The Best Rap Albums of the '90s
From the golden age to the shiny suit era, we're counting down the best rap albums of the 90s, from classics like Nas''Illmatic' to Eminem's 'The Slim Shady LP.
This feature was originally published in 2014.
The storytellers of the ’90s were, and will always be, some of the greatest to touch a microphone. Tupac, 3 Stacks, Lauryn, Jay, Biggie; visionaries who took an art form just over a decade removed from its infancy and gave it the attention it needed to develop into adulthood, where it now stands three decades later as the most-consumed genre of music in the U.S. And in the process, these men and women created classics. They’re records you know front to back, even if some of them outdate you. The Low End Theory. Life After Death. The Score. 36 Chambers. The Chronic. The list goes on and on. They’re works that set the tone for the future of hip-hop, secured their legacies, and made us realize beyond a reasonable doubt that the genre was already taking over the world just as quickly as it took over our music libraries.
All rap fans know these classics, but they’re only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to 90s hip-hop. There was so much great music being made in so many different places and spaces that it’s far too easy for great things to get overlooked. At the time, your musical menu most likely depended on what part of the country you lived in. But with the benefit of hindsight, and the Internet, it’s now possible to survey the cream of the crop and make informed decisions about which records are good, better, and best.
With that in mind, we’ve ranked the Best Rap Albums of the 90s. The classics you’ve played every day since elementary school, to the records you forgot existed, and maybe an album or two you didn’t even know about—all compiled in one place. Hit the jump and take a journey through hip-hop’s most vibrant decade. We do this for our culture.
This feature was originally published in 2014.
The storytellers of the ’90s were, and will always be, some of the greatest to touch a microphone. Tupac, 3 Stacks, Lauryn, Jay, Biggie; visionaries who took an art form just over a decade removed from its infancy and gave it the attention it needed to develop into adulthood, where it now stands three decades later as the most-consumed genre of music in the U.S. And in the process, these men and women created classics. They’re records you know front to back, even if some of them outdate you. The Low End Theory. Life After Death. The Score. 36 Chambers. The Chronic. The list goes on and on. They’re works that set the tone for the future of hip-hop, secured their legacies, and made us realize beyond a reasonable doubt that the genre was already taking over the world just as quickly as it took over our music libraries.
All rap fans know these classics, but they’re only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to 90s hip-hop. There was so much great music being made in so many different places and spaces that it’s far too easy for great things to get overlooked. At the time, your musical menu most likely depended on what part of the country you lived in. But with the benefit of hindsight, and the Internet, it’s now possible to survey the cream of the crop and make informed decisions about which records are good, better, and best.
With that in mind, we’ve ranked the Best Rap Albums of the 90s. The classics you’ve played every day since elementary school, to the records you forgot existed, and maybe an album or two you didn’t even know about—all compiled in one place. Hit the jump and take a journey through hip-hop’s most vibrant decade. We do this for our culture.
90. Mos Def, Black on Both Sides (1999)
Label: Rawkus Records
"The next time you ask yourself where hip-hop is going, ask yourself, 'Where am I going?'" Mos Def says in the spoken-word intro to his debut album, Black on Both Sides. The answer, in his case, is pretty much everywhere weird he can take it while still ticking off the boxes that constitute rap—especially Rawkus Records-style conscious rap.
There's a song about how unique Brooklyn is and what's probably the best song ever recorded about access to clean drinking water. There's the classic come-on story of "Ms. Fat Booty," whose muse notably has an "ass so fat that you can see it from the front." There are also songs with no rapping whatsoever, just meandering singing. The overall result is an album that's explosive, revelatory, and, yes, conscious in the best way. —Kyle Kramer
89. B.G., Chopper City in the Ghetto (1999)
Label: Cash Money/Universal Records
In the initial deluge of major label Cash Money releases that followed the New Orleans label's big ticket distribution deal with Universal, B.G. stayed in the middle of the pack. He didn't have a blockbuster album like Juvenile's 400 Degreez, and he didn't establish an ear for platinum hooks like Lil Wayne. With a relaxed, conversational flow and an eye for detail, B.G. had the most traditional lyrical rapping style of anyone in the Hot Boyz. He may be the last of five rappers to spit on his biggest hit, "Bling Bling," a song best remembered for Weezy's dictionary-altering hook, but Chopper City in the Ghetto is B.G. at his finest.
Other Cash Money Millionaires appear on half of the album's 16 tracks, but on solo cuts like "Hard Times" and "Uptown My Home" the former Baby Gangsta holds court with a darker, more grounded variation on the label's celebratory signature sound. As with any Mannie Fresh-era Cash Money album, the super producer takes center stage as often as any MC. It'sone of his most varied collections of beats, already drifting far from mere Trigger Man variations. "With Da B.G." has clavinet bass and watery guitar lines, "Niggaz In Trouble" has bombastic orchestra hits and pew pew laser gun synths, and "Cash Money Is an Army" creeps along more menacingly than any track in the producer's discography. —Al Shipley
88. King Tee, Tha Triflin' Album (1993)
Label: Capitol Records
It's truly a shame that the O.G. King Tee doesn't get more credit. Since his debut in 1988 with Act a Fool, Tee has been one of the few rappers who's been able to adapt to the changing times without losing himself. Tha Triflin' Album was proof of King Tee's ability to roll with hip-hop's ever switching punches. With the legendary DJ Pooh along for the ride, Tha Triflin' Album showed King Tee's growth as a lyricist on tracks like, "At Your Own Risk," "Triflin' Nigga," and "On Tha Rox."
Tee's Tha Triflin' Album also put his proteges, Tha Alkaholiks, on the map with the intoxicating cipher "Got It Bad Y'all." As an extra treat, the album also contained King Tee's verses from his St. Ides malt liquor commercials. Tha Triflin' Album may not have been a blockbuster for the Compton pioneer but it earned him even more respect for keeping up with the times. —Larry Hester
87. Ol' Dirty Bastard, Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995)
Label: Elektra Records
Ol' Dirty Bastard was the maddest in a crew of mad men, and at his best, the Wu-Tang Clan's drunken master matched whip-smart lyrics to a flow so off-the-cuff and unusual it could scarcely be believed. ODB's rhymes sounded like they could fall apart at any moment, but upon the release of his debut solo album Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, it became apparent that his weirdness was performative; there was true showmanship at play.
Lead single "Brooklyn Zoo" might be ODB's finest moment on mic, and it's as much lyrical tour-de-force as structural oddity: a fifty-some-odd bar dash to an off-time chorus that didn't make any sense on the radio but slayed anything you played alongside it.
ODB's rhymes sounded like they could fall apart at any moment.
"Raw Hide" is half-cocked and crazy, chasing Dirt's free associative madness ("I came out my momma pussy! I'm on welfare!") with a chorus from Method Man interpolating the theme to the old Western that gave the song its name. "Snakes" is a crew cut about death and betrayal until Dirt swoops in after Killah Priest, RZA, and Masta Killa with a verse about actual jungle animals.
RZA blesses Return with some of his grittiest production, from the guttural low-end rumble of "Raw Hide" to slight, bassy vamps like "The Stomp." But the true magic of Return to the 36 Chambers is that no matter how dark RZA took it, Dirt's larger-than-life character and comedic timing keeps things light-hearted and absurd. The album pulsed with delirium, but as its crazed follow-up Nigga Please would bear out, it was actually a mannered delirium. —Craig Jenkins
86. Company Flow, Funcrusher Plus (1997)
Label: Rawkus Records
"And once again, in one verse, we have proven, we can rip all these signed, big-budget motherfuckers," said El-P. That line, from "Bad Touch Example," are the first words on Company Flow's debut album Funcrusher Plus. And with them El-P declared war on the status quo of a genre that didn't even have a status quo 10 years earlier. But by 1997 (or even 1995, when the track was recorded), corporate hip-hop was very much a thing, and major labels were looking for groups with potential hits and an MTV-friendly image, not ones whose intricate wordplay required repeated listening. Think 1997's Bad Boy Tour, with Puff and Ma$e in those silver suits.
Founded in Brooklyn in 1992 by rapper El-P and DJ Mr. Len, Company Flow was made complete by the addition of second rapper, Big Juss, shortly thereafter. An expansion on 1996's Funcrusher EP, Funcrusher Plus was the first album released on Rawkus Records. It was a sprawling 19 tracks over 73 minutes of odd samples, angular beats, lyrical gymnastics (on the first track, "Bad Touch Example," El-P almost injures himself getting out "Triple felon MC minus the melanin/When I bomb it's the type of shit to make Baby Jessica jump in the well again"), and what probably works out to hundreds of pop culture references. Lyrically, it was the equivalent of the sampling on the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique—pure sensory overload. It's a graduate thesis of an album, one that influenced countless groups that came after. But that's not why it's on here—it's on here because it was fucking dope. —Russ Bengtston
85. Eightball & MJG, Comin' Out Hard (1993)
Label: Suave House Records
Eightball & MJG translated a particular Southern confidence and an ear for samples into a door-opening 1993 debut, Comin' Out Hard, which signaled the emergence of the Third Coast sound. Recorded in Houston, alongside entrepreneur/producer Tony Draper for his Suave House imprint, Eightball & MJG's Comin' Out Hard draws from the prevailing sounds of their native Orange Mound—Stax recordings, Marvin Guy, and, weirdly enough, Simply Red. As Eightball told NPR earlier this year, "All those samples on Comin' Out Hardcame from records that our parents gave us."
They rap in ode to Memphis, celebrating the struggle that gave voice to generations of musicians before them.
Presumably, their parents also instilled a sense of hometown pride. While Houston served as catalyst for national stardom (its skyline figures on the album cover), it's Memphis' soul that informs the tone of the MCs' verses. They rap in ode to the town, celebrating the struggle that gave voice to generations of musicians before them. In so doing, Eightball & MGJ also pioneer a distinct Southern gangsta form of narrative ("Armed Robbery").
Of course, Comin' Out Hard doesn't define Southern rap. However, it achieves through matter-of-fact delivery and sparse, box Chevy-ready production while providing a framework for pimpin' on wax ("Pimp) and for fat guys to boast ("Mr. Big"). This is an album that constructs an identity through deft cherry picking of hip-hop's musical forbearers, ultimately making sense of the potential to make locally respected music geared to a national stage. —Nick Schonberger
84. Redman, Whut? Thee Album (1992)
Label: Def Jam Recordings
In 1990, 20-year-old Reggie Noble met Erick Sermon of EPMD during a backstage freestyle session at an MC Lyte show in Newark, New Jersey. E was feeling Redman's blend of bugged-out humor, boisterous energy, and futuristic funk flows. He decided to bring Red on tour and gave him a feature on "Hardcore" from EPMD's Business as Usual album. "Redman ready to rock rough rhymes," the Brick City native spat. "Renegade rapper rip when it's rhyme time."
He was soon in the studio armed with a truckload of funk beats to record his debut album with Def Jam. Whut? Thee Album was packed with skull-cracking tracks like "Tonight's Da Night"—on which Red rocks hard over smoothed-out Isaac Hayes and Mary Jane Girls breaks—and "Time 4 Sum Akshun"—the song that was playing when Mike Tyson returned to the ring in 1995 to fight Peter McNeeley and knocked him out twice in the first round. "How to Roll a Blunt" became a fan favorite, paving the way for Red & Method Man to position themselves as the hip-hop Cheech & Chong throughout their "How High" chronicles.
Released just months before The Chronic, Whut served as a timely reminder that Dr. Dre was not the only Funk Doc in the rap game. —Rob Kenner
83. Scarface, Mr. Scarface Is Back (1991)
Label: Rap-A-Lot Records
"Is Back" might be an odd phrase to find in the title of a debut album. But like Doggystyle, Mr. Scarface Is Back was the first solo outing from an MC who'd already made a major mark on hip-hop; just three months earlier he and his Geto Boys dropped We Can't Be Stopped. Face was always the standout talent in the group, and would continue to make some great music with his crew, but from there on out his solo releases were the ones to check for.
Scarface either originated or popularized many hallmarks of gangsta rap, including Al Pacino samples and lurid tales of murder and dealing dope. Paranoia, greed, suicidal thoughts and remorse all hang over songs like "Diary of a Madman" and "A Minute to Pray and a Second to Die." No matter how many rappers took the Brad Jordan formula and ran with it, often to greater fame and sales, nobody explored the complicated psychology of the genre better than Scarface. —Al Shipley
RELATED: Scarface Breaks Down His 25 Most Essential Songs
82. EPMD, Business As Usual (1990)
Label: Def Jam/RAL/Columbia Records
EPMD's third album Business as Usual is one of those albums where you forget how dope it was until you hear it again. The 1990 release did two things: helped LL Cool J reclaim his respect after putting out a rectal sneeze of an album, and introduced the world to Redman.
On "Hardcore" Redman spits last—typically the slot reserved for the sickest verse. Red's phonetics beast, leaving listeners thirsty for more. The performance was a throwback to EPMD's "Knick Knack Patty Wack," where K-Solo blacked out.
A year before LL Cool J's appearance on "Rampage," he had released the douchie Walking With a Panther album. Instead of the hard lyricist of 1987's Bigger and Deffer, he became a playboy responsible for songs like "I'm That Type of Guy," "Big Ole Butt," and "Def Jam in the Motherland." Cool James got his groove back on EPMD's "Rampage" by shedding the ladies' man gimmick and going back to his battle-style roots. LL then went on to release the classic Momma Said Knock You Out album, which won back his lost fanbase.
Aside from putting fresh batteries into rap careers, Business as Usual was dope on its own merit. Every track flowed into the next but the sounds were varied enough to not be redundant. DJ Scratch lost his mind on turntables with his cuts. All said, Business as Usual is a rap heirloom. —Larry Hester
81. Compton's Most Wanted, Music to Driveby (1992)
Label: Orpheus Records
Although Death Row Records was writing the grand narrative of the West Coast's hip-hop dominance of the early '90s, L.A. was bigger than just Dre, Snoop, and 2Pac. Compton's Most Wanted's third album, Music to Driveby, was laced with homage to N.W.A, but singles "Hood Took Me Under" and "Def Wish II" promoted brooding and paranoia over Eazy's spiteful glee and Ice T's pimp irreverence.
It's an album driven by blaxploitation bass riffs deep as the hell MC Eiht reps. "U's A Bitch" makes loneliness sound smooth as any proverbial ass, and with none of the perceived hassle. MC Eiht is as measured as Snoop, minus the sex appeal, and so he's 100% solitary gangsta. If "100 Miles and Runnin" was the apocalypse, "Hoodrat" is the aftermath, littered with shrapnel and Wendy's wrappers. —Justin Charity
80. Lil Kim, Hard Core (1996)
Label: Undeas, Big Beat
On November 12, 1996—when Lil Kim released her debut album—women in hip-hop finally had options, paths to follow and models. There were conscious women who rapped about love, relationships, and social responsibility, like Lauryn Hill. And there were women like Queen Latifah, who advocated for the unity of all women with a more explicitly political edge. And then there was Lil Kim. The first lady of Junior M.A.F.I.A., the lover of the Notorious B.I.G. and his very own artist—the raunchiest woman you ever heard on the mic.
Looking back at the career of Lil Kim can, at times, be heartbreaking. Hard Core was so carefully crafted under B.I.G.'s watch, his influence is everywhere on the album. It was something that Kim—and his fans—relied on a year later when he passed. But there's more to Hard Core than simply carrying the torch for Big's legacy; Kim burst onto the scene with songs like "Not Tonight," where she commands her man to go down on her in lieu of intercourse. She lists her favorite R&B males, referring to them as "R&B dick." Lil Kim rapped about some of the most explicit things heard in rap. And it was all juxtaposed with images of her flaunting her assets in diamonds and pearls. She was Hollywood but still hood.
Things changed after Hard Core. Biggie passed, Kim grieved, and was left to preside over Junior M.A.F.I.A. In the end, she didn't have him to guide her subsequent projects. Still, Hard Core expanded the boundaries of rap, especially for women. Kim didn't need a man but when she had B.I.G., she thrived. That's what makes Hard Core a beautiful story, and a tragic memory. —Lauren Nostro
79. Master P, Ghetto D (1997)
Label: No Limit Records
2Pac's success inspired a number of artists to run the tables on hip-hop, which is exactly what Master P's No Limit label did throughout the late 1990s. Pac supplied the raw materials; he codified gangster rap, made it at once raw and high minded, laser-focused and emotionally fraught.
In the wake of Pac's death, Master P swiped a few of his obvious tics—the lilt to his vocals is a transparent reflection of Pac's heartfelt delivery. He then went on to wed those to his own world: first the "mob music" of his West Coast home, then to the staff and style of the New Orleans-based "Parkway Pumpin'" label, which he swooped in and co-opted as his No Limit empire in the mid-'90s. He blended transformed this regional stew into unlikely national superstar hip-hop.
In the wake of Pac's death, Master P swiped a few of his obvious tics—the lilt to his vocals is a transparent reflection of Pac's heartfelt delivery.
Ghetto D was the culmination, and an example of the increasing presence of New Orleans in his mix. To popular history, it's been overshadowed by its biggest single, an exuberant, celebratory vehicle that efficiently introduced his label roster with a bang. But the audacity of the record is in its diversity; opener "Ghetto D" was one of the rawest songs he'd ever produce, a remake of "Eric B Is President" as crack-mixing anthem, one-upping the transparency of N.W.A. "Captain Kirk" showed the remains of his Bay Area roots. While gangster rap realism preempts any accusations of sentimentality, songs like "I Miss My Homies" felt like they were cut from The All Eyez On Me How-To Gangster Rap Guide. "Bourbons and Lacs" transformed "Sexual Healing" into a slow rolling singalong.
But the album's glue, what held it together, was New Orleans' own Beats By the Pound. Particularly KLC's sparse, noir-esque piano lines, combined with an incomparably tight bounce, gave P's best cuts a coiled energy. KLC also brought on board a new superstar, Mystikal, who would go on to become a national hip-hop hero but at this point was primarily concerned with destroying every single song he was on. —David Drake
78. Del the Funky Homosapien, No Need for Alarm (1993)
Label: Elektra Records
The key to No Need for Alarm, Del the Funky Homosapien’s second album, is the Ron Carter bass track looped by Casual on “Catch a Bad One.” Mix in a little of Deodato’s interpolation of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” layer with Del’s braggadociously sing-song vocals (first couplet: “People having memory loss/They don’t remember I’m the boss”), and welcome to Oakland rap.
