While Noname quietly goes about her business, the World around her is heaping her praise at an incredible rate. What to wear, what to eat.. all the questions that come with less of a price. But in 2018, Noname quietly went 2/2 for her career by re-establishing her ever-expanding niche with Room 25. The project received unanimous praise, even from cultural critics with differing sensibilities, so much so that writers in my position have almost had to make it a point, not to her name (ironically Noname) out of turn.
So you can imagine how nice it must be to have those sentiments mirrored by other writers with cultural capital, all assembled under one Metacritic score. Better yet imagine how Noname feels right about now - to receive top honors over at Metacritic. Let me explain how the schematics work for those that don't know.
Now that we're at the tail end of an eventful 2018, rap fans and aficionados alike have either published their Year-End lists or are waiting to do so. The best way to account for an album overall perception is to check Metacritic. For those unfamiliar with the grading metric, Metacritic basically scrounges up a majority (not all) of the reviews for a given piece of work in order to create an aggregated score that accounts for all the different viewpoints scattered across the net.
The list isn't relegated to hip-hop or even music for that matter, but all kinds of content. So, for the record, it's Noname's Room 25 representing hip-hop on the "The Best Albums" list, with Janelle Monáe coming in at 7, Earl Sweatshirt at 8, Pusha T at 20, and Travis Scott at 27, across all 'genres.'