Okay here's my list. First my song and individual categories, then albums with some descriptions:
Artist/Group of the Year - Future
Producer of the Year - Metro Boomin
Rookie of the Year - Fetty Wap
Feature Killer of the Year - Drake
"L" of the Year - Tyga's life
Biggest Disappointment - To Pimp A Butterfly
Intro of the Year (Bonus) - Kendrick Lamar ft. George Clinton & Thundercat - Wesley's Theory
Song of the Year
1. Lupe Fiasco - Madonna ; 4 points
2. Fetty Wap ft. Remy Boyz - 679 ; 3 points
3. Travi$ Scott ft. Future & 2 Chainz - 3500 ; 3 points
4. Travi$ Scott ft. Swae Lee & Chief Keef - Nightcrawler ; 2 points
5. AZ - Vintage ; 2 points
6. Future - News or Somethin ; 2 points
7. Future - Stick Talk ; 1 point
8. Rae Sremmurd - Up Like Trump ; 1 point
9. Drake - Know Yourself ; 1 point
10. Post Malone - White Iverson ; 1 point
HM: Up Like Trump, Speed Racer, Energy, Blessings, Dr. Pepper, Canal St., Lord Pretty Flacko Jodye II, White Iverson, Too Young, Senorita, Where Ya At, Deep Water, Pray 4 Love, Maria I'm Drunk, Unecessary Pain, Low Life, M.F.T.R.
This list was so hard to narrow down, I gave up trying to order it more. Too many great songs this year.
Album of the Year
1. Travi$ Scott - Rodeo ; 4 points
Rodeo tops this list very simply for it's outstanding number of highs and consistency throughout the album. La Flame manages to swirl together influences from trap, punk, Houston-rap and more into perhaps the most lushly-, nuanced- and well-produced project all year. Sprinkle some great songwriting on top and you get Rodeo. An album so good I can even agree with what Anthony Fantano had to say about it; the album weaves in and out of so many different soundscapes and vibes all whilst maintaining a very brash, unapologetic and larger than life vibe throughout. Front to back, the album has slow, bouncier jams with spurts of raw-energy headbangers wedged between and within. Looking down the list of things I like in albums, it hits on nearly everything. Memorable hooks, top notch productions, memorable verses, well-chosen and unexpectedly good features, a great variety of tracks, bonus tracks aren't throwaways, a good chunk of the album makes up my favourite songs all year, the list goes on. It's by no means perfect, and one of the things it definitely doesn't hit on my list is having no really low points as it does have one or two, but it's damn sure one of the most fun and varied listen-throughs all year. And one that keeps growing on me too; at first I didn't think it was better than Days Before Rodeo, but now I might even be able to say it's better and more consistent than Owl Pharoah.
2. Future - Dirty Sprite 2 ; 3 points
I'm sure people will have more well-written and better explained reasons for why DS2 is high on their list, for me it's just because this shit goes. I could have given less of a fuck about Future before this year but now Stick Talk has surpassed Through The Wire on my list of most listened-to songs. The songwriting is impeccable throughout and is probably the best collection of shit-talking songs and quotables in a while. Standouts like Where Ya At and Stick Talk can be described as nothing less than heat rocks that won't be forgotten in years to come. Future's adjustment of his delivery to be a bit clearer, less slurred, and choosing to only work with the best producers from the modern Atlanta rap scene has clearly paid off.
3. Fetty Wap - Fetty Wap ; 3 points
Fetty Wap owned this year. If you tell me a rookie MC essentially cobbled together soundcloud releases over the course of the year to comprise his or her debut album, I would laugh and refuse to even waste my time even listening to the project. But Fetty is an anomaly in this regard, and perhaps even in hip-hop. Fetty's handle on melody hit the game hard, and while you could trace influences in his style to many of his peers including Future and Young Thug, the twist and delivery he puts on it really makes the end product something special. This is an album that, within itself, has an album's worth of summer-defining anthems. Hell, one of the songs on here straight up rips most of the lyrics from Trap Queen and fashions them into a whole new song and vibe and still bangs. Even when you aren't listening to one of the smashes on here, this relatively long album keeps you entertained and remains fun to listen to front-to-back. The whole project and the road that preceded its arrival is a model and standard for melody-driven artists moving forwards.
