It doesn’t try to capture the sound of any particular era nor does it tell a continuous linear narrative. And that’s essentially what the album itself is all about too. Mainly the history of the neighborhood which inspired the name of this album, the history of rappers who came from there, and how DaVinci fits into the context of it all. We spoke for two hours, and most of that time was spent on history. When I recently interviewed DaVinci and his producer/manager Al Jieh, one word and theme came up repeatedly – lineage. Big Sean should be locked in up in solitary and forced to listen to this until he stops calling himself “B-I-G.”. Hard-core and head nodding - the only way he knows how. But House Shoes not only kept the spirit of Dilla and the D alive, he did it his own way. And Ka and Roc Marciano both appear lower on this list. Guilty Simpson and Apollo Brown continued to keep things gully. Homeboy Sandman dropped a good album and two equally 100 EPs. This was a solid year for the spawns of boon-bap. It’s a producer’s compilation with a clear vision. A collection of diseased soul instrumentals and drums hard and black as igneous rocks. His first solo record is a product of the man.
He is a connecter and a selector, a curator and turntablist, a sample chopper and a nose bone smasher. A guy who inhabits the traditional role to a tee. House Shoes has spent a decade and a half building a rep as a DJ’s DJ. So do Quelle Chris and Roc Marciano, the latter of whom pops up on “Dirt,” arguably the most appropriately titled song of the year. Black Milk and Guilty Simpson make appearances. Danny Brown may have found fame as an asymmetrically-haired hipster icon, but his roots are on display on House Shoes’ Let it Go. If Chicago drill rap bears a sonic debt to the trap of the dirty south, Detroit’s sound has always mirrored the slums of New York - or Newark if you consider the Eminem-Outsidaz connect. It operates as a palate cleanser to remind you to stop indulging your taste for bullshit. Nowhere else is as no frills and unvarnished. No best album list is complete without something from Detroit. On a Previous Episode of the Passion of the Weiss: The Top 50 Albums of: 2011 2010 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006
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