Deaf Hip-Hop Is The General Awesomeness of the Year (2013 RefinedHype Awards) Posted by Lucas G. on 12/18/13 | Filed under Opinion, Debates, General Awesomeness, RefinedHype Awards

It's that time of the year when everyone does their "Best of the Year" lists, but how many of those can you really read? So around these parts we do things a little different. Ladies and gentlemen and intelligent animals with the ability to read things on the interwebs, welcome to the 2013 RefinedHype Awards!  Here are the rules. First, this isn't a democracy, it's more like a benevolent dictatorship. I chose the nominess after careful consideration drinking. But instead of whining that your favorite rapper/song/whatever didn't make it in, I'm allowing write in votes. Whoever gets the most votes wins that category, even if y'all override my nominations with a write-in vote. Period. I'll announce all the winners on Wednesday, December 18. And I'll be explaining the criteria and nominees for each category every time. Got it? Good.  

Next up, we've got the General Awesomeness of the Year, because awesome shit, of all kinds, is a cornerstone of the noble RefinedHype Nation. The following nominees are the awesomest of the awesome 2013 things that happened that were awesome. You job is to pick which awesome thing was in fact the awesomest of all the awesomest things, got it? Awesome.

UPDATE: Voting is closed. Scroll to the bottom for the winner. 

Hip-Hop Quoting at an All-Time High

If you enjoy people who shouldn’t be quoting hip-hop quoting hip-hop (not in the form of a Steve Martin movie), than 2013 was a banner year for you. It's more than just silly movies in 2013, the hip-hop quoting reached a fever pitch when a White House correspondent quoted a Jay Z line in her question to the White House Press Secretary  and even the president himself quoted Jigga, but it didn’t stop there.

From sport reporters like this guy and Bob Costas to Kieth Olberman soundbites to a state senator,  everybody and their mother had a rap line to pull out of their Starter cap. Not only is it fucking hilarious, but it's pretty amazing that hip-hop quotes reached all the way to the White House. Sports reporters are cool, but the fucking President of the United States quoting Jay is too much awesomeness for a rap nerd to handle.

Kanye - The Awesome

Kanye could make RefinedHype history by being the first person to win both Fail of the Year and the Awesomeness of the Year. The fail version will be explained later here was largely an end of the year thing, but in 2013 Kanye gave us some truly epic quotes like “I CANCELLED APPOINTMENTS!!!!” or “TELL EVERYBODY NEVER TALK TO ANYONE THAT ANYONE KNOWS” his interactions with the paparazzi and interviews are giant fails, but the quotes that come from them are pure unfiltered awesomeness (like these or these); I mean the man inspired the first ever RefinedHype Rap Quiz!

It wasn[t just about the quotes either. Kanye gave us some slamming new clothes and a new way to watch a music video, inspired an awesome Pusha T rant and genuinely inspired peope to overcome the limits placed on them. And that's in addition to one of the biggest albums of the year and another absurd music video to boot  Nobody, and I mean nobody, gives you  the kind of mindblowing, controversial awesomeness that Kanye does. And yes, some of it (as you will see) is fail worthy, but some of it and the absurduty of all of it is just so awesome. Just another year in Kanyeishness.

Rappers Fucking Shit Up On Stage

Those who enjoy a good old stage dive, or other forms or crowd-artist interactions, must got their jollies off a zillion times this year. Speaking of getting Jollies off, lets kick it off with Danny Brown getting head on stage. Public acts of felatio not you thing? What about seeing girls get leg dropped by R&B singer Miguel and subsequent meme overload and George Watsky doing a kamikaze stage dive? Or how about bearded, fat white rappers laying the smack down? 

But that’s not all folks, we also had Cudi vs. tomatoes  and Lupe squaring off against glow sticks. Rapper fan interaction is usually only done via Twitter, but I commend these artists for taking it to their live performances and giving us ample awesomeness. And yes, you could argue some of these as fails, but did you want to watch them over and over? Then it's probably awesome. 

Dilla Will Never Die

No matter what year or what hip-hop is like J.Dilla is always fucking awesome. So is it any surprise that these two J.Dilla stories are a contender for awesomeness of the year? First, in March, we had a special edition of Fuse’s Crate Diggers dedicated to Dilla; it doesn’t get much better than Crate Diggin with the best crate digger to ever live. Even better, NPR did this story about a whole storage locker filled with unreleased Dilla material.

The thought of new Dilla alone is dope, but what really made this a highlight of the year in awesome was hearing first hand from Dilla’s mother and how the discovery had a transformative effect on her financially and emotionally. And then today a new "Dillatroit" album dropped. No matter how far hip-hop goes, knowing that Dilla will forever be a legend and respected is too awesome. Seriously listen to that story. It's absolutely incredible.

Hip-Hop Sign Language

Hip-hop touches the lives of people worldwide, and even though some can’t hear it, it still resonates with them. Then why would their be hip-hop sign-language interpreters all over the place, like this lady from Bonnaroo or this lady signing a song called “Fucking Problems” at Lolla. Sign language even  made its way to RefinedHype nation with Matthew Maxey who is well versed in the art of hip-hop ASL.

It started with this and ended with a dope interview and a cool Kendrick ASL cover. How awesome is it that people like Matthew love hip-hop so much, they will do stuff like this which makes the art accessible to a whole new group of people? Hip-hop is more about the soul than the ear and it is people like Matthew who prove it.

So who or what was the most awesome of the awesome? The choice is yours and yours alone....

And The Winner Is...Deaf Hip-Hop

With some heavy hitters like Kanye and J Dilla, deaf hip-hop was definitely an underdog, but sure enough, with 61 votes, deaf hip-hop took home the title of awesomeness of the year in convincing fashion; Kanye was the runner up with 36 votes. Gotta say, I couldn't be happier seeing distinctly RefinedHype story take home the gold. Next up for Matthew, a Nobel Prize for the coolest shit ever...

Other Categories:

Booty of the Year
Non Hip-Hop Song of the Year
General Awesomeness of the Year
Producer Of The Year
Crew of the Year
Banger of the Year
Song of the Year
Rapper of the Year
Album of the Year