While the Souls of Mischief album may get more spins 20 years on (mostly thanks to the title track), Del’s sophomore effort is no less essential.
Young Teren Delvon Jones found his way into the game via his cousin Ice Cube, and dropped his first album I Wish My Brother George Was Here at 18. Splitting with Cube over creative differences, Del put out No Need for Alarm in 1993, at 21. It released two months to the day after Souls of Mischief’s ’93 to Infinity (which he produced three tracks on) and three months before Casual’s debut, Fear Itself (which he produced and rhymed on), all of which solidly planted the Hieroglyphics crew and SF on the hip-hop map.
And while the Souls of Mischief album may get more spins 20 years on (mostly thanks to its title track), Del’s sophomore effort is no less essential. It features the same soulful mix of classic jazz and funk samples—from Freddie Hubbard to Curtis Mayfield—and Del’s catchy (and generally boastful) flows. And it’s pretty much all Del all the time, with the exception of “No Worries,” which served as a proper introduction for Casual who comes on just as hard as Del: “I’m fed up with the wackness and this weak shit/So peep the style and learn how to freak shit.”
Virtually the whole album was rhyming about rhyming, a meta-attack on the whole industry. Given that Del didn’t put out another record for five years, it established him as something of the Kool Keith of the West. Not a bad thing to be. —Russ Bengtson
77. KRS-One, Return of the Boom Bap (1993)
Label: Jive Records
Even if you think you've never heard KRS-One's 1993 classic, you've definitely heard it sampled (or, at the very least, yelled by someone in public). After all, there are few things in the world that sound doper than the "Woop! Woop! That's the sound of the police!" hook from "Sound of Da Police." And there are few albums that offer smarter takes on everything from race to police activity to the State of Hip-Hop, which is the stated focus of Return of the Boom Bap (and its title track).
Ironically, the album in many ways wasn't a return to form so much as a step forward for KRS-One.
Ironically, the album wasn't a return to form so much as a step forward for KRS-One. It was a break from both the name and mostly in-house production of Boogie Down Productions. DJ Premier, Kid Capri, and Showbiz offered marquee production, which immediately drew attention to the project as a revitalization of the MC. The sound finds KRS-One bridging the gap between the '80s and '90s boom-bap styles while shoring up his reputation as one of hip-hop's preeminent lyricists and most distinctive stylists (pay attention to his frequent use of dancehall-inflected cadence).
KRS-One's battle raps shine, and, really, is it possible to argue against the classic status of an album that boasts a song about being a blunt smoked by both Bill Clinton and Redman? —Kyle Kramer
76. Spice 1, 187 He Wrote (1993)
Label: Jive Records
It's a schizophrenic reality that great gangster rap is generally criticized in two contradictory ways: not effective enough—They're not even real gangsters—or too effective—too dangerous to be celebrated. When a gangster rapper is doing his job, he'll be accused of both at once: too real, and too unreal.
Today, Spice 1's first three albums are looked upon as classic exercises in genre. 187 He Wrote is the slight favorite of the trio. This is in part due to "The Trigger Gots No Heart," a dazed, piano-driven masterpiece that also appeared on the Menace II Society soundtrack. His lyrics on the song caution that there's no negotiating with the trigger. Death is omnipresent and unavoidable: "Rollin' up out the cut deeper than Atlantis/Tore his chest apart, left his heart on the canvas." He may have meant literal canvas material, but in a metaphoric sense it's just as accurate.
Spice 1 made murder through music an art form, striving to remove any sense of mediation between art and killing.
Spice 1 left a lot of bloody bodies on the canvas, at the front of the party, dumped in ditches. He made murder through music an art form. Beats by producers like E-A-Ski and Ant Banks reinvented the liberating ideology of '70s and '80s funk to its desolate opposite, a ceaseless soundtrack to armored survival. Spice 1's ragga-washed, stuttering vocals gave a sense of continual, gripping control. Balancing the brutality was melody, which granted a reprieve from the ruthlessness, and also disguised it.
Two years before Mobb Deep rapped about a war going on outside no man was safe from, Spice 1's mind-state was driven by writing what he knew: "I write about murder and death cause that's all in the hood." While some of the discomforting edge has been dulled by the passage of time, transforming Spice 1 from a threat to the very foundations of society into a manageable artistic hero, his relentlessly bleak assemblage of bodies, blood, and chrome have an undying realness that's impossible to strip away. —David Drake
75. Black Moon, Enta Da Stage (1993)
Label: Nervous Records
As Black Moon's maiden voyage, the first release from Brooklyn's Boot Camp Clik and the debut of Evil Dee's Beatminerz production squad, Enta Da Stage's place in hip-hop history would've been reserved for timing alone. But this album is more than just a gang of veterans' firsts. It's a masterpiece of grimy New York outer-borough rap.
Buck was perhaps more concerned with pure savagery than his peers; the seeming randomness of Enta Da Stage's bloodletting is its own point about hopelessness in '90s New York.
The pairing of Buckshot's barrage of violent threats and Da Beatminerz' bleak but jazzy soundscapes set the tone and pace for a trail of darkly matter-of-fact NYC street dispatches, starting with the Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die and continuing through Capone-N-Noreaga's The War Report.
With help from partner 5ft, Buckshot lays out an elaborate array of murderous scenarios, from the skateboard driveby of "Powaful Impak!" to the point-blank headshots of "Buck Em Down." Buck was perhaps more concerned with savagery than his peers, for whom violence was more often a stepping stone to getting at deeper truths, but the seeming randomness of Enta Da Stage's bloodletting is its own point about hopelessness in '90s New York.
Tying it all together is Beatminerz Mr. Walt and Evil Dee, whose beats draw on everything from Frank Zappa to Miles Davis, vacuuming out the treble and leaving us with nothing but filthy low end. Enta Da Stage is a brisk night-time walk through a neighborhood you might get hemmed up in, deeply rattling but maybe all the more exhilarating for it. —Craig Jenkins
74. Three 6 Mafia, Mystic Stylez (1995)
Label: Prophet Entertainment
Three 6 Mafia's DJ Paul and Juicy J are platinum selling rappers, Oscar winners, and erstwhile reality TV stars. But before the accolades, before "Bandz a Make Her Dance," "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," "Sipping on Some Syrup," and Adventures in HollyHood, there was the group's influential debut album, Mystic Stylez. Paul, J and Lord Infamous (R.I.P.) had been hammering out comically profane lo-fi recordings since meeting as teenagers, but their 1995 album presented a more accomplished version of the occult stories and crass sex raps blueprinted on earlier work.
Mystic Stylez finds Juicy, Paul, and Infamous spinning yarns about drugs, serial killers, and blood sacrifices alongside partners-in-rhyme Koopsta Knicca, Gangsta Boo, and Crunchy Black. The beats are simple 808s and loops shot through with a horror movie's worth of foreboding keys and villainous cackles. The bars are lilting, melodic, and triplet-heavy. The latter got them into trouble with Cleveland's Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, who levied accusations of flow-biting at the Memphis veterans, only to catch literal hell on "Live By Yo Rep," seven straight verses of the ways the Mafia intended to murder their Midwest rivals.
Mystic Stylez' unforgiving goth textures have trickled down through a whole new generation of rappers, as the SpaceGhostPurrps and A$AP Mobs pay open homage to the horrorcore veterans in their own work. —Craig Jenkins
73. Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Mecca and The Soul Brother (1992)
Label: Elektra Records
After their successful All Souled Out EP in 1991, Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth capitalized on their underground buzz a year later with Mecca and the Soul Brother. Pete Rock's affinity for rare jazz samples brought a fresh vibe to rap, which at the time had always used easier-to-find lifts from the likes of Bob James, Grover Washington Jr., and Donald Byrd.
Lyrically, C.L. Smooth set a mark by bringing a cerebral rhyme style with very little cursing. Pete's rhymes contributed just enough to show that he could carry a verse.
Lyrically, CL Smooth set a mark by bringing a cerebral rhyme style with very little cursing. Pete's rhymes contributed just enough to show that he could carry a verse.
But rhyming wasn't Pete Rock's role. The DJ/producer's most memorable contribution on Mecca and the Soul Brother was undoubtedly his use of horn samples as hooks. It became such a signature that using horns on a rap record was often referred to using "Pete Rock horns."
The greatest example of this was the tribute to the late Troy "Trouble T-Roy" Dixon. The now iconic "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)" peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks chart and No. 58 on the Hot 100. The single wasn't a massive seller but it found its way into timelessness, ranking with other mood classics like Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's "Summertime," Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's "Tha Crossroads," and Gang Starr's "DWYK."
Mecca and the Soul Brother was gimmick free dope that one would be hard-pressed to duplicate ever again. —Larry Hester
72. Nas, It Was Written (1996)
Label: Columbia Records
The kid checks out. In 1996, here came the proof that Nas wasn't just a gem-spitting MC from the underground, but rather a full-fledged artist with his own persona, outlook, and claim to hip-hop royalty. Some have even made made the case that It Was Written offered "a more worldly and musically ambitious sound than any on Illmatic."
Whatever pop or mafioso sins one might have initially attributed to Nas' sophomore follow-up, you're stubborn denying the everlasting appeal of "If I Ruled the World," a rare collaboration with Lauryn Hill; the sneak-jab theatrics of "Watch Dem Niggas" and "Live Nigga Rap;" and the pistol-whip gusto of that first track, "The Message," loaded with a subliminal diss of Biggie Smalls. Nas cut a mafioso jig with the best of the Bad Boys (plus Foxy). It was the '90s, all right. —Justin Charity
RELATED: The Making of Nas' It Was Written
71. Group Home, Livin' Proof (1995)
Label: Payday Records
Poor Lil Dap and Melachi the Nutcracker. They're the rap equivalent to Batman in those Christopher Nolan movies—stars of the show wholly eclipsed by their unstoppable co-star. In the case of Livin' Proof, the duo known as Group Home's sonically brilliant 1995 debut, super-producer DJ Premier was its Heath Ledger's Joker (or Tom Hardy's Bane, if you're into that)
For an iconic beatmaker like Premier, who's made classic beats for NYC titans like Jay Z, Biggie, and Nas, the fact that his all-around best record as a producer comes from two of Guru's weed-carriers remains one of rap's greatest ironies. Lyrically, Dap and Melachi had the best of intentions. Livin' Proofis replete with admirable self-evaluations and, yes, junior-level conscious raps. Here's a sampling of Melachi's bar game, taken from "Up Against Tha Wall": "Yo, it's a wonderful world, a world of wonder/I thunder, and thunder, I won't go under/Won't get in a trap, I'm past all that/You stupid motherfucka, my rhyme is phat!" Which might be true if "phat" stood for "Premier Helps All Types."
For an iconic beatmaker like Premier, who's made classic beats for NYC titans like Jay Z, Biggie, and Nas, the fact that his all-around best record as a producer comes from two of Guru's weed-carriers remains one of rap's greatest ironies.
Echoing Group Home's thematic jabs, Premier's beats on Livin' Proof are some of his most gut-wrenching. The dizzying marriage of spacey sound effects and emotive bass guitar riffs on the phenomenal "Supa Star" could be the soundtrack for the world's saddest science-fiction film. "Suspended in Time" achieves a distinctly beautiful aura through its lush combination of chopped-up chirps and cascading bells. "Up Against Tha Wall (Getaway Car Mix)," with its soothing piano medley, would be the perfect composition to use for therapy if not for the wonderfully boom-bap drums.
One of the best-produced rap albums ever, Livin' Proof is the body of work that Mr. Christopher "DJ Premier" Martin's estate should submit to the Smithsonian whenever his clock stops ticking, more so than any of Gang Starr's albums. Livin' Proof is the Brooklyn composer's most focused, of-one-sonic-mind project. Frankly, if it'd been an instrumental release, it would be much higher in this countdown. —Matt Barone
70. Ma$e, Harlem World (1997)
Label: Bad Boy Records
Up until signing with Bad Boy, Mason Betha was best known as Murda Mase, one fifth of the Harlem-based Children of the Corn. The group, as its name foretold, rapped about pretty horrific shit—robbing, killing, and having their way with multiple women. There was no indication that when each member broke off to record their solo projects, they wouldn't just keep truckin’ with the same motifs. And for the most part, they all did. Except for Mase.
Nah. When Mase became the newest member of the Bad Boy team, his promise to get Puff mad more cream was very apparent. Diddy threw him on a succession of pop-leaning singles including Mariah Carey’s “Honey,” 112’s “Only You,” and Brian McKnight’s “You Should Be Mine.” On each song, Mase came off as the slick young dude who was having more fun than everyone else. He always seemed to be bouncing around spitting witty lines that left indelible marks in your brain, like: “Mase ain’t one that’ll pay for ya phone, Mase be the one that’ll take you home.” It shouldn’t have been a surprise, then, when he finally dropped his debut in October, 1997 that it was equal parts jiggy and gully.
"I was Murda for six years, seen no cream from it/Dropped Murda off Mase, woke up at Teen Summit."
This wasn’t the case of some poor kid from the projects who signed a deal with the devil to make a pop record. This is a kid from Harlem who, as he told VIBE back in the day, was determined to become the biggest entertainer in the world.
The common knock against Harlem World is that it’s too pop; it’s too soft and bubbly; there’s too much smiling and dancing in the videos. But take a listen to the record and it’s obvious that Mase was in on the whole thing. This wasn’t the case of some poor kid from the projects who signed a deal with the devil to make a pop record. This is a kid from Harlem who, as he told VIBE back in the day, was determined to become the biggest entertainer in the world. When you want to entertain, you want to effectively communicate. That means you make your flow easy to digest. It also means you make songs that hit every point on the gamut—songs for regular guys, thugs, women, gold diggers, people who were a bit too old to even know who Mase was but remember “Hollywood Swinging” by Kool & The Gang.
Harlem World hit as many notes as it possibly could. Doing that usually means stretching yourself thin, and, to be fair, Mase did—the Stevie J-produced (yes, that Stevie J) ”Love U So” should have been left in the console. And, sure, there are super poppy tracks like the Top 10 single “Feel So Good,” but, come on, if you sit there and say you don’t smile when you hear the opening horn, you’re a liar.
No matter what Mase rapped about, he approached it with the same clear and clever rhymes that made him a prototype for some of today’s biggest rap stars. His flow was so water on “What You Want” that Pusha bit it for his own solo debut. The album shined brightest, though, when he got back on his gutter shit. “Take What’s Yours,” “Niggaz Wanna Act,” “24 Hours to Live,” and “Wanna Hurt Mase” display a Mase who, despite dreams of topping the Billboard Hot 100, still showed an attachment to the underground. It helped that some of the dopest rappers from both NYC and the South came along for the ride. Jay Z, DMX, Busta Rhymes, Lil Kim, The Lox, and Eightball & MJG, all came correct.
Harlem World was made as a vehicle to usher to Puffy's newest signee into superstardom during a time when gangster rap left two of hip-hop's brightest stars in coffins. And it did. It's just too bad he couldn't keep shining. —Damien Scott
69. Mobb Deep, Hell on Earth (1996)
Label: Loud/RCA/BMG Records
Mobb Deep's third studio album is all beef and despair. As the tension between East Coast glam and West Coast gangsta screwed down to its tightest notch yet, Hell on Earth found Mobb Deep isolated in answering 2Pac's long-distance taunts, and true-to-turf in reprising the group's patented gloom. The title track and "Drop a Gem on Em" are as soul-sapping as anything on The Infamous, and "G.O.D. Pt. III's" synth Scarface loop further propels a devilish fall.
Before Havoc started modernizing his beats (e.g., that throbbing Duran Duran bass line on "Quiet Storm") on 1999's Murda Muzik, Hell on Earth was New York rap's last great testament to warbling vinyl, crackling loops, and posse politicking on wax. Indeed, Nas, Rae, Meth, and Big Noyd slide through with the cameo knowledge as always, felonious as ever. —Justin Charity
68. Diamond D, Stunts, Blunts, and Hip-Hop (1992)
Label: Chemistry/Mercury/PolyGram Records
On an episode of the legendary Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito radio show, the DJs locked themselves out their record closet. Without a crate of wax to spin for the program, they played Diamond D's 1992 classic debut Stunts, Blunts & Hip Hop. No one complained.
Make no mistake, Stunts didn't get its status for its lyrical power. Diamond D's ambition was in beat wizardry, and his ability to make that work was pure insanity. Stunts, Blunts & Hip Hop represented a next-step in the world of creative sampling, with a mix of sounds coming from various genres. A flute loop from Kool and the Gang's "N.T." mixed with drums from Johnny Pate's "Shaft in Africa" probably would have never met the vocal sample of Big Daddy Kane's "Mortal Combat." SBHH also put the Bronx back on the map, as there was a genuine camaraderie amongst the borough's new breed not seen since Boogie Down Productions. The Diggin' In The Crates crew emerged and grew from the success of this very album. —Larry Hester
67. Masta Ace Incorporated, SlaughtaHouse (1993)
Label: Delicious Vinyl Records
At the time of its release, late Spring of 1993, Masta Ace’s sophomore album, Slaughtahouse, felt like the East Coast’s acerbic answer to Dr. Dre’s Chronic. And not just because the LP employed deep bass, funk samples, and a multifarious crew of MCs. It felt like that because it was. It was a direct, extremely unexpected shot across the bow of the entire West Coast courtesy of a then borderline old school rapper. That it was delivered in comparable format to The Chronic only made it that much more obvious.
Shit is real in the ‘ville, as M.O.P. say, and Brooklyn had it up to here with L.A.’s hyperbolic gangsta cliches—and their dominance of sales and media—so Masta Ace Incorporated cooked up Slaughtahouse to lampoon the West in one stroke and assert the East’s toughness (albeit in a fairly articulate and thoughtful manner, save for Lord Digga’s contributions) in the next.
