Best Album

Kashmere: Raiders of the Lost Archives
Ynr

2008 was a phenonemal year for hip-hop albums.

EMC’s The Show, M-Phasez’s Grindin’ project, Scene Stealers by Skreintax, the superbly produced Flying Colours by Bliss n Eso and the excellent Nas LP all provided solid competition. Atmosphere’s haunting When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold came close, and certainly gets the award for best title (and best packaging). But in 2008, the freshest album actually came from 2004.

Kashmere’s Raiders of the Lost Archives was good not because it did things differently, but because it stayed in the mind for so long after it ended. It’s a twisted, epic journey to some very strange places – before the first verse is out the way, Kash is already battling Satan in Hell – and it’s narrated by one of the most gifted MCs in the UK. And this material was recorded four years ago and is basically B-sides? Fuck outta here.



Best Concert

DJ Krush
Koko
19 January

One word: Krush (pictured).

The intense Japanese DJ started the year off ever so brilliantly with a knockdown set at Koko. His sweeping, repeating percussion, glitchy bass and bleepy-bloopy effects should not be able to electrify the way they do, but they do. It was three hours of slamming but strangely trancelike music, and while his follow-up set in August was more pedestrian and thoughtful, there was no way anybody was going to top this. It was that good.

To be fair, he had quite a few challengers. Funk’n’Stein’s intimate Pigalle Club show was outstanding, as were the multiple-night DMC DJ Champs which threatened to rock the city off its hinges. Lyrics Born always kills it, and his rowdy night at the low-ceilinged Dingwalls proved that more than ever. Million Dan, Roots Manuva, the insane Meth and Red, GZA – they all brought it. But none brought it as hard as Krush.