Best of 2021 (Jon Jon)

What a year. Not in a good way, but what a year. But the music continued on, and we did our best to keep track of new music both locally and nationally amidst the chaos. We are thankful to all the artists who continued to make new music and thankful to all of you who kept an eye on our little website. Check out Jon Jon’s selections below for his favorite national albums, songs and reissues from the year and keep an eye out for other lists before the end of the year.

Best Albums

Ben Lamar Gay – Open Arms to Open Us

Madlib – Sound Ancestors 

Sons of Kemet – Black to the Future 

Sault -Nine

Flying Lotus – Yasauke

Anika – Change

Fly Anakin – Smokebreak

Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be

Nightmares On Wax – Shout Out To Freedom

MMYYKK – Science 

James Blake – Friends That Break Your Heart

I Self Devine – Rituals of Resilience 

FPA- Princess Wikio

Mustafa – When Smoke Rises

Dua Saleh – Crossover

Dean Blunt – Black Metal 2

Medium Zach- Bad By Myself

Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few – Cosmic Transitions

Baby Keem – The Melodic Blue

K. Raydio – The Beat Tape Vol.2

Vince Staples – Vince Staples

Beverly Glenn Copeland – Keyboard Fatantasies Reimangined

Melanie Charles – Y’all Don’t (Really ) Care About Black Women

Lorraine James – Reflections

Parquet Courts – Sympathy For Life

Chelsea Carmichael –The River Doesn’t Like Strangers

Khruangbin – Mordechai Remixes

Reissues

John Coltrane – Love Supreme Live in Seattle 

Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and Sinner Lady / Mingus Mingus Mingus

Radiohead – Kid A Mnesia

The Awakening – Hear, Sense and Feel

Sonny Rollins Rollins in Holland

Doug Carn – Infant Eyes

Hasaan Ibn Ali Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers

First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings

Leo Nocentelli – Another Side