Though the album was met with critical adulation, it failed to impact commercially even in the five boroughs (outside of the boom box in my bedroom, where it charted throughout the summer). The ultimate irony of the LP, of course, was that Ace’s lone mainstream hit was the decidedly West Coast–sounding remix of the “Jeep Ass Nigguh” single—retitled “Born To Roll” for radio.
Thankfully, years after its release Eminem would go on the record championing Ace and Slaughtahouse as an all-time favorite (I’ve actually seen him spontaneously rap Lord Digga’s complete verse from “Mad Wunz” to Lord Digga himself), giving credence to the nuanced masterpiece. And suggesting that Dr. Dre maybe even heard the record. —Noah Callahan-Bever
66. The Roots, Things Fall Apart (1999)
Label: Geffen/MCA Records
That the Roots are a band, a group of skilled and distinctive instrumentalists, was obvious on the group's early albums—often to their detriment. But with Things Fall Apart, ?uestlove and company finally made the studio their instrument in the classic Beatles sense, letting sounds knock whether or not it's easy to tell that they were made with drumsticks or guitar picks. The muffled, filtered percussion and far-out synth textures put Things Fall Apart at the vanguard of late-'90s rap production right alongside the chart-topping beatmakers they made a point to never hire or imitate (other than J Dilla, who helped "Dynamite!" explode).
And even if sonics and musicianship are often the top priority on a Roots LP, the rhymes have never been more solid than they were here. Black Thought is at his terse, eloquent best, while Dice Raw tosses a couple of the strongest of his many hit-and-run grenades that are strewn across the Roots discography. Meanwhile, the guest list is a buffet of star-making turns by fellow Philly MCs on the verge of storming the mainstream (Eve and Beanie Sigel) and rappers who had been pulled into the Roots' orbit to create a new renaissance of conscious rap, like Mos Def and Common. —Al Shipley
65. Digital Underground, Sex Packets (1990)
Label: BCM Records
One year before Ice Cube and Sir Jinx revealed their Parliament fixation on Death Certificate and two years before Dre parlayed his into the ornately orchestrated funk of The Chronic, Shock G was on the scene fashioning West Coast party music using the legendary funk collective's songbook as inspiration. Sex Packets, the debut album from Shock's Oakland-based Digital Underground, married classic George Clinton breaks to a dash of live instrumentation and eschewed the hard-edged gangsta rap of its contemporaries in favor of irreverent, sex-positive humor.
Sex Packets married classic George Clinton breaks to a dash of live instrumentation and eschewed the hard-edged gangsta rap of its contemporaries in favor of irreverent, sex-positive humor.
Shock steals the show throughout, rhyming and singing both as himself and as his smooth alter ego, Humpty Hump. Sex Packets is front-loaded with carefree funk and R&B workouts from Shock, sidekick Money B, and the rest.
But things get weird on the back side, as the album's underlying concept emerges, and Shock and Humpty deliver a horned-up science fiction tale about a pill that allows its taker to have vivid (and safe) sex orgies of the mind. The concept was a joke that got fleshed out after the record company took it seriously, as Shock would later tell it.
Much of the album's whimsy is a result of the group being green with regards to crafting and sequencing an entire album. But its sheer sprawl and the group's fearless commitment to following the groove wherever it took them are its redeeming strengths. —Craig Jenkins
64. Jay Z, Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life (1998)
Label: Roc-A-Fella Records/Def Jam Recordings
What makes Jay Z so special? Yeah, he's a brilliant lyricist, and a exceptionally charismatic human. But there have been lots of cool guys who rap great. Why has Jay Z dominated hip-hop for nearly 15 years, while others have come and gone? To understand why, one must understand the appeal of his third album, Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life, which represents the moment when Jay separated himself from the pack and became a superstar.
In 1998, hip-hop was changing, and Jay was getting old. He needed to evolve, or risk being left behind. DMX and Master P had both bubbled up from the underground to dominate the rap game. X stripped down New York rap to a new emotive, hardcore sound, while P was instrumental in breaking Southern rap's radically different aesthetic into the mainstream. Jay took cues from each movement while crafting Vol. 2, a perfectly-timed pastiche of hip-hop's new direction.
Jay took cues from each movement while crafting Vol. 2, a perfectly-timed pastiche of hip-hop's new direction.
The album's lead single "Can I Get A..." was an instant party anthem when it dropped in the summer of '98, thanks to its Southern bounce-flavored beat and saucy, battle-of-the-sexes concept that was likely inspired by Trick Daddy and Trina's spring hit "Nann Nigga." The song gave Jay his first real pop hit, settling in for a long stay on urban radio just as his duet with Jermaine Dupri "Money Ain't a Thang" and his Streets Is Watching single "It's Alright" were starting to lose steam.
Jay had impeccable timing. He jumped at the chance to collaborate with Timbaland, who had owned the pop charts that summer with Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?," and Swizz Beatz, who had owned the streets with DMX's "Ruff Ryders' Anthem." He was the first big rapper to get beats from both, and the results—"Nigga What, Nigga Who" and "Money, Cash Hoes"—proved that Jay's comfort zone was anywhere he damn well pleased. He could make your head spin by weaving double time rhymes around a futuristic syncopated bounce, or he could smack you in the head with blunt declarations over off-kilter Casio loops ("It's like New York's been soft ever since Snoop came through and crushed the buildings").
But it's the album's title track, "Hard Knock Life," that truly made him a household name. That Annie sample was such a brilliant juxtaposition—a little ginger singing about the struggle on the same song as a black man rapping about the struggle—because it gave the mainstream a relatable lens through which it could start to see and understand the strife life that rappers had been describing for years. When Jay says "I flow for chicks wishing/They ain't have to strip to pay tuition/I see your vision mama!," it's hard not to wonder where Annie would have ended up if Daddy Warbuckshad never come along. Probably on the pole.
When so many of his '90s peers were digging their heels in, unable to adapt, Jay showed he was eager to embrace new ideas.
Everyone remembers the hits. What about the rest of Vol. 2? The weakest link is undoubtedly the Foxy Brown duet "Paper Chase," but it's more dull filler than puzzling embarrassment (like some of the weak links from Vol. 1, The Black Album, Kingdom Come, and The Blueprint 3). And then there are some overlooked gems (the existential reflection "If I Should Die"), entertaining shots (the breezy Ma$e diss on "Ride or Die"), and vivid storytelling (the Too $hort duet "A Week Ago") to round it out. The highlights are so high that it's easy to forget that this is an extremely enjoyable listen top to bottom, even if it lacks the cohesion of Reasonable Doubt or The Blueprint.
His first two albums failed to really connect, stalling out at gold, but Vol. 2 was a sensation, spending more than a month at the top of Billboard, going platinum four times in less than five months (ultimately selling five million). It remains the biggest hit of Jay's career, because it assimilated the hardcore, pan-regional sound of 1998 into an easily digestible package right when the masses needed something new. At it's core, Vol. 2 was a statement that Jay Z would be a part of the future, not just the past. When so many of his '90s peers were digging their heels in, unable to adapt, Jay showed he was eager to embrace new ideas. Over the years, Jay has been criticized for hopping from trend to trend, and for being insufferably arrogant. But his habit of always chasing the zeitgeist—which is really to admit that the people's whims are more important than your own—is a humble pursuit that has given him his enduring power. —Brendan Frederick
63. The Alkaholiks, Coast II Coast (1995)
Label: Loud/RCA Records
Fortunately, the dystopian, Blade Runner-like, world detailed on "2014," the eighth of eleven tracks on, Coast II Coast, hasn't materialized. Hip-hop isn't hidden in basements, KRS-styled temples, or in any other closed-off secret society. Instead, the genre's aging rather gracefully and embracing its nuances.
In 1995, the year the Alkaholiks released their sophomore album, the rap universe was disjointed and, perhaps, a touch more tribal. The trio of J-RO, Tash, and E-Swift represented a counter to L.A.'s prevailing g-funk sound. They rap, as they did on 21 & Over, about boozing, picking up broads, and slaying wack MCs. Classic topics, essentially, but vibes more consistent among East Coast brethren like the Beatnutz and Diggin' in the Crates.
They rap, as they did on 21 & Over, about boozing, picking up broads, and slaying wack MCs. Classic topics, essentially, but vibes more consistent among East Coast brethren like the Beatnutz and Diggin' in the Crates.
Some New York flavor is provided by Diamond D, one of two guest producers, on "Let It Out" and the album's culminating song, "The Next Level" (on which he also spits a few bars). Q-Tip offers a verse on "All the Way Live." The cameos suffice to insert the Liks into a wider hip-hop community, allowing the group to transcend their initial hedonistic novelty-group status (all partying and bullshitting) and assert fully realized, multi-dimensional sound.
Tash, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, emerges from Coast II Coast a certified underground star. His bars are tighter than on the previous effort, and with a noted maturity in narrative structure. Of note is Tash's opening verse on "21 and Under," a meticulous anecdote distilling a visit to a convenience store that ends with the narrator cracking 40s with a crew of underage fans. Concept execution continues on the aforementioned "2014" and "Flashback," an "I Can't Stand It"-sampling ode to the roots of rap. Combined, these three songs are the difference between the '93 Liks and the '95-era crew—smartly written and performed songs that transcend that introductory shtick.
Everything comes together smoothly on the lead single, "Daam!," featuring King Tee and Xzibit, which functions as a manifesto of the Alkaholks brand of hip-hop—strong beats, tight rhymes, and a healthy balance of liquored-up pop culture references. "Daam!" isn't the best Lik's song. Nor is it the most quotable. But, when served in context of the whole record, elicits the appropriate nod of recognition due to one of the decade's most solid offerings. —Nick Schonberger
62. Twista, Adrenaline Rush (1997)
Label: Creator's Way/Big Beat/Atlantic Records
The speed with which Twista raps can overshadow the other qualities that make his music so compelling; he's also a great stylist and fantastic lyricist. After his star-making appearance on Do or Die's hit single "Po Pimp," Twista made his major label debut with his third album, Adrenaline Rush. It covers mostly two topics: sex and grisly street scenes (pretty much reliably switching back from track to track), and it does so convincingly. The sound is largely rooted in melody and sing-song hooks, which provide a good counterbalance to Twista's rapid-fire delivery
While Twista offers an eloquent take on his skills as a lover (which underscored the two biggest singles, "Emotions" and "Get It Wet"), he also paints a chilling picture of the streets. Take the line that opens "Korrupt World": "Agony was the feeling when I saw his blood spilling." As a thoroughly consistent release that showcased all of this, Adrenaline Rush stands as an essential project. —Kyle Kramer
61. M.O.P., Firing Squad (1996)
Label: Relativity Records
Brooklyn's amped version of Houston's Geto Boys: Billy Danze, Lil Fame, and DJ muh-ther-fuck-ing Premier. Hardly as thoughtful as Scarface's ravings, but the menace and energy's all here. KRS-One and Kool G Rap reimagined as Godzilla rap: "Fuckin with Fame, you be the next stain on the sidewalk," "My over violent, lyrics'll knock you over balance!" It's uncanny how perpetually caffeinated these guys are, how they could turn even that homely piano twang on "World Famous" up to eleven.
Outro homie tribute cut "Dead And Gone" is as smooth as a gospel alter call gets—not that "smooth" could/would/should ever translate as "subdued" if we're being reasonable, which Firing Squad most certainly is not: "You gon die by the gun! I love you!" Never has untempered pessimism been so unstoppably loud. You'd be forgiven for thinking Danze was riding shotgun next to you, ranting as he slapboxes the dash. Drive, sucka! Drive! —Justin Charity
60. Hot Boys, Guerilla Warfare (1999)
Label: Cash Money Records
This side of Run-D.M.C., the closest hip-hop had to The Beatles was a foursome from New Orleans known as the Hot Boys—B.G., Juvenile, Wayne, and Turk. In 1999, they released Guerrilla Warfare, the group's second album and their first since signing a landmark distribution deal with Universal Records. Released just after Juvenile's classic 400 Degreez and B.G.'s Chopper City In the Ghetto, it was an immediate smash, peaking at No. 1 on the Hip-Hop/R&B charts and becoming their only platinum-selling album as a group.
Mannie Fresh has said that the Hot Boys used to train rapping in the style of old school hip-hop routines, trading verses back and forth and giving their music a true collaborative feel.
Mannie Fresh has said that the Hot Boys used to train rapping in the style of old school hip-hop routines, trading verses back and forth and giving their music a true collaborative feel. This sense of in-studio camaraderie is evident on Guerrilla Warfare, where each personality seems to bounce off the other. The best verses stand out in your head: Juvenile's violent coming-of-age verse on "Respect My Mind" ("I understood at a young age my daddy would spray/Seen him slit a niggaz throat and shoot one up in the face"). It's an album full of action shots; on B.G.'s highlight, the half-sing-song stop-start of "Help," his grainy vocals set the scene, his lines beginning and ending across the bar lines: "Me and Lil Weezy, jumping out the two-door/Lexus Coupe with the/Combat boots on/Soulja fatigues, ready to get our/Shoot on."
And of course, there were Mannie's beats, from the scraping textures of "Boys At War" to the eerie swamp noir of "Ridin" to the "Fifth of Beethoven"-goes-bounce "I Need A Hot Girl." It's tough to remember exactly how radical this production sounded in the context of the time, when boom bap was still by and large New York's lingua franca. There was something frightening about its disregard for rules or history, an unprecedented sound palette that seemed bleak and faceless and discomfortingly real. And running through these concrete-hard sonic hallways were four stars, each with fully-formed styles and a propensity to speak directly to the language of violence as if each word was firsthand documentation. —David Drake
59. DJ Quik, Quik Is the Name (1991)
Label: East West Records
Isaac Hayes' "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic," Quik said in a 2012 interview, made him "feel like a god. Like on top of the world. It just sounded big. Even though it wasn't on the radio, even though I didn't have a record deal. It was just something about that track that moved me." He sampled it for "Born and Raised in Compton," from 1991's Quik Is the Name. The album wasn't his most elaborate; by 1997, he'd evolved as a producer, using real instruments and incorporating complex arrangements. But it was, commercially, his most successful, and musically, his most efficient. Lyrically, he was direct, but a little off-kilter, a funny MC whose narratives were peppered with funny asides wrapped in a flamboyantly slick package:
Five thirty on the clock and the sun is steadily sinking
And I am steadily thinking about the 8 that I'll be drinking
You know I ain't ashamed and you know I ain't bashful
So go on and pop the forty so I can pour me a glassful
What did he want? To get drunk tonight. "Sweet Black Pussy." Some bomb bud. Like Eazy-E, Quik had a high-pitched vocal style and a street background. But where Eazy's 8ball was cocaine, Quik's was a 40 ounce; his time was as consumed with partying and pussy as anything else.
Despite the album's straightforward approach to sampling, his taste in grooves—especially on the somber memorial "Dedication"—had a particular sensibility, one that both predicted the arc of his career and defined his region. It was a rough era in Compton history, but Quik Is the Name humanized it, allowed for accessible hedonism as an escape. —David Drake
58. Puff Daddy, No Way Out (1997)
Label: Bad Boy Records
Everything that anyone loves or loathes about Puffy's influence is packed onto No Way Out. The blockbuster grandiosity. Puffy's ghosted croon, before we knew him mostly for shouting. The LOX ripping shit up. Carl Thomas (cue swoons).
Riding, deciding: symphonic brass or beach-side maracas? "It's All About the Benjamins," "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down," "Been Around the World"—Bad Boy's patent leather ethos written, recorded, and broadcast as black America's sequel to Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. "Victory" goes hardest, and biggest, and loudest, grand as a $2.7 million music video requires. The rest is R&B rehab and Hoodfellas machismo, the LOX and Black Rob testimonials that defined the City, if not the Coast, if not the whole culture in the latter half of the '90s—until DMX burst into the dining room with a ski mask and demands.
Since Da Band fiasco in 2003, Puffy's gotten a bad rap. You might say he's an out-sized hypeman whose musical presence is gratuitous, per se. Yet nearly 20 years since Biggie's passing, Puff's held his legacy together. No Way Out should be lit tastefully behind diamond-proof glass, among Bad Boy's other crown jewels. —Justin Charity
57. Jeru the Damaja, The Sun Rises in the East (1994)
Label: Payday Records
After listening to The Sun Rises in the East, one can imagine Jeru the Damaja and DJ Premier, circa 1995 in Brooklyn, rolling PCP-laced blunts and watching a '70s horror movie marathon on a couch surrounded by H.P. Lovecraft paperbacks. Indeed, the album is that dark.
As an MC, the perennially underrated Jeru is nothing like Premier's late Gang Starr cohort Guru, or any of the other Gang Starr Foundation members. He could rap circles around Group Home's pedestrian tandem of Lil Dap and Melachi the Nutcracker as well as Big Shug. A nimble, chaos-theory-minded street philosopher, Jeru keeps the lyrics A-grade throughout his 1994 debut. "You Can't Stop the Prophet," the album's ambitious centerpiece, shows off Jeru's storytelling prowess, with the Damaja casting himself as a superhero fighting against supervillains like Ignorance, Hatred, and Envy.
"You Can't Stop the Prophet," the album's ambitious centerpiece, shows off Jeru's storytelling prowess, with the Damaja casting himself as a superhero fighting against supervillains like Ignorance, Hatred, and Envy.
On the battle tip, he's a cerebral pugilist, effectively setting up murder portraits with references to German intellectual Immanuel Kant—as in, heard on "Come Clean," "Malignant mist that'll leave Kant defunct/The result's your remains stuffed in a car trunk." When he lightens up a bit on the blistering back-and-forth session with protege Afu-Ra, "Mental Stamina," he's a tongue-twister of the highest order: "It's mental pandemonium, and then some/You go for your handgun, psychokinetic forces proceed to smash in your cerebellum."
The Sun Rises in the East is at its best, though, when the mood descends into audio nightmares. The album's overall haunting vibe is established immediately on "D. Original," fueled by Preemo's macabre organ arrangement that's pure Dario Argento movie madness. "Ain't the Devil Happy," a string-driven beat that sounds like a symphony frantically soundtracking the Apocalypse's pre-party, finds Premier flipping one of his signature sample-scratched hooks, but with a catch: it's RZA's sinister laugh on Wu-Tang's "Tearz," and, here, it's the unnerving cackle of a lunatic. The aforementioned "Come Clean," meanwhile, is a punishing but endlessly listenable round of Chinese Water Torture on wax, with Premier meticulously timing his drum kicks to each drip and drop.
