So they say it's 2015—tell me, why exactly you feelin' all hopeful and shit? I know that there will be more truth, more things will come to light, but I can't find it in me to be terribly optimistic about the year after the worst year ever. I don't feel like we've seen the bottom yet.

It's been weeks since I actually wrote a column—in the time since, it seems like a million tragedies have gotten backlogged up in my head; RIP to the lost. I'm gonna clear the cache and try to move on, but I will say that the NYPD—in the midst of their latest, loudest mutiny—declaring that they will only arrest people "when they have to" is top 10 most surreal shit to happen in my lifetime. We are truly living in a Vonnegut book.

Maybe you saw Macklemore's most recent interview on Hot 97. He spoke of knowing his place within the culture, of white folks in the culture needing to listen. While I can't expect those who hate everything they perceive Ben Haggerty to stand for to un-make-up their minds about the guy, I do hope that the people whose ears and hearts he does have—such as his devoted, young, likely mostly white fan base—will listen, because somebody needs to tell them that shit. The thing I personally appreciated the most in that interview, though, was Mack's admitting that his infamous Instagram of his texts to Kendrick Lamar was a mistake; I couldn't agree more. Also, I love when people can admit that they made a mistake—it's the motherfuckers who can't that you gotta watch out for. (See: the trigger-happy police and their dickhead apology-begging-ass union reps.)

I also love when people surprise me, that rarest of occasions. See ATLien OG Maco—the guy best known for 2014's hooting, screaming earworm "Bitch U Guessed It"—who recently delivered the timely, thoughtful three-song Breathe EP. "Get Down" blends the vibe of Kanye's more earnest moments with some backpack pandering scratch-work and some Big Rube–type spoken sermonizing. "Do Better" is the standout, a Lupe-esque litany free of Fiasco's condescension (or questionable Klan hoods), declaring, "Let's keep it real/There's change afoot—bitch!" The J.J. Abrams movie-trailer doom-horns of "Riot" provide a suitably apocalyptic tone for his rants against deadly racial inequities ("Can we treat Tiesha like we treatin' Katie"), announcing that "Shit might get ugly." What you mean "get"? "Underfunded, treated like a fungus," Maco says. "They call us niggers, take our culture from us/Gotta deal with Iggys and the Macklemores/Black girls was twerkin' they was screamin', 'whores'/But Miley did it and she got a tour." See, this is the very shit that made Azealia Banks cry—and in doing so, she was way realer than a million syrup-sucking simps. "So until y'all motherfuckers ready to talk about what y'all owe me, whether the number's 7 trillion or 8 trillion or 9 trillion—at the very fuckin' least, y'all owe me the right to my fuckin' identity, and to not exploit that shit, you get what I'm saying? Like, that's all we're holding onto, like hiphop and rap..."

One thing you can say is that there's a marked swell in hiphop music properly reflecting the "anger in the nation"—word to Pete Rock—and coming from the young heads, the ones we need to be listening to. More to come—shall we proceed? recommended