Top 50 2011: T.O.R.N.A.D.O.

Hip-hop in 2011 was a bit like coffee to me. Let me explain.

I’m not a huge coffee drinker — if I am having coffee, it’s usually mixed with enough chocolate, sugar, and cream to fool my brain into thinking it’s some other kind of drink. It’s the same way with hip-hop; I don’t associate myself with liking it, but when you mix it with enough other things I do like, I don’t even recognize how much I like it. jj’s 2010 “mixtape” album, kills, is a great example of this — all of their sources are hip-hop, but through interpolation, sampling, and distortion, it became something greater than its original source. It’s the exact same way with The Go! Team’s Rolling Blackouts.

The Go! Team mixes so many different influences it’s amazing they all cohere so well. Songs sound like a mix of 70s action movie montage music, educational TV themes, and hip-hop, and somehow all of this meshes into greatness. “T.O.R.N.A.D.O” sets the stage for the album and lets the listener know exactly what to expect. Ninja, the group’s charismatic frontwoman and main vocalist, bursts through the wall of sounds with a boundless energy that makes other tracks like “Apollo Throwdown” stand out. Elsewhere on the album, guest vocalists add their own particular flavors; Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast sweetens “Buy Nothing Day” and the album’s title track, while Dominique Young Unique’s rap on “Voice Yr Choice” suits the lazy summer feel of the instrumentation perfectly. It’s a mashup of styles that pulses with energy throughout the album’s runtime.