2021 was a huge year for music, and with the Grammy Award Ceremony coming up soon, I took it upon myself to give an in-depth listen to each of the albums that have been nominated for the “best rap album” category and give readers a guide for which one they should be pushing for. If you haven’t listened to most or all of these albums, I highly recommend checking them out.

Call Me If You Get Lost by Tyler, the Creator

Tyler, the Creator has had a remarkable past five years. Since his release of the critically acclaimed album Flower Boy, Tyler’s albums have been topping the charts and doing ridiculous numbers, not to mention his 2019 album Igor, which won a Grammy for best rap album. Now with another album up for a Grammy award, what exactly is Tyler bringing to the table?

Call Me If You Get Lost is brilliant in the way that it’s not trying to follow up the intense emotion of Igor, or the smooth sounds of Flower Boy. It’s more of Tyler refining the grungy aesthetic of earlier works such as Goblin, Wolf, and Cherry Bomb. This new sound coupled with improved flows and a star-studded feature list created a lot of super bangers, most notably Corso, Lemonhead, Juggernaut, Wusyaname, and Hot Wind Blows, which have great performances from NBA YoungBoy, Lil Wayne, Pharrell Williams, 42 Dugg, and Lil Uzi Vert. Yet even in the midst of these hits, Tyler finds a way to keep his lyrics personally relevant, or at least personal enough to present exactly how happy he is with his life and the type of confident person that he is.

Unfortunately, this specific aspect of the album might tend to repel more casual listeners when Tyler chooses to include not one, but two eight to ten minute diatribes in his album in the form of Sweet / I Thought You Wanted To Dance and Wilshire, which talk about a relationship that he’s trying to insert himself into, a subplot that was hinted at most notably in Corso. While some of Tyler’s most devoted fans will see these moments as fascinating, if you’re not hanging onto Tyler’s every word in these songs, they can turn boring quickly.

Donda by Kanye West

In a world where trap music is becoming the more prevalent form of entertainment for hip hop fans, it’s truly amazing that Donda had the monumental impact that it did, even for a Kanye West album. Kanye’s gospel-infused hip hop album got more attention than any other hip hop album due to both its anticipated release date and the multiple postponed release dates which included a live performance. But was Donda worth the hype?

The easy answer is yes. While Kanye occasionally tanks the emotional moment by inserting a very corny pun and an extremely bloated track list, the tracks that hit really hit. For one, when the features are good, they’re just about perfect. The Weeknd’s beautiful hook on Hurricane as well as Jay-Z’s verse on Jail make for some of the better features on the album, and even though I was personally not fond of the Baby Keem feature, it received critical acclaim and was one of the many reasons that Keem’s debut album, The Melodic Blue, got as much attention as it did.

Kanye’s clear lyrical improvement from the JESUS IS KING album from the year before is another reason to check out Donda, and some will argue that the album is Kanye’s first true return to form after a string of forgettable projects in ye, JESUS IS KING, Yeezus, and an album in The Life of Pablo that although featured prominent moments, still left a very scattered project.

Perhaps the Achilles Heel of this album is the four remixes which Kanye chooses to add to the end, with the worst of them being Jail Pt 2 which replaces Jay-Z’s verse with DaBaby and adds Marilyn Manson’s vocals to the hook. Both of these artists have had some sort of major controversy within 2021 alone, and their inclusion on Donda seems unnecessary given that they were only included on the album on a glorified bonus track.

I would not be surprised if Donda won purely with the merit of being the album that got the most attention this year amongst fans and critics alike.

The Off-Season by J. Cole

The Off-Season is J. Cole’s most recent album following KOD, which was an extremely mixed bag with more bad than good, and a compilation album with Dreamville records that, while inconsistent, featured a stronger tracklist than KOD with singles like Under the Sun and Middle Child doing big numbers. With that said, The Off-Season could very well be Cole’s best project to date.

Cole led this album with a host of extremely successful lead singles, namely Interlude, which was released a week before the album’s release. Pride is the Devil, which featured a punishing verse from Lil Baby and an aggressive flow and passionate singing from Cole, and My Life, which had an excellent feature from 21 Savage, are also excellent.

Even if you take away those singles, the album is still extremely strong, with just as many bangers as there are tracks that pack some emotional punch. There’s 100 Mil where even though Cole is sporting arguably one of his worst hooks on the whole record, his main verse is performed with a lot of heart and his flow is just as good as it’s ever been. Let Go My Hand is a song that covers the span of multiple subject matters, but that mainly deals with the subject of growth, whether that’s Cole’s son growing up or Cole growing into his role as an artist. 

My one major complaint about the album would be that it does try to beat the listener over the head with the same core ideas that have to do with money and fame, but Cole’s passionate delivery, quick flows, and great wordplay along with the tight 39-minute runtime totally compensate for that.

King’s Disease II by Nas

In 2021, Nas won his first Grammy with his album King’s Disease, which topped the heap of a lackluster squad of rap albums. Now, with more competition to deal with, Nas is seeing King’s Disease II in contention for this award. Given how monumental each of the other three albums have been in their various ways, I see this album winning as a long shot, but there is always a chance.

My worry with this album is that there’s not anything similar to a decisive lead single in the way that the other albums have. Songs like Jail, Pride is the Devil, and Lumberjack are going to rack up a massive amount of plays, and not to mention, other songs within the album that are standout bangers. The understanding of the Nas album is much more tamped-down.

A lot of the savior complex and social expectations of this album may come off as either dated or preachy. For example, the track My Bible has a lot of commentary about Nas’ expectations or “commandments” for people to live by, and I feel like when voters are considering each album, the fact that Nas is being so abrasive about telling people how they should live their lives will work against him.

I do think the production on this album might be the best next to Call Me If You Get Lost. Hit-Boy is on the bulk of this album’s production, and he fuses a lot of the ‘90s hip hop style beats and trap aesthetic that people have been gravitating towards lately. In some tracks like EMPD 2, the beat has no hint of ‘90s in it at all, and it’s just a trap beat.  Ultimately, I think it’s good for Nas to both stick with his roots and try some more modern styles as well. All in all, the selections for this year’s rap album are extremely competitive, and each album has made a strong case to come away with the win. The Off-Season’s quick flows and incredible production compete well with the grandiose nature of Donda and the comically braggadocious lyrics of Call Me If You Get Lost. I would be happy to see any of these albums win the award, and I am excited to see what rap albums 2022 has to offer.