It’s Better This Way (prod. Big K.R.I.T.)

Picked by: Shiva Diva, The Barhemian.

15. City Shawn – LaLaLa (prod. Cortez)

Picked by: Dee-Tr3yn, Abeltron.

16. A$AP Rocky – Canal St. (ft. Bones) (prod. Hector Delgado, Klimeks, Frans Mernick)

Picked by: DJ Analog, The Barhemian.

17. Kendrick Lamar – You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said) (prod. LoveDragon)

Picked by : StrongArm, Abeltron.

18. JR & Ph7 x Chuuwee – Florin Light Rail

Picked by: The Barhemian & Abeltron.

19. City Shawn – Money Don’t Sleep (ft. Mozzy) (prod. Vybe)

Picked by: Shiva Diva & Abeltron.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Rexx Life Raj – Moxie Java (ft. Nef the Pharaoh) (prod. Eli Unorio)

Picked by: Mr. Ghost,

Kendrick Lamar – Hood Politics (prod. Tae Beast, Sounwave, Thundercat)

Picked by: DJ Analog,

JR & Ph7 x Chuuwee – Meadowview Morning (ft. Bueno & Sean LaMarr)

Picked by: Shiva Diva,

Kanye West – All Day (ft. Paul McCartney, Allan Kingdom & Theophilus London) (prod. Kanye West + A bunch of other people)

Picked by: StrongArm,

Drake – Know Yourself (prod. Boi-1da, Vinylz, Syk Sense)

Picked by: StrongArm,

Joey Bada$$ – Like Me (ft. BJ The Chicago Kid) (prod. J. Dilla)

Picked by : StrongArm

City Shawn – Drug Money (prod. Cortez)

Picked by: StrongArm,

Dr. Dre – Animals (ft. Anderson .Paak) (prod. DJ Premier & BMB Spacekid)

(Song is not up for stream on any platform due to labels, but below is the behind the scenes interview with Anderson .Paak talking about how the collaboration came about, etc.)