Noire Noires XXIII

2016: A Year In 16 Albums

Apr 19, 2026

Author’s Note: This piece was inspired by Douglas Martin’s “A Year In The Life Of Douglas Martin” series. You can read his recap of the following years here: 2016, 2017 and 2018.

January

It’s after midnight and a new year is upon us. A year filled with so much promise and change on the horizon: a new place, a new job, a new direction in life.

Anderson. Paak releases his second album (Malibu) and soundtracks this feeling of optimism and excitement. After his breakout performance on Dr. Dre’s Compton, .Paak realizes his potential on Malibu and shows us the full range of his artistry: autobiographical hip-hop, sensual R&B as well as dalliances into disco and a variety of other genres.

Meanwhile, following a series of false starts, Rihanna finally drops Anti: her last album to date. Even though it’s a TIDAL exclusive, I’m grateful that she made it a free download as I haven’t listened to a Rihanna project since Good Girl Gone Bad.

If Good Girl Gone Bad was an album designed with every song being a hit then Anti seems to be crafted with the sole purpose of each track being an exercise in artistic expression: the mesmerizing minimalism of “Yeah, I Said It”, the raw and raspy vocals of “Higher”, the straightforward, if random, cover of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Old Mistakes”. Anti is the first signal that 2016 is the year of taking creative risks.

February

What’s a Kanye West album without drama?

Ever since Yeezus, Kanye’s approach to music has never been the same. The rants are more wild and long-winded, the rollouts are more chaotic and sporadic. People see a ‘free-thinker’, I just see a man gradually losing his grip on reality, becoming the very thing he once criticized.

However, before I jump ship, I (along with the rest of the world) am invited to attend a virtual album listening party taking place in Madison Square Garden.

The scene is teeming with enthusiasm and anticipation as the man who gave us The College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduation stretches his arm around his estranged protégé. The build-up is what legends are made of: the gospel sample, the rising choir voices, the Metro Boomin production tag and then…the beat drop.

The chorus takes us to Heaven, only for the first verse to bring us back down to Earth with an extended diatribe about bleached [redacted]. The epitome of the Kanye West experience in the second half of the 2010s.

March

Kendrick Lamar is riding high off the masterpiece that is To Pimp A Butterfly. His live performances see him go off the deep end into a pool of sonic ingenuity that once fueled the music of D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill and previous iterations of Kanye West. The exceptional lyricism, the lush instrumentation, the impassioned delivery, it all comes together as an artistic moment on par with the ones that once captivated our parents watching the TV screen: Stevie Wonder’s singing talkbox, Al Green bringing love and happiness, Minnie Riperton’s sweet whistling lullaby.

With each performance becoming more exhilarating than the last, LeBron James would eventually request on Twitter for these untitled tracks to get an official release. Whether this was a genuine plea or some form of pre-planned marketing ploy, the demand is met a few weeks later and the world is graced with the best collection of loosies since Nas’ 2002 Lost Tapes.

April

Do you remember where you were when you first saw the slap? Not the one at the occurred at the Oscars but the one that happened inside a high-end hotel elevator?

I remember the suddenness of it all, how out of character it seemed at the time. Too powerful to be a publicity stunt. Too momentous to be deemed a trivial affair.

I remember the hot takes, the jokes, the conspiracy theories but, most of all, I remember Beyoncé’s smile. The second-most famous smile in recorded human history. Was it a display of approval and vindication or a façade to mask the pain of betrayal and humiliation? Two years later, we would get the answer to these questions in the form of Beyoncé’s Lemonade: her magnum opus, Thriller for the millennial generation, the audio-visual event of the century that still has no equal.

I remember the day it was released and the frenzy that followed shortly after. I remember the conversations on Twitter: the memes and recommendations for deeper analysis. I remember reading words about the album from writers like Clover Hope, Doreen St. Félix and Lauren Michele Jackson. I remember feeling grateful for these words, for discovering the poetry of Warsan Shire, the plays of Ntozake Shange, the prose of Toni Morrison and being able to witness a cultural tectonic shift take place in real time.

I also remember Drake dropping Views a week later and how it just paled in comparison to Beyoncé’s masterpiece. Even though it ‘sold’ a million copies in its first week and people would retrospectively call it a ‘classic’, its limited subject matter and blatant attempts for global crossover appeal would further confirm my growing disinterest in his music and reluctance to listen to any more of it.

