In part because there's nothing tongue in cheek about it. Much like a lot of the long R&B songs of the '70s, stuff like 'I Miss You' and 'Cause I Love You,' this is swinging for the fences, both in terms of sheer length and in other arrangement decisions, like the multi-tracked vocals. I respect it because you open yourself up to so much potential corniness attempting something like this, but dvsn and nineteen85 pull it off. What makes 'The Line' great is the ambition and grandeur. Ross and Zach really, really love this song. So much so that they each had to write part of this blurb.

Listen to our Best Songs of 2015 playlist on Spotify and Apple Music right now. We are though, allegedly, writers, so here are our picks for the best songs of 2015 and the reasons why we chose them. It is not an exact science, but we are not scientists, nor are we mathematicians (please never make us do percentages again). Other times, you have to consider a track because you've been spouting its lyrics at coworkers all year or because it made a handful of editors remain in a dark conference room long after the official meeting had ended just so they could listen again. Sometimes songs make it on there because of statistics. Just as it did with our best albums of 2015 list, our best songs list required many conversations, drafts and redrafts, raised hands and written co-signs, followed by lots of last-minute decisions about rankings. Next, you write all of those titles on slips of paper, throw them in the air, and the 50 that touch the ground first make our year-end list. Then you retrieve the lost two-tenths of that one song, which brings the count to 119. Of these roughly 220 songs, let's say about 75 percent of them are from 2015, 72 percent of those fall into pop, rap, R&B, dance, and other genres that Complex covers, so that brings us to 118.8 songs. N.W.A.At any given moment, there are about 90 songs on the Apple Music Hot Tracks list, 30 on your Discover Weekly collection on Spotify, and 100 songs on, go figure, the Billboard Hot 100. Jay-Z – “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” Producer: The Bomb Squad, Ice Cube (co.), Sir Jinx (co.) 6. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five – “The Message” Mobb Deep – “Front Lines (Hell on Earth)” Producer: Pharrell Williams / Sounwave, THC, Terrace Martin 24. Kendrick Lamar – “Good Kid” / “M.A.A.D City” Producer: Diamond D, Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill, Pras, Jerry “Te Bass” Duplessis 28. Big L – “Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous” Missy Elliott – “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” Rakim – “The 18th Letter (Always and Forever)” Producer: Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, William Hamilton 38. DMX – “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood”Īlbum: Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood OutKast – “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik” Producer: Mark Byrd, Lex Luger, Novel, Shawty Redd, HighDefRazjah, Young Love 46. Boogie Down Productions – “Criminal Minded” Producer: Lauryn Hill Birdman & Lil Wayne – “Like Father, Like Son” Producer: Jeff Bhasker, Jeff Reed Lauryn Hill – “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” Producer: Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Plain Pat, Andrew Dawson, Justin Vernon, Noah Goldstein The Game – “The Documentary” Producer: Nottz Kids See Ghosts – “Kids See Ghosts” Producer: Just Blaze Rapsody – “Laila’s Wisdom” Producer: RZA Jay-Z – “American Gangster”

Producer: DJ Dahi, DJ Khalil Wu-Tang Clan – “Iron Flag” Producer: Earthtone III Isaiah Rashad – “Cilvia Demo” Honourable mentions: OutKast – “Stankonia (Stanklove)” On this list, we celebrate the 50 greatest title tracks in hip hop history. Oftentimes, artists will use title tracks to define their album or as thematic starting point, just like OutKast did with their first three projects. In that same year, Jay-Z used “Blueprint” to reflect on his life and all the people who helped him get to his current position. Nas use “Stillmatic” to announce his comeback to a rap landscape that had written him off. What’s so special about a title track on a hip hop album? For the most part, rappers use title tracks as a way to represent an album’s core message

Jahlil beats pimp by blood