Best music recordings of 2011

After a series of celebrated mixtapes, Heems (Himanshu Suri) and Kool A.D. (Victor Vazquez) spend their debut album celebrating and satirizing hip-hop, a double-edged triumph. Their off-kilter humor and surreal wordplay bounce from the brainy to the outrageous as they topple bling and booty cliches. The production colors outside the margins, too. If anyone emerges as the new Millennium¿s answer to De La Soul, this combo has the inside track.