The Sun Rises in the East is the kind of album that could have only come out in the '90s—a time when the best producer in the game could make an aggressively anti-radio record of its type and still get on the air, a Big Apple rapper could do the same without pretending like he's from the South, and he could also appear in the cover art crouching next to a burning World Trade Center. Still, the package, as a whole, remains timeless. —Matt Barone
56. Eightball & MJG, On Top of the World (1995)
Label: Suave House Records
Between 1993 and 1994, Eightball & MJG recorded their first two albums in a house they shared with Tony Draper in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. For all their hardcore, funky brilliance, these influential albums—Comin' Out Hard and On The Outside Looking In—sound like D.I.Y. bedroom recordings: low vocals, tinny drums, scraps of old soul records. But the two independent releases generated palpable underground buzz, breaking into the top 20 on Billboard's R&B Albums chart and selling a combined 500,000 units. On the strength of duo's success, Tony Draper's label, Suave Records, inked a new distribution deal with the Sony-backed Relativity Records and gave the new venture a more grandiose name: Suave House.
The duo's next album sounds like it was recorded on a different planet. They finally had access to a proper recording studio—Digital Services in Tomball, Texas—where country superstar Clint Black cut his debut album and, more recently, Scarface had recorded his solo masterpiece, The Diary. The hi-tech facilities made all the difference, and comparing their earlier albums to 1995's On Top of the World is like watching a VHS bootleg and then catching Gravityon IMAX. Their first album included the song "Pimps," and now this one blasted off with "Space Age Pimpin'," a slick, quiet storm R&B cut that inspired the two gentlemen to show their romantic side, with talk about satin sheets, nightcaps, and lingerie (although MJG can't resist telling his lady "your mouth was fantastic."). The song got 'Ball & 'G radio rotation throughout the South, and landed at #58 on Billboard's R&B chart, a first for a Memphis hip-hop act. It was one small step for Southern rap, one giant leap for pimp kind.
The hi-tech facilities made all the difference, and comparing their earlier albums to 1995's On Top of the World is like watching a VHS bootleg and then catching Gravity on IMAX.
Luckily, their softer side was not the only thing they revealed on On Top of the World. The album presents a deeper exploration inside the teenage tough-talk and gangsta reverie of their earlier records, the result of two men whose success had moved them outside of their bubble and afforded them the opportunity to reflect on their world with clarity. On "What Can I Do," the duo ponders the logistics of using drug money to go legit, with MJG detailing a particularly painful episode where his world came crashing down, forcing him to look for a way out: "Embarrassed as fuck, my own kids had to watch, while daddy was beaten and being drug by a cop." 'Ball & 'G had always been vivid storytellers, preferring stone-cold narration to cute punchlines, and On Top of the World is filled with some of their most engaging drama, involving crooked cops ("In the Line of Duty"), shady managers ("Comin' Up"), friends-turned-junkies ("Funk Mission"), and Satan himself ("Hand of the Devil"). On Eightball's standout verse from "For Real," he pulls the rug out from under the "prejudiced" listeners who remain critical of his lyrics: "Here's this other fool with dreads growing from his head/He trying to tell me bout some shit Farrakhan said/I try to listen cause Eightball ain't the one to knock it/But I can't hear over the echo from my empty pocket."
The album is also the real coming-out-party for producer T-Mix, one of the great unsung heroes of Southern rap, and the architect behind the majority of Suave House's music, often under the name Smoke One Productions. While the previous albums relied on obvious R&B loops from records by Barry White, P-Funk, Rick James, and the Isley Brothers, On Top of the World is virtually sample free, with T-Mix opting instead to build funky grooves from the ground up with keyboards and live instrumentation. The dramatic South Circle collaboration "All in My Mind" features an electric guitar solo, for God's sake. The move away from samples was likely motivated by business concerns as much as creative ones (there's a reason the first two albums are not available on Spotify or iTunes), but it produced a fuller, more distinctive sound that stood up against Dr. Dre's big budget beats from the mid-'90s.
While Comin' Out Hard is Eightball & MJG's best-known album, mostly because it created the blueprint for hardcore Southern rap's D.I.Y. hustle, there's no doubt that On Top of the World represents the artistic peak of one of the best groups to ever do it. Following the album, they took a four year hiatus to record solo records, and when they reunited for 1999's In Our Lifetime, they were regarded as legends, while No Limit and Cash Money reigned supreme. The Southern hip-hop world they had helped build continued to spin, but Eightball & MJG would never quite regain their place at the top. —Brendan Frederick
55. Smif-N-Wessun, Dah Shinin' (1995)
Label: Wreck Records
Right after the success of Black Moon's 1993 debut Enta Da Stage, the Beatminerz lent their production talents to another Brooklyn crew called Smif N' Wessun. (They renamed to Da Cocoa Brovas right after the album's release at the request of the gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson. They returned to Smif N' Wessun in 2005).
Underground radio broke "Bucktown," Tek and Steele's ode to BK, and it was an instant hit. The Beatminerz sucked all of the high frequencies out of Jack Bruce's "Born to Be Blue" and threw granite-hard drums over it. The result was a sound that complemented Smif 'N Wessun's slow and threatening rhyme flow.
Following the release of the "Bucktown" single came the full-length Dah Shinin', which boasted the now classic "Wreckonize" and "Sound Bwoy Burriell," a dancehall-influenced track that flawlessly represented the grimy street vibe of '90s Brooklyn. You can also credit "Sound Bwoy Burriell" with using dancehall legend Fuzzy Jones' vocals before Kanye got to them for "Mercy."
Commercially, Da Shinin did fairly well but what it accomplished best was capturing Brooklyn's essence in the mid '90s while also laying down the second wave of Black Moon's Boot Camp Clik. —Larry Hester
54. Beastie Boys, Check Your Head (1992)
Label: Capitol Records
In a sense, 1992's Check Your Head was the first true Beastie Boys album. Following the Rick Rubin orchestrated success of 1986's License to Ill and the Dust Brothers helmed chaos of 1989's Paul's Boutique, Check Your Headmarked a return to the Beastie's punk roots, with their ever-growing lyrical skills paired with live instruments that they played themselves.
Check Your Head's heavily fuzztoned grunge-hop should have been an immediate success in the era of Nirvana. Not quite.
Drawing equally from punk, hip-hop and '70s lounge funk (thanks in big part to keyboardist Mark "Money Mark" Nishita, who would become a Beasties mainstay), Check Your Head's heavily fuzztoned grunge-hop should have been an immediate success in the era of Nirvana. Not quite. Rolling Stone gave it just three and a half stars, while Entertainment Weekly's David Browne gave it a D and referred to it as a "muddled, clanking mess." Whatever.
Check Your Head was a lo-fi wonder more in tune with Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted than Dr. Dre's The Chronic, and if hip-hop heads didn't get it, so be it. Understandable, since the record—right from the Cheap Trick cribbed intro—would have sounded right at home played at CBGBs. But it also had an undeniably funky, downright dirty edge, and the ultimate NYC hip-hop co-signs from the HAZE-penned logo to the Glen E. Friedman cover shot. And "Finger Lickin' Good" made a Bob Dylan lyric bigger than Bob Dylan did. Miss the old New York? Here's a slab of it. —Russ Bengtson
53. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, E. 1999 Eternal (1995)
Label: Ruthless Records
The combination of gangster and occult make E. 1999 Eternal something special. Hearing Bone Thugs spit rapid fire verses over U-Neek's soundscapes—U-Neek remains one of the most underrated producers of the '90s—is like watching True Detective in fast forward. The rhymes seem to zoom past you but they're actually wrapping around you, creating the dark, urban atmosphere depicted on the album cover (as tacky as it may be).
E. 1999 Eternal isn't praised enough for its singular focus and "double glock" styled execution. From the opening seconds of "Da Introduction," the album creeps into the catacombs of Cleveland. The group didn't just have their own unique delivery and style, they had their own slang ("Taking no shorts, no losses").
Ironically, the album featured one of the greatest feel-good anthems of the '90s, "1st of tha Month." Unfortunately, the original pressing of the album didn't feature Bone's greatest song, "Tha Crossroads," which was dedicated to the memory of their mentor Eazy-E. Instead, the album has the original version, "Crossroad," which is pretty great but pales in comparison to the Grammy-award winning version. Although Bone Thugs would never produce a work this vital again, the lasting influence of the album is a testament to its impact. —Insanul Ahmed
52. Brand Nubian, One for All (1990)
Label: Elektra Records
Hip-hop's Black power movement was heavy on substance but was losing the younger street heads. Artists like Public Enemy and X-Clan and were still dope but the delivery had become a bit stale, thus creating a space for New Rochelle's Derrick X, Lord Jamar, and Grand Puba to enter the rap game with some fresh air. One for All blended slick, witty lyricism with beats that could bump in a club or in a pair of headphones. Puba, Jamar, and X weaved flawlessly between the crowd that loved shit-talking rap and those who followed the teachings of the 5 Percent Nation of Gods and Earths, without offending either camp.
Brand Nubian's most popular song from the One for All album detailed the horrors of sexually promiscuity and crack addiction. The smash hit "Slow Down" moved asses and minds, while joints like "Concerto in X Minor" took a more serious look at the state of race relations. Grand Puba—formerly of the old school rap group The Masters of Ceremony—proved to be one of rap's greatest rhyme composers of the time with tracks like "Who Could Get Busy Like This Man" and "Step to the Rear." True, the new jack swing of "Try To Do Me" hurt more than a genital paper cut, but hearing Puba and Positive K trade lines on "Grand Puba, Positive and L.G." more than made up for it. —Larry Hester
51. OutKast, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994)
Label: LaFace Records
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was a landmark for Southern hip-hop, bringing a platinum plaque and a Source Award to Atlanta at a time when the genre's fans and cultural gatekeepers will still focused on New York and L.A. As OutKast became progressively weirder and more ambitious with each subsequent release, they became more popular, as well as more critically acclaimed. Eventually, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik began to seem to some like a tentative, even conservative first step. After all, the jersey-wearing André Benjamin had not yet become the guitar-slinging, wig-wearing André 3000.
But Organized Noize beats never banged harder than "Player's Ball" and "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik." Meanwhile, the sensitive, cerebral side of the Dungeon Family that made them one of the most fascinating, multifaceted rap crews of any region was in full effect on the Goodie Mob collaboration "Git Up, Git Out." If OutKast's debut has been diminished by the two decades that have passed since then, it's not because the music has aged poorly. —Al Shipley
50. Ghostface Killah, Ironman (1996)
Label: Epic Records
Ironman isn't the greatest thing the Wu-Tang Clan ever produced. It's not even the greatest thing Ghostface Killah ever produced. (That would be Supreme Clientele.) But it holds up among the first batch of Wu solo material—a legendary series of releases that created the framework for the Wu empire—which speaks volumes about Ironman's quality.
RZA may have given Raekwon his most cinematic work for Cuban Linx and given GZA his rawest for Liquid Swords, but Ironman features some of his richest beats. They arrive draped in the soul samples of the '60s and '70s and topped off with dialogue from the gnarliest of blaxploitation flicks.
Ghost's vocals—which stay sounding like you're having a conversation with that one friend who always talks louder than necessary—supplement the urgency RZA packs into tracks like "Iron Maiden," "260," and "Daytona 500." Raekwon serves as the War Machine to Ghost's Tony Starks and even gets his own song, "Faster Blade." But the album never becomes a full-on sequel to Cuban Linx, despite featuring similar crime capers. Instead, the album is its own chamber in the Wu-Tang canon; a tapestry of Five-Percenter teachings, storytelling raps, and men who live violently. —Insanul Ahmed
49. E-40, In a Major Way (1995)
Label: Jive/Sick Wid It Records
Long before we were out here trying to function or wondering when to go, E-40 was cranking out hits. The Vallejo, California, rapper has somehow managed to continue to sound consistently current and entertaining over a long career despite the fact that his formula has never strayed too far from what he accomplished on his major label debut, In a Major Way.
Here, E-40 is basically the perfect MC, bouncing between the serious and the comical, the gangster and the partier, with an elastic, perpetually amused flow and incredibly detailed lyrics. To this day, there may be no rapper who captures the everyday thrill of drinking as accurately and as joyfully as E-40 does here (and still does—appropriately, he now has his own line of wine). Songs like "Sprinkle Me" and "Dusted 'N' Disgusted" deservedly remain staple classic West Coast bangers, still sounding pretty much as fresh as they did in '95. How many albums from the decade can claim that? —Kyle Kramer
48. Big Pun, Capital Punishment (1998)
Label: Terror Squad/Loud Records
If you define "lyricism" as stacking syllables like textbooks, there's an argument to be made that Big Pun's Capital Punishment is the most lyrical album of all time. Fans of the album are quick to quote unforgettable tongue twisters like "Dead in the middle of Little Italy" (a line Fat Joe actually had to convince Pun to spit, as Pun considered it a joke), but the album is overloaded with bars just like that. Whether it was the Boogie Down Bronx, his Terror Squad crew, or his Puerto Rican heritage, lyrically, Pun would always represent.
Pun's rhymes didn't just pack a punch, they packed E. Honda's Hundred Hand Slap.
Pun's rhymes didn't just pack a punch, they packed E. Honda's Hundred Hand Slap. "Still Not A Player" featured lines like, "We can park the Jeep, pump Mobb Deep, and just spark the leaf" while still finding its way into the Top 40. "Caribbean Connection" featured Illmatic-worthy observations like, "The ghetto's a jungle/Where you either bet all your bundles or struggle and live simple and humble." And you don't even want the line-by-line breakdown of the masterful "You Ain't a Killer." No matter the beat or the subject matter, Pun was always out to murder you "physically, lyrically, hypothetically, realistically." What's even more amazing is that despite being so big he rapped with remarkable dexterity and the breath control of a T'ai chi master.
The album isn't without its flaws; at nearly 72 minutes and 24 tracks Capital Punishment is far too long. But what else would you expect from Big Pun other than overindulgence? —Insanul Ahmed
47. Souls of Mischief, 93 'til Infinity (1993)
Label: Jive/BMG Records
Whoever said that "backpack" rappers had to be soft obviously hasn't listened to one of the subgenre's touchstones, Souls of Michief's '93 'Til Infinity. The Oakland group's debut abandoned the gangster-heavy themes that dominated the West Coast in favor of punchline-heavy flows over jazz loops. The album is best remembered for its title track, but A-Plus, Phesto, Opio, and Tajai never let down their lyrical guard throughout the course of 93 'Til Infinity's 14 tracks.
Souls gave conscious rap a backbone, but what made the album work is the crew's dynamic: As boisterous as each rapper is, there's no power struggle to shine harder than the next man. Everyone does their thing. They play back and forth between street life and the search for knowledge on "Tell Me Who Profits," and lay all of their rhyme prowess out on "Batting Practice." That's what allowed the Souls of Mischief to exist in multiple worlds. The crew's vibe would attract a generation of skaters, underground fans, and anyone who wanted something a little different than what was coming out the radio. —Matt Welty
46. DMX, It's Dark and Hell is Hot (1998)
Label: Ruff Ryders Entertainment/Def Jam Recordings
Like Jay Z before Reasonable Doubt, DMX floundered as Unsigned Hype for nearly a decade before he got around to recording that landmark debut. And while Jay, Kanye, and Cam's career restlessness mean that we've hardly forgotten the R.O.C., DMX's hasty retirement (a.k.a. drug addiction, prison) means we have forgotten that the Ruff Ryders used to run this rap shit, if briefly.
But before the incessant Ruff Rydin' and cameo freelancing, DMX laid an hour-plus of mostly solo poetry and netherworld mythologizing. Lauryn Hill with stubble, a temper, and twin Glocks, loaded. Forget Swizz' grating YAMAHA swipes for a moment—those came later. Dame Grease ran the boards on It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, ruling by gloomy piano chords and ghastly strings. There are the stash-spot sagas "Get At Me Dog," "ATF," and "Crime Story," there's "Damien's" Calvinist dread—and in retrospect, it's a wonder that DMX was ever as chill and sensitive as he sounds on "How's It Goin Down."
But yes, the most certainly enduring smash from DMX's debut is indeed Swizz's "Ruff Ryders Anthem," its success having certified the course of X's career henceforth: loud over wounded, menace over vulnerability, strength over love, and the fear of death in all endeavors. —Justin Charity
45. The Beatnuts, The Beatnuts: Street Level (1994)
Label: Relativity Records
There was a point in '90s rap when producers never worried about formulas to get radio airplay or make club bangers. They created music for the sake of being dope and one-upping other producers. This friendly competition brought out the best in studio rats like Q-Tip, Large Professor, and Pete Rock. The Beatnuts were no different. Juju and Psycho Les added a slapstick, humorous element to their work. Everything from metal spring sound effects (to signify the removal of a bra) to Spanish Christmas carols—anything was game for the Queens duo. The Beatnuts—which is also referred to as Street Level since those words appeared on the album cover even though that wasn't the actual title—was a mischievously-produced example of the Beatnuts' talents.
Though not a huge seller, the album was a smash to fans who were already familiar with the Beatnuts' sound, either through the team's production for artists like Chi Ali (their remix of "Funky Lemonade" saved the song) or underground hit "Reign of the Tec" from their 1993 Intoxicated Demons EP. The album brought the would be classics "Props Over Here" and "Hit Me With That" but there were so many more of the album's tracks that remain timeless like, "Get Funky," "Are You Ready" featuring Grand Puba, and "Let Off a Couple." Each song punched with jazzy loops and cartoonishly hardcore lyrics like, "Punk, what you gonna do sausage when I take your bitch home and fuck her hard with my ostrich-sized dick?" No one with a normal brain can come up with that stuff. —Larry Hester
44. Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Wanted: Dead or Alive (1990)
Label: Cold Chillin'/Warner Bros. Records
By 1990, Kool G Rap was a veteran rapper from the Juice Crew. He had existed before "mafioso rap" offered damn near every rapper in New York a style they couldn't refuse. G Rap and DJ Polo's Wanted: Dead or Alive is all that and, expansively, more.
