best of the booth awards

Just like hip-hop, indie R&B is where some of the most interesting, adventurous and creative music on the planet gets made and 2014 was no different. We had a lot of more than worthy nominees for the indie R&B category,…

You gonna read these Best of the Booth Awards or nah? After spending yesterday tackling our hip-hop song awards, today we turn our attention to the world of R&B and pop which, for the record, experienced a real surge in…

While it may have been a slow year for mainstream hip-hop albums, major label artist pumped out a number of classic songs this year, and it showed. This was one of the Best of the Booth Awards’ most hotly contested…

If you want to know where the real music lives, the music that’s unafraid to say whatever it wants, the music that can really make an impact, it’s still in the underground and independent world, far from the bright lights…

It’s like the Source Awards, except no one gets stabbed. It’s like the Grammy Awards, except we actually know what we’re doing (aka no Iggy Azalea nominations). It’s like the…you get the point. The DJBooth Best of the Booth Awards…

The constant flood of new artists is a blessing and a curse. Yes, it can make keeping up with every buzzworthy rapper and singer a nearly impossible task, even for those of us who literally spend their lives working on the…

This is why they do it, ladies and gentlemen. Every bar spit, every song released, every album dropped by a rapper in 2014 has led up to a single burning question: who will be crowned The DJBooth’s Best Emcee of 2014? OK, so that may be…

Emcees get all the glory, but really it’s the producers who are setting trends, creating hits and making the rappers sound awesome. Let’s face it: without a great beat, a song just won’t hit. In 2014, we heard our fair share of great instrumentals from…

If you were devoted enough to go off the beaten path and venture into the world of indie hip-hop you were handsomely rewarded in 2014. We had some really incredible albums, EPs, free projects and mixtapes from pillars of the indie world as…

J. Cole’s new album might be all the rage now, but don’t forget there were nine other major-label albums this year that stole our hearts. Maybe you dug YG getting back to his West Coast roots? Maybe ScHoolboy Q made you…

Blockbuster rap albums may have been scarce in 2014, but the year was filled with noteworthy non-Hip-Hop projects. Between Sam Smith blowing up the radio with an album full of hits, Jhené Aiko dealing with a break-up and the hottest producer in the game…

While major label albums were a little light this year, we certainly had our fair share of great singles that will continue to have an impact for years to come. Below are the cream of the crop; from club bangers…