(and I do still love 'HUMBLE.' which seems to get a lot of backlash just because of how huge it was, hearing him performing that song live was an absolute moment with him cutting out the music and letting the crowd perform the first verse and hook before jumping back in).

Ah, the same tour I saw then. He actually played it twice in a row which is fair enough because it absolutely gets the people going.

 

For me I say TPAB>GKMC>MMATBS>DAMN.>uu>S80 which is not really a bad word on any of them. Cannot fault DAMN. for lack of hits to make it easy to go back to, compared to say MM which is so dense and confronting that I need to be in the right mood for it.

 

Also shout of appreciation for this thread I've been casually lurking for months now ^_^

Seeing you both talk about previous shows is getting me pretty excited because I'm going to see Kendrick next week and I'm sure it's going to be great. I've heard that 'Family Ties' is the most hype part of the current tour with Baby Keem coming out to perform it together.

 

Thanks for commenting too. I'm enjoying seeing what albums are inspiring people to leave a comment even if neither of you are supporting me with 'Damn' being Kendrick's best album :lol:

I would love to be able to comment more but I'm terrible at listening to older music (especially full albums) so I don't really have much to say about most of these :kink: but I am still reading and silently enjoying, kudos to you being so consistent with this massive task of a thread!

 

Hope you have a great time next week! Yes I can definitely imagine 'family ties' being a hype moment live too.

59. The Notorious B.I.G. - Life After Death 1997 5/5

 

Highlights: Hypnotize, Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Notorious Thugs

 

 

The Notorious B.I.G. was a rapper from New York City who was the poster-boy for the East Side in the East/West Coast rivalry that dominated Hip-Hop in the 1990s opposing Tupac Shakur. This rivalry infamously led to both artists deaths at young ages with Biggie being murdered in a drive-by shooting by an unknown assailant in 1997 at the age of 24. During his life, he only released one studio album, 'Ready To Die' in 1994 but had finished recording his second album that ended up being released only two weeks after his death. During the time between his two releases, he mentored and managed his own group, Junior M.A.F.I.A., that started the career of Lil Kim. Biggie was known for his close friendship with the man who signed him to Bad Boy Records, P. Diddy, who produced on a lot of his songs and could often be found in Biggie's music videos acting as a hype-man. After Biggie's death, P. Diddy alongside Biggie's widow, Faith Evans, scored one of the biggest hits of all-time with their tribute to the great man, 'I'll Be Missing You' that spent 11 weeks atop of Billboard and becoming a million-seller in the U.K. Biggie is widely-considered to be the greatest rapper of all-time with The Source Magazine and Billboard both placing him at #1 on their such lists and Rolling Stones also calling him the "greatest rapper that ever lived".

 

I've already mentioned that this album was released only 2 weeks after Biggie's untimely death, so it's easy to see why this album became such a commercial success (becoming the best selling album of 1998 and eventually being certified Diamond in the US). But even had tragedy not struck, I'm convinced that this would have still been absolutely massive. While his debut album was dark and largely focused on the darker side of being a low-strung gangsta (aside from the late addition lead-single 'Juicy), Biggie had higher ambitions when recording this. He wanted the genre to truly crossover and fully-embrace mainstream appeal so he ensured he recorded some big radio hits alongside the hardcore tracks. And this led to the album including two of the most iconic rap singles imaginable. Hypnotize and Mo' Money Mo' Problems were both #1 Billboard hits and as far as commercial Hip-Hop records go, I think their both pretty much perfect. They both have hooks that replay in your head for years to come and Biggie sacrifices none of his skill or lyricism in the verses. It doesn't pander to the masses but makes a record so good that everyone can't help but come on board. This led to what must be one of the most egregious decisions ever made at an award show. 'Hypnotize' lost the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance to Will Smith for 'Men In Black'. A true robbery!