4. Vince Staples - Summertime '06 ; 2 points
Prior to Summertime '06, I hadn't heard a single Vince Staples project; but afterwards I'm sure it won't be the last. It's hard for me to break down this project because it's just damn good music across the board. It's got both super tough, involuntary head banging cuts like Norf Norf and Senorita as well as arguably the best slower vibes this year with Summertime and Might Be Wrong, and everything inbetween. The highlights are also so good on here that you forget the few times the double album may slog or dip in quality. Just good ass music.
5. Tory Lanez - Cruel Intentions ; 2 points
This was a difficult pick and placement for this list, as it's an ultra-short EP, but simultaneously the most consistent release all year, or at least close to the top two on my list. That said, in that small selection of songs, you get a wide variety of production, delivery, flows, cadences, tones and more. A collection of equally part hip-hop and part R&B vibes for a variety of emotions. Before or after, I don't think Tory has managed a better marriage of his style to production. The production really can't be understated here, it's super punchy and melodic at the same time, playing to both Tory's singing and his style of punchline rapping. One other thing I'd like to say about the production is that even though there are some pretty big names from the EDM world on here (i.e. Baauer, RL Grime), they really show how flexible they are with this project.
6. Big Sean - Dark Sky Paradise ; 2 points
Much like Rocky below, Sean had a pretty big ladder to climb after Hall of Fame, and he managed to deliver a really diverse project with some of the most memorable of the year. From the infectious hook and back and forth with Kanye on All Your Fault, to one of the best displays of rapping ability this year on Paradise (Extended), to the instant classic that is Blessings, to the subdued delivery and overlapping verses on I Know, which transitions, in what is also probably the best transition between tracks all year, into Deep, where we get one of the best Wayne verses in years and another great verse from Sean; this album is just chock full of some of the best songs and moments of the year.
7. A$AP Rocky - At.Long.Last.A$AP ; 1 point
Rocky's path from his debut album to ALLA has been littered with doubt of his ability and place amongst his peers. In what is perhaps the surprise of the year, Rocky recaptures the vibes and emotion that made LiveLoveA$AP so special in ALLA. M'$, JD, Electric Body and Lord Pretty Flacko Jodye 2 deliver 4 different flavours of swag-injected shit talking and aggression, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, Holy Ghost and Canal St. give us slow and soulful introspection. Rocky decently managed perhaps the most difficult task any artist receives: evolving both from and with the sound that put him on the map without keeping his eyes glued to his rearview. I'm not saying this album is as good as LiveLoveA$AP, or even sounds like it as a whole, but it definitely touches on some of the same feelings that it gave me when I first heard it.
8. Drake - If You're Reading This Its Too Late ; 1 point
While I don't think this is a relatively consistent album front-to-back, the standouts do more than enough to make a case for the placing of this album. Most notable amongst those standouts is anthem for Toronto unlike any attempted before, Know Yourself, and one of the toughest shit-talking songs in recent memory and one of Drake's prime lyrical performances, Energy. The burn that the few highlights of this album get from me to this day keep it in the discussion.
9. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly ; 1 point
I've had a love/hate relationship with this record since it came out. I don't need to go into how hard it was to avoid being biased one way or another before or after listening to this album, but I'm confident I've given it more shots than I give the average album, and admittedly it's still growing on me with every subsequent listen. That said, Kendrick makes this Top 10 for his ambition. Multi-layered storytelling, flexing considerable lyrical muscle over diverse and divergent production, opening up and showing a ton of vulnerability (be it of himself of the characters he uses), and tackling very, very difficult subject matter; Kendrick crafted a unique project that succeeded in multiple respects.
10. Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife ; 1 point
A close tie with To Pimp A Butterfly is this unashamedly poppy album that released at the top of last year, featuring top notch production throughout and jams for the ages. I think this will be left in the dust a bit because it's biggest singles came out in 2014, but the album proper brought us the likes of YNO and Throw Sum Mo on top of the bigger hits, further cementing that they aren't one hit wonders and can put together a project full of smashes. With infectious hooks, memorable lines and unforgettable songwriting with few missteps, SremmLife stands out as an album that succeeds at what it wants to do with relative consistency, multiple anthems and a plain fun vibe throughout.
HM: Barter 6, Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude, Mr. Wonderful, Dreams Worth More Than Money, Tetsuo & Youth, Days With Yen Lo