Great record!!! Apparently Watch The Throne 2 is on the way but it won't top this.

76. Gang Starr - Hard To Earn 1994 5/5

 

Highlights: DWYCK, Suckas Need Bodyguards, ALONGWAYTOGO

 

 

Gang Starr were a Hip-Hop duo based in Brooklyn, New York consisting of Massachusetts rapper Guru and Texas producer DJ Premier. The group has originally founded in by Guru (under the name MC Keithy E.) and his friends Big Shug and DJ Suave D (younger brother of Shug). However, after Shug was imprisoned, Suave D left the group and Guru worked with various producers before finding DJ Premier in 1989. The duo released 6 studio albums between 1989-2003 before Premier left the duo to work on solo projects. Guru passed away in 2010 after suffering a heart attack after privately being diagnosed with myeloma in 2000. DJ Premier released one more album under the duo's name in his former bandmate's honour, 'One of the Best Yet' in 2019.

 

We're really starting to cook in this countdown with back-to-back 5/5 albums. This was Gang Starr's 4th album and they had clearly found their stride when the releases this as I'm struggling to find anything to criticise at all in this one. I love Guru's style, he's calm natured and has a buttery voice that allows him to slide across this album, He has an aura where he doesn't need to shout or be animated to show that he's tough. When he raps about street life, you believe him. He has an authoritative quality while remaining impossibly smooth and relaxing. And DJ Premier is still killing the game today and his jazzy samples and record scratches are the perfect match for Guru and make this one of the most consistent listens I've had in a long time. My highlight is 'DWYCK'. Any Run The Jewels fan will instantly recognise some of the bars in that song from their recent collaboration with DJ Premier, 'Ooh La La' from their RTJ4 album. There is more I could say about this album but I'm feeling pretty ill today and just want to sleep so I'll leave it here. This is a great gem to discover through this list and I would recommended anyone giving it a go.

 

Fun fact for Mavel fans: the title of every episode from season one of Luke Cage was titled after a Gang Starr song!

 

75. Megan Thee Stallion - Fever 2019 3.5/5

 

Highlights: Realer, Hood Rat Shit, Simon Says

 

 

Megan Thee Stallion is a rapper from Texas who is known for her aggressive, confident sex-positive rhymes, most notably on her Billboard and UK #1 single 'WAP', a collaboration with Cardi B, and her trademarked catchphrase 'hot girl summer'. She has released two studio albums but it's actually her first commercial mixtape that is included here.

 

This is fine and it is much stronger than the other projects I've heard from Megan but it's just not of the greatest rap albums of all-time. There's good moments and there's nothing that I think is bad but it all sounds pretty much the same. I feel like I could have just picked 5 songs at random from this mixtape to listen to and I wouldn't have ended up missing much. I do really like Megan, she's in my top 50 most played artists on last.fm but she is someone who I consider to be more of a singles artist. But Megan knows exactly what her fans want to hear and there's no-one else that does what she does better than her. Again I would like to write more but I'm still feeling ill so I'll leave it there.

74. Public Enemy - Fear Of A Black Planet 1990 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Burn Hollywood Burn, Fight The Power, Welcome To The Terrordome

 

 

Public Enemy are a hip-hip group from New York that have had many different line-ups over the years but have always included the two leaders of the group Chuck D and Flavor Flav. The group are known for their highly-confrontational, political and afro-centric rhymes that remain revolutionary to this day. They have released 15 studio albums since their debut in 1987 with their first 5 all receiving at least a gold certification. Despite the late 80s/90s being their heyday, the groups biggest hit in the UK was not until 2012 when their 2007 single 'Harder Than You Think' became the official track for the London Paralympics and the track climbed all the way to #4 in the charts. The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 and picked up a Lifetime Achievement award at the 2020 Grammys.

