8 Eliminated, 8 still in....3 weeks left, all for 1 crown, to be dubbed Ollywop Radio Network Entertainment's Hip-Hop Album of The Year!
December 4, 2021 kicked-off Ollywop Radio Network Ent's inaugural AOTY Tournament within the Hip-Hop genre, and pitted many of the years hottest Hip Hop and R&B albums against eachother in an all out March Madness'esque shootout to the finish.
Formatted into a 4-week, 4 division ensemble in which each division's entries are decided by a particular album's release date within the quarterly-year. Seeding within that division was then decided by how their fans showed up to support with each albums first-week album sales, in which the corresponding album was then seeded (1-4) for that particular quarter/season of 2021.
Our first-round match ups which ended last Friday (12/10), was a true testament to the wackiness surrounding the tournament-styled drama of WOP's AOTY gauntlet. Now, although we ended up with all four '1'-seeded entries earning their trips to the quarterfinal round.....along the course of last week, there were a couple of UPSET ALERTS in que for majority of the week, with one of those 'alerts' turning into a 'final decision'.
J. Cole's "The Off-Season" and Isaiah's "The House is Burning" was easily the most interesting matchup to keep an eye on as both teams fought tooth and nail down to the very damn wire. Both teams were tied for majority of the final day of the first round polls, that is until "The Off-Season" garnished a last minute vote around the time of 9:37p ET and held on to that lifeline for every bit of the remaining 2h 22m of the round to secure the dub and advance to round-2.
Our upset alert-turned-upset took place within the second match of our quarter 1 bracket. Jazmine Sullivan's "Heaux Tales" blew out the gates to a 10-2 lead within the first 4 days of the opening of the polls (12/4); only to get comfortable, and allow Pooh Shiesty supporters to pull out a 16-2 run within the fifth day of voting to make it a 12-16 entering the 6th and final day of the first-round. The power of the 'Heaux' proved to be overwhelming for the heavy hitting "Shiesty Season" which posed one of the hottest singles of 2021 (Back In Blood), by pulling out a 10-2 rally to bring home the first-round vicory.
As for the rest of the first round head-to-head's within the western division of the bracket, match ups played out to much of the expectations of the masses and experts alike. (1)"Soulfly" drops an overwhelmed (4)"A Muse In Her Feelings" in top-seeded fashion with an 11 point spread at polls-close; and Mo3 handles up on the third installment to Migos' Culture franchise with a 24-13 victory to advance to the quarterfinal round.
When it comes to the Eastern division of the AOTY tournament, there wasn't much excitement as every top-seeded team took heavy advantage of their placements and capitalized by securing their spots for another week of bouts. Nas' "Kings Disease 2" had it's chances to pull off a much anticipated upset against the crowd-favorite "CLB" but could never get the pull-ahead lead needed to sustain against the likes of Team-Drizzy as it falls 20-17 in a hard fought match.
The heavily promoted "DONDA" rolled over it's RIAA gold-certified momentum into this years tournament by absolutely demolishing a new-to-the-scene Keem and his debut project "The Melodic Blue", as it falls 28-9 in a match that was never close to begin with. Even the likes of 3 Kendrick Lamar features wasn't enough to help hold up the weight of this first round match up. Kanye West's "DONDA" will face off against his ex-rival Drake and his RIAA platinum-certified "Certified Lover Boy" in yet another conversation on which was the best album to drop in the month of September.
Our quarter-4 bracket saw Summer Walker's record-breaking sophmore album "Still Over It" walk-off on Don Toliver's follow up album "Life of Don" in a 25-12 landslide, locking her into a quarterfinal matchup against Moneybagg Yo's "A Gangstas Pain" who pulled away with a 21-16 dub in the later half of the last matchup; with Young Thug's "P*nk" taking a couple of leads late in the game, it's efforts ended up just not being enough to secure a ticket to the second-round of this years 2021 AOTY tournament.
LOCK IN for our second round matchups set to begin Saturday 12/18 at 8:00a ET. Check out the bracket and it's remaining contenders for the AOTY title below!
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