In years past I might have said “when I look back on 2025” and told you the things I’ll remember the most in the years to come. Let me be frank though — I’d rather not remember 2025 at all. Aside from the obviously negative political landscape in the United States, along with multiple destructive wars around the globe which could be described as genocides, 2025 was the year from hell for me in a very personal way. My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The good news is that it was caught early and is considered extremely treatable. The bad news is that there are unavoidable side effects to treatment, including ones that inflamed preexisting kidney stones, so I spent a lot of time driving back and forth across the Midwest trying to take care of him.

This was exacerbated by my mom simultaneously having medical issues of her own. What should have been a simple tooth extraction turned into a pervasive infection that multiple people failed to diagnose, dismissing it as lingering pain from the procedure she had. By the time she stopped worrying about my dad and started worrying about herself, she wound up going into the hospital to get as much of the infection as possible removed. The next course of treatment was daily infusions of powerful antibiotics via a PICC line. In life you wind up learning new medical terms you never intended to. Again there is good news — she has successfully completed the full round of infusions and is now on the mend. The bad news is my parents were so overwhelmed by dealing with all of this that we aren’t celebrating the holidays at all. It’s their choice and I agree with it. The less stress right now the better.

Did you think I was done though? No. When I say this is a year I want to forget I mean it. At the same time I was helping my dad, and then helping my mom, a family member ended up in crisis after being kicked out of a treatment program. Their legal guardian was out of the country on business and we were asked to intervene. If it seems like I’m being purposefully vague in this paragraph you’re not wrong. I have no desire to put their business on blast. All I’m willing to say about it is that we unexpectedly had a house guest for a couple of weeks, at the exact same time I was trying to drive back and forth three hours both ways to the hospital. When people say they are thankful for things at this time of year, I’m thankful I started taking antidepressants eight years ago. I’m not sure I could have survived the amount of stress any other way. Rap, my wife, my cat, my meds. They kept me alive.

Writing is normally a therapeutic process that helps keep me focused and healthy. Your support on Patreon has helped with that and continues to do so. For that reason I do the hard things that I feel are necessary, which includes paying tribute to the important people in rap music and hip-hop culture who passed away in a calendar year. I’m far from perfect, I may miss some people occasionally, and I’m not some ghoul seeking to “break news” the way people on social media often do. I’d rather be thoughtful than be first. I’d rather a human being take the time to remember what other human beings have done that for an AI generated article to gloss over the facts while getting half or more of them wrong. What follows is at least a partial list of the people we lost in 2025.

Here’s something we all need after remembering those deaths — ten albums that give us life through amazing music. Even in the darkest of times hip-hop music and culture has always been there for me and defines the reason I continue to do what I’m doing right now.

10. DJ Premier & Ransom – “The Reinvention“

There’s a lot I could say but I will defer to Grant Jones since he said it best. “‘The Reinvention’ thankfully eschews the drumless mantra Ransom excelled at with notable producers such as Nicholas Craven and V-Don, and the DJ Premier beats here offer more replay value than the lower-key offerings he supplied for Roc Marciano earlier this year. Six tracks is stingy, but what’s here is good, sometimes excellent, yet inevitably left me wanting more.”

9. King Iso – “Ghetto Psycho“

I think I’m a little biased just because King Iso hails from my own neck of the woods. He’s talking about important issues that aren’t being talked about by many people in the rap game though, and he’s not doing so in a preachy pulpit pounding way either. I’ve already talked about the mental health struggle in the opening paragraphs of this Year in Review, so if you’re still with me at this point then you know why I support King Iso’s desire to merge entertainment with awareness and redefine our discussions on the topic. More music like this is needed.

8. Atmosphere – “Jestures“

To be honest I’m doubting that this is as low as #8 even as I make this list. Scroll it up much higher if you want to. It’s clearly not the best Atmosphere album in their incredibly dense catalogue, but if you’re looking for meaningful rap lyrics clearly delivered and well executed, you can hardly go wrong here. Sayeth Sy: “Slug and Ant have been hip-hop artists for three decades and, without compromise, have indeed changed with the times. If that wasn’t true, ‘Jestures’ would’ve been another ‘Lucy Ford.'”