 

Fear of a Black Planet was the groups third album and, to show how much music has changed in the time since, a 2010 study suggested that had they released the album at that point, modern sample clearance rules would have meant that they would have lost $5 dollars for each copy sold. But this was released at a time where sampling was rife and this instrumentals to this album are made up of hundreds of little noises (a lot of the samples are under a second) and putting them together to make something special. Chuck D said that he believes that there are between 150-200 samples in this album and putting them together "95 percent of the time it sounded like mess. But there was 5 percent of magic that would happen". But while the samples and soulful beats are great, the reason you are going into a Public Enemy album is to hear some aggressive, political raps and Chuck D doesn't let you down in that regard. The obvious song to talk about is the one that concludes this album. 'Fight The Power' is the most iconic song in PE's discography and it's not hard to hear why. Originally written under Spike Lee's request to work as the soundtrack for his classic 1989 film 'Do The Right Thing', the message of the song is indelible even if the controversial third verse where they call Elvis Presley and John Wayne racist could have easily overshadowed the inspirational, antiemetic message. Rolling Stone even named it as the 2nd best song of all-time in their 2021 list. But the song that really hit me was 'Burn Hollywood Burn' featuring a potentially slightly ironic pre-Hollywood career Ice Cube that maligns the stereotypes that Hollywood films have been bred through films and TV. And 'Welcome To The Terrordome' has some of the most exciting, frantic rapping I've heard from an album this old.

Sadly just cannot listen to Kanye any more, he makes me feel sick.

73. The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde 1992 5/5

 

Highlights: Passin' Me By, 4 Better Or 4 Worse, Officer

 

 

The Pharcyde were a Hip-Hop group from Los Angeles that consisted of rappers Fatlip, Imani, Bootie Brown and Slimkid3. The group are known for their sense of humour in their songs and the soul, jazz and funk-styled production from J-Swift and later J Dilla. As a four-piece, the group released two studio albums before fallings out led to Fatlip leaving the group. As a trio, they released one further album, 'Plan Rap' in 2000 before Slimkid3 also decided to leave and try a solo career. The two remaining members replaced their mates with new members Spaceboy Boogie X and Schmooche Cat to release one further album in their cycle of diminishing returns, 2004's 'Humboldt Beginnings'. Since then, tensions between the members have remained and at one point both the two remaining members were touring at the same time as a reteamed 'Faltip' and 'Slimkid3' with both duo's claiming that they were the true Pharcyde. However, three of the original members are now back together and performing under the name 'The Far Side', the only member not to rejoin is Bootie Brown now owns the trademark to 'The Pharcyde'. Bootie Brown can now more recently be found touring with Gorillaz after featuring on 'Dirty Harry' and this year's 'New Gold'.

 

I was so excited to get into this one as, in my opinion, Passin' Me By is one of the most legendary rap songs in history with Fatlip's verse also being one of the greatest verses of all-time. And as you can see by the 5/5 rating it does not disappoint. I've seen this album describes as the last great release of the 'golden-age' era of Hip-Hop before 'The Chronic' was released later in the year and changed the sound of Hip-Hop forever and while it didn't necessarily have a brilliant start with the otherwise fun 'Oh Shit' ending with a lazy transgender joke that we've heard 100 times before. Outside of that, this album us just fun. A throwback to a style that doesn't seem to really be in fashion any more, comedy rap. Lil Dicky obviously had a big hit not too long ago but he's purely parody and novelty while this is serious artists making funny art. The last thing to come close in the mainstream is probably Eminem's early stuff or Hotstylz' 'Lookin' Boy'. Very similar to that track is 'Ya Mama' which is just a full track of jokes using that tested format and '4 Better Or 4 Worse' which dedicated a whole verse to a prank call. It's not all just endless humour though, the aforementioned 'Passin' Me By' is the self-deprecating anthem for those unlucky in love and 'Officer' (which is sadly not available on Spotify) touches on racial profiling and feels like it must have been the inspiration for Chamillionaire's 'Ridin'.

 

I'm not sure how much of a positive endorsement it is at the moment but Kanye one named this as his favourite album of all-time.

72. Dr. Octagon - Dr. Octagonecologyst 1996 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Real Raw, Dr Octagon, Blue Flowers

 

 

Dr. Octagon is the alter-ego of someone who we have already heard from before in this list, Kool Keith. Keith is a member of Ultramagnetic MCs who's Critical Beatdown album was at #87. I already gave him a bit of an introduction in that post so I'll just recap that he's from the Bronx in New York, he's released 17 solo studio albums, has a range of personas he adopts in his music and is known for his abstract, surreal lyrics.