His crime raps are incomparably nimble. "Three men slain inside an apartment/All you could see was the sparks when it darkened/Daylight broke, cops roll on the scene/The drug war, daily routine," he raps.
G Rap's observational purity is enthralling as it is spititually exhausting. But his boasts do boogie thanks to Eric B. and Large Professor, who keep the beats rumbling to befit G Rap's gruff wit. "Talk Like Sex" is the most brutally confident sex FAQ in the history of rap, if not in the history of sex. "I'll fuck you on the A train while I write graffiti." And that's his flirting, mind you.
P.S., Fuck a Bon Jovi. —Justin Charity
43. Common, Resurrection (1994)
Label: Relativity Records
There's a certain type of argument that can get settled by playing "I Used to Love H.E.R.," the most enduring song from Common's Resurrection. But putting aside all the concerns about hip-hop selling out and the fact that, for a brief time, future family-friendly movie stars Common and Ice Cube were engaged in very serious beef because of that song's claim that hip-hop was ruined when it moved West and got more violent, it's worth considering all the other things this album demonstrates.
It's hard to imagine Chicago hip-hop—from Kanye West to Chance the Rapper—sounding the way it does today without this album, which is also very much the work of producer No I.D. The jazzy beats that sound like snippets of half-remembered soul songs have basically been Common's go-to template ever since, while his rapping established what's become a Windy City archetype: the everyman who's not involved in the gang shit but is close enough to see and comment on it.
Most of all, the album painted a picture of Common as a rapper coming into the height of his artistic talents, with self-assured narration, steady instincts about what makes interesting songs, and lyrical dexterity. —Kyle Kramer
42. LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out (1990)
Label: Def Jam/Columbia/CBS Records
Although the title track of Mama Said Knock You Out has become an icon of both LL Cool J's career and of the art of the comeback, it's easy to forget that it wasn't the album's lead single. In fact, it wasn't even the second or third. But while "The Boomin' System" and "Around the Way Girl" pushed the door open for James Todd Smith to keep making hits, it was "Mama" that knocked it off the hinges for the next decade and change.
By that point, the album had already had an underwhelming run on the charts, peaking at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 where its predecessor, Walking With a Panther, reached No. 6. But numbers don't lie, and Mama Said Knock You Out ultimately triumphed, selling twice as much as Walking With a Panther.
Mama Said Knock You Out isn't all bare-chested aggression, however. "Cheesy Rat Blues" (which later provided Killer Mike and El-P with the inspiration to name their collaboration Run the Jewels) is the slick, shit talking LL at his finest, while "Milky Cereal" shows the surreal and perverse side of the legendary ladies' man that has always made him more than just a R&B rap balladeer. And while longevity has ultimately become LL Cool J's greatest claim to fame, no single album finds him hitting all of his strong suits so equally. —Al Shipley
41. Gang Starr, Daily Operation (1992)
Label: Chrysalis/EMI Records
By the mid-'90s, DJ Premier had begun to tighten up his sound into the consistent and brutally effective beat science heard on Hard to Earn (as well as Illmatic and countless other classics). But while it's true that he was able to dispense that signature sound for many years before it came to sound formulaic, it's also true that Daily Operation was a landmark breakthrough for Gang Starr—in part because he hadn't quite figured it all out as much yet.
The discordant, discomforting tones of "Take It Personal" and "No Shame In My Game," the crunches and cuts of "2 Deep," the slightly greater presence of vinyl hiss in many of the samples make it some of DJ Premier's rawest work, at times surprisingly close to the sound the RZA would pioneer a year later. The late, great Guru never had it easy living up to his partnership with one of rap's most revered producers. But Daily Operation finds him in top form, his flinty eye for detail aimed at topics as diverse as the politricks of "Conspiracy" and the relationship woes of "Ex-Girl To Next Girl." —Al Shipley
40. Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet (1990)
Label: Def Jam/Columbia Records
Public Enemy might have perfected their their sound on 1988's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, a masterpiece of both conscious rhymes and sample-heavy production. But if Nation was PE's Sgt. Pepper, formidable songwriting and production talent suddenly gone supernova, the 1990 follow up Fear of a Black Planet was their White Album, sprawling and expansive in all the places where its predecessor felt pointed.
Part of what makes Fear of a Black Planet so special is how close it came to not even happening.
Part of what makes Fear of a Black Planet so special is how close it came to not even happening. PE landed in hot water in 1989 after the group's "Minister of Information" Professor Griff gave an interview full of racist, homophobic slander, and Chuck D, confused and under fire, broke up the group. They would later reconvene over a group of productions that took Nation's army of tiny interlocking samples to harsher extremes, and with lyrics where Chuck defiantly dug his heels into his proudly Afrocentric worldview.
Fear of a Black Planet lashes out at a country built on institutionalized racism on "911 Is a Joke" and promotes black unity on songs like "Brothers Gonna Work It Out," "Power to the People," and the Do the Right Thing soundtrack cut, "Fight the Power." The Griff scandal would've killed a lesser group off, but Chuck, Flav and Shocklee burned it for fuel, powering themselves into the new decade with an uncompromising statement of determination in the process. —Craig Jenkins
39. Eminem, The Slim Shady LP (1999)
Label: Aftermath Entertainment/Interscope Records
With Mac Miller, Macklemore, and Yelawolf achieving varying degrees of mainstream renown over the last few years it's easy to forget how little country there was for white rappers in hip-hop's mainstream in the mid-'90s. Eminem changed all that almost single-handedly when he invented an alter ego on a lark, stumbling on the concept of his major label debut, The Slim Shady LP, in the process. Em's flow was unimpeachably sharp and equally shiftless, and with the backing of Dr. Dre, at the time celebrating a decade as gangsta rap's chief sound architect, Slim Shady took Marshall Mathers on a meteor ride to international fame.
The Slim Shady LP pivoted from callous irreverence to gutting poignancy with stunning precision.
The Slim Shady LP pivoted from callous irreverence to gutting poignancy with stunning precision. "Brain Damage" is a loosely autobiographical catalogue of beatings at the hands of schoolmates and family members that gleefully skirts realism to keep the mood up. But it's followed by "If I Had" and "'97 Bonnie & Clyde," songs that trot out his financial struggles and terse relationship with the mother of his child in discomfiting detail.
Em's kooky storytelling and inventive concepts are flanked by production from Detroit's Bass Brothers, who grant the album a concise melodicism without drawing much attention away from the wordplay. The album was inescapable the minute it touched down, and years later these stressed, shit-out-of-luck snapshots of a struggling young father's desperation haven't lost an ounce of their transfixing power. Even as Eminem went on to make millions of dollars as "20 million other white rappers" emerged. —Craig Jenkins
38. De La Soul, De La Soul Is Dead (1991)
Label: Tommy Boy/Warner Bros. Records
In 1991, De La Soul's daisy funk took a sour turn for the deranged. Even in the group's own catalog, there's no rap album quite like De La Soul Is Dead—you'd guess a couple of Wayans brothers had snuck into the production credits or something. De La Soul Is Dead reads like Monty Python's suicide note, with skits and slapstick deprecation to punctuate the rollicking disco and snickering house.
In the spirit of Slick Rick and Eddie Murphy, De La Soul Is Dead reads like Monty Python's suicide note, with skits and slapstick deprecation to punctuate the rollicking disco and snickering house.
The Source awarded one of its earliest five-mic coronations to De La's sophomore return—that is, to an album that betrayed the group's daisy disposition yet left all their quirk intact. "Oodles of Os," "Bitties In the BK Lounge" repping for the astutely juvenile perspective that defines much of Dead. "My Brother's a Basehead" and "Afro Connections" are where they make the balance between hard and happy seem easy. And "Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa" is one of the most vexing rap traumas you'll ever rewind, brought to you by the same guys who'd bounced through "Me, Myself & I."
While Prince Paul was busy clearing the approximately 9,200 samples featured on the album, I've always imagined that Posdnuos scribbled his Dead rhymes with a quill pen, a pinched brow, and a silly-ass hat. —Justin Charity
37. Capone-N-Noreaga, The War Report (1997)
Label: Penalty/Tommy Boy/Warner Bros. Records
This was the soundtrack to the streets when it came out. CNN was making noise on the mixtape scene, dropping shit on DJ Clue tapes, but things went sour when Capone got locked up around the time they got their deal. So The War Report was basically a Noreaga solo record. Jose Luis Gotcha peaked on this and so did Tragedy Khadafi. Both shined as they told stories only cats from Queens could tell.
Each beat was harder than the next, with production from Havoc, Charlemagne, and Buckwild, among others. Each rap included drugs, guns, and Islamic references. The type of shit that'll make you want to flip coke and get into a shootout so you could pull up to heaven's gates in a pearly white Acura. The piano sample on "Blood Money" is still chilling and that baseline makes it hard not to make an ugly face. Next time you revisit War Report, roll something up, and sit Indian-style, knees bent, militant. —Angel Diaz
36. Main Source, Breaking Atoms (1991)
Label: Wild Pitch/EMI Records
Large Professor hustled his way to becoming the lead force of a rap group that would turn Wild Pitch Records into a known force amongst the larger labels. Before Main Source's debut Breakin' Atoms, Sir Scratch, K-Cut, and Large Professor put out the groove heavy single, "Looking at the Front Door" which reached #1 on Billboard's Hot Rap Singles chart.
Not only was Breaking Atoms a remarkable release, it put Nas' words to our ears for the first time with "Live at the BBQ." Other songs covered a variety of topics beyond snuffing Jesus, like “Just Hangin Out” (about having fun with friends) and “Just a Friendly Game of Baseball” (viewing police brutality through the lens of a baseball game). —Larry Hester
35. N.W.A, Efil4zaggin (1991)
Label: Ruthless/Priority Records
N.W.A launched like any other youth revolution before or after—with blasphemies and alleyway percussion. After Straight Outta Compton, 1990's "100 Miles and Runnin'" would be the group's last purely revolutionary cut. What Dr. Dre eventually blessed us with instead was one of the most gorgeous sounding albums of the genre—a Hitchcock spiral into the bleak psychopathic glee of three Compton shit-kickers. Cube was out, and his departure marked his Jheri curl as cannon fodder for the Niggaz's ecstatic antagonism of white folks and "bitches" of any shade.
It's a delight just re-reading the critical pans, with so many writers reacting in disgust to Eazy and Dre's misogyny: "In reality, a fool is one who believes that all women are ladies/A nigga is one who believes that all ladies are bitches/And all bitches are created equal." All a prelude to both The Chronic and Snoop's Doggystyle a couple years later. But Niggaz4life is a magnum opus all its own, with one of the trillest, most triumphant of rap album outros to date, a block party anthem, shouts out to Admiral Dancehall. —Justin Charity
34. Brand Nubian, In God We Trust (1993)
Label: Elektra Records
Because of creative differences, Brand Nubian as a trio was no more. Grand Puba broke out on a solo effort while Lord Jamar and Derrick X (who had since changed his name to Sadat X) kept the Brand Nubian name and released the surprisingly amazing In God We Trust. The album was a sucker punch to naysayers who thought that Brand Nubian would be over without the quick-witted superstar Grand Puba; Jamar and X showed that they were quite capable of putting out a high quality product.
One of the album’s more controversial singles was, “Allah U Akbar” that had used a Muslim prayer in the hook. This turned out to be a huge no-no in Islam. The video also showed imagery of New York landmarks mixed with shots of the duo loading guns and donning military fatigues. If that doesn’t get you on the FBI watch list not much else will.
On a lighter note, the Diamond D produced “Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down” was what that truly lit the fire under everyone’s asses. The album’s version of the song went hard but the remix—what appears in the music video—confirmed that the new version of Brand Nubian was nothing to mess with. —Larry Hester
33. Black Sheep, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (1991)
Label: Mercury Records
Black Sheep were the fourth Native Tongues group to drop an album, a fact they self-deprecatingly commented on in the intro to A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing ("There's always a black sheep in the family, the black sheep, the lowlifes of the family tree"). In another crew, that might mean being the least commercially accessible act, but in the forward-thinking Native Tongues family, Black Sheep made some of the most straightforward, upbeat and, well, ignorant music that ever came out of the camp.
The legacy of both the group and the album is limited to the classic party track "The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)," but A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is full of Dres and Mista Lawnge's playful, sample-driven bangers and slick-talking, charismatic rhymes, primarily from Dres. His willingness to stick his neck out for the occasional sketchy pun ("I put gum in my ass because I like to pop shit"—seriously?) also allows Dres to get away with some outrageously funny lines. But while the lascivious of slick talk of songs like "Similak Child" and "La Menage" dominates the proceedings, the duo still kick knowledge on a classic Native Tongues tip on "Black With N V (No Vision)." —Al Shipley
32. Juvenile, 400 Degreez (1998)
Label: Cash Money Records
Cash Money was already building an empire down South, but Juvenile's 400 Degreez introduced the rest of the country to Cash Money. Juvenile was the Jay Z of Baby's label, and Mannie Fresh, the DJ Premier. Everything Mannie touched turned to platinum during this time period. Cash Money picked up where No Limit left off with a stable of capable rappers that made the East Coast respect what New Orleans was doing. Atlanta and Texas were always reppin' but Louisiana came through and put the South on top.
Don't act like you didn't lose your mind when you first heard "Ha." Like, who is this cat in Reebok Classics and white T ending each line with "ha" over a hard-ass beat? "Back That Azz Up" still gets a party jumping, "Gone Ride With Me" is still underrated, and the title track "400 Degreez" with the robot saying "Hot Boy" is still one of the greatest joys a hip-hop fan can experience. When that beat drops at a Juvie live show everyone loses their minds. *whispers hot, hot, hot* —Angel Diaz
31. Genius/GZA, Liquid Swords (1995)
Label: Geffen Records
"When I was little, my father was famous. He was the greatest samurai in the empire." These words, spoken by a child in the kung-fu movie Shogun Assassin, open GZA's solo debut, and there are few moments in rap that offer a bigger shiver of excitement of what's to come. Of all the Wu-Tang projects that emerged in the mid-'90s, Liquid Swords feels like a key extension of, and the closest spiritual companion to, Enter the Wu-Tang, steeped in weird kung-fu mythology and full of some of the collective's most enduring posse cuts, including "4th Chamber" and "Duel of the Iron Mic."
Of all the Wu-Tang projects that emerged in the mid-'90s, Liquid Swords feels like a key extension of, and the closest spiritual companion to, Enter the Wu-Tang.
At the same time, it's definitely GZA's show. Which means less reckless crew love and bravado, and more thoughtful storytelling, especially on the stand-out single "Cold World." The setting is more Brooklyn than Shaolin, and the tone is a more serious than other Wu releases—fitting for the Wu's resident old soul.
This is GZA rapping at the top of his game—intricate, precise, and level-headed—and just about every verse is a can't-miss event. Wu-Tang neophytes can quickly fall down the rabbit hole of chasing down solo projects, affiliate projects, and spin-off concept projects, but Liquid Swords is one of the real essentials. —Kyle Kramer
30. UGK, Ridin' Dirty (1996)
Label: Jive Records
It's all right there, everything that people have come to Houston rap for in the nearly two decades since Ridin Dirty's release: candy-painted cars, woodgrain steering wheels, flashy jewelry, late-night odes to lean and weed, passing references to DJ Screw tapes, those warm funk synthesizers that sound like radio oldies.
All of Ridin' Dirty feels iconic now—not least because so many of its lyrics have since been cribbed by everyone from Slim Thug to Jay Z. There's the laid-back badassery of "Diamonds and Wood," the zoned-out celebration of "3 in the Morning," the ridiculous boasting of "Fuck My Car." Everything here is essential.
Pimp C and Bun B have deservedly become mainstream rap legends, but there was a very real significance to their name, Underground Kingz. These guys were grinding out a career on a grassroots level without much recognition elsewhere in the country. Still skeptical? Please see the Pimp: "I'm still Pimp C bitch/So what the fuck is up?" —Kyle Kramer
29. Dr. Dre, 2001 (1999)
Label: Interscope Records
The best comeback since "don't call it a comeback," Dr. Dre's 2001 is, in certain ways, a greater artistic accomplishment than its predecessor. While The Chronic had a massive impact, allowing hip-hop to be as real and as popular as it wanted to, and all at once, 2001 refined that promise. As a result, it more fully represented Dr. Dre's talents as an auteur, his singular, unwavering devotion to a particular sound and style. This was big-budget West Coast classicism, evolving past g-funk, adapting to the widescreen sound of late-'90s popular rap.
Ultimately, no one but Dre could have made this record. It's one of the genre's most confident statements.
The album's contributing voices deserve much credit—producers Mel Man and Scott Storch, writers Eminem and Jay Z—but ultimately, no one but Dre could have made this record. It's one of the genre's most confident statements. Rather than following trends or falling for rococo flourishes, it's stripped down and minimal. Before the word "banger" was overused, 2001 basically invented it.
This isn't to say there aren't subtleties; think of the way "Fuck You" rides a tense, constrained groove, its pinched masculinity relieved only by the two-note release at the end of every section. Or the careful timing—how long did it take you to remember exactly when to sing "smoke weed every day"? To memorize the fingerprint-intricate pattern of Eminem's "Forgot About Dre" chorus?
It may not have had the same revolutionary impact as its predecessor, but 2001 lasted as long, remaining a summer staple for several subsequent years, spawning hit singles and sustaining the West Coast into the 2000s. —David Drake
28. Geto Boys, We Can't Be Stopped (1991)
Label: Rap-A-Lot Records
You can't talk about the Geto Boys' We Can't Be Stopped without mentioning the cover, a real shot from the hospital bed of group member Bushwick Bill after a gun went off during a scrap with his girlfriend. The bullet struck him in the face. If there was any doubts about the Geto Boys' commitment to the dark and macabre, We Can't Be Stopped squashed it.
If there was ever a question about the Geto Boys' commitment to the dark and macabre, We Can't Be Stopped squashed it.