May

Chance The Rapper announces his next project (Coloring Book), which further blurs the boundary between mixtape and album as it is proudly guarded behind the gilded gates of an exclusive Apple Music release.

Acid Rap has been on my rotation for almost three years and I’m hoping that Coloring Book will be in a similar vein. Instead, I find a man renouncing his vices and moving with the energy of a recently appointed youth pastor.

Coloring Book toes the line of being a gospel album while simultaneously maintaining some of the secular sentiments of 10 Day and Acid Rap, giving us heartfelt hymns like “Blessings (Reprise)” and energetic anthems such as “No Problems”. With the run Chance is on, it truly seems impossible for him to fail but only time will tell.

June

June 2016: neither the beginning of a glorious summer nor a season of discontent, just somewhere distinctly in-between. Muhammad Ali is dead, LeBron James pulls off one of the greatest sporting comebacks of all time and a new political world order seems to be emerging with the results of each national election.

At the same time, hip-hop circles are celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt. Now that I’m almost the same age as he was when he created it, the album takes on a whole new level of resonance for me. Initially, it was the familiarity of the samples then it was the ludicrous degree of lyrical dexterity but, this time around, it’s the circumstances that led to its creation: the dilemma, the desire, the determination to design a better life.

Having written my last blogpost earlier in the year, I take the time to develop a new voice, one more pronounced and distinctive than the last. No longer content with mimicking the house style, I listen to Longform podcasts, read classic articles from Grantland and The Believer magazine, stumble across the concept of ‘New Journalism’ and decide that this is how I want my writing to be from now on: driven by storytelling, detailed with feeling.

I research everything that there is to know about Jay-Z before the release of his debut album and use that information to paint a portrait of an artist at a crossroads, a person in their mid-20s, wondering if they have what it takes to construct a bridge between their dreams and reality. I title the piece “Coming Of Age: On Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt & Finding Your Path”, eager to embark on a new chapter of my writing journey, hoping that it mirrors the trajectory of the person that inspired it.

July

With my piece on Reasonable Doubt out of the way, I finally have time to listen to YG’s sophomore album (Still Brazy). Similar to what The Game did by leaving the G-Unit industrial complex and creating Doctor’s Advocate, YG’s brief time away from DJ Mustard leads to a stronger album that is more cohesive and commanding with menacing beats like “Don’t Come To LA”, “Who Shot Me?” and “I Got A Question”.

Meanwhile, a month before The Olympics starts, ScHoolboy Q releases the best album of his career: Blank Face LP. Seemingly learning from his mistakes on his previous project (Oxymoron), ScHoolboy Q leans into his strengths and creates a project that perfectly reflects his eclectic taste and unconventional approach to storytelling.

However, similar to Beyoncé’s Lemonade, the feature that elevates Blank Face from one of the best albums of the year to the gangsta rap masterpiece of the decade is the visual component. Starting with a short film that depicts a ‘day in the life’ of ScHoolboy Q, the underlying themes of the circular nature of institutionalized racism and violence starts to peek through.

Like Gordon Parks’ photographic recreation of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, ScHoolboy Q depicts the trials and tribulations of an underclass trying to survive. Whether it’s through the daring depiction of a “Dope Dealer” or highlighting the horrifying aspects of “Groovy Tony”’s haunting adventures, Blank Face confirms a suspicion I’ve had since listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Overly Dedicated six years ago: the best hip-hop music is coming from the West Coast.

August

After four years of interminable silence, we finally get some new music from Frank Ocean. However, it is in the form of an enigmatic Apple Music livestream in which we see Frank build a metal staircase to Heaven.

Upon my first viewing, it doesn’t seem to have been worth the wait. There are some brilliant flourishes here and there but it’s all undercut by the abstract and mysterious nature of its release.

Luckily, the next day, Frank surprises us with the true follow-up to Channel Orange: Blonde. A writer online (Wallace Mack) compares the album to James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, creating an intertextual conversation between Frank Ocean’s lyrics and James Baldwin’s prose. The sheer amount of creativity involved in this piece shows me that there is a higher level of penmanship that can be reached, one which makes meaning out of disparate connections while taking the audience along for the journey.

