The Best Hip-Hop Concept Albums of 2021
Explore the best hip-hop concept albums of 2021, featuring standout releases with unique themes and narratives. Covering everything from personal stories and fictional worlds to cultural commentary and deeper explorations of society, these are the albums that stood out among the year's conceptual releases.
Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is a concept album where Simz takes a journey through her own mind and examines the reasons behind her more introverted tendencies; she emotionally confronts her childhood, the intricacies of familial love, and how her early years and experiences formed the woman and artist that she’s become – even its title is a backronym of her nickname, Simbi.
Garbology is the study of culture and society through the context of refuse and the manner in which a society disposes of it. While the title conceptually fits the way the album was conceived and completed, thematically it differs entirely—with a strict emphasis by Aesop Rock on death, isolation, kitsch, macabre, and spirituality with a healthy dash of social criticism. The title is also a reference to sampling, due to how samples reuse and repurpose music.
The Color Blu(e) is a concept album about the color Blue and several play on words regarding it , is an artistic thesis statement, celebrating and reflecting on a remarkable creative journey. The word “Blu(e)” is featured in every song title, and “Blue” is also weaved into each of the album’s soundscape and production.
Death & The Magician is a collaborative album by DJ Muggs and Rome Streetz and fits snugly within the rap noir subgenre, but it’s also sprinkled with a healthy dollop of mysticism. In DJ Muggs’ own words: “Death and the Magician is a sonic and lyrical onslaught on a dark rainy night in NYC and is based on the Major Arcana cards in the tarot deck. The Death card signals that one major phase in your life is ending and a new one is going to start. You just need to close one door so the new one will open. The past needs to be placed behind you, so you can focus your energy on what lies ahead. When the Magician appears it points to the talents, capabilities, and resources at the querent’s disposal to succeed. The message is to tap into one’s full potential rather than holding back, especially when there is a need to transform something.”
Smiling With No Teeth by Australian rapper Genesis Owusu is about pretending things are okay when they’re not. By making the album sound sexy and upbeat and fun and dancey “and then when you actually delve into, it’s a facade, a fake smile and you get into the core of what I’m actually talking about.” It tackles these topics of depression, racism, and oppression.
For My Mama and Anyone Who Looks Like Her by McKinley Dixon challenges Black people to revisit more than one timeline and question everything they’ve been taught about processing grief in order to rebuild their present and future selves. There’s no definitive end to the darkness and trauma of the past, but this album is a stepping stone in Dixon’s pursuit of moving forward, and being a voice for Black people still learning how to advocate for themselves. “People that look like my mama can be Black women, Black trans people, Black queer folks, my Mom is this very universal thing in that regard.” “The best way to sum up this album is: I was sad, I was mad, and now I’m alive,” Dixon explains. “These things I talk about on the record have had harmful and brilliant effects on my timeline, and have forced me to be cognizant of the fact that living is complex. Rap has allowed me the language to communicate, and be someone who can communicate with people from all over. Knowing how far I’ve come, I think people will find trust in the message I’m sending.” – McKinley Dixon
Each song on Se7en is modeled after and based on one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
A Magnificent Day For An Exorcism is a political concept album that features Pharoahe Monch’s hip-hop vocals over a hard rock band. The titular “exorcism” refers to a few things: to the end of the Trump presidency, as the album came out only two days after Biden’s inauguration, to the band is exorcising other systemic thorns from the soul of the oppressed: police brutality, school shootings, Reaganomics, racism, and more. The number thirteen and numerology is also a prevalent theme. “I wrote this album feeling intuitively that there’s still a collective consciousness that is unfolding, if we listen. The title ‘A Magnificent Day For An Exorcism’ speaks to the ending of one way of thinking and the beginning of a beautiful and more evolved way of being.” – Pharoahe Monch
On Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler assumes the identity of Tyler Baudelaire, a fictional character creating his own Gangsta Grillz mixtape with DJ Drama. While Baudelaire brags that he is world-famous, he still suffers from emotional turmoil, as he’s in love with his friend’s girl. “Baudelaire, the character Tyler plays throughout the album, is a proxy for Tyler’s newfound worldliness-and his inability to leverage that sophistication into the relationship of his dreams.”
The title comes from James Allen’s 1903 self-help/philosophical essay As a Man Thinketh, which argues that a person’s thoughts shape their reality, with themes around self-knowledge, power, and internal discipline.
ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE is a concept album with lots of themes of how it’s worth it to persevere through hardship and focus on “the light.” They all had to find the strength to continue through a depressing point in their lives and have finally come to the conclusion that living and chasing the light is worth the difficulties life throws at you.
In All Hail the King, Fashawn plays the role of the King, who has returned after many years of war, to sit upon his throne, accompanied by his knight.
Fire in Little Africa is a multimedia hip-hop project commemorating the 1921 massacre of Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood known as ‘Black Wall Street’. 60 artists from Oklahoma come together to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The former home of 1921 massacre mastermind and KKK leader Tate Brady was turned into recording studio for this album. The album’s mission is to recondition the minds of listeners while serving as an auditory viewpoint of black America today. “It was everybody getting on board for a cause, which is not only spreading awareness of Black Wall Street, but taking that history and that mentality and instilling it into people going forward,” Steph Simon told The Oklahoman.
With Portishus, Hus Kingpin takes inspiration from the English trip-hop band Portishead for this project . While the lyricism is original and clever, the production is mostly pulled samples directly from the catalog of Portishead. Portishus features a bevvy of supporting rappers like Vinnie Paz, Ty Farris, Ransom, and Musalini to name a few.
Nino Green is a loose concept album, that uses pieces of audio from the early 90’s drug movie New Jack City, about Nino Brown, a rising drug lord in New York City during the crack epidemic.
Town’s Dead by Kojaque is an expansive concept album that unravels over 16 tracks, documenting a tumultuous love triangle that unfolds across New Year’s Eve, with results that are both cinematic and deeply personal. Through breakups and breakdowns, Town’s Dead teeters on the brink, spilling from the mind of a singular talent onto streets scaffolded by a broken system but still suffused with love. “Town’s Dead comes from the potential that I see in Dublin and in the people I’m surrounded by day in and day out. There’s nothing but talent and ambition among young people, I’m constantly reminded of that through the art and music that I see being made but I think so often the city grinds you down, it takes your hope and your ambition.” “I know that it can change because so many of my friends express the exact same wants, desires and frustrations with living in Ireland. If so many of us are on the same page then I know that things can change, there just needs to be some sort of catalyst to kick start that change and for me that’s always been art and music. Time and time again, amazing art continues to be made in spite of the struggles and setbacks that are presented when living here. The title track and the album is a fight against what can sometimes feel inevitable, it’s a rejection of what people tell you is your destiny as a young person in the city, Town’s NOT dead it’s just Dormant.” – Kojaque
Harry Krum dropped one of the best releases of 2021 with this thematic album Black Lung. The emcee/producer teams up with nineteen other rappers featured over seventeen different tracks, all within the tight runtime of thirty minutes. Krum’s production is phenomenal, a throwback to soulful boom-bap and dope sampling. Krum said this along with the album’s release: “Black Lung is a serious illness. It occurs from continued underground exposure where dust is inhaled. Over time, continued exposure to dust causes scarring in the lungs, impairing one’s ability to breathe. Considered an occupational illness, it is most common among those working under the Earth’s surface.”
A collaboration with the otherworldly producer, L’Orange. Namir Blade controls the clouds and the concrete. With the blink of a synapse, his imagination conjures elaborate visions of valleys of death, bad Tijuana dreams, and shotgun raids. In the next breath, he’s blowing off texts, rolling out of bed around noon, and crooning falsetto pleas about his willingness to change. It is a journey and experience. Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, he offers an artistic conceit and nocturnal panoramas. “My entire concept for Imaginary Everything was, I think you are so good at music that I think you need to figure out how to trust yourself, because I would like to hear what you sound like if you weren’t refining your process so much. My concept for this was that, instinctively, part of what creativity is developing your instincts and taking less time to get to the thing that you want to make. And so what your first instinct is, or the first thing that carries you musically starts from, that’s what I want to hear the most off of this record.” – Namir Blade
Video game rapper Raheem “Mega Ran” Jarbo and record label GameChops are releasing Black Materia: The Remake, a 22-track album of original rap songs inspired by Final Fantasy VII Remake, the award-winning 2020 reboot of one of the most popular video games of all time. Black Materia: The Remake takes listeners on a hip-hop journey through Final Fantasy VII. The role-playing game centers on a group of heroic revolutionaries fighting to bring down Shinra, an energy company that’s destroying the planet for profit. The album retells the video game’s acclaimed story through rap. The beats and backing tracks feature memorable moments from Nobuo Uematsu’s acclaimed Final Fantasy VII score. “Final Fantasy 7 is eternal,” Ran says. “The magic surrounding that game will never die. The Black Materia album represents a landmark in the story of Mega Ran; so it was a little nerve-wracking to attempt to revisit it. But I knew if we were going to do it, it had to be bigger. We’ve all learned so much since 2011, and it’s a welcome challenge to get together and showcase that.”