There are irreverent shots at the group's sheepish former label Geffen on the title track and a mercenary takedown of U.S. wartime politics on "Fuck a War." "Quickie" is about exactly what you think it's about, while "The Other Level" spends six minutes plotting and then providing play-by-play for a threesome over a sample of Diana Ross' "Love Hangover." "Chuckie" plays Bill's dwarfism as a threat as he tells his own version of the Child's Play story.
We Can't Be Stopped's balance between social commentary and horror-flick shock becomes perfect on "Mind Playing Tricks on Me," where Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill play paranoid characters hovering dangerously close to self-destruction. It hit home for Scarface, as someone who struggled with real mental illness, but it also charted well. Years before OutKast and Goodie Mob broke out in Atlanta, the success of both "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" and We Can't Be Stopped proved to a hip-hop game fixated on the East and West Coasts that the South had something to say. —Craig Jenkins
27. Fugees, The Score (1996)
Label: Columbia Records
Before going their separate ways to pursue successful solo careers, Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill, and Pras released two albums as the Fugees. Blunted on Reality, released in 1994, when they still went by the unfortunate nickname "Tranzlator Crew," was pretty much an unmitigated flop. Indeed, were it not for Salaam Remi's "Nappy Heads" remix, they might not have had the chance to come back with a sophomore release called The Score. You know it. It went on to sell more than 17 million copies worldwide and became—for a while at least—the highest selling rap album of all time.
Of course, strong sales are no guarantee of quality, but in this case the public was right; striking the perfect balance of rap, reggae, and soul, The Score was indubitably dope. The hooks on "Ready or Not" and "Fugee La" are among the catchiest in rap history and while some skeptics have dismissed the smash hit "Killing Me Softly" as "karaoke" who could be mad at the prospect of hearing L Boogie sing a Roberta Flack cover over a sample from "Bonita Applebum"? That shit was fresh! (By contrast Wyclef's version of "No Woman No Cry" adds nothing to the original.) Meanwhile listening to Lauryn spit on tracks like "Zealots" confirms our belief that she was the Best Rapper Alive at this particular moment. —Rob Kenner
26. Ice Cube, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted (1990)
Label: Priority Records
"Bystander Dies in L.A. Gunfight." "Californians: 30 Million and Counting." "Ailing Woman Drowns in Pool." "Acting on Bad Experiences: Seven Latinos Will Take to the Stage to Vent the Pain And Struggles of Trying to Live in Southern California." "D.A.'s Office Finds Shooting by City Police Officer Justified." These were just a handful of headlines that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on May 16, 1990—the day Ice Cube released AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, and put the rap game in a choke hold. Affirming the album's 23-track, brass-knuckled tone, Cube begins on "Better Off Dead": "Fuck all y'all." Outlaw. Misogynist. Prophet. Thug. Homie. Motherfucker. Even at 20, Cube's legend was already larger than life, fashioned partly by his affiliation with Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, and MC Ren, affectionately known as the Niggaz Wit Attitudes.
This is Cube translating rage into art, however sexist and disgusting it is at times.
With undercurrents of pulsating funk, courtesy of New York production camp The Bomb Squad, and fueled by Cube's politically trenchant missives, AmeriKKKa becomes something bigger than itself by album's end: an account not just of racism ("AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted"), a morally bankrupt LAPD ("Endangered Species"), and living hard in '90s L.A. ("Dead Homiez"), but a record about the function of rage for black men like O'Shea Jackson who grew up in under-served inner-city neighborhoods where money was always in short supply and liquor stores populated every corner.
It's an angry album, sure, but how could it not be? This is Cube translating rage into art, however sexist and disgusting it is at times ("It's A Man's World"). But maybe that's what it's ultimately about, how when you've been pushed and kicked and beaten, denied basic civil rights, presumed for some kind of "thug nigga," and marginalized to the point of nonexistence, you forget how to love. And not just love, but how to pass that love on to the mother who raised you and fed you, to your boys from around the way who've always had your back, to your girl who's held you down since forever, to, worst of all, yourself.
Maybe AmeriKKKa is about grappling with love, and how rage arises from the absence of that. Whatever it is, this is Cube, bold and brave and fire-eyed, standing out on his own without N.W.A. for the first time, middle finger to the law, no longer accepting the police boot that for so long had been on the neck of South Central. As one of rap's most defiant debuts, AmeriKKKa has been able to exist as few albums can: profoundly uncompromising. —Jason Parham
25. Redman, Muddy Waters (1996)
Label: Def Jam Recordings
What does New Jersey sound like? Travel down the Turnpike and people will tell you Jersey sounds like Bruce Springsteen. But what about Northern New Jersey? Specifically, places like Newark, Elizabeth, Paterson, and Jersey City, cities deep in the shadow of the Big Apple—what of them? Those parts of the Garden State sound muddy and dirty. They sound like Redman’s early oeuvre.
After linking up with EPMD’s Erick Sermon six years earlier, Reggie Noble embarked on a career that would spawn an incredible debut, Whut? The Album, seeped in funk samples and muddled drums, and bolstered by Red’s crazy energetic personality and unfuckwitable rhymes. The follow-up, Dare Iz a Darkside, doubled down on the funk while venturing further into Redman’s eerie psychedelic world. In interviews, he would reveal that the album was made during a very dark time in his life; a time he doesn’t wish to revisit, hence him not performing any of the album’s tracks at shows. Despite that, the album made Redman a star, selling over 500,000 in two months and eventually moving two million copies.
For his third outing, the Funk Doc managed to clear his head of the demons that haunted the last recording.
For his third outing, the Funk Doc managed to clear his head of the demons that haunted the previous project. He and Erick Sermon recruited a few new producers (among them, Wyclef’s cousin Jerry Wonda), some new rappers (Method Man, Napalm), and expanded their sample palate to look (a little) beyond funk. Because it did not feel like a demented carnival ride, many Redman fans noted that the album didn’t feel like a Redman album. Some complained that it sounded like a like New York record. And they weren’t wrong; it did. Perhaps that was the point.
On one of his quintessential cuts, the hilarious gutter groove “Pick it Up,” Red admits to delivering a slightly different product: “Niggas be like, ‘Ahh, he changed his style up’/Shut the fuck up, you still a dick ridah.” All throughout the album are small jabs—some playful, others not so much—at the city across the Hudson. On the same track he closes a verse with, “Fuck what ya heard, Brick City runs shit.”
So, yeah, Redman was back on his bullshit. He may have toned it down, but the rhymes were still crazy. He was, as he called himself, the “super-lyrical individual” who spit crazy metaphors in a shape-shifting flow that made you believe he would actually leave your boombox’s circuits overworked.
The only knock against the album? Its length. There are 23 tracks, six of which are skits, and they're all about getting intoxicated, wildin’ out, having sex, and being the illest rapper in the world. Luckily, Redman, at the time, was one of the illest rappers in the world, and was able to fire off engrossing verses about absolutely anything. Example: There’s an entire song on the album about him getting pulled over by the cops. And it was great. Because Redman was great.
Perhaps that's what Redman wanted you to know about North Jers—that no matter what was being rapped about, it was going to sound great.—Damien Scott
24. Goodie Mob, Soul Food (1995)
Label: LaFace Records
It's hard to imagine now, but in the spring of 1996, the spring before the Atlanta Olympics, before OutKast dropped ATLiens, it was Goodie Mob, not 'Kast that was laying claim to the title of Most Important Rap Group in the South, based on the strength of their gritty, ominous debut album Soul Food. Where OutKast offered a picture (up to that point) of pimps and gangsters, and UGK presented the lives of drug dealers, Goodie Mob's picture of the South was considerably darker, a pointed challenge to listeners to truly see what it meant to be black and poor in the land of Dixie.
Released in November, 1995, Soul Food seemingly begins warmly enough, with the gentle, electric piano-based gospel intro "Free," but it's a feint; the song is actually a suicide note of sorts, a plea to God for escape ("I wanna be free, totally free, I'm not gon' let this world worry me"). The rest of the album, with a few exceptions (the upbeat second single, "Soul Food," being a prominent example) is a relentlessly bleak depiction of life in the hood: 13-year-old girls with stretch marks giving up their bodies; 13-year-old boys waiting for early-morning buses, alone and cold. "Cell Therapy," the first single, is one of the most paranoid tracks in rap history, a minor key piano figure beneath washboard percussion underpinning lyrical riffs on race wars and (literal) black helicopters.
But Soul Food is greater than the sum of its stories; it's a thoroughly musical album as well. The production, courtesy of resident Dungeon Family beatmakers Organized Noize is complex and funky—but not happy-go-lucky funk. It's the funk of dark backwoods and darker back alleys, and it's the perfect sonic bed for the raps. And the raps are a revelation: intricate, detailed flows that ride beats and jump the tracks on beats. Of course Soul Food also introduced the world to Cee-Lo, and it's easy to see how he became a generational talent (if unfortunate talent show judge) here: his gravelly raps manage to emit warmth even as he talks about horrible things, and his singing grounds the album—which was in many ways groundbreaking—in the black musical tradition.
There were plenty of Southern rappers before Goodie Mob, but only one group gave the American atlas "the Dirty South." Soul Food was as lyrical as anything else in the marketplace before or since, but also uniquely emotive and evocative of a certain place and mindset. Internal squabbles (not to mention pressure to compete with OutKast) ultimately prevented Goodie Mob from entering the pantheon of all-time great hip-hop groups, but Soul Food is inarguably an all-time great album, one that laid a blueprint for generations to follow. —Kyle Kramer and Jack Erwin
23. 2Pac, Me Against the World (1995)
Label: Out Da Gutta/Amaru/Interscope/Atlantic Records
2Pac's All Eyez on Me has most of his hits and The Don Killuminati: 7 Day Theory made him a legend, but Me Against the World features Pac's most powerful moments and personal songs. The album found him at his most humane, during a time when he was being depicted as a monster in the media. The album opens with a series of news clips describing Pac's antics at the time: arrests, lawsuits, shootouts. This is the stuff of rap legend. This is where the story of Tupac Shakur becomes the mythology of Tupac Shakur.
But the album is less the realization of a Thug Life, and more the inevitable conclusion to a hard-knock life spent shedding "so many tears."
But the album is less the realization of a Thug Life, and more the inevitable conclusion to a hard-knock life spent shedding "so many tears." Pac recalls growing up with an absent father and a strong mother on "Dear Mama," but he still wishes to return to the simpler times of childhood on "Young Niggaz." And he still struggles to enjoy himself on songs like "It Ain't Easy." On "Temptations" he even admits, "I've be stressing in the spotlight, I want the fame/But the industry's a lot like a crap game." This is also when Pac's obsession with death began to weigh more heavily, with songs like "Death Around the Corner" and "If I Die 2Nite." The album's dark, sparse beats aren't enough to push it into the tier of '90s rap albums like The Chronic, but it's his most sonically consistent album.
Me Against the World may not cover the breadth of his talent but it does encompass the whirlwind of his personality as his life spun out of control for the first, but not the last, time. —Insanul Ahmed
22. OutKast, Aquemini (1998)
Label: LaFace Records
The Source was onto something when it awarded five mics to OutKast's third studio album, Aquemini. The album, which takes its name from a combination of André 3000 and Big Boi's astrological signs, addressed the group's critics from the jump. On opener "Return of the 'G'," Andre rhymes, "Then the question is Big Boi, 'What's up with Andre? Is he in a cult? Is he on drugs? Is he gay? When y'all gon' break up? When y'all gon' wake up?'"
Aquemini isn't just a great '90s album, it could have dropped in 2008 and still felt fresh and new.
Tone set, OutKast then takes the listener on an unapologetic dive into a discussion of hip-hop, race, and spirituality that's accompanied by beats that are more akin to soul, and the slow strum of Southern blues. We meet Suzie Screw and Sasha Thumper on "Da Art of Storytellin' (Part 1)," and are greeted by a guest verse from Raekwon on "Skew It on the Bar-B." There's even chance to dance to a harmonica breakdown on "Rosa Parks."
But it's Andre and Big Boi's honesty that keeps the album's pulse. Aquemini isn't just a great '90s album—it could have dropped in 2014 and still felt fresh and new. That's what happens when artists make the records that they want and don't worry about the backlash. —Matt Welty
21. Scarface, The Diary (1994)
Label: Rap-A-Lot Records
Scarface's debut solo album Mr. Scarface Is Back is a wonderful record in its own right, and its 1993 follow up The World Is Yours succeeded on the charts where the debut did with fans and critics. But it was 1994's The Diary that proved Face was here to stay as a solo artist. The Diary is one part suave G shit and two parts murder ballad.
Scarface delivered dark details with with a painter's eye for color.
The body count climbs quickly on opener "The White Sheet," which depicts Face taking out in enemy in a standoff, but also takes time out to scan the scene in the hospital as family members watch his opponent slowly drift into the afterlife. As ever, Scarface delivers dark details with with a painter's eye for color. Top 40 smash "I Seen a Man Die" is a first-person account of a teenage ex-con slipping into recidivism, committing a murder, and regretting his choices in death, but the depth is in the telling of it, which is wracked with the anguish and loneliness of a soul tormented by its own wasted promise.
The Diary breaks its somber mood with a handful of lighthearted cuts like "G's" and "Goin' Down," songs that celebrate life even as the rest of the album documents its end. If that all sounds heavy, it is. But Face's copilots, Rap-a-Lot producers Mike Dean (yes, that Mike Dean) and N.O. Joe keep this bloodbath bearable, anchoring these death-bed dispatches in lush Southern funk and the occasional quirky sample choice (see: the flip of the German pop classic "99 Luftballons" on "Goin' Down).
The Geto Boys gave Scarface his first taste of national visibility, and Mr. Scarface Is Back showed he could hold his own over an entire album, but with The Diary, he vaulted into the pantheon of greats and set himself up for a career that's still going strong after all these years. —Craig Jenkins
20. Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
Label: Ruffhouse/Columbia Records
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is an utterly singular album, a project that feels every bit as original and invigorating now as it did when it was released. Nothing before or since has offered such a seamless blend of rich soul singing and tightly wound, electric rapping. Hill paints a complete emotional landscape. She's a tremendously talented singer, and has the ability to devastate with a single tremor in her voice (see: "Nothing Even Matters," "To Zion," "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill").
But if we're talking about rap here, let's also go ahead and add that Lauryn Hill is one of the most effortlessly smooth MCs ever to pick up a mic. When she does deign to rap, everything is perfectly considered, coming across with conversational ease ("Doo Wop (That Thing)") or blistering focus ("Lost Ones"). Consider "Everything Is Everything," with lines like "I begat this/Flipping in the ghetto on a dirty mattress/You can't match this/Rapper slash actress/More powerful than two Cleopatras." It's just so satisfyingly, so casually right. This is what music should feel like. —Kyle Kramer
19. The Pharcyde, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde (1992)
Label: Delicious Vinyl Records
In 1992, rap was suffering from a severe case of acute seriousness (to be fair, it's something of a chronic condition with the genre). Dr. Dre released "Deep Cover" that spring, a menacing (no other way to describe it) track that prefaced a half-decade of unsmiling West Coast gangsta mainstream dominance. On the East Coast, the prevailing aesthetic could be described as "gas masks and flaming torches in sewers." Even the goofy white dudes were in a lousy mood.
So imagine the reaction when the Pharcyde dropped "Ya Mama," the first single off their debut, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde:
That's a 5 Percenter skewering intro and a synchronized dance routine (Lord Jamar would not approve), neither of which were in the Book of Accepted Rap Cliches circa '92.
Bizarre Ride wasn't a game-changer per se. It didn't inspire many imitators, if any (although you could argue that the prank call on "4 Better or 4 Worse" is a pretty obvious pre-cursor to Odd Future's general fuckery). What it is, though, is a thoroughly unique piece of art, one from a media (major label music) and genre (rap) that doesn't often value being different.
And while it's tempting to laud (and for some, dismiss) Bizarre Ride as just a goofy album, it's got remarkably honest moments as well: a verse about the joys of masturbation, a verse about making out with a transgender person, and "Passin' Me By," the greatest rap song about unrequited love ever recorded, with the most self-loathing admission ("Damn I wish I wasn't such a simp").
Part of what makes Bizarre Ride so unique is its synthesis of disparate styles: coffeehouse jazz in the intros and many of the beats, and b-boy energy in the raps and banter. It's got enough humor and funk to be a party rap staple; it's got the attention to detail and craft to make it a rap purist's fave. It's an album that demands to be listened to, and challenges you to find some reason not to enjoy it while doing so. —Jack Erwin
18. Gang Starr, Hard to Earn (1994)
Label: Chrysalis/EMI Records
Gang Starr were one of hip-hop's most consistent groups; four of their albums had an easy shot at making this list. It's to the group's credit that they made reliability seem exciting and dynamic, rather than staid. Guru matched Premier's organized cacophony with a distinctively slick, unbothered monotone. Hard to Earn is their best project; Premier's beats—the triggered stabs of "Speak Ya Clout," the bleeping chain-link funk of "Mass Appeal," the swaggering "Suckas Need Bodyguards"—were at their most varied and unpredictable.
Guru, for his part, had found the perfect meeting point of the particular and the universal. Consider "The Planet," at once a coming-of-age story and a celebration of Brooklyn circa the late 1980s. Perhaps because they were outsiders, the two were better able to convey the subtle touches and textures that made late-'80s/early-'90s NYC come to life, even for those who'd never visited. For Gang Starr, Brooklyn wasn't just the backdrop, but the living foreground. —David Drake
17. 2Pac/Makaveli, The Don Killuminati: 7 Day Theory (1996)
Label: Death Row/Makaveli/Interscope Records
Sometimes external circumstances, particularly tragedy, can make an album into something bigger than it was envisioned to be. 2Pac was a superstar in 1996, but it's hard to know exactly what he expected the public to make of his darkest album, released under the alias Makaveli. The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory arrived only nine months after the crossover smash double-album All Eyez on Me, which was still spinning off hit singles. Makaveli was Pac at his most combative and uncompromising, doubling down on the East/West tensions of his feud with the Notorious B.I.G. with a whole new series of New York foes (including Nas, Mobb Deep, and Jay Z) and even taking a shot at Dr. Dre to hint at the turbulence within Death Row's ranks.
