Sound Off | Summertime selection of hip hop features familiar favorites

Ever since its first bricks were laid in the blazing heat of the South Bronx, Hip Hop and summer have been inseperable. Starting from scratch in the South Bronx, the sticky-sweat  back-to-school dance parties held by Kool Herc introduced us to the effect a break beat can have on a scorching summer day. More than 30 years later, though the sounds have evolved, the summer of 2010 proved to be no less funky and innovative than the first time Herc looped James Brown.

Sir Lucious Left, by Big Boi.

Possibly the most anticipated and acclaimed album of the summer came from the south's elder-statesman, Big Boi. The first proper solo release from half of the group Outkast, Sir Lucious Left hit shelves on July 5, selling 62,000 records in its first week. From the album's intro, a brazen, piano-heavy funk cut full of warped voices, one gets the impression that this album is looking forward, attempting to push the boundaries of what a commercial hip-hop album can do. All we hear from Big Boi on the track is a self-congratulatory "dang, that ain't nothing but the intro," demonstrating that he is all too conscious of his innovation.

While the album's lead single "Shutterbug" is an undeniably infectious bit of electro-futurism, most of the album fails to attain the invigorating life that its single contains. The exception is the early leak, "Shine Blockas" featuring Gucci Mane, whose production harkens back to the tried and true formula of an atmospheric soul sample (Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes) and features less double time and more drawling southern attitude from Big. No doubt few can rap like Lucious, but the summons to funkified innovation rings a little hollow when it is coming from the lead singer of the middling indie rock band Vonnegut on the track "Follow Us".

Str8 Killa, by Freddie Gibbs

Another air-tight double time rapper, and also the last to release an album this summer, was Indiana's Freddie Gibbs. The Str8 Killa EP, which dropped on Aug. 3, demonstrates a technical finesse unmatched by anyone else currently recording. Gibbs' voice, a harsh, croaking baritone, moves seamlessly from staccato chants to rapid-fire speed-rapping within one verse on "National Anthem." He possesses the talent to make any antiquarian hip-hop head swoon with nostalgia (see his first verse on "Rep 2 da Fullest"), has an ear for flawless production ("Personal OG") and catchy hooks (Oil Money), but he also seems too preoccupied with being "real"—(re)telling us how hard he is. Although his credentials check out, everyone from Nelly to G-Unit has already struck the same pose (earned or not) and Gibbs is too talented an MC to limit himself to such contained content. When he croons on the hook of "Rock Bottom" that he's going in circles, one's not sure if he's referring to his life or his raps. To his credit, however, it's a debut EP and he has plenty of time to expand his repertoire.

Thank Me Later, by Drake

Occupying the opposite end of the spectrum was Drake's Thank Me Later, released on June 15, reaching number one on the Billboard charts and soon after going platinum. Drake's rise to fame, from the self-released mixtape containing the hit "Best I Ever Had" to his wildly successful debut album, capitalizes exactly where Gibbs falls short. The genre is saturated with MCs fronting on being "real" or "hard" while churning out radio-friendly pop, but Drake acknowledges his softness.

The line from "Best I Ever Had" is now all too prophetic: "When my album drop girls will buy it for the picture/And guys will buy it too and claim they got it for their sister." Without any front, Drake can be the biggest hip-hop/pop star, be from Toronto and a Degrassi alum without it affecting his rap career. He makes unabashed pop, corny at times, but refreshing nonetheless. He has no anxiety about being hard, just about girls . When he teams up with The Dream on "Shut it Down," the warbles from the two smoothest crooners in the game create a dreamscape that approaches Peter Gabriel territory. Its the best pop music a rapper's ever made.

Teflon Don, by Rick Ross

Rounding out the summer was (fanfare please) Rick Ross' fourth studio release, Teflon Don. Although this is the first of Ross' albums not to reach number one  on the Billboard charts, the rapper has created one of the most interesting poses in all of rap—posing as a poser. Ross posits himself as Big Meech and Larry Hoover, two notorious drug traffickers (the name Rick Ross itself comes from Ricky Ross, the 1980's pusher) while also claiming to be John Gotti (to whom the album's name refers), MC Hammer, JFK and to walk in the image of Christ. These hyperbolic references allow Ross to be a shape-shifter, consciously exploiting the foundations of the genre's lyrical conventions–the simile "I am like." His most interesting line comes in "Free Masons" when he raps, "My top back like JFK/They wanna push my top back like JFK/So, so we JFK/Join forces with the kings and we ate all day." Moving in four bars from a comparison with JFK to eating all day exhibits Ross' schtick all too well. He is the lyrical equivalent of a DJ's sample, re-working the past into something new. Ross is even audacious enough to chew up Jay-Z, who is featured on the track, when Ross ends his verse "right now I could rewrite history/I stopped writing.../I'll do it mentally." By inhabiting Jay (who famously doesn't write down his lyrics) he swallows Jay's career while stationing himself as the one who can reconfigure history by simply taking it for his own . It's brilliantly innovative while remaining indebted to the past.

These summer albums run the gamut of poses and positions, from O.G. bangers to post-modern mélange, all of them revealing the varied ways that rappers are positioning themselves within a genre that has had its doors burst wide open. All that's left to say comes from Herc himself: rock on my mellow. Bawse.