We're back, motherfuckers. That's right, season two is finally here. I really didn't think this blog would make it past season one, but enough of you bastards seem to like to read my random lists, rants, and rambles so here's a new season. Twelve episode, all lists. That's right, all lists. I'll even take some reader suggestions, so if you have a top five, three, 12, 10, whatever, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
That brings us to the series premiere episode. I love music, all kinds of music: punk, new wave, grime, dubstep, ragga, dancehall, dark house, house, trance, happy hardcore, death metal, indie, go-go, whatever. But probably my favourite is rap and hip-hop. To many out of the scene, people think it's one in the same but it's not. To me, the production, topics, the overall mood of hip-hop is far different than rap. Hip-Hop can make you feel good at the end of a record or album; after a rap record or album, you pretty much want to either fight, fuck, or get high/drunk.
I thought of this list while coming home from the gym and listening to what I think is the greatest album in rap and/or hip-hop ever and immediately thought of about 30 albums, but I knew what would be the top seven. So let's skip the bullshit and get into the list, but first, honourable mentions.
Honourable Mentions: These albums are great but can't crack my top 10--Kanye West, "Late Registration"; Ol' Dirty Bastard, "Return to the 36 Chambers: the Dirty Versions"; Ras Kass, "Soul on Ice"; Brand Nubian, "Foundation"; Run DMC, Self-titled debut, Triple 6 Mafia, "Mystic Stylez".
And now, my stupid ass 10 Greatest Rap/Hip-Hop Albums ever.
10. Juvenile, "400 Degreez" (1998). Juvenile debuted with little fanfare outside of New Orleans with the subpar efforts Being Myself and later Solja Rags, but it wasn't until his third studio effort that the country took notice. Complete with a terrible Pen and Pixel cover and during a maelstrom of bounce-influenced rap setting the country on fire, thanks to No Limit, Cash Money records put out their best album with 400 Degreez. The hit single, "Ha", still gets hella plays but it's not the only track worth a replay. "Ghetto Children", "Welcome 2 tha Nolia", "Juvenile on Fire", and "Flossin' Season" are definite strong tracks. The Big Tymers make another classic intro, and let's not forget that "Back That Azz Up" is also on this album, along with the notoriously popular title track, "400 Degreez". The re-release isn't worth it, hearing the two remixes of Ha (one featuring the Hot Boyz, and the other featuring Jay-Z are boring) and "Follow Me Now" is catchy, but can be skipped. In all, 400 Degreez is one album that most people I know would agree is a classic, and probably vastly underrated for its mix of club tracks and hood hits.
9. A Tribe Called Quest, "The Low End Theory" (1991). Forget "Off the Wall" vs. "Thriller", the battle between which Tribe album is king is just as epic. Some say "Midnight Marauders", but I'm one who says it's "The Low End Theory", and to me it's not even close. Songs like "Check the Rhime", "The Infamous Date Rape", and "Jazz (We've Got)" stand out and always get a second play for me. "Verses from the Abstract" another favourite Tribe track for me. In fact, most of my favourite Tribe cuts come from this album, hence why it makes my top 10 and over "Midnight Marauders". Plus, we all know the final cut on the album, "Scenario" is one of the strongest posse cuts in hip-hop and had such a groundbreaking video. All of this brings LET in at number nine on my list. Some people would think this is criminal though to rank this album so low, but bear with me.
8. Trick Daddy Dollars, "Thugs Are Us" (2001). Maybe it's my adopted home state of Florida, maybe it's there's a little thug in every rap fan, or maybe it's the sounds of the Righteous Funk Boogie who produced most of the album that make TDD's fourth album number eight all-time for me. I wanted to go with "Based on a True Story", but at the end of the day, this album is Trick's best. Beginning with an intro where Trick explains to a jit somewhere in Richmond Heights that he should stay in school and not be a thug. After 30 seconds of this, it slides right into hit single, "I'm a Thug". By this time, you should be all in on this album. It's not a perfect project though, as Trick takes time to promote homeboy, Deuce Poppi with about three solo tracks and all are straight garbage, and Trina has the "Pull Over Remix" and "For All the Ladies", but for the majority of the album, it's all Trick, all thug shit. Favourite tracks include: "Take It to da House", "Noodle", "N Word", "Can't Fuck wit tha South". Most FAMU students would know the latter, but only up to the line, "Wait one motherfuckin' minute!" Points to you if you know what comes after that line.
