ACRN Week Special

This week, ACRN is turning 42. That's crazy! Forty-two years of music have gone by in the span of ACRN's existence. I've been alive for less than half of that impressive run, and Stack That Cheese has been around for an even shorter amount of time. While it would be nearly impossible to figure out what were the best releases in the span of ACRN's 42 years, it's fairly plausible to be able to do that for Stack That Cheese's run. So, why not do that? Let's look back at the year thus far and hand out awards to the best and most re-dic-yu-lus mixtapes that have been covered in Stack That Cheese.

The Best:

This was extremely difficult to figure out. There have been a lot of quality mixtapes that I have covered in Stack That Cheese's relatively short existence--so much so that I felt I had to split up this category. Because mixtapes can come from much different circumstances, I figured it would only be fair to separate the major releases from the mixtapes that barely made a splash.

The Best Major Release:

OCD: Moosh & Twist - Back to the Basement

This is one of the newest "good" mixtapes and that means that this award could have been affected by my emotions surrounding it being fairly recent. Hell, I'm pretty certain that's the reason I still like this mixtape so much.

But it's still such a good mixtape. I wrote about why I liked it already, obviously. But I might as well explain why it beat out it's biggest competitors.

One of Back to the Basment's biggest competition was Action Bronson's Rare Chandelliers. As I said when I reviewed it, it was just so brutal. And in the best possible way. Action Bronson is just an overall scary person and it comes out on Rare Chandelliers.

This was the hardest to decide. For one, Rare Chandelliers by far has the best cover of any mixtape that I reviewed. How could you not love a .gif for a mixtape cover? Secondly, Action Bronson has one of the best Twitters of any rap artist. His randomness is up there with Tyler, the Creator. However, if the things I remember most about your mixtape are your cover and how it led me to some great late-night tweets, then there are probably some better mixtapes out there.

The other dark horse for this category was Hoodie Allen's return to quality rap on Crew Cuts. This one was much easier because as I was deciding just which mixtape was the best, I realized the song I go to most on Crew Cuts is the one featuring OCD. And if OCD was the best part of Crew Cuts, then a mixtape of only them must be great.

Best Underground Release:

Blake Allee - Televisionn

This one wasn't even nearly as hard. In fact, the reason I made this a category was because I didn't want to try to figure out whether I liked this mixtape better than Back to the Basement or not. It just sounded like a daunting task that I wasn't ready to conquer.

This one is easily Blake Allee's to lose. Televisionn is the most creative mixtape that I've listened to all year. The beats are so different than what anyone else is doing, his lyrics are riddled with clever wordplay and complex rhymes and it has a really intelligent theme.

Sure, there was competition. Rubixx's To the Third and Cinos' #ChaosControl2 were among the biggest standouts. But neither were nearly as creative as Televissionn, along with having their own problems. So, the fake award goes to Allee.

Biggest Disappointment:

Pusha T - Wrath of Caine

I already went over why I didn't like this mixtape all that much, so I'm not going to bore you with me explaining it again.

Instead I'm just going to say why it was so disappointing.

Pusha T has always been a good rapper, going all the way back to his Clipse days. Wrath of Caine, though, was really his first major solo release. After being such a great rapper beforehand, both as one-half of Clipse and in various guest spots, it was expected to be fantastic. Instead, it was just mediocre. 

Now, if this category was the worst mixtape, Pusha T wouldn't be even close. It was probably among the best of "the bad." However, it shouldn't have even been bad. He's better than this. But on Wrath of Caine, he didn't prove it.

Most Re-Dic-Yu-Lus:

Lil Poopy - Coke Ain't a Bad Word

Was there anyone else who even had a chance against Lil Poopy? He's like a mini French Montana who's not even that good at a normal size and after actual experience. That's perfect. The only thing cooler would be if 2 Chainz had a mini-me. Now that would be amazing.

Another thing to say for Poopy is that he got me hooked on these little kid rappers. They're hilarious! Screw Degrassi, little kid rappers are my new guilty pleasure.

Sorry, Drake

Most Based:

Lil B - Pink Flame

Ok, some one could have beaten Lil Poopy out for most re-dic-yu-lus. But that's not fair to Lil Poopy if I put him up against Based God. And I'm not about to pick on a little kid. (It's funny, because by judging an eight-year-old's rapping skills, I am kind of picking on him.)

This might have been the toughest category to judge over all. I mean, how does one even begin to judge a mixtape's basedness?

Well, for starters, it must be by Lil B. That narrowed it down to three.

After that, I was lost. What makes a Lil B mixtape so based? Is it his clever wordplay? His brilliant lyrics? His bumping beats?

After many days of intense thought, I realized that basedness is not a measurable quality. It's something that's just unexplainable, like the size of the universe or whether the chicken came before the egg.

So I left it up for the Based God to decide. I printed out a picture of each mixtape cover and threw them up in the air. And then, Pink Flame was struck by lightning, thus symbolizing that it was so based.

That and "Eat" is one of my favorite Lil B songs of all time. Thank you, Based God.