It couldn't have hurt that the album contained references to both Machiavelli and The Illuminati, pointing a generation of hip-hop fans down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and secret societies.
But of course, Tupac Shakur's murder, a month after the whirlwind week of recording that created The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, turned what might've been an inaccessible mid-career side project into an enigmatic final statement from a legend cut down in his prime. It couldn't have hurt that the album contained references to both Machiavelli and The Illuminati, pointing a generation of hip-hop fans down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and secret societies.
Tracks like the classic street hit "Hail Mary" and "Life of an Outlaw" sound perennially fresh against the dated production of his earlier singles, while "Me and My Girlfriend" and "Against All Odds" have emerged as some of his most influential songs.
Releasing two albums, with three records' worth of music, in the space of one year was unheard of in hip-hop in the '90s. That The 7 Day Theory was ready to go before Pac's death was the first indication of the overflowing vault of recordings he'd been amassing that would soon begin filling up posthumously assembled albums. Unlike those cash-ins, however, The 7 Day Theory was finished and mixed with a living 2Pac present, and it points toward the musical future he could have had. —Al Shipley
16. De La Soul, Buhloone Mindstate (1993)
Label: Tommy Boy Records
Buhloone Mindstate is a grown-ass record. It's about a group at a crossroads, and it's about the trade-offs artists make as they negotiate the balance between art and commerce. It's also about the complications and anxieties of adulthood. As Posdnous rapped on "In the Woods," it's complicated.
In '93, De La Soul was already on the tail end of their mainstream relevance. They'd started out as hippies on 3 Feet High and Rising, killed their own brand with De La Soul Is Dead, and had begun to deal with being an extremely talented, substantive group in a landscape that valued talent and substance less and less. In hindsight, their worry about the album "blowing up" was misplaced.
But just because Buhloone Mindstate didn't go big-time doesn't mean its impact wasn't felt. Listen to the album's centerpiece, the muted and very adult (as in mature) "I Am I Be," with its premonitions of the "New Slaves" motif Kanye picked up last year: "I am Posdnous/I be the new generation of slaves/Here to make papes to buy a record exec rakes." Listen to "Ego Trippin' (Part Two)," a parody of the money and bitches motifs in hip-hop that the Roots picked up on in "What They Do." In fact, much of hip-hop's recent maturation and evolution is presaged in De La's third album, even if they and the culture as a whole didn't realize it at the time. —Jack Erwin
15. Cypress Hill, Cypress Hill (1991)
Label: Ruffhouse/Columbia/SME Records
The funny thing about Cypress Hill's debut is that on the East Coast, many thought the trio hailed from Brooklyn's Cypress Hills area until the "How I Could Just Kill a Man" video dropped, giving everyone a look at those signature West Coast khakis and lowriders. That at all didn't stop NY from contributing to B-Real, Sen Dog, and DJ Muggs' conquest of rap radio and sales charts across the country.
The self-titled debut reminded rap aficionados that the esses could dominate the mic sans gimmicks and celebrate hip-hop's burning love affair with marijuana just as well as the BK kids. Sure, rappers extolled the virtues of mary jane in passing songs, but Cypress Hill went so far as to incorporate the weed leaf into their logo. It's featured prominently in skits and songs like "Stoned Is the Way of the Walk" and "Light Another." —Larry Hester
14. A Tribe Called Quest, Midnight Marauders (1993)
Label: Jive Records/BMG
A Tribe Called Quest released five albums during the group's lifespan, all of them during the 1990s, and all holding a special place in the hip-hop hall of fame. That only two earned a spot on this list speaks more to the strength of '90s rap than to any failing on ATCQ's part. Their sophomore disc The Low End Theory remains the consensus pick for Tribe's G.O.A.T., although it could be argued that Midnight Marauders represents an even greater achievement.
Tribe telegraphed their ambitions on the album's cover art, which was filled with the faces of significant hip-hop figures including MCs, DJs, and B-Boys—most of them legendary but some more notable as friends of Tribe. The album cover was released in three different variations, the better to accommodate all 71 heads. Something about this elaborate visual made it seem like they were re-asserting their place in the rap pantheon—as if anyone would deny them that spot. "Gimme this award and let's not make it the last," Tip rapped on the big single "Award Tour."
The warm digital sound of Midnight Marauders, complemented by the robotic female narrator gave the album a freshness and cohesiveness unmatched anywhere in their catalog.
After dropping the album that solidified ATCQ's standing amongst hip-hop's greatest, it would have been easier to stick with a tried-and-true formula. The Low End Theory was driven by a distinctly jazz-inflected sound that earned the group critical praise that far outpaced their commercial success (the album was certified gold five months after being released, but took another three years to reach platinum status). It took tremendous confidence to move beyond that vibe to a more complex production style built upon layers of samples, but that's exactly what they did.
And, boy, did it work. The warm digital sound of Midnight Marauders, complemented by the robotic female narrator—who was christened a "Hip-Hop HAL" by rap critic Joan Morgan—gave the album a freshness and cohesiveness unmatched anywhere in their catalog. Aside from Q-Tip and Phife's unmistakable voices, songs like "Award Tour" and "Electric Relaxation" sounded nothing like previous Tribe releases, or like anything else in hip-hop. From top to bottom, the 13-song opus was rugged, smooth, and impeccably listenable.
Tip and Phife sound older, wiser, their rhymes a bit tougher, but still avoiding any trace of caricature rapper boasting or threats. There's not a single skippable cut on here, from "Steve Biko (Stir It Up)" all the way to "God Lives Through." Coming off a certified classic, they were able to raise the bar, reinvent their sound, grow and evolve as MCs (especially Phife Dawg, who spazzes all over the album), and still maintain the core of what makes ATCQ so special. And that's not bad, not bad at all. —Rob Kenner
13. Ice Cube, Death Certificate (1991)
Label: Priority/EMI Records
Death Certificate is an album so offensive, so hell-bent on pushing your buttons, you probably couldn't play it on the set of Ice Cube's latest movie. Cube's words have always been weapons, but they were never sharper, angrier, or more on-point than in 1991. The album sounds more distinctly West Coast than its predecessor, 1990's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, which helped drive Cube's point home: The 1992 Los Angeles riots proved that Cube's anger wasn't theatrical or gangster posturing, but a genuine feeling that had been bubbling under the surface for years.
Cube's raps are ignorant but he was preaching enlightenment.
Cube's raps are ignorant but ultimately he was preaching enlightenment, urging the black community to stay woke to what was happening around them. The album sees Cube addressing a myriad of issues plaguing America, but the black community especially; gun control ("Man's Best Friend"), health care ("Alive On Arrival"), interracial dating ("Horny Lil Devil"), sexually transmitted diseases ("Look Who's Burnin'"), and "selling out" ("True to the Game"). Nearly all of those songs make as much sense today as they did back then.
Just look at how a song like "A Bird In the Hand"—where Cube raps about the impossibility of raising a family on minimum wage—sums up harsh realities behind the minimum wage debate that persists to this day. The most striking thing about listening to Death Certificate in 2014 isn't reflecting on how much Ice Cube has changed, but how little AmeriKKKa has. —Insanul Ahmed
12. The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death (1997)
Label: Bad Boy Records
Ready to Die brought the Notorious B.I.G. into the game on the shoulders of a pantheon of early '90s hip-hop production greats, including Easy Moe Bee, DJ Premier, and Lord Finesse, but throughout the record, on songs like Puff and Trackmaster Poke's "Respect," you can hear the slick Bad Boy sound just waiting to happen. Big's sophomore blitz Life After Death hit right as Puff's pop rap revolution planted its flag on the era, and stands as one of the defining documents of the period.
Big delivers rhyme clinic after rhyme clinic, spitting end-on-end quotables and inviting a who's who of late-'90s rap luminaries onto tracks only to blow them out of the water. (Ask any New Yorker how the second verse of "Notorious Thugs" goes.) With a radio-ready sheen provided by Puff and his army of beat-making mercenaries (Mad Rapper Deric Angelettie, Love & Hip-Hop villain Stevie J, R&B maestro Chucky Thompson, and more), Life After Death remade New York mainstream hip-hop in its own image, while also incorporating sounds from the West ("Going Back to Cali"), Midwest ("Notorious Thugs"), old school (the D.M.C. assisted "My Downfall") and R&B ("Fuck You Tonight" with Kells, "Sky's the Limit" with 112) in the process.
Big delivers rhyme clinic after rhyme clinic, spitting end-on-end quotable and inviting a who's who of late-'90s rap luminaries onto tracks only to blow them out of the water.
The singles were murder: "Hypnotize" is immaculate anywhere you drop the needle, and the flows on "Mo Money Mo Problems" are so tight heads don't have time to complain about the chunky, obvious Diana Ross sample. The concept songs simmer too: "I Got a Story to Tell" more than lives up to its promise on a whip-smart tale of sex and betrayal, while "Ten Crack Commandments" dispenses prophet-like wisdom for the dope boys in the audience. This is to say nothing about the many Biggie slayed with his subliminals.
Life After Death would've extended Big's reign as New York's ruler if he'd only lived to see it. He finished the record but passed after a drive-by in Cali before its release. Listening to the album, it's painful how much it teems with the reality of death. Like Pac on All Eyez on Me's "Heaven Ain't Hard to Find," Big closed his timeless double album with "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)." —Craig Jenkins
11. Snoop Doggy Dogg, Doggystyle (1993)
Label: Death Row/Interscope/Atlantic Records
For a while there, Dr. Dre could do no wrong. The stretch between the formation of N.W.A. and Dre's departure from Death Row Records is littered with classics, from records of his own like The Chronic and Straight Outta Compton through albums for friends like Eazy-E and the D.O.C. The greatest of Dre's outside passion projects is surely Snoop Dogg's 1993 debut Doggystyle, which catches g-funk's Batman & Robin fresh off the inimitable Chronic album and hell-bent on continuing their hot streak.
Doggystyle floats from start to finish on Dre's syrupy live-instrument-assisted funk and Snoop's impeccable flow.
Doggystyle is every bit the weeded gangsta party its predecessor was, but Snoop's elevation to the marquee act here reveals an impossibly debonair wordsmith fully prepared to deliver on the promise of early cuts like "Deep Cover" and "Nuthin' But a G Thang." "Gin and Juice" is the calling card, Snoop's faded storytelling circling back to a chorus about creeping down the roadways high as fuck, while "Lodi Dodi" brought the Slick Rick classic up to date on a gutturally deep Dre bassline.
Doggystyle could be dark when it wanted, too: "Murder Was the Case" was a morality play about a gangbanger who sells his soul for a second chance after getting shot to death. Though the subject matter varied wildly, Doggystyle floats from start to finish on Dre's syrupy live-instrument-assisted funk and Snoop's impeccable flow, which is so buttery you might miss how technically flawless it is at first pass. You can see the spirit of it in New West brawlers ScHoolboy Q and YG, the latter of whom claims he modeled his debut My Krazy Life after Snoop and Dre's masterpiece. —Craig Jenkins
10. 2Pac, All Eyez on Me (1996)
Label: Death Row/Interscope Records
2Pac's All Eyez on Me is a sprawling masterpiece whose influence and impact is difficult to measure. For years seen as a flawed album by the traditional press (a vaguely positive Rolling Stone review called his performance that of a "garden-variety thug") All Eyez is actually undeniable: it sparked smash singles, transformed 2Pac into a superstar, and inspired a new generation of million-selling artists.
Much as some would liked to dislodge the record from hip-hop's canon, it's become an indelible part of popular music's texture. It's the best double-album the genre ever produced, a stunningly consistent record over its long running time. The beats are larger-than-life, and helped the record deliver on the full potential of gangster rap as a popular art form. It captured a moment in hip-hop's history that vanished as quickly as it appeared.
The beats are larger-than-life, and helped the record deliver on the full potential of gangster rap as a popular art form.
The production made the previous three years of East Coast hip-hop sound old, forcing Biggie to play catch-up. The album was a prism transmitting every aspect of 2Pac, poet-thug-artist-actor-songwriter.
Take a closer look at "How Do U Want It," the "Body Heat"-sampling smash single featuring K-Ci and Jojo: an R&B hook on a hardcore hip-hop song that never for a moment felt like a compromise—a party anthem that had time to diss Delores Tucker, Bill Clinton, and Bob Dole. All Eyez on Me was rap-as-pop-music's big bang, the moment it became at once uncompromised and larger-than-life, the formula for its success as the most important music in America.
The album is packed with songs that have gone on to become completely iconic to the culture, a collection of unforgettable moments. The snares on "Ambitionz Az a Ridah." The roiling bass of "Skandalouz" after Pac tells Daz to stop playing around on the piano. Snoop's monologue about seeing a video ho at the Million Man March. Rappin' 4-Tay opening his verse "Pac, I feel ya." DJ Quik producing under the name David Blake for the tour de force "Heartz of Men." The East Coast beat mastered by West Coast engineers on "Got My Mind Made Up." The wobbly, disorienting effects of DeVante Swing's beat for "No More Pain." "Ain't nothin but a gangsta paaaarty."
And that's just disc one. —David Drake
9. Mobb Deep, The Infamous (1995)
Label: Loud/RCA/BMG Records
As the Wu-Tang Clan continued to define New York's terrordome soundscape, Mobb Deep's second album didn't mark a shift so much as an escalation. RZA's production was blue moonshine, but Havoc's drums could beat the brakes off a small planet. And Prodigy bests Ice Cube and maybe even Vinnie Paz for least sociable disposition in all of rap. No small feat in bleak-ass 1995.
Whereas Wu Tang's accounts were typically fantastical to the brink of absurdity, and Nas' ghetto impressions were relatively fleeting, Prodigy and Havoc were certified tour guides of the Queensbridge projects and "the 41st side of things."
As Mobb Deep's most decisively acclaimed album, The Infamous was also a career-defining risk. After their jazzy, old-school Juvenile Hell debut in 1993 failed to make noise, all hope rested with the second shot.
The Infamous is vignettes. Whereas Wu Tang's accounts were typically fantastical to the brink of absurdity, and Nas' ghetto impressions were relatively fleeting, Prodigy and Havoc were certified tour guides of the Queensbridge projects and "the 41st side of things." He and Havoc tend to ramble and compound in the best possible way—exponentially illustrative, doubling down on both setting and mood. Big Noyd's strenuous addition to "Give Up the Goods" artfully bolsters the album's hood populism, so laced with shout-outs to local cats with letters for names. Even the album's least intimidating components, the R&B-hooked "Temperature's Rising" and the Q-Tip-assisted "Drink Away the Pain," tempt clinical depression.
Havoc and Prodigy have confessed that they were historically weeded while laying most of these tracks. Lord knows if they'd been sober, maybe there'd be no "Shook Ones, Pt. II," and New York City would cease to exist. —Justin Charity
8. OutKast, ATLiens (1996)
Label: LaFace Records
When OutKast—made up of 18-year-old friends and high school classmates André "Dre" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton—released their debut, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik in 1994, the goal was simple: put Atlanta on the map. ATLiens, the 1996 follow-up, was a reflection on Kast's success, and the realizations of what that success would mean for the friends and their beloved city. Still not yet 20, Dre and Big Boi had become cultural ambassadors, and their seeming uncertainty about the role, combined with an absolute certainty in their sound, fueled what would be the best album of their career.
This is no knock against 1998's highly polished Aquemeni—which is a near-perfect record—or even Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, a dense, gristly slab of Southern, country, gangsta funk. But ATLiens represented the pinnacle of that distinctly laid-back, funk-based Atlanta sound, fueled by Organized Noize's (and their own) largely sample-free production, with the only features coming from fellow Dungeon Family denizens Goodie Mob and Cool Breeze.
OutKast didn't speak to outsize aspirations and brand-name dreams as much as they spoke to the here and now.
Like its predecessor, the entire album paid lyrical tribute to the city, with multiple references to Decatur, SWATS, Bankhead and other neighborhoods, ones that would feature prominently in all of OutKast's work. "It ain't over 'til the fat girl in Decatur sing," goes the hook on the aptly titled "Decatur Psalm." ATLiens is a secular gospel record in praise of a place, no doubt one of the albums Killer Mike alludes to on 2012's R.A.P. Music.
It's also one of the most honest rap records to come out of the '90s. As other rappers built gangsta mythologies and created alter egos for their alter egos, Dre and Big Boi rhymed about Cadillacs and malls, fish and grits, shared experiences that informed their worldview. Differences were beginning to crop up, like Dre's newfound sobriety (compare and contrast Dre's "no drugs or alcohol so I can get the signal clear as day" on the title track to Big Boi's "see, I smoke good cause, see, it goes good with them flows, bwoi" on "Two Dope Boyz (In a Cadillac)"), but they were still more alike than not.
They weren't all that separated from their audience, either. As Dre put it on lead single "Elevators (Me and You)" in a conversation with an imaginary fan: "True, I've got more fans than the average man but not enough loot to last me/To the end of the week, I live by the beat like you live check to check/If you don't move your feet then I don't eat, so we like neck-to-neck." The young smoked-out gangstas had grown in a hurry, and realized they had more questions than answers—what other 19-year olds have ever recorded anything like "13th Floor/Growing Old," with Dre's "Because no one is free when others are oppressed/So we hit the stage and then we fly back to our nest."
Dre and Big Boi weren't the only outcasts, and they weren't the only ATLiens. (Nor was the latter a new feeling for them, as the robotic "Greetings, Earthlings" that led off ATLiens' opening "Two Dope Boyz" was cribbed straight from the intro to Southernplayalistic's last track, "Deep.") OutKast didn't speak to outsize aspirations and brand-name dreams as much as they spoke to the here and now, and while the accents and place names may have been alien to people from other regions, the themes—drugs, relationships, cars—were ones that were universally familiar. Atlanta welcomed the world in 1996 hosting the Summer Olympics, but it was its homegrown talent that would resonate. —Russ Bengtson
7. Jay Z, Reasonable Doubt (1996)
Label: Roc-A-Fella/Priority Records
Hindsight is 20/20, and the hip-hop world, by and large, didn't recognize how good Reasonable Doubt was until Jay Z's subsequent albums eclipsed its modest success a few hundred times over. But as the independent Roc-A-Fella Records muscled its way into a Priority Records distribution deal and worked its connections with more established stars, "Ain't No Nigga" briefly became one of the great summer jams of 1996, and a minor star stepped into the spotlight with the self-assured aura of a kingpin ready to retire. But he didn't, and Jay spent much of his next decade of superstardom reminding the world that it fucked up for sleeping on that first album.