 

I would say despite the extended run-length (1 hour and 50 minutes), every track is essential and when you only had the chance to record two studio albums, you savour every last drop of material you get and I honestly could have happily listened to another hour. I said every track is essential but that's not necessarily true. There is one track on here that I think's a bit poor and that's 'Playa Hater'. On this track, Biggie and Diddy decide that they're crooners and while Biggie just about gets away with it, Diddy sounds horrible and it makes the track a bit of a slug to listen to. The track samples 'Hey Love' by The Delfonics and Biggie tries to adapt his voice to sound like the song. He probably should have left it ton the professionals. But, a two hour album only having one weak moment is an impressive feat. Unsurprisingly for a project this long, this is a double album and, in fact, I would say that the second disc is not quite quite as electric as the first. It starts with a bang though with the Bone-Thugs collaboration 'Notorious Thugs' that sees Biggie adapt a faster, energetic flow to match his feature and it works so well you begin to wonder why he didn't do it to often. I would even say it's actually one of my favourite flows I've heard by any rapper. It's completely mesmerising!

 

Just to show how pointless music criticism is, Rolling Stone awarded this 3/5 in their official review but have never said anything negative about it since and have included it both in this list and their recent 'greatest albums of all-time list'. I feel like I could write so much more about this album but I'll leave it with this: this is rap at it's most essential. Who else could leave you captivated at hearing the same story twice like Biggie does on 'I Got a Story to Tell' where he tells us the story of how he escaped an awkward situation where a girl's boyfriend came home while she was cheating with him in real time for the first half of the song and then for the second half recalls the same story to a bunch of his friends in the form of a skit.

What a classic!! :heart:

God I love GRODT and Damn is an absolute masterpiece!

58. Ice Cube - AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted 1990 4.5/5

 

Highlights: The N***a Ya Love To Hate, Endangered Species (Tales From The Darkside), Who's The Mack?

 

 

We last saw Ice Cube when his second album 'Death Certificate' appeared at #93. But today we go back a year and visit his debut album, provocatively titled 'AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted'.

 

While this album does lack the controversial and 'problematic' tracks that stain 'Death Certificate', I still think that it also isn't as strong as 'DC' overall. While it might not have anything as explicitly hateful as 'Black Korea' this album is still completely stuffed with misogyny lyrics. I know this is kinda part and parcel of a 90's gangsta rap album but it's much more extreme on here than on most any other albums I've heard. Take the track 'You Can't Fade Me' where Cube raps about a pregnant girl who claims that he is the father and contains lyrics such as 'What I need to do is kick the bitch in the tummy' and 'I'm thinking to myself why did I bang her. Now I'm in the closet looking for the hanger'. The track is purposefully over the top and not meant to be taken seriously but the lyrics are still a bit much. I think the completely serious tone that he deliveries every song on the album and the matter-of-fact stories he tells elsewhere doesn't help this. But while I've rated both albums 4.5/5 so there's not much of a difference, I just feel like this song is missing the big stand-out moments that Death Certificate had. This may be the more consistent of the two, the single best moments are found elsewhere.

 

But what this does have going for it is Cube's delivery. It's not flashy but it's pretty iconic and he attacks every time with the same level of ferocity and when it matches up with the right song topic, the results are exhilarating. Cube knows how to rile an audience up and when he's spitting about the politically-charged topics, it always lands hard. For example, on' Endangered Species' where he and Chuck D (of Public Enemy) discuss the perils of growing up Black in America and the media's portrayals with as much nuance and respect as you'd expect. Public Enemy are are big influence across the whole of this album, with Flavor Flav making an appearance on another track (I'm Only Out For One Thang) and PE's inhouse production team 'The Bomb Squad' working on almost every track. I'm sure there was no-one else in the world as pissed off as Cube in the late 80s-90s but he's someone who needs this anger for motivation and there's no-one better at channelling in into art than him. And released just after he left N.W.A. and not on particularly good terms, he had plenty of anger to work with.

 

More retroactive re-scoring from Rolling Stone who first reviewed this album as 2.5/5 in 1990, before updating it to 3.5 in 1992 and eventually 5/5 in their latest review in 2004.

57. Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill 1986 3.5/5

 

Highlights: Fight For Your Right, The New Style, Girls

 

 

Beastie Boys were a rap/rock group from New York who's most famous line-up consisted of Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock. Originally formed as a punk band called the Young Aborigines in 1978, the original line-up consisted of Mike D (Michael Diamond), Jeremy Shatan, John Berry and Kate Schellenbach but as the group moved towards rap music, the later 3 were replaced over time by MCA and Ad-Rock. Schellenbach was actually fired from the group once they signed to Def Jam for not fitting in with the new rap image, a decision Ad-Rock wrote in his memoir that he regrets. Before even releasing a studio album, the group toured with Madonna and Run-DMC. They are one of the only rap artists from the 1980's that managed to have continued mainstream success through-out their whole career with only two of their 8 studio albums missing the top 10 on Billboard (their 2nd album 'Paul's Boutique peaked at #14 but has since became on of the most critically-acclaimed albums of all-time and their fully instrumental release 'The Mix-Up' praked at #15) with 4 of them reaching #1. After MCA died in 2012, the group disbanded and announced they would not release any further new music. The same year, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 

Licensed To Ill was their debut album and is a very important album in Hip-Hop history. This was the first rap record to reach the Billboard #1 where it remained for 5 weeks. It's easy to hear why this became such a massive moment. The Rick Ruben production is bold, exciting and very much in your face and with three white guys spitting such rude and aggressive lyrics, this would have been impossible to ignore in the 80s. The sample-heavy production still holds up and it retains it's ability to excite 36 years later. Despite their signature song 'Fight For Your Right' was meant to be a satirical jab at party songs and the frat-boy sector of fans but instead that is what the song and this album has come to represent. This is a party album through and through and a pretty effective one at that.

 

I did enjoy listening to this album and it's solid at what it does but it's very much of it's time. The lyrics are a bit immature and simplistic which I found it difficult to really appreciate. It's understandable because not only was the genre still in it's infancy, but the band were pretty young too but this album features multiple uses of the "my name is ... and I ..." rhyme-scheme that every 50 year old unhip white-person uses to when trying to rap. It's not a long album (45 minutes) but even at that length, I felt that it dragged on a bit longer than I needed it to. Everything after 'No Sleep Till Brooklyn' felt a bit light-weight and inessential. Beastie Boys remain one area of Hip-Hop that I don't really get.

 

At least Columbia Records refused to release this under what the Beastie Boys originally intended to be the album's title 'Don't Be A F****t'.

56. Noname - Room 25 2018 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Window, Don't Forget About Me, Ace

 

 

Noname is a rapper from Chicago, Illinois who got her start performing in slam poetry competitions before gaining some traction through her appearances on Chance The Rapper's breakthrough mixtapes 'Acid Rap' and 'Coloring Book'. She has since became one of the members of the rap super-group Ghetto Sage with Saba and Smino. Noname is probably just as known for her activism as much as her artistry with most of her recent career being focused on the development of the Noname Boom Club. A club that is designed to benefit Black-owned independent bookstores and promote anti-capitalist and leftist thought the shared reading of radical literature. Noname, herself, has admitted to being uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity and tries her hardest to avoid having to partake in any photoshoots or interviews to avoid raising her profile. However, she did make headlines in 2020 during the peak of the BLM protests when a tweet of hers criticising rappers for not showing enough support led to J. Cole releasing a track about her with Noname responding with a track of her own. Noname made her (no)name with the mixtape 'Telefone' in 2016 but has only released one studio album which is what we're looking at today, 2018's 'Room 25'. She did announce a second album, 'Factory Baby' set to release in 2021 but cancelled the release and suggested she may never release music again.

 

This is another short album (34 minutes) but it takes full advantage of every second making it feel like more of fully-developed project than some of the 60 minute+ releases we've seen so far. Noname sounds so good on this album. Her relaxed, often spoken-word delivery is just so relaxing that even when she's rapping about some heavy topics, her tone and the jazzy-production keeps it sounding smooth. It's very soulful and sounds completely effortless like she's just letting the words flow without consciously thinking about it. She paints a lot of pictures throughout this album but it never really develops into a story at any point. The whole album is practically performed in a stream of consciousness method where I'm thoroughly enjoying the ride of listening to it but I don't think I'm taking too much away with me at the end of it. I was definitely happy that there was a few guests verses towards the end of the album as I thought Saba and Benjamin Earl Turner provided some great verses that I could latch on to much easier.

