2014 really brought the conversation of cultural appropriation to the forefront in music with the breakout year for Iggy Azalea and Sam Smith, who have both found tremendous success with Black sounds on the charts. While Iggy commanded the single's chart and Sam broke ground on both the Hot 100 and Top 200 Album charts, D'Angelo made a much welcomed return with arguably the best album of the year, if not the past few while K. Michelle continued to grow her fanbase with a sublime sophomore effort and Ledisi continues to pump out solid and thoughtful material.
While a lot of great records were released within 2014, these 5, ok 6, as well as the honorable mentions stood out to me as some of the best vocal, sonic, and lyrical work to debut this year. The list is not numerical in order of "most favorite" as the field this year was so tight and definitely offered a variety of great albums depending on your mood. Some artists had strong comebacks this year (D'Angelo; Mary J. Blige), others were brought more into the mainstream with solid efforts (Ledisi; K. Michelle), and two superstar were overlooked with stunning sets that is some of their best work in years in my opinion (Mariah Carey; Whitney Houston). Peep the list below and in addition to several honorable mentions.
." On the album, Donny performed numerous hits, classics and covers that truly electrified the audience.
" - Musiq Soulchild
" - Heather Headley
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