Amazon.com’s music editors dropped their best of 2010 lists last week and as expected there were a few surprise artists listed among the Katy Perrys, Cee-Lo Greens and Black Keys of the music world.
One of those surprises was the track “Autograffiti” by none other Seattle’s own Victor Shade which landed in Amazon’s Top 10 hip-hop songs of the year. The single off the Ra Scion and MTK project landed at a solid No. 7 sandwiched between Eminem’s “Not Afraid” at No. 6 and Rhymefest’s “One Hand Push Up” at No. 8.
Unfortunately, after debuting Victor Shade at Ear Candy’s (F)unofficial Bumbershoot Kickoff Party in 2009 and releasing a stellar self-titled debut earlier this year Ra Scion decided to end Victor Shade’s career on Oct. 30 when he played his final show as his superhero alter ego.
Victor Shade isn’t the only local hip-hop artist that impressed Amazon’s editors. “Hey Hey” by State of the Artist landed at No. 65 on Amazon’s best songs of 2010.
It’s great to see Amazon give some hometown love to local hip-hop in a year when none of Seattle’s major musical exports made noise. Of course next year there will plenty of noise coming from our corner of the Northwest with albums coming from Fleet Foxes, Death Cab, Blue Scholars and others, but we’ll have to wait until this time in 2011 to see where those albums land on Amazon’s lists.