 

I don't quite think it's weighty enough for me to rank it alongside some of the classics we've seen recently (Damn, Life After Death) at the 5/5 level but there's not much to criticise her at all. It's a shame she doesn't seem that interested in music because she's mastered her own style in so few releases that there's no doubt for me that she would release a stone-cold classic at some point.

While I prefer Hello Nasty of the two Beastie albums I've listened to so far, I still think License To Ill is pretty great.

 

It also spawned this hilarious segment from Rap Critic

 

While I prefer Hello Nasty of the two Beastie albums I've listened to so far, I still think License To Ill is pretty great.

 

It also spawned this hilarious segment from Rap Critic

 

 

I can see why Beatie Boys are loved but it didn't inspire me to check out another album from them unfortuantly.

 

I remember that Rap Critic clip now :lol:

55. A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders 1993 5/5

 

Highlights: We Can Get Down, Keep It Rollin’, God Lives Through

 

 

A Tribe Called Quest make their second appearance in this list after their 1990 debut ‘People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm’ (#121). For this entry we go forward by three years and hear their third album, ‘Midnight Marauders’. I said about their debut that it was solid but I think they were still inexperienced and hadn’t quite mastered their sound. Flash forward to this album and I think you can hear the improvement. I’m finding it hard to describe what makes this album so good. It’s just very technically proficient. The production is brilliant, Q-Tip and Phife Dawg’s chemistry is electric and the raps are thoroughly engaging. I’ve went back and forth between 4.5 and 5 for this album and while it’s not absolutely amongst my favourite albums on this list, I’m struggling to think of any negatives so I think it’s earned the full 5. The production is still sample-heavy but it's heavier than their first album, this is a pure rap-rap album and while it’s still undeniably Tribe, it is a step-closer towards their more hardcore contemporaries than we heard before with the focus (at least in my opinion) seeming to be on providing knock-out verses more than building a vibe like their first album did. Robert Christgau has described this as "intelligent easy-listening rap" and I think that’s perfect because while the rapping on this is insane in terms of skill, it’s also retains the easy-listing vibe that means anyone, and not only rap aficionados, will be able to enjoy it. This is album that I’ve sure has converted its fan share of those who claimed not to be into rap.

 

Sometimes a running-skit can become an annoyance but I quite like the one that constitutes the throughline connecting this album. The album opens with the robotic vocals of Laurel Dann (a secretary at Jive Recordings) who acts as a tour guide, welcoming us to the album and often appearing at the end of tracks to provide us with a salient fact or a piece of advice. Three album covers were made for this album that all featured the faces of a host of the Hip-Hop stars at the time, including a bunch of artists we’ve heard during this countdown including Afrika Bambaataa, Beastie Boys, Jungle Brothers, The Pharcyde and Too Short.

 

A bit of theme of this countdown, the only dissenting voice at the time and the only bad review it received was from... Rolling Stone magazine that rated it 2/5. :lol: Also to put into a bit of perspective what a crazy time the 90’s were for rap, this was released on the same day as Wu-Tang’s debut album that is most certainly still to come in this list. Two classics released on the same day and it wasn’t even that rare an occurrence. Doggystyle came out only two weeks later too.

54. Migos - Culture 2017 4/5

 

Highlights: Bad And Boujee, Get Right Witcha, Slippery

 

 

