Speaking with Complex in a newly released interview, Brooklyn emcee Troy Ave claimed that his late 2013 release New York City: The Album should be considered the best Rap album of 2013.
“The best rap album?” Ave said in response to the question. “Troy Ave, that’s a fact. Everybody knows that. The fucking critics whatever, the real people who actually listened to that shit knows that. That’s not even a question. I had the absolute best Rap album of the year, I don’t care who you—and I made that shit on my budget out my pocket, this is street money. This is out the pocket I made this, it wasn’t no big multimillion dollar budget or however much these niggas get. No, this shit straight up, real music don’t take that much money to make. That’s a fact, the truth don’t cost you nothing if you telling it, it’s the truth. So I definitely had the best Rap album, I don’t know who would disagree but if anybody even disagree, the fact that me, Troy Ave, totally independent artist from BSB Records could even be mentioned in the same realm as Drake, Pusha T, Jay Z, that mean I already won. I’m not supposed to even be getting mentioned in that for album of the year.”
In November, HipHopDX awarded Troy Ave’s New York City four out of five stars. “Without feeling forced, Troy Ave has created an album that is sure to give New Yorkers something to be proud of, and those outside of the five boroughs something resembling the music they most likely also loved from the NYC,” the review said.
During the interview, Troy Ave went on to detail his appreciation for Rick Ross and spoke again on his view of street Rap. “The essence of Rap is the streets, period,” he said. “From Kurtis Blow with a fucking jheri curl, he was [rapping] some street shit. KRS-One, rapping some street shit. So street Rap always reigns supreme. Now you got the other sub-genres of Rap that need to be classified instead of bunching everything up together…I don’t give a fuck about weirdo Rap, I know what I’m doing, and I represent the highest of the fucking food chain of Rap, and that’s street Rap. That’s what I’m putting on.
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“Look at Rick Ross he one of the biggest in the game, he rep the street shit,” he said. “You might have a weirdo or somebody else sell more records than him but that don’t mean shit. When you talking about the street Rap, you got a lot of the media people, they can more so relate to the fucking weirdo rappers, the drug rappers whatever, so they try to push them to the forefront. And that shit ain’t right, it ain’t about what’s popular it’s about what’s right. You got fucking rappers wearing tight-ass…shit look like latex. It’s spandex but it looks like a condom on your leg. Niggas wearing that shit, that’s not cool. I don’t care how many rappers wear that, that shit could be popular, it’s not cool at all, that ain’t what’s right.”
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