 

This is certainly one of the more peculiar entries in this list and I think you can tell if you're going to get anything out of this album at all based on your reaction to this summarisation of the Dr. Octagon character and the album from Wikipedia: "a homicidal, extra-terrestrial, time-traveling gynaecologist and surgeon [... who's] often abstract, absurd, and avant-garde, using surrealism, non-sequiturs, hallucinatory psychedelia, and horror and science-fiction imagery, as well as sexual, absurdist/surrealistic, and juvenile humor. The album's distinctive sound fuses genres such as psychedelic music, trip hop and electronic music". There are times where I think this album is a bit much in terms of crudeness. In particular with the 'A Visit to the Gynecologist' skit that's successful in it's attempts to be unnerving and disturbing. But there's also times (just like on Critical Beatdown) where the album goes in completely the opposite direction and goes shockingly high-brow and scientific and left me not having a clue with what was going on. He's is just a sample of some of the lyrics on 'Biology 101' : "Unstable atoms orbit distant clouds, nuclear having, excess neutrinos. All protons teeter, on the edges of nuclear stability or at drift lines under the stress. Some develop a halo, beo-radioactivity isotopes exotic, depending on their velocities and charges narrow momentum distribution forces directly reflected, electric, magnetic". If anyone can make sense of that, please let me know.

 

But what brings all this weirdness together into something that appeals to fans of Hip-Hop is Keith's skills on the mic. His flows feel effortless so even when he's spitting some of the most random bars you've ever heard it still sounds undeniably cool. Big shout out also has to go to Dan the Automator (of 'Handsome Boy Modeling School' fame)on production and KutMasta Kurt adding the scratches because this does not feel like an easy album to create the music for but the beats do just a good of a job into taking you into the bizarre world that Keith has constructed as the words he uses himself.

71. Queen Latifah - All Hail The Queen 1989 4.5/5

 

Highlights: The Pros, Ladies First, Come Into My House

 

 

Queen Latifah is a rapper, actress and TV host from New Jersey who's varied career has seen her earned her Grammny, Emmy and Golden Globe awards as well as an Oscar nomination for her role in 'Chicago'. Other notable achievements in her career include becoming the first rapper to perform at the Super Bowl in 1998, hosting her own talk show and the first female rapper to have a gold certified album (with 'Black Reign' in 1993). She has released 7 studio albums during her music career.

 

The albums we're looking at today is her 1989 debut, All Hail The Queen, and it's another great album from the 80s. I really enjoyed Queen Latifah's whole style across this. She has a fairy deep voice and while she usually sticks to the same fairly simple flow, it really works with her voice and it sounds effortlessly cool. Most of the 80's albums sound so different to how rappers sound now but I think her technique on here would work just as well over modern beats. However, what I really loved on this album was the features. Every guest verse was a banger with De La Soul, Daddy-O. Monie Love, KRS-One and even the man who produced most of the album, 45 King, providing a solid verse on one of the tracks. The one that really needs mentioning though is Monie Love on Ladies First. I always love it when rappers go back-and-forth on tracks and the interplay between the two is great with the English MC completely stealing the track with her slick and surprisingly fresh complex rhyming scheme.

 

The 80's trend of hip-house seems to have peaked with 'Come Into My House'. It's the first of the genre that I've included as part of my highlights.

70. Fugees - The Score 1996 4/5

 

Highlights: Ready Or Not, Killing Me Softly With His Song, Fu-Gee-La

 

 

Fugees are a Hip-Hop group formed in New Jersey that consisted of Lauryn Hill, Pras and Wyclef Jean. Despite only releasing two albums before their split, they remain one of the best-selling Hip-Hop acts of all-time which their unique style of Rap, Reggae, Pop and Dancehall pushing Alternative Hip-Hop into the mainstream with Bono even describing their impact as 'the hip hop Beatles'. Their debut album in 1994, Blunted On Reality' was a flop before the colossal success of their follow-up, 'The Score' made them one of the most iconic bands of recent times. Their political and afro-centric themes have been deemed influential in providing positive representations for Refugees in the media. Their name actually derives from a shortening of the word and Wyclef Jean himself was born in Haiti before moving to America.

