One more from 2014′s Hood Billionaire.

Rick Ross and company deliver their NYC All-Star ’15 mixtape for free download.

New music from MMG’s NBA Allstar Weekend 2015 mixtape, hitting this weekend.

Original version will appear on Troy’s upcoming LP, Major Without a Deal.

Rick Ross lends some new lyrics to Big Sean’s “IDFWU” on his own MMG remix.

Okay okay. The Best & Worst lists are coming, slowly but surely. We’ll try to deliver one of these per weekday over the next few weeks. In between juggling my duties for Medium.Com/Cuepoint, regular HipHopSite.Com updates, and DJing, it’s been hard to find the time to do these. So let’s begin with 2014′s best major label album releases. Indie label releases up next…

10. YG – My Krazy Life – Def Jam – Initially we didn’t love YG’s Interscope debut, but as time went on it slowly grew on us. Fully produced by DJ Mustard, the album captured and subsequently resurrected the sound of the west coast, harking back to early classics from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and the Death Row era. We’ve heard the word “classic” thrown around when discussing this album, and while we have come around from our initial opinions on it, we still believe that it more borrows from the classics rather than lives as one. Still a solid out the gate debut from the young Blood.

9. Common – Nobody’s Smiling – ARTrium / Def Jam – Truth be told, Com’s Chicago-centric Nobody’s Smiling LP was better in theory than in execution. Despite No I.D.’s sometimes too experimental production, in terms of poignancy, what he was saying about the city’s gang violence epidemic far outweighs the topics of pretty much anyone else on this list. For that alone, it deserves inclusion. Lyrically on point.

8. Rick Ross – Mastermind – MMG / Def Jam – Due to his bloated, excessive persona, Rick Ross is the rapper we love to hate, however damn if he doesn’t pick good beats. At least he did on Mastermind, while Hood Billionaire was made up of more dumbed down, baller anthems. Mastermind found the then still heavy-set Ross channeling his inner Barry White with soulful samples and lush grooves, as he describes his over-the-top lavish lifestyle. We ain’t mad at it.

7. DJ Mustard – 10 Summers – Google Play – We’re going to go out on a limb and put Google in the “major label” category, considering they probably have more money than Def Jam. Mustard’s 10 Summers was the hottest producer of the year’s answer to Dr. Dre’s 2001, even paying homage to it in the opening sketch. He accomplished what YG’s My Krazy Life couldn’t – variation – by simply extending the guest list. The all-star cast of all the biggest names in hood hits rounded out 10 Summers nicely, creating an album of anthems suited for radio and the club.

6. Childish Gambino – STN MTN / Kauai – Glassnote / Universal – While Gambino’s Because The Internet topped a lot of the industry’s 2014 year end lists, it actually was included on our 2013 year end list. We had since moved on to his brilliantly crafted STN MTN / Kauai project, which is marketed as a mixtape and an EP, but really was an album in two parts. Gambino trolling in true fashion once again.

5. Eminem – Shady XV – Shady Records / Interscope – Face it, Eminem’s scraps and leftovers are better than most people’s albums. Who knows how much of Shady XV was meant for The Marshall Mathers LP 2, but this indirect sequel featured even more mind-blowing rhymes from the original rap genius, while showing off the talents of his Shady 2.0 roster. Lyrical miracles are back, bitches.

4. The Roots – …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin – Def Jam – …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin is a highly pretentious concept album. However, it’s also good. And it is very digestible, clocking in at just over 30 minutes, marking The Roots shortest LP to date. So it doesn’t require large amounts of patience. Like any solid album, it gets better with each consecutive listen, and its theme becomes apparent the more times you hear it. Bravo.

3. Schoolboy Q – Oxymoron – TDE/Interscope – Following Kendrick’s good kid, m.a.a.d. city, Oxymoron is largely an album that seems untampered with by pesky A&R’s. Amidst Q’s cinematic tales of gangbanging and drug problems, he also impresses with his delivery, lyrical styles, and dark, subterranian production. Oxymoron is a triumph of a rap album, because it signifies a return of “underground” rap to the major label scene.