Migos were a Hip-Hop group from Georgia that consisted of Quavo, his nephew Takeoff and his cousin Offset. The group released their first single, 'Versace', in 2013 and they gained popularity for slightly novelty tracks like 'Hannah Montana' and 'Look At My Dab', the later of which has been credited as kickstarting the dance craze in the 2010s. They built their popularity by releasing frequent mixtapes, the most notable of which was Y.R.N. (Young Rich N****s). This eventually led to their debut album 'Yung Rich Nation' in 2015 which was s disappointment in terms of sales and reception. But their biggest success was still to come. In October 2016, they released the single 'Bad And Boujee' that became an internet sensation and eventually became the group's only #1 single in Billboard. On the back of it's success the group released their successful 'Culture' trilogy of albums and became one of the most influential acts on rap of modern times. Offset has dominated headlines for his strenuous relationship with Cardi B and there was a two-year spell where Quavo seemed to provide a guest feature on every other chart hit. Offset left the group earlier this year after falling out Quavo. Takeoff and Quavo continued together and released a collaborative album 'Only Built For Infinity Links' last month before Takeoff was sadly murdered a few weeks ago.

 

I gave this album a listen when it was released and now, listening again 5 years later, my opinions on it haven't changed at all. This is a completely idiosyncratic and distinct (you would never mistake this for anyone else than Migos), endlessly listenable album but it's nothing more than that for me. Migos have their own vibe and their own sound that they've completely mastered but (outside of BAB) they're not an artist I'd ever really put on. This is fun, there's catchy hook galore and their unmistakable triplet flow and never-ending adlibs make it an absolute earworm but it lacks the clever rhymes. the engaging story-telling or crazy flow-switches that really make me fall in love with an album. It's the real definition of a fast-food album. You enjoy it while it's on but when it ends, you don't feel like you've had a satisfactory meal. I know trap isn't necessarily my genre when it comes to rap so while I don't personally think this deserves a place on such a list, I can still appreciate that it is towards the upper echelons of the style.

 

There was a little spell towards the middle where I really felt the album had found it's flow. My three favourite tracks actually came in a row after each other with the absolute strongest of course being Bad And Boujee. It's hard to even pinpoint what makes that particuarl track so special, it's certainly not the Uzi verse :lol: but I think it blew up at a time before everyone was over hearing their style of repeating the last word of each line as ad adlib (adlib). It just has one of those hooks that you feel compelled to sing-a-long with. However, my favourite feature on the album was not from any of those tracks and actually came from 2 Chainz on 'Deadz'. 2 Chainz is usually pretty hit-and-miss for me, but whatever reason his style was working well over these beats.

53. Salt-N-Pepa - Hot, Cool & Vicious 1986 3.5/5

 

Highlights: Push It, I'll Take Your Man, How Long (Betcha Gotta Chick On The Side)

 

 

Salt-N-Pepa are a Hip-Hop group from Queens, New York that currently consists of MC's Salt and Pepa but has previously also included DJ Spinderella. They have become one of the best-selling rap groups of all-time and have been dubbed the 'First Ladies of Rap and Hip-Hop' for their influential and OG status. Their debut album 'Hot, Cool & Vicious' sold over 1 million copies in the US and was the first album by a female artist to go both gold and platinum. At the 1995 Grammys, they won the award for 'Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group' which made them the first female rap act to win such an award before Queen Latifah won later on in the show. Salt-N-Pepa have released 5 studio albums with their last release coming from 1997.

 

This album is very 80s. It is one of the earliest albums on this list so you can't be too critical but I think it's a little too basic for me to properly enjoy now. There are undoubtedly moments that still work, Push It is a dance classic and they have some impressive flows on 'I'll Take Your Man' but there are tracks on here that seem to drag on without anything really happening (It's Alright, My Mic Sounds Nice). When they do rap on this album (which isn't enough), they do shine though. They might not have the craziest flows or the most varied lyrics but they completely sell everything they say through their delivery. They deliver every bar with a sense of uber-confidence and cocksureness that it makes their bars land even when they're quite basic.

 

I think this album is probably included for it's importance and legacy more than the actual content. I've never heard any of their subsequent albums but I know all the singles and they have some legendary songs. I imagine as time went on and Hip-Hop got more established as a genre, Salt-N-Pepa's albums got stronger and included more concise tracks. We have seen a couple of compilation albums during this countdown, so maybe more than any other artist the most essential albums for them might be their greatest hits. They have plenty of great singles (Shoop!) but my first experience with their albums was slightly disappointing.