 

I think that this is a massively overrated album and I'm willing to die on that hill. It's an album with great singles but not one that shines too much outside of those moments. A lot has been said about Pras being a weakness in the trio, which is fair, but I think that this only allows for the fact that Wyclef Jean is also a pretty average rapper to be overshadowed. Look, neither of them are bad rappers, they're both just fine and it's a fact that this album would be completely forgotten about and there's no way we would still be talking about it today if it was just the pair of them. The real star of the Fugees, and in turn, this album is Lauryn Hill. She completely steals the show whenever she opens her mouth. Not only is she by far the strongest rapper of the group, she also has a singing voice that stops you dead in your tracks and it's her rendition of two-sampled hooks that are the reason why this album had the success it did. I'm sorry to the Delfonics and Lori Lieberman but those songs belong to Lauryn now. Everything else on this album is just alright. I don't think we really needed Wyclef covering Bob Marley or one singular unfunny skit about fighting with a Chinese-restaurant owner, but even with these there's nothing rubbish that feels worthy of a skip but it's only the tracks where Lauryn dominates that I feel the need to go back and listen to again.

 

What a crazy time for Hip-Hop it must have been if we go back to the week that this album was released. This album was a slow-burn, debuting at #12 in the Billboard charts in the very same week where a little album called 'All Eyez On Me' was a new entry at the top for Tupac Shakur.

 

69. Ghostface Killah - Ironman 1996 5/5

 

Highlights: All That I Got Is You, 260, Daytona 500

 

 

This is the second appearance for Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah after Fish Scale (#131) and I don't think he's finished yet. Out of all his solo releases we're going all the way back to his first from 1996. Ironman was produced by bandmate RZA and is a little bit of an unofficial Wu-Tang album with Ghostface himself not even appearing on two of the tracks and Raekwon appearing on 9 of the albums tracks alongside other appearances of other Wu members. Both Raekwon and Cappadonna appear enough to get their name on the album art as featuring guests. Ghostface has since gone on to downplay this album and compare it negatively to his subsequent releases but I think this is deserving to be known as a stone-cold classic. I really enjoyed Fish Scale earlier on in this countdown when I listened to it, but found it incredibly dense and difficult to really discuss after only one listen but this album is slightly more simplistic lyrically (although still profound and exceptional written) that it was easier to have an instant connection. A lot of Ghostface's negative recollections of this album is duo to it being recorded at a time where he was struggling to leave the street life behind and he thinks this is reflected in the harsher styles of the music. However, my favourite moment of this was actually what is the most heartfelt moment. 'All That I Got Is You' was the lead-single and features a lovely chorus from Mary J. Blige. The track is a tribute to his mother and lovingly praises her for raising him despite the challenges that being poor raised for them. He can feel both the struggle and also the love through Ghostface's voice and is a very effective moment in the album. It's made even more amazing that it still connects when comparing it to 'Whip You With a Strap', one of my favourites from the Fishscale album that describes how he used get beatings from his mother.

 

This is not a short album (well over an hour when you include 'The Soul Controller', a song not available on Spotify or recent printings of the album due to a sample clearance issue in 2001) but there was never a moment where I was wanting it to end. I'd even say the run from 'Daytona 500' to the end is actually the strongest part which an endless supply of bangers. There's far fewer skits on here than his other release which is another advantage. If I were to be critical, I'd leave out Wildflower from this album. The song is pretty cringe (especially when you think about what the title suggests) and feels a bit out of place appearing on this album.

 

A bit of fun trivia regarding this album, the track credited as 'Box In Hand' is actually called 'Wu Will Survive' and the reason it is now credited under the other title is due to an error in printing after the original song titled 'Box In Hand' was swapped out of the track-listing after the sleeves for the album had already been printed.