7. Frayser Boy, "Gone on That Bay" (2003). A lot of people wonder why Frayser Boy, a guy who came onto the scene with Triple 6 and Hypnotize Minds after their run in the national spotlight was dwindling, is my favourite rapper. No, he's not spectacular and he's not witty. He's said shit you've heard before, and often you can predict the next line. However, I give you two people: Sean and Nuekeller. Two of my bruh-bruhs fo-real-fo-real. They came to my house one night and I made them listen to this album. I told them, I couldn't explain why it's one of my all-time favourites, especially seeing that I didn't expect anything special. It starts with an intro title track which samples Haydn's Sonata no. 59 (more popularly known as Lestat's Sonata), and the bass drops and Frayser Boy spits one of the hardest rhymes to come out of Hypnotize Minds in a long time. When it finished, my friend says to me, "I totally see how after the intro, you're hooked in." "Flickin'", "Every Day Thang", "Wish a Mutha Would", "Had to Get'em", and "Bloody Murder" (which features my friend's favourite line of "Gon' kill these niggas, leave 'em hangin' like apostrophes") are very good to great tracks. "Closed Mouth", outside of the title track, is by far my favourite, for lines such as "Now ya got me lookin' for ya like an easter egg hunt" and "Smoke so much green, niggas call me St. Patrick." You probably have never heard a Frayser Boy track, so go on youtube and just give it a try. Love this album.
6. Eric B. and Rakim, "Paid in Full" (1987). First off, to me, Rakim is still the greatest MC to ever grab a mic and spit a rhyme. Eric B was the perfect DJ to cut up records and lay down samples to further let Rakim shine as an MC. Paid in Full is a magnum opus in hip-hop, and definitely the duo's best. I wanted to put it higher, but my top five speak to me personally and take me to times where I can remember first hearing them and being mesmerised. I had older cousins who spun this LP all of the time and it never got old then, still doesn't get old. "Chinese Arithmetic" is probably the least known track on the album, but it's one of my favourites. Eric B. mixes in a generic Asian sound with hard bass and it just blends perfectly. The hits are nonstop on this album, though: "Eric B. For President", "I Ain't No Joke", "Move the Crowd", "Eric B. Is on the Cut", "I Know You Got Soul", and the classic title track "Paid in Full" which introduced the "Don't Look Any Further" sample to rap. This album is a must-have. I own it on both cassette and CD. If you do not have Paid, you're no rap or hip-hop fan. That simple. This album defines the golden age of MCing and DJing.
5. Immortal Technique, "The 3rd World" (2008). Hot fuckin' fire. It was a five year layoff between Revolutionary, vol. 2 and this album, but apparently, those five years allowed Technique to make 16 tracks of straight heat for the thinking man. This isn't your average person's music. It's highly Marxist, revolutionary, and quite politically charged. The title track, "The 3rd World", is the third most played record on my iPod, and is by far the standout song on this album. Here's a link with lyrics if you've never heard it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOINSUWOqyo). Other songs like "Golpe de Estado" and "Death March" show you Technique spits his rhymes for the black and the brown, the oppressed, the masses who are often forgotten and never shown on television or in your local paper. Being an Afro-Latino with Peruvian heritage and growing up in Harlem greatly influenced his style and I'm thankful for it. Frayser Boy may be my favourite rapper, Rakim may be the best ever to me, but somehow Immortal Technique trumps them both, you figure it out. Favourite tracks: "Payback" which features Ras Kass (I love Ras Kass), "Mistakes", and "Harlem Renaissance".
4. Ghostface Killah, "Ironman" (1996). What do you get when you mix one of my favourite MCs from the best crew in music history, blaxploitation movies, soul samples, and the RZA and True Master on production? A fucking classic. Ironman was Ghost's debut as a solo artist, although he featured Raekwon and Cappadonna often, but it's one of the best albums ever. Full of supreme mathematics and alphabet references, Ghostface brings a lot of hot rhymes over tight production. The first single, "Daytona 500", has nothing to do with racing, features Raekwon and Cappadonna, and is still one of the best songs to come out of the Wu family. "Wildflower", a personal favourite, begins with the line, "Yeah bitch, I fucked your friend/Yeah you stank ho/I seen her on the elevator, honey grabbed my Kangol." How can you not like that?! He proceeds to lyrically slaughter the ex-boo in his life and finishes with he likes his women clean with an FDS smell. Shit is awesome. "260", "Motherless Child", "Black Jesus", all bangers; "All That I Got Is You" featuring Mary J will always tug at the heart strings and speaks to most African-Americans I've known because there's definitely a common thread of similar experiences in that song. "Winter Warz" is a definite heater, and Cappadonna's verse to end the track is one of his best ever, highly memorable.
