Producer of the Year

A good producer can be the difference between a good and a great track.  A great producer can be the great track.  Some people were really really good at this.

Save your time section:

Pharrell.  Yes we all loved “Happy” and I love Pharrell but there wasn’t anything really impressive that the VA native did that could catapult him to the top 10.  ANYONE from the Migos mixtape.  Yes all your favorite blogs lost their collective fucking mind and put Migos’ Young Rich Niggas on their best-of list claiming that the beats were too good to deny.  Don’t bother looking for them on this list. They are absent like a pregnant girl from the bible belt and sex education in middle school.  Nor anyone from Death Grips or Clipping.  It’s so hard to compare what these guys do to what your average producer does.  I will choose to just not compare them.

10. Blockhead

Dour Candy happened this year so if you thought that Blockhead was gonna miss out on this, you were very very wrong.

9. Madlib

Do I sometimes wish Madlib gave at all a fuck what the general public wanted to hear?  Nope, not at all.  This dude is too damn smooth and I love it.

8. RJD2

RJD2 needs to start producing for rappers.  It needs to happen.  More is than Isn’t was begging for an MC.  But for the time being I will be content with this.

7. Cardo

Cardo’s goal this year was to first make sure that cloud rap became a subgenre and second made sure that every time you mention it, his name comes up and he succeeded on both fronts

6. El-P

Run the Jewels took over the internet and a big part of it had to do with the fact that El-P produced 10 of the best instrumentals of the year.

5. Adrian Younge

This one probably wasn’t a fair race.  Younge is pretty much a world class musician who decided this year to produce the greatest B movie soundtrack of all time and give it to Ghostface Killah who turned those beats into a despicable album.

4. TNGHT

“Blood on the Leaves”

3. Erick Arc Elliott

Elliott took over the Beast Coast scene appearing not only on Flatbush’s mixtape but on CJ Fly’s and The Underachievers’ follow up album Lords of Flatbush.

2. Kanye West

Yeezus was easily the biggest triumph of Kanye’s career. though maybe not his best album… maybe.  But he took a risk and it paid off big time.

1. Statik Selektah

The East Coast belonged to one man in 2013, his name is Statik Selektah.  He was all over the damn place and I loved it.