Call it fate on his birth certificate, which he says reads Rory Allen Philip Ferreira, shortened to R.A.P. Ferreira when the decade flipped. But before that, the artist then known as Milo was building to a statement like this one: the realization that he can really stake a claim on this rap shit, thanks to the support of several already-mentioned names on this list and the continued refinements on his poetic-speaking style. Intellectual meditations and cultural affirmations ricochet off punchlines that scan like syllabi for an epiphany. And the beats — many of which he made under his Scallops Hotel alias — are soul-jazz flips at their grimy timeless finest, like Ahmad Jamal on an absinthe bender.