52. Kanye West - The College Dropout 2004 5/5

 

Highlights: Jesus Walks, The New Workout Plan, Slow Jamz

 

 

Kanye West is a rapper who was born in Atlanta, Georgia but has lived most his life and is closely associated with Chicago, Illinois. Getting his start as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, Kanye has since become one of the most influential, best-selling and best-regarded rappers of all-time. Kanye's achievements include winning 25 Grammy Awards (the equal most for a rapper alongside Jay-Z), 3 BRIT awards, a record-equalling 4 Papp & Jop Critic polls wins (alongside Bob Dylan) and was the final recipient of the Billboard Artist Achievement Award. He has released 11 studio albums and until the release of Donda 2 that was deemed illegible to chart, all of his albums since his debut (that peaked at #2) peaked at #1 on Billboard. Kanye has never been one to shy away from controversy, be it his 'George Bush doesn't care about black people' speech in 2005, his crashing of Taylor Swift's MTV Music Video Award win in 2009 or his support of Donald Trump in 2016, but recently his scandals are seeming to prove too much for many. He has recently made a constant slew of anti-Semitic comments that has been him receive temporary bans from Twitter and Instagram and lose his sponsorships with Adidas, Gap and Balanciaga and as a result, lose his status as a Forbes-certified billionaire.

 

Putting aside any external thoughts on him as a person, I think I would consider this album the closest I've ever heard to perfection. Every single track on here is a stone-cold classic and I literally could have picked any three songs at random and justified their inclusion as my highlights. I've already mentioned that Kanye is my favourite producer and he certainly wasn't slacking here. He is the master of the technique where he takes a old-skool soul or R&B vocal sample and shifts the pitch to make it the instrumentation of the track and when combined with the gospel choir backing vocals and the addition of the drums and strings it just always sounds so epic. If you don't come away from this album constantly singing "We wasn't supposed to make it past 25, joke's on you we still alive' or "I've been working this grave-shift and I ain't made shit" then you're a more strong willed person than I. Kanye is absolutely hilarious across the album and provides some of the most iconic lines of his whole career. Early Kanye never feared saying something corny as he knew that is part of his charm and I think this is what endeared so many people for him and why he still has so many passionate fans after everything he has done since. Here are just three of the most memorable lines:

 

"She got a light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson. Got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson" - Slow Jamz

"Couldn't afford a car so she named her daughter Alexis" - All Falls Down

"Oh my god, is that a black card?" I turned around and replied, "Why yes but I prefer the term African American Express" - Last Call

 

If I really had to make some sort of criticism to this album, it would be that it is quite long and there's plenty of skits. I'm always a keen skipping skits but to be to Kanye on this one, the 'Lil Jimmy' does honestly make me laugh out loud every time I hear it which is a lot more than I can say for the skits on literally any other album.

 

I have already written a review of this album before on this forum when I went into the genius of 'Jesus Walks' so I won't write any more here but I will just say that, while I wouldn't say this is my favourite album of all-time (although it would certainly be up there), if someone were to ask me what the greatest album ever is, I would probably say this. Of course, as is now customary, Rolling Stone originally gave this a middling review back when it was first released.

Shoutout to 'The New Workout Plan' for being iconic. ('The College Dropout' is a rare older album I have listened to in full, me, Bal and Jade were going to listen to all of Kanye's albums together but we never got past the first one in the end whoops. It was a great start to his discog for sure though)

 

'Bad And Boujee' is definitely Migos' best song and perfecting their formula so rightfully their biggest hit but I agree with you that their music is a bit 'fast food' otherwise, I can't imagine ever wanting to hear a full album from them. RIP Takeoff tho.

Shoutout to 'The New Workout Plan' for being iconic. ('The College Dropout' is a rare older album I have listened to in full, me, Bal and Jade were going to listen to all of Kanye's albums together but we never got past the first one in the end whoops. It was a great start to his discog for sure though)

 

'Bad And Boujee' is definitely Migos' best song and perfecting their formula so rightfully their biggest hit but I agree with you that their music is a bit 'fast food' otherwise, I can't imagine ever wanting to hear a full album from them. RIP Takeoff tho.