3. Mobb Deep, "The Infamous" (1995). This album is definitely the grittiest in production to ever come out during that age where NYC dominated rap in the 90s. Havoc, as a producer, is fucking genius. The sounds of records popping in the samples, the heavy bass, the minimalism of a lot of the tracks, it's an album that I'd love to pass down generation to generation. It also has features from Ghostface and Raekwon, so bonus. "Survival of the Fittest" and "Shook Ones, pt. II" are probably the first two songs I've learned in full due to constant repeats. For these two tracks to be the lead singles from the album, it sets up the tone. You know exactly what's coming and that's tales of hard life in Queensbridge. "Temperature's Rising", "Give Up the Goods", "Eye For an Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)", and "Party Over" are definite bangers. Q-Tip lays down a great verse on "Drink Away the Pain (Situations)". I could go on and on about this album. It's one of the first I bought with my own money and I can still see my little young teenager ass living in central Jersey, turning the bass all the way up and cutting the treble all the way down and just being awestruck. I'm still a big fan of everything Mobb Deep's ever done, and a lot of that stems from this album.
2. Raekwon the Chef, "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..." (1995). Another Loud Records album makes the top five, with this, Ironman, and The Infamous, and all from the same time. Only Built turned rap on its ear. Raekwon set this album up to be a movie on wax. The idea appealed to the RZA so much that they always planned on making a movie because of Only Built. Raekwon was the star of the film, Ghostface Killah was the supporting actor, and the RZA and True Master were the Producer/Director combo. Method Man was the first to release a solo for Wu-Tang, but when Raekwon came out, people forgot all about Tical. Singles like "Glacierz of Ice" and "Ice Cream" are nuggets of the classic Wu sound with feel-good nostalgia. "Criminology", which features a snippet from the movie "Scarface", may only be about two and a half minutes, but man it's some of the best 150 seconds you'll ever have. "Rainy Dayz", "Verbal Intercourse", "Incarcerated Scarfaces", "Heaven and Hell", this album is chock full of amazing production and lyrical scenery. Raekwon and Ghost can take any beat and chew it the fuck up.
1. The GZA/Genius, "Liquid Swords" (1995). ANOTHER Wu solo. Also from 1995, and also on Loud Records, which makes four of my top five. When I first bought Liquid Swords, I didn't appreciate for how intricate and elaborate it was. I thought it was a good album, but not great. Sixteen years later, it's still a constant album I play and it's become my favourite album in the genre and probably top five of all albums I've ever heard. It's only 13 tracks. Only 13. RZA and True Master on production. "Shogun Assassin" snippets linger throughout and really tie the album together. The title track leads off the album and contains probably the longest snippet, but it's a strong track. It was later sampled by Mos Def for his song, "Crime and Punishment". "Labels" features what the GZA does best; come up with a concept and make the song feature words from that concept throughout. It's a track slaying the record industry and the labels controlling it, but he used their names in innovative ways. "B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)" ends the album and drops hella knowledge on you; it's riddled with revelations and little known gems. It's definitely a track I've grown to appreciate and cherish in adulthood. He still makes dope cuts like "Shadowboxin'", but most of the album feels dark and philosophical. There literally is no song you skip over, and it's an album that once it's finished, you can press play and sit through the whole hour again and not grow bored. RZA and True Master use their patented bassline, but they do it masterfully and artistically through use of samples. The GZA is a lyricist unlike any other.
As you can see, there's no Nas, B.I.G., 2Pac, Eminem, none of that shit on my list. Nothing personal, but none of their works I find complete or near complete. Plus, what can I say? I grew up in New Jersey in the right time where NYC was producing some of the grittiest and best rap/hip-hop and it funneled straight to my stereo. It's my top 10, it's not yours, and probably not Vibe's, the Source's, nor Rolling Stone, but goddammit, I stand by all these selections.
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