Best EP

Oh man, an award blurb! Crazy!

Best EP ended up being a field that seemed underpopulated until we finished adding things to it, and then it was suddenly all awesome. The widespread release of Viet Cong’s “Cassette” was an obvious addition, given our Calgary kink. Ben Khan emerged out of nowhere, all handsome and clever and dancey. Panda Bear released as good a warning for his new record as could be issued. What was really notable about Best EP this year is that a lot of the year’s most subversive rap came out through here: LE1F’s East Coast Rap and Dark House Fetishized Car Crash, the skeletons in Lil Ugly Mane’s closet, and the world domination of IloveMakonnen’s individualist spree.

In a way, this kind of ended up being the Lil Ugly Mane/Shawn Kemp Lifetime Achievement Award. We discovered him in 2013, the year after Mista Thug Isolation came out, and he’s become a real shared focus of everyone behind the scenes. As a producer, he has an incredible sense of atmosphere that creates the world that Lil Ugly Mane would have to exist in. As an MC, he’s completely solid and produced in a way that lets him establish when it’s the person behind Ugly Mane and the character Lil Ugly Mane. As a lyricist he has total control of a natural storytelling style, allowing him to move seamlessly from outlandish impossibility to crushing sincerity. What The Weeping Worm accomplishes is quickly demonstrating the wide range of his sounds and skills. Funny that it’s going to be one of his last releases.