Elephant in the Room “is an attempt to address various unspoken personal and/or general truths. And how they have affected me and can affect those around me. From my estranged relationship with my father to friendships that don’t feel the same anymore to the even more basic idea of acknowledging that I need help.” – Mick Jenkins
The eighth “issue” in the Magneto Was Right series. “The X-Men show is a direct analogy to the civil rights movement, and Magneto is based on Malcolm X, with Professor X being Martin Luther King Jr. Integration happened, and we still got police brutality, the propagation of self-hate.” “We are still dealing with white supremacy, so at the end of the day, Malcolm was right, we’d be better off doing our own thing instead of depending on the system to start treating us equally. Malcolm is based on Magneto. Magneto Was Right. It’s a more recognizable and digestible way of saying the same shit. I been saying for a long time: ‘Use your natural powers and free yourself.'” – Raz Fresco
The ninth “issue” in the Magneto Was Right series. “The X-Men show is a direct analogy to the civil rights movement, and Magneto is based on Malcolm X, with Professor X being Martin Luther King Jr. Integration happened, and we still got police brutality, the propagation of self-hate.” “We are still dealing with white supremacy, so at the end of the day, Malcolm was right, we’d be better off doing our own thing instead of depending on the system to start treating us equally. Malcolm is based on Magneto. Magneto Was Right. It’s a more recognizable and digestible way of saying the same shit. I been saying for a long time: ‘Use your natural powers and free yourself.'” – Raz Fresco
HUNGRY is a concept EP from Loretta Records with food-based titles to really hammer home the theme. “However, we then had the idea to have Ro strictly sample records with food-based titles to reinforce the theme. So, for example, he used a loop from the Leon Haywood track Cornbread & Buttermilk.” – Loretta Records
Pressure Point is presented as a fictional resort. “Has the stress of your daily routine got you feeling overwhelmed? Do you feel like you need to get away? Do you constantly daydream about being somewhere else? Well, what are you waiting for?” Book a trip to Pressure Point. Nestled far away from the stress of your job, commuter traffic and social media overload. Our resort has everything you need to apply pressure and relieve tension in those much needed areas of your soul
Tha YOD Fahim is actually the second collaborative release of 2021 by Your Old Droog and Tha God Fahim. Each track on their sophomore collab album revolves around or is inspired by basketball. From shout outs to players themselves (Charles Barkley) to their nicknames or monikers (Mailman) to the other aspects around the NBA. There’s even a song sampling players celebrating post-championship by saying they’re going to go to Disney World in the aptly-named track Disney World. YOD and Fahim go on to say about the release on their Bandcamp: “The connection of YOD and Fahim is a pairing that simply works. Both have their roots in raw, unpretentious hip-hop that also pushes the music to its boundaries, and you can hear those qualities running throughout all 14 tracks. As unadulterated as the music is, the album represents something even greater from both Droog and Fahim. It’s a testament to their creative synergy and their gifts as artists who never compromise or hold back.”
It’s a seven-hour drive from Reno to Vegas. Victor could make it in six. Vic was the guy who could see all the angles. He’d made his mistakes. He knew his limits. He was always eager to help the next guy up. “We’ll all need friends on the way down,” he’d say. Vic was younger than he looked. A pot of black coffee every morning will do that. He was younger than he smelled, too: three sprays of English Leather. Vic was born to be a gambler. After a lifetime of calculated risks, he’s going all-in. Vegas Vic is ZillaRocca’s boldest album. Featuring beats from Disco Vietnam, Darko the Super, The Expert and Small Professor, with appearances by Curly Castro, Prem Rock and Alaska, “Vegas Vic” is the sound of a slot machine going haywire when you’re down to your last 2 bucks.