2. J. Cole – 2014 Forest Hills Drive – Dreamville / Columbia – The best-selling rap album of the year (650,000+) is from a semi-conscious rapper who rhymes over his own self-produced beats built around funk and soul samples and drum loops. Sorry Iggy, sorry Nicki. A change gon’ come.

1. Big K.R.I.T. – Cadillactica - K.R.I.T.’s second LP for Def Jam may be one of the lowest selling albums on this list, but it’s also quite easily the strongest. It’s probably hard to market a Southern artist that raps about important topics, produces his own beats, and makes albums that sound like they belong in the Outkast catalog. Maybe that will change next year.

Best buddies Rick Ross and Young Jeezy meet up with Young Dolph on the remix for “Preach.”

Hood Billionaire available now.

Over the course of his last three albums or so, Rick Ross has proven that he is more than just a guy that makes nightclub drug dealer anthems like “BMF” and “Hustlin’.” But you wouldn’t know that from his singles; you’d have to dig deeper into his catalog to find his brand of more soulful selections, which he has demonstrated on albums like God Forgives, I Don’t, Teflon Don, and Mastermind, the latter released earlier this year. With Hood Billionaire, the slimmest bawse that you’ve seen thus far attempts to take a victory lap with a second LP for 2014.

The stage was set perfectly with the buzzworthy single “Movin Bass,” featuring Ross floating on top of a dope Timbaland beat, with Jay Z on the hook. But the hype train was derailed a bit when Timbaland released the original demo, outshining it with extra tag-team verses with Jay and rising Chicago female talent, Tink, as the three emcees finished each other’s lines in a dynamic display of delivery. The album’s lead single, “If They Knew,” featuring K. Michelle followed, but with little fanfare.

Ross is at his best when tapping into that laid back, smooth gangster vibe, as he does on the previously released “Keep Doin That (Rich Bitch)” (feat. R. Kelly), the DJ Toomp helmed “Quintessential,” with Snoop Dogg, and “Family Ties,” which winds the album down. This formula of utilizing classic soul samples and mellow production has been a win for Ross on his last few records, however Hood Billionaire follows his other M.O., relying heavily on the Lex Lugar / “B.M.F.” style tracks.

The best of these is the title track, produced by Lugar himself, which finds him brilliantly stuttering the female “Maybach Music” sample, chopped into such a fraction that it’s almost inaudible, subtly reminding you its there. This, meshed with a rolling piano loop sets Lugar’s lone selection apart from the host of imitations that the rest of the album is overloaded with.

With many of these more ignorant selections dominating the playlist, songs like “Elvis Presley Boulevard,” “Burn,” “Neighborhood Drug Dealer,” and “Coke Like The 80s” all begin to run together, essentially acting as different versions of the same song. Each find Ross over more abrasive, Lugar-esque production, while he repeats the hook-which is many times just the title of the song-over and over again.

Ross may have taken this approach to appease his longtime fans that enjoy standing on couches and buying bottles to his tracks, overloading the album with these types of songs after delivering albums with more substance over the last few years. In either case, Hood Billionaire undoubtedly proves that Rick Ross doesn’t take days off, as he told us on his debut single (“Everyday I’m hustlin…”). However there’s also such a thing as overkill.

After a series of freestyles and unofficial remixes, Troy Ave’s buzzworth cut gets an official remix featuring Rawse and the Snowman.

Gunplay and Rick Ross have been beefing on social media with Tim Mosley and release a song called “Scuffed Timbs,” produced by Timbaland himself. Hmm.

Rawse invades the Tonight Show in promotion of his new album, Hood Billionaire, inviting K. Michelle and performing with The Roots. Hips don’t lie.

Nipsey enlists Rick Ross and Hit Boy for “1 Hunnit A Show,” from the upcoming Mailbox Money project.

Troy Ave’s “All About The Money” gets remixed unofficially by Rawse.

Hood Billionaire available now.