Top 2010 albums from Chicago indies
“Woman at Work” by Psalm One
Photos: Top indie albums | Year's Best Albums | Best Box Sets
At the end of each year, Turn It Up focuses on the best of Chicago's independent music scene. Here are my 10 favorite local indie releases for 2010:
1. Cap D, “PolyMath” (All Natural): How to define success? David "Cap D" Kelly offers a few ideas that suggest it’s about more than accumulating immediate financial reward. For more than a decade, this erudite MC has been forging his own path with his label and group (both named All Natural), as well as his solo projects. He is criminally under-recognized nationally, but he takes a back seat to no MC with his sharp mind, incisive flow and increasingly robust tracks in the Chicago dusties-soul tradition. Though typecast as too high-minded for an art form that puts a premium on swagger, there’s nothing soft about these rhymes. In “Chicago Five-O” he’s as ominous as a shiv in a back-alley rumble, exposing the brutal politics of race relations in the streets of his home city. A landmark release from one of the best MC’s this city has produced.