68. Juvenile - 400 Degreez 1998 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Gone Ride With Me, Ghetto Children, 400 Degreez

 

 

Juvenile is a rapper from New Orleans, Louisiana who is best known for being one of the leading artists for Cash Money Records and for being a member of the label's super-group 'Hot Boys' alongside B.G., Turk and Lil Wayne. He earned himself a Billboard #1 single in 2004 with 'Slow Motion' featuring a posthumous verse from Soulja Slim. He has released 12 solo studio albums between 1995-2014 alongside 3 albums as a member of Hot Boys and a further 3 collaborative albums with other artists. Surprisingly for an artist that has both a #1 single and album in America, he has never charted in the U.K. The album we're looking at today is '400 Degreez'. This was his 3rd album and completely helped him blow into the mainstream earning a 4x platinum certification in 2000 and becoming the best-selling Hip-Hop/R&B album in 1999.

 

I think before today I'd honestly not heard any song by Juvenile before which seems crazy when I read about how much of a legacy this album has. The official Pitchfork review for this album is '9.4' which is wild when you consider how conservative they usually are with their scoring. It's the best-selling album ever on Cash Money Records which is insane when you think of just how big 'Tha Carter' albums have been for Wayne. P Diddy apparently once told Juvenile that every song on this album should be a single and listening to it now, it's hard to disagree. Juvenile's flow has instantly became one of my favourites. It sounds like the ideal that every up-and-comer tries to bite, Polo G, Juice WRLD, Lil Baby, Travis Scott, every rapper out now that tries to sound melodic and incorporate a sing-song style in their flow come from this. He absolutely obliterates every hook on this album. But it's not just Juvenile that makes an impact. This album is packed from start to finish with Cash Money influence, all his 'Hot Boys' mates make multiple appearances, including a fresh-faced Lil Wayne coining the term 'drop it like it's hot' but we also hear a lot of Birdman and Slim (the two brothers who founded the label), Papa Reu and most importantly Mannie Fresh who drops a couple of verses alongside producing the entirety of the album. And I think it's important to touch on Mannie's production as this album would not have anywhere near the same effect if it wasn't for his surprisingly varied and always interesting and bouncy beats

 

I think I may be being slightly harsh by only awarding this a 4.5. I just think that, at 68 minutes, the album is unnecessarily long with two skits that added nothing and including 3 versions of the same song (Ha solo, Ha Hot Boys Remix and Ha Jay-Z Remix) is far too self-indulgent. If he would have picked one version of 'Ha' and cut the skits then this would have been near perfect.

67. Geto Boys - We Can't Be Stopped 1991 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Mind Playing Tricks On Me, Fuck A War, Ain't With Being Broke

 

 

Geto Boys were a hip-hip trio from Houston, Texas. Originally called 'Ghetto Boys', the group was founded by MCs Raheem, The Sire Jukebox and Sir Rap-A-Lot. After Raheem and Sir... left they were replaced by DJ Ready Red, Prince Johnny C and Bushwick Bill. After releasing a debut album too little success, the group disbanded and was eventually resurrected with the group's classic line-up (and the line-up for the album we look at today), Bushwick Bill, Scarface and Willie D. The release of a remix album (1990's self titled release) proved to be so controversial that their label (Def American Recordings) had to switch distributors from Geffon Records to Warner Bros. Records after the original distributors refused to release it. Throughout their various line-ups, the group has released 7 studio albums between 1988-2005 and have been credited as being one of the most important acts in Southern Rap history. The member Bushwick Bill was born in Jamaica and was 3'8" in height so very unorthodox style for a hardcore gangsta rapper.

 

The album we're looking at today is considered their peak popularity and has a pretty wild album cover. The artwork shows the aftermath of Bushwick Bill in hospital after he was shot in his eye by his then-girlfriend after an argument. This album is a pretty mixed-bag of an album. A weird blend of hardcore gangsta rap (Another N****r in the Morgue), horror-core (Chucky, Mind Playing Tricks On Me), explicit-sex jams (The Other Level, Quickie), political anti-war messages (Fuck A War) and comedy rap (I'm Not A Gentlemen, Trophy), this album is all over the place lyrically and topic-wise and after the first couple of tracks I was really unsure. It starts of well with all 3 MCs coming together on 'We Can't Be Stopped' to discuss the controversy surrounding their labels and the chemistry between the three is electric. However, too much of this album is dedicated to solo tracks (each MC has 3 solo tracks each) and this is where it gets a bit hit-and-miss. