As the highly anticipated Kansas, National Football League and National Basketball Association seasons approach, I find it appropriate to draw parallels between the upcoming sports season and the ever-present — but nevertheless upcoming — hip-hop season.

With so much hype around our Kansas teams and all the storylines pro-football and basketball have to offer this year, I thought I’d give a brief overview of what highlights the “rap game” has in store for us in the next few months.

The headline of every hip-hop season in the rap game is always this: Who will kill it in the game the most this year? Just as the NFL and NBA present their Most Valuable Player award to the athlete who displays the most dominance throughout the season, the hip-hop community has its own award for the same type of dominance in the rap game.

I’m not talking about Grammys and MTV awards voted on by wannabe fans through the Internet. I’m talking about extensive, heated debates among millions of hip-hop heads in living rooms and bars, barbershops and shoe stores across the nation and even the world. There is never a consensus, and successfully awarding a clear-cut winner is extremely rare.

Still, the question begs to be asked: Who will be killing the game the most this year? Who will be this year’s LeBron? Who will be the next Tom Brady of hip-hop?

There are, of course, the usual suspects. The man many call the greatest rapper alive, Jay-Z, is slated to drop "The Blueprint 3" on Sept. 11. Already leaking tracks onto the Web, this one appears poised to deliver the goods with a potent production list loaded with the likes of Kanye, No I.D. and Timbaland, among distinguished others. This album will either cement Jay’s status as the best alive or have heads questioning it. Stay tuned.

Lil Wayne, the other usual suspect, dropped his rock album last year. We’ll see what happens this season, but he’s always in the conversation.

One of the main challengers to the title is the new kid…do I even need to say his name? Drake, aka Drizzy, is about to be killing in the game this year like Cole and Sherron.

Easily stealing Rookie of the Year honors in the rap game last year, Drizzy has only been gaining momentum since releasing such ear-catching mixtapes as "Comeback Season" and "So Far Gone." They will soon be re-released as an actual album. He also recently signed with Young Money (Lil Wayne’s label) and is featured on the new Jay-Z album, so I’d say he’s on the right track.

His first official album, "Thank Me Later," drops sometime this season. You should probably cop it.

Another contender for the throne lies in Washington D.C.’s Wale, whose debut "Attention: Deficit" has a tentative drop date of Oct. 20.

Wale and talented producer 9th Wonder impressed heads in the game earlier this year with the "Back to the Feature" mixtape.

Other All-Stars in the game dropping anticipated joints this year: Raekwon with "OBFCL Part 2", Kid Cudi and his "Man on the Moon" debut (dropped Aug. 25), and the Clipse album "Til the Casket Drops," scheduled for release in October. However, only time will tell who will wear the crown.

What can you do to prepare for the new season? Buy these albums, keep reading the column and you’ll be fine.

— — Coldham is a Chicago senior in journalism.