The top 12 things I want to see happen in Hip-Hop this year

12)Game causes more controversy – The rap game needs this man to keep things interesting, for two albums he’s received incredible production and been a brash unpredictable asshole. I can stand for him to not say Dre’s name anymore though.

11)Rappers stick to rapping – Acting careers, clothing lines, running record labels and whatever else takes the focus away from you getting busy in the booth. "If you’re a rapper, rap motherfucker." – Lyor Cohen

10)Foxy Brown puts out a release that is worth the wait – Between Inga’s loss of hearing/legal troubles and Eve’s acting career, Lil Kim undeservedly ran away with the mainstream female crown by default. For my tastes, Kim makes weak music nowadays and Foxy deserves a shot at proving she still has it. Ill Na Na and Broken Silence were bangers for their time and “Come Fly With Me” was the jam two years ago. I believe she can come back.

9)A new album from Juelz Santana – He’s quietly the most charismatic Dipset member when it comes to song making. He doesn’t show out in online video clips or get into beefs with anyone; it’s just his music that’s spoken volumes for him. When he’s in his zone and has chosen a good beat, his braggadocio is second to none.

8)Young Dro gains the respect he’s deserved – He’s one of the best new rappers going slept on. A lot of the Hip-Hop world blames the South for supposedly ruining music and just lump him in with every other run of the mill one hit wonder coming out these days. But if you listen to lyrics like I do and have an understanding of Southern culture/slanguage you’d have no choice but to respect this man’s spit game, in an interview he said his influences were Nas, Jay-Z and The Lox. The press needs to stop playing up his affiliation with T.I. and focus on the fact that he can rap. He’s a bit of lyrical content away from being up there with whoever we presently consider great.

7)Anything new from MF Doom – He’s been gone for far too long, and he’s left a nation of diehard followers thirsty for his return. The recent scandal involving him putting someone else in a mask at his shows has added to his mystery. Whenever he resurfaces (The Ghostface collab and Madvillain sequel albums are rumored to be next), we should be in for a treat.

6)Jay Electronica lives up to half of his buzz and potential – Just read this article, all of the praise heaped upon this dude and pay close attention to all of the projects he’ll supposedly be putting out. That’s a lot of pressure with proven acts we respect bowing at his altar, it almost reminds me of the pre Voodoo hype and we see how that’s worked out in the end. It’s been a week since Act II: Patents of Nobility was supposed to drop and it’s nowhere to be found. I’m holding on to faith that he isn’t another in the long list of “talk the talk” artists because he’s actually talented.

5)More respect for women – Let me start by saying Young H is a reformed pr0n connoisseur who still loves seeing asses shaking in clubs, I’m all for that. I’m also cool with a “bitch” or “hoe” thrown around in songs every now and then, but it’s recently become a lot worse than I can recall in previous years. Perhaps “Get Low” was the resurgence but this was the final straw for me. Yes there are women out here carrying themselves without much self-respect, but I don’t need you to make light of the bleak reality that you had fun while she hit you and your whole crew off. I’m getting to be a little too old to do anything more than frown my face when I hear things like this. Pac, the ever conflicted soldier still had enough sense to drop that Since we all came from a woman/got our name from a woman and our game from a woman… scripture on “Keep Your Head Up”

I also think that while club records were made for us to dance, they could use a little more substance than “Shake that fat ass and drop it to the floor girl/hoe/lil’ mama”. Dana Dane started off the classic “Nightmares” with Well I walked into the office, what did I see? A well shaped body with its back to me, that was a descriptive line in telling a story. LL explained to a series of women that he had to leave because their competition had bigger rear ends, it was a humorous concept and clever record that took at least a little bit of thought to write. 2 Live Crew was a group who made their name off of booty shake music, if that’s all your song is going to say in this day and age then you probably wont get props over here. I’ll give you the respect that it gets the women loose, but I can’t take you serious as an artist. I’ll contradict myself and say this much though: Yung Leak’s “Jiggle It” is still the JAM, I respect that he stayed in his lane and brought the rest of the world to Baltimore without sounding like the same regurgitated song over and over. For the record, I don’t see this changing because I have a working theory that says corporate suits live, die and thrive off of black ignorance and dissension. So I guess I’ll be a jigaboo dancing along and having fun knowing within me that it’s at least a little wrong.

4)Lil Wayne drops a classic – Okay Dwayne, you’ve made yourself the most prolific rapper in history doing more guest appearances and beat jackings than Busta Rhymes. But can you gain my respect and drop an album that will make the world stand on its ear, or will you just say whatever comes to your mind over whatever beats you’re given? Supposedly Kanye is executive producing this next album, so we'll see what it comes out sounding like. But I'm not holding my breath for a miracle.

3)The end of youtube rap – Most of the world is looking to be distracted and entertained by idiotic material. If your song has an accompanying dance that people can film themselves doing, chances are I don’t want you to have a career this year.

2)50 Cent keeps up his comedy routines – If you’ve missed it, there’s recent footage from Curtis being on tour overseas cracking jokes on the likes of Jay-Z, Fat Joe, Wu-Tang, Ja Rule, and Irv Gotti. Golden age backpackers are upset by this, but he has a natural knack for humor and I love it.

1)Detox to change the face of music as we know it – The way it’s been hyped, this album is supposed to be the end all be all. But if you know better like me, it will just be a lot of epic sounding beats by Dre’s ghost producers, with him and a gang of guest stars rapping about weed, bitches, cars and whatever other niggerish topics they can come up with. That’s if it even comes out this year.