My favorite playlist to make each year is the Top 100 Songs of 2015. Each song provides a sense of nostalgia as I rank the impact and importance of these tracks on me.

No genre made more of an impact this year than rap. From the lyrical to social to combative, the year’s best was in rap’s hands.

Let’s begin with the best rap song of the year: the lyrically ambidextrous “Mural,” a nine minute opus with 1,600 words, no chorus, no hook, just verse after verse of intricate yarns, puns, and flows that no other rapper but Lupe Fiasco could have made. None. (Check out my writeup earlier this year: here).