The beats on this album, all composed for rappers he had never met but simply emailed tracks to, recall little in hip hop. This is because he makes music like no-one else. The speed of music can be measured with the story of Clams Casino’s extraordinary album – revolutionary on release, classic in months, it’s made an unassuming 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist called Mike Volpe from New Jersey one of the most in-demand hip hop producers of the moment.
But as one of my favourite all-time records, this list would be drastically incomplete without it. In April, when ‘Instrumentals Mixtape’ was released as a Mediafire link, the idea of a free mixtape by an unknown producer ending up on a best of album list was unheard of.
