1. Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment – Surf
Chance The Rapper, Donnie Trumpet and The Social Experiment take the top spot, as if you didn’t see this coming. Surf is a winner. The numbers don’t lie – and neither do the fans. Surf is easily the most experimental yet dope “hip-hop” project of 2015. From the production, to the sequencing, to the lineup – the project is stacked front to back. It’s a real life musical, but we told you that with our early preview of the album.
Only a few working factions in the game right now could pull this off, and the SoX did so oh-so effortlessly – well, at least they’d like you to think so. Surf dropped unexpectedly in late-May and the first week numbers proved just how much power the super-indie Chano actually has. You can’t beat free, and SoX disrupted the old model by garnering close to 700,000 downloads in the first week, with 10 million individual streams. Not many could accomplish this feat, especially with no major single or radio presence (or label backing for that matter). The power of the people continues to be the most effective way of spreading music, and SoX proved this yet again with Surf.
Listen to Surf