7. Ghostface Killah – “Supreme Clientele 2“

There’s something about the tone of Ghostface Killah’s vocal delivery that’s changed over the last ten years. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe the years of recording and touring have made his throat weary and his lungs tired. The essence of greatness is still there but listening to this album accidentally made me yearn for the original “Supreme Clientele,” which I will go to my grave saying is one of the best Wu-Tang albums of all time. It’s hard to make up for how much you can change or how much the game can change with a quarter century of time between the two entries, but respect for Ghost still doing what he does at a high enough level to even crack this list.

6. Apathy – “Mom & Dad“

This album is inextricably tied to the 1980’s, the decade I grew up in and have the most memories of from my childhood, so it was almost guaranteed to land a spot here. Almost. Apathy still had to earn it with the beats and the rhymes though and he did. Sy: “Though Reaganomics was intended for economic growth, it had the added effect of widening wealth inequality and hurting poor communities (war on drugs, cuts to public housing, education, etc.). Hip-hop became a voice for those impacted by Reagan-era policies while both ‘Mom & Dad’ and Apathy serve as legacies to that era.”

5. Ché Noir x The Other Guys – “No Validation“

Name a female rapper better than Noir in the last 12 months. Spoiler — you can’t. Take it Sy: “Even at eight tracks, Che Butta Queen continues as one of hip-hop’s most consistent emcees and The Other Guys production is as varied as it is sonically plentiful.” A longer album would have ranked much higher on this list than fifth place.

4. Nas x DJ Premier – “Light-Years“

The consensus opinion I’ve seen form about this album is “it gets better the more you listen to it.” That’s why at this exact moment I’m not rating it any higher than #4 on my list. I’m not sure how I will feel about it in another twelve months, but I do know it’s too soon after it came out for me to move it up above two other more deserving releases. Sy seemed to think it was one of Primo’s lesser efforts and he may even be right about that. Conversely I’d argue that even DJ Premier’s worst days are better than most producers at their best, AND he was working with Nas, who history will undoubtedly remember as the preeminent poet laureate of Queens.

3. Clipse – “Let God Sort Em Out“

Pusha T and Malice didn’t have to get back together. Pharrell didn’t have to produce it either. The fact that all of those things happened in one calendar year was not on my 2025 bingo card and to say I was pleasantly surprised is putting it mildly. In fact it made me reevaluate some of my previous reviews of Clipse albums. There’s nothing I’m changing at this point but listening to their new album made me reflect more fondly on their past work and at least consider that they were (and perhaps still are) one of the most underrated duos in rap.

2. Mobb Deep – “Infinite“

You know PR people are getting sensitive when you ask about AI and they immediately get hostile about it. Well then! The question had to be asked though since Prodigy passed away eight years ago. You can’t make a Mobb Deep record without both Havoc and Prodigy. Period. End of discussion. As far as I’m concerned Grant had the same questions about this album I did, but when he wrote “there’s nothing obviously amiss on ‘Infinite’ that suggests the use of AI” I’m inclined to agree. There was probably just enough material left in the vault for one more posthumous album. If we get another new Mobb Deep album in another five years, that’s a problem. That won’t even be believable.

1. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist – “Alfredo 2“

Is it better than the original “Alfredo” album? That’s a subject you could debate endlessly. Is it a worthy sequel that’s at least equal to its predecessor? I don’t think there’s any debate on that point. Time and time again Freddie Gibbs has shown us his world weary raps, mixing a hustler’s ambition with a poet’s soul, trying hard to entertain us with both lurid fantasies and somber reflections. The only better partner he’s ever had to produce music to match his mood is Madlib. If you’ve had the kind of tiring and mentally exhausting 2025 that I did, you owe it to yourself to listen to a rapper and producer who fit so well together they might as well have been separated at birth.

As always this is my personal top ten, so if you don’t like it FU… just kidding. It’s all opinions and they vary from person to person. I’m sure the other staffers will disagree with me in their own year end wrap ups and I encourage it. If you have any feedback on any of our lists you know what to do.