 

Kanye's would be a great discography to go through if you ever get the opportunity again. Although I've haven't listened to Donda 2 yet so I can't say I've heard them all :lol:

51. The Roots - Things Fall Apart 1999 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Double Trouble, The Next Movement, Step Into The Realm

 

 

We have already seen the Roots when their 9th album, 2010's 'How I Got Over' was back at #150. For this one, we go all the way to 1999 and to their 3rd album 'Things Fall Apart' which is seen as being their most important release and the one that broke them through, earning a platinum certification in 2013. It also earned the group their first Grammy with the single 'You Got Me' with Erykah Badu on the hook, winning the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group award. The song is almost like a proto-Both Sides of a Smile, with an (unfairly) uncredited Eve taking over Black Thought's verse to give the female perspective on their relationship. It's a really interesting track and Badu's hook is insanely good but there was better verses found elsewhere on the album. My favourite track being 'Double Trouble'. The song sees Black Thought and Mos Def (who's quickly become a hero of this countdown) going back on forth with some luxury verses. The track was meant to also feature a verse from Def's Black Star mate 'Talib Kweli' but he was unceremoniously booted off to pay more homage to the original Double Trouble song the 'Wild Style' that featured two MCs rhyming together. It was the last song to be added to the album and thank god it was! The one weak spot in this album I would say is the frequent featuring of 'Dice Raw'. He appears of four of the tracks on here and while I did actually enjoy a couple of his verses, the others were just notably weaker than what Black Thought and Malik B. were spitting.

 

If I were to compare this to their other album in this list, I would give 'How I Got Over' the slight advantage. This one feels like a rawer, darker album but a tad more generic instrumentally. One of The Roots's big advantages is the live instrumentation and I feel like the best of that and the funkier production was found in their later release. But what this does have going for it is Black Thought's trademark incredibly dense verses and Malik actually even outrapping him at points. This is one of those albums that you will something new every time you listen and it's really a pointless endeavour trying to talk about it with any true sense of conviction after only one listen.

 

And if the previous examples weren't enough, just to prove how stacked some of the release schedules were in the 1990's, this was released on the same day as The Slim Shady EP. Great options for rap fans back in 1999.

A College Dropout reminds me of uni where I was when it came out, thankfully I didn’t drop out!

50. EPMD - Strictly Business 1988 5/5

 

Highlights: You Gots To Chill, Strictly Business, You're A Customer

 

 

EPMD are an Hip-Hop duo from New York City that consists of MCs Erick Sermon and PMD. Their name is an acronym for 'Erick and Parrish Making Dollars'. The duo have released 7 studio albums between 1988-2008 with a 8th currently being promised. The duo first broke up in 1993 after PMD's house was burgled and the man arrested for it provided Erick Sermon's name as who provided him with to money to do it. Although the police investigation found this was not the case, this incident caused tension between the pair and they went their separate ways. The group first re-united in 1997 two release two further albums before taking another hiatus before reforming again in 2006 and, as to now, not breaking up again.

 

This is a really fun album. It has all the trademarks of an 1980's rap album: frequent lyrics talking about other rappers 'biting their style', a rap-house track (I'm Housin'), a novelty party song (The Steve Martin) and an instrumental cut towards the end to allow the DJ to show off his talents (D.J. K La Boss). But what makes it stand-out is the funky, sample-heavy production that borrows from an eclectic range of sources (Eric Clapton’s cover of ‘I Shot The Sheriff’, Kool & The Gang, Beastie Boys, ZZ Top. Zapp) and top-notch flows from the two MCs. I was particularly impressed with PMD’s offbeat rhyme scheme which sounded really forward-thinking for the time.

 

As you want with a party record, the album doesn't stick around for longer than it needs. It's a nice 45 minute listen that knows when to quit to leave you on the high when it ends. The only disappointment is the two f-bombs dropped in the album. This is early rap so it's not unexpected but it's disappointing to hear on what is overwise such a fun album.

 

I would love to write more but I'm offer to see Kendrick Lamar tonight and won't be back until the early hours of the morning so this is all I have time to write today.