On a deeper level though, despite the pop-rock production, despite the lack of hard-hitting drums, despite the odd spoken word non-sequiturs like “Be Yourself” and “Facebook Story”, Blonde quickly becomes the summer soundtrack for a generation. An album that manages to seamlessly capture both the beauty and tragedy of youth. The audio equivalent of watching a firefly in twilight, an exercise in appreciating the ephemeral nature of life.

September

September is the best music month of the year so far, starting with Isaiah Rashad’s The Sun’s Tirade.

In the afterglow of summer, Isaiah trades in the sharp lyricism of Cilvia Demo for something more moody and melodic. If Blonde accepted the end of youth with a loving embrace then The Sun’s Tirade enters adulthood kicking and screaming. While there are moments of serenity, the project is layered with lyrics about depression and anxiety.

This is a pervasive feeling that also flows through Solange’s masterpiece: A Seat At The Table. One only has listen to songs like “Weary” and “Mad” to see that there is a lot going through Solange’s mind. The soft melodies, the minimalist aesthetic, it’s like watching an auteur gently mold a new world right before our very eyes. A world built for us by one of us.

October

October sees the return of Anderson .Paak but, this time, in the form of a musical duo named NxWorries with the prolific underground producer Knxwledge.

My familiarity with Knxwledge starts and stops with his beat placement on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly (“Momma”) so this album (Yes Lawd!) functions as a formal introduction to his sound.

At first listen, it seems that he picks up from where Dilla left off. Not necessarily in terms of time-signature or drum patterns but in his varied sample selection and unique vocal manipulation, where what you’re hearing sounds familiar but indistinguishable at the same time.

Over this sonic bed of distorted funk and soul, Anderson .Paak croons and lets the more comedic and cavalier aspects of his personality shine. It’s like if A Pimp Named Slickback from The Boondocks woke up one day and figured out that he could sing. Outside of anyone from the Knowles household, .Paak has the strongest claim to calling 2016 his year.

November

November is a bit quiet on the music front so I use the time to catch up on things that I missed throughout the year, namely books and TV.

In between reading Brit Bennett’s The Mothers and Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, Issa Rae and Donald Glover bring in a new and vibrant approach to storytelling on the small screen.

But just as we’re theorizing about Earn’s living situation and the status of Issa’s long-term relationship, news comes in and reality, as we once knew it, has irreparably changed.

December

“With fear comes hope and with darkness comes light…we just have to remain hopeful in fearful times.”

These are the words I write while trying to make sense of 2016, a year filled with so many highs and lows. The scintillating swan song of one era and the ominous inauguration of the next.

Childish Gambino warned us to “stay woke” but, like a prophecy from the Trojan priestess, it was promptly ridiculed and sensationalised.

For an album so fixated on the past, it’s surprisingly prescient about the future: the prevailing sense of terror and dread that permeates it, the fleeting fantasies of a better tomorrow. Awaken, My Love is a sonic time capsule for a generation born to find new wars being sought, all faith in man misplaced and dormant deities reawakened in digital dressing.

Not more than a week after Awaken, My Love’s release, J. Cole surprises us with a new album after the critical and commercial high that was 2014 Forest Hills Drive.

What happens after the end of the hero’s journey? According to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth model, they are supposed to share what they have learned with the world. With his previous album, J. Cole told us to “Love Yourz” but, with 4 Your Eyez Only, the message is more nuanced and complex.

A librarian on Twitter recommends that people who enjoy the album should also read Jesmyn Ward’s memoir (Men We Reaped). I follow this suggestion and instantly see the correlation. The overwhelming sense of loss, the brief moments of joy and levity that interrupt it, the precious and precarious situation of a people who repeatedly have their pain plundered for profit.

I digest all this information and it forms the basis of my last piece of the year, a piece partially inspired by an encounter with a woman who refused to let me into a building because of the color of my skin and hoodie on my head. The piece gets published and it’s my most successful one to date, garnering the attention of people close to the artist in question and giving me some more much-needed reassurance that I am following the right path.

Like the famous Charles Dickens’ quote, 2016 was the best of times and the worst of times. A year of personal triumphs amidst impending global disaster. The climatic conclusion to a historical chapter. The last remnant of my youthful nostalgia.