Easily my favorite year in alternative hip-hop since the early aughts, when MF DOOM, Louis Logic, CunninLynguists, Atmosphere, Aceyalone, OutKast, Aesop Rock, and many more were releasing one banging track after the next and changing the face of what hip-hop could be. That said, I don’t know if there’s ever been such a sheer volume of great work out there, which made it difficult to restrict this list to only ten tracks. The folks at GQ asked if I could put the songs in order, which, of course, is specific to the day, hour, and minute of me making this list. That said, my Top Three are pretty solidly my Top Three Hip Hop songs of this year, as well as being solidly in my Top Ten of all tracks this year. —JG