Jay spent much of his next decade of superstardom reminding the world that it slept on that first album.
From the razor-sharp conversational storytelling of "Friend or Foe" to the conceptual faux freestyle on "22 Two's," Reasonable Doubt is a master class in lyricism. But where many MCs in love with words stumbled on debut albums that forgot the importance of beats and hooks, Shawn Carter displayed an early ear for the kind of lush, soulful production that would serve him throughout his career. DJ Premier may have been the biggest name on the roster, but it was Ski, briefly called away from his work on Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night, who ended up making some of the album's most glorious and enduring tracks.
More than any of the hit-filled albums he'd make in the future, Reasonable Doubt is an album piloted by Jay Z's own thoughts, from the sly bravado of "Can't Knock the Hustle" to the nuanced, thoughtful ambivalence of "Regrets." —Al Shipley
6. Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
Label: Loud/RCA Records
Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers is so perfect because it lays out the blueprint for an empire. From the slums of Shaolin, each member walks us through 36 deadly chambers—each unique enough to stand on his own, but all the more powerful when united under one flag.
Many of the songs construct the groundwork for the upcoming Wu domination. Everyone gets their moment to shine, even without straight up solo songs. "Shame on a Nigga" (where Ol' Dirty gets two verses) is the first draft of ODB's debut, 1995's Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version. "Clan in the Front" is everything GZA's 1991 Cold Chillin' album, Words From the Genius, should have been. Two songs from the album, "Method Man" and "Can It All Be So Simple," were later remixed for Meth and Rae's respective solo albums. "Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber—Part II" reuses lyrics from "Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber," essentially making it a moment for RZA to flex his skills behind the boards. The album didn't just give us 60 minutes of uncut raw; it gave us the promise of more to come.
36 Chambers is the hip-hop Mortal Kombat—a game released six months before the Wu swarmed out of the beehive with "Protect Ya Neck."
Besides the banging beats and brutal rhymes, the album marks the progression of hip-hop flows. In 2014, albums like Ice Cube's Death Certificate or Main Source's Breaking Atoms still sound great, but the rhymes are rooted in the '80s flows of a Chuck D or Run-D.M.C. In the mid-90s, the modern rap flow emerges, exemplified by Nas' Illmatic and Biggie's Ready To Die. Those albums feature rapping styles that wouldn't sound out of place today. 36 Chambers actually features both. The album's opening salvo, Ghostface Killah rapping "Ghostface, catch the blast of a hype verse!" comes off decidedly old school. By the end of the album, when Method Man—the only member to have a solo track—whizzes through his verses for "Method Man" with melody and fluidity, he's ushering in a new era of rapping techniques that helped the Wu maintain relevance through the years.
36 Chambers is the hip-hop Mortal Kombat—a game released six months before the Wu swarmed out of the beehive with "Protect Ya Neck." Both were created by Americans who obsessively watched bootleg kung-fu flicks and dreamed of finishing off opponents with gory fatalities like laying "your nuts on the dresser and banging them shits with a spiked fucking bat." The Wu had unlimited imagination about what hardcore rap could be. Wu-Tang didn't just mean kung-fu kicks and chess matches, it could also be Dr. Seuss rhymes, 'Lo sweaters, and Shameek "laying there like a fucking new born baby." It was everything in the moment and everything that was to come. It still appeals to older rap fans and to this day continues to win over younger ones. In other words, the Wu had exactly what Raekwon said they did, "The Wu got something that I know that everybody wanna hear." —Insanul Ahmed
5. The Notorious B.I.G., Ready to Die (1994)
Label: Bad Boy Records
"Somehow the rap game reminds me of the crack game," Nas observed on "Represent," from his impeccable debut album. Where Illmatic exposed the ravages of the drug trade through the eyes of a project poet, Biggie Smalls' debut Ready to Die told a similar story from the inside looking out. This shift in perspective was clear from the opening moments of the album's first single, a cut called "Juicy" that laid crack-dealer angst over a radio-friendly Mtume sample: "This album is dedicated to all the teachers who told me I'd never amount to amount to nothin'," Biggie said with more than a touch of bitterness. "To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustling in front of that called the police on me when I was just trying' to make some money to feed my daughter, and all the niggas in the struggle."
Christopher Wallace was well acquainted with said struggle. A small-time hustler who grew up on the streets of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie came to discover that he was even better at rapping than slanging and stickups. He made his name in the rap game battling on street corners and went on to record his demo in the home studio of local DJ 50 Grand. That tape found its way to Big Daddy Kane's DJ Mister Cee and from there to The Source's "Unsigned Hype" column, which soon landed Biggie in the office of Sean "Puffy" Combs, the youngest A&R exec in the history of Uptown Records. By that time Puff was already planning to launch his own label and he wanted Biggie down with his team. Biggie's lyrical gifts were undeniable, his booming voice spitting punchlines so hard that they left dents in listeners' brains. But he was nobody's sucker, and took a fair amount of convincing to believe the "it was all a dream" visions with which Sean "Puffy" Combs was filling his head.
Comparing Ready to Die and Illmatic may be unfair, but in the end it's unavoidable.
The album was recorded in two bursts of creativity, the first half-hard-body cuts like "Machine Gun Funk," "Things Done Changed" and "Gimme The Loot"-laid down when Biggie was signed through Uptown Records. After Puffy was fired (no doubt for spending too much time and energy on his own dreams and not enough working for his employer) financial pressures led Biggie to resume hustling in North Carolina while Puffy negotiated the multi-million-dollar deal at Arista to launch his own Bad Boy imprint. The hits came during the second wave of recording: "Big Poppa" and "One More Chance" and "Juicy" were the songs that made the 300-pound-plus BK roughneck an unlikely pop star.
Comparing Ready to Die and Illmatic may be unfair, but in the end it's unavoidable. Like most great MCs after 1994, Biggie was profoundly influenced by Nas. Moreover, the composition of his album—from the cover art that led to Biggie getting called out on "Shark NIggas (Biters)" from Raekwon's stellar debut OB4CL, to the opening interlude that was so reminiscent of "The Genesis"—is so close that it almost feels like an Illmatic homage.
There were many important differences as well. While Ready to Die was certified platinum in less than a year, it took almost two years for Nas' debut to be certified gold. Puffy and Biggie proved that New York rappers could earn platinum plaques, even if they did it by taking a page from Dr. Dre's funk-driven production style and blending it with rugged New York beats by the likes of DJ Premier, Easy Mo Bee, and Lord Finesse with tracks that took.
On songs like "Warning" and "Unbelievable" Biggie Smalls raps like "a motherfuckin rap phenomonen," as he immodestly put it on "The What," another of Ready to Die's untouchable classics. Songs like these are what earned Ready to Die its spot among the top 5 albums of rap's greatest decade.
Nas and Big remain two of the greatest MCs in history, and their debuts stand as pillars of New York hip-hop. Where Nas followed his debut with a 20-year career and a rich and varied body of work, Biggie's debut album ended with a song depicting his own suicide. The fact that he did not live to see the release of his masterpiece, Life After Death, says more about hip-hop in the 1990s than 10,000 thinkpieces, and underscores the realness that oozes from every pore of this remarkable album. —Rob Kenner
4. Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (1995)
Label: Loud/RCA Records
Back in the days before so-called gangsters drank rosé, Raekwon created a brutal and haunting lyrical portrayal of the street life, drawing equally from mob flicks and real life in early '90s New York City. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which hit the streets late in the summer of 1995, was not only the first complete and coherent cinematic production from the RZA, who assembled the beats and the rhymes in his basement studio, it stands as the crowning achievement of the Wu-Tang clique. The third Wu-Tang solo record (following Ol Dirty Bastard's Return to the 36 Chambers and Method Man's Tical) to release, OB4CL set the tone for the remainder of the '90s.
It seems sacrilegious to place OB4CL ahead of Enter the Wu-Tang, which introduced the world to the mythical land of Shaolin and the nine warrior monks who represented for it. But 36 Chambers was, in essence, a full-group demo tape, one made up of battle-rhyme filled, would-be singles held together by kung-fu movie samples and RZA's rugged and raw beats. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was the magnum opus, with more polished beats than 36 Chambers and showcasing the two hungriest members of the Wu—Raekwon and Ghostface.
GZA may be recognized as the Wu's most nimble wordsmith, Ghostface strings together nonsense non-sequiturs like jewels, but Raekwon has always been Wu Tang's best MC, balancing dexterous wordplay, detailed storytelling, and one of the best voices in all of rap.
Rae more or less skipped the entire Wu-Tang samurai swordplay construct, choosing instead to represent the age of Glocks and Cristal, murders and drug deals.
When it all clicks—which is often—the result is a delightfully sinister rhythm, like Dr. Seuss for thugs: "Stand on the block, Reebok, gun cocked/Avalanche rock get paid off mass murderous services/Chef bake 'em, watch the alley cats take 'em/Four-nine made 'em, drop grenades and take 'em," he staccato spits at the start of "Glaciers of Ice," a verse made even more potent as it follows a gleeful (and apparently genuine) conversation between Rae and Ghost about dyeing Clarks Wallabees.
There's a nearly identical moment in "Spot Rusherz": "Heard the key in the lock, cocked the Glock/Turn the lights out, dip behind the couch/Kion, gag his mouth," where a bloody heist is turned into rapid-fire poetry. Even Nas was inspired to new heights, delivering an elegantly bloody verse to kick off "Verbal Intercourse," the first Wu track to feature a non-Wu artist.
Rae more or less skipped the entire Wu-Tang samurai swordplay construct, choosing instead to represent the age of Glocks and Cristal, murders and drug deals. And OB4CL is a crack album through and through, from the lyrics right down to the tint of the original cassette which gave it its "Purple Tape" nickname. Long before MF DOOM sold rhymes like dimes, Rae brought the same message on "Incarcerated Scarfaces": "I move rhymes like retail, make sure shit sell/From where we at to my man's cell/From staircase to stage, minimum wage/But soon to get an article in Rap Page/But all I need is my house, my gat, my Ac/Bank account fat, it's going down like that." And despite warnings to the contrary on "Shark Niggas (Biters)" countless rappers have borrowed the criminal construct of OB4CL since, but none have done it better. —Russ Bengtson
RELATED: The 100 Best Wu-Tang Clan Songs
3. A Tribe Called Quest, The Low End Theory (1991)
Label: Jive/RCA Records
Where their buddies in De La Soul practiced a loose, expansive approach to assembling albums, with skits and digressions and new narrative framing devices competing between nearly every song, A Tribe Called Quest stuck to the music. But the total lack of dead air between songs becomes part of the atmosphere of their greatest album, The Low End Theory—the last song you hear in each track always seems to dovetail perfectly with the beginning of the next, Q-Tip's voice stuttering at the end of "Everything Is Fair" suddenly becomes the swinging sample that opens "Jazz (We've Got)." The contrasts highlighted by the sequencing reach their apex at the end of the album, when the minimal funk and Q-Tip's monomaniacal wordplay suddenly flip over to reveal the dungeon dragon roar of "Scenario," still perhaps rap's greatest posse cut.
Phife is an indispensable foil for Tip's more thoughtful verses, pioneering in the art of semen puns and referencing seemingly every R&B song that was on the charts in the early '90s, effectively puncturing the austere, humorless atmosphere that would soon develop around so-called "conscious" hip-hop. And no matter where the samples were drawn from, Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad's beats always knocked too hard to sound like a stuffy history lesson in bebop and swing. Much of The Low End Theory's legacy is tied up in the nods to jazz. And while Q-Tip eloquently draws out parallels between different eras and genres in the opening manifesto, "Excursions," what truly endures about the album is not how it looks back but how far it moves ahead. —Al Shipley
2. Dr. Dre, The Chronic (1992)
Label: Death Row/Interscope/Priority Records
Before Detox became industry folklore. Before "In Da Club" ruled the airwaves and 50 Cent bullied his way onto the scene. Before "How We Do" and "Westside Story" and "Higher" cemented The Game's debut. Before the Grammy win for "Producer of the Year" in 2001. Before 2001. Before he was known as the architect of the West Coast sound. Before Eminem became America's most hated and beloved white boy. Before Doggystyle and Aftermath Entertainment and Jimmy Iovine. Before gangsta rap rose up and ruled the '90s. Before "California Love" swaggered its way onto MTV and rattled the trunks of every lowrider cruising down Crenshaw Boulevard in 1995. Before Suga Free asked the rap game, "Why you bullshitin?" Before DJ Quik perfected his perm. Before Kendrick Lamar put Compton back on the map and told the music industry, "Bitch, don't kill my vibe." Before Dom Kennedy and Nipsey Hussle and Ty Dolla $ign. Before we lost Nate Dogg. Before 2Pac went out in a flurry of bullets on the Las Vegas strip that fateful September night. Before it all, there was the sound, the foundation, the album that made every rap album that came after possible. The Chronic.
It's hard to know where to begin, really. Any of the 16 tracks act as an entry point into the life and times of Andre Young. Released seven months after the L.A. riots, and recorded just one month after four LAPD officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King within an inch of his life and the city nearly burned to the ground, The Chronic was a means to a bigger message.
This wasn't just music or simply gangsta machismo, this was survival of the fittest for a new generation of black kids with dreams of making it out the hood.
It was never just about hip-hop. Dre, Snoop, Warren G, Nate Dogg, The D.O.C., Kurupt, and Daz were rebels with a cause. Warrior Gs that banged to the beat of their own microphones, black Locs, and black baseball caps their armor of choice. This wasn't just music or simply gangsta machismo, this was survival of the muthafukin' fittest for a new generation of black kids with dreams of making it out the hood. Metaphors be damned, this was "the day the niggaz took over."
The Chronic is an ugly, unflinching portrait of navigating 1992 Los Angeles—wild and uncertain and thump-crazy. Yet for all of its G-funk brilliance (Dre masterfully flipping a live version of Parliament's "Swing Down, Sweet Chariot" as the sonic framework of "Let Me Ride") and its made-for-mythologizing street grit ("Lil Ghetto Boy," "Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat"), The Chronic was a success because it was able to be what it wanted: fun, but also socially aware.
That's the thing about great albums; artists have a way of finding purpose in the worst of times. South L.A., and its surrounding communities, had just begun to get back on track by December '92. The riots had turned the city into a smoggy, palm-tree'd wasteland—53 people were dead and there was over $1 billion in property damage—but here came Dre and Snoop and the whole crew, rolling down Slauson, fat beats and blunted rhymes, letting everybody know, "Ain't nuthin but a G thang." —Jason Parham
1. Nas, Illmatic (1994)
Label: Columbia Records
Lists such as the one you're reading inevitably lead to disagreements, if not full-on arguments. Fair-minded fans can disagree about whether the '90s was indeed rap's greatest decade. As Jigga once put it, folks will "argue all day about who's the best MC, Biggie, Jay Z, or Nas." One thing they don't argue much about: who made the best album. Because it would be extremely difficult to make the case that Nas's Illmatic isn't the greatest rap album of the decade, if not all time.
Born at the crossroads of rap and the blues, Nasir Jones was perfectly positioned to lay down a cornerstone in the temple of hip-hop. His father was a Mississippi blues man and jazz cornetist whose sons grew up in a loving, book-filled apartment that happened to be situated within the infamous Queensbridge housing projects. Young Nas breathed the same air and drank the same water as Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane. He soaked up the energy of early park jams and came of age during the epic inter-borough conflict between the Juice Crew and Boogie Down Productions. Nas absorbed the blow of BDP's 1997 knockout punch "The Bridge Is Over" like a tightly coiled spring, and seven years later he was ready to bounce back and "Represent" on behalf of his borough, his projects, and himself.
The taut collection of 10 tracks marked a turning point in the art of hip-hop, inspiring a generation of MCs with densely wrought wordplay profound enough to be taught in college classes alongside the greatest literature of the ages.
As Erik Parker and One-9's powerful documentary Time Is Illmatic makes clear, Nasir Jones was a teenage prodigy with so much trouble on his mind. His parents had split up, his projects had been flooded with crack, and his best friend, Ill Will, had been gunned down in the Bridge. Nas drew on all the pain and alienation when he connected with Large Professor and made his first stunning guest appearance on the Main Source posse cut "Live at the Barbeque." By the time Nas was ready to make an album, most of New York's best producers were lining up to work with him—DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Q-Tip, and a relatively unknown talent named L.E.S. Instead of choosing just one, Nas wanted to rock with all of them, and Faith Newman at Columbia Records backed him up, a decision that would forever change the way rap albums were made.
At the time of Illmatic's release, Dr. Dre held sway over planet hip-hop in the wake of his landmark album The Chronic. In late 1993 Death Row would follow that up with Snoop's Doggystyle while on the East Coast the Wu-Tang Clan was bringing the ruckus with Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). But none of the aforementioned releases possessed the same lyrical or musical ambition as Illmatic. The taut collection of 10 tracks marked a turning point in the art of hip-hop, inspiring a generation of MCs with densely wrought wordplay profound enough to be taught in college classes alongside the greatest literature of the ages. It's because of Illmatic that there is now a Nasir Jones fellowship at Harvard University—not bad for a ninth-grade dropout.
The first-person reflections of a young man growing up in Queensbridge, Illmatic painted a vivid picture of life in urban America after the crack boom. The all-killer-no-filler lineup had the brevity and severity of scripture. Songs like "N.Y. State of Mind," "Life's a Bitch," and "One Love" conveyed a mental state that spoke to countless young men in America.
"The story of the album was about boy to man," Nas explained during the 20th anniversary celebrations surrounding his landmark release. "How do you survive, what do you wanna do to express yourself?" For Nas, these two questions were so intertwined as to be one and the same. He found the answer in the street culture of hip-hop, and 20 years later we're still unpacking the riches with which he blessed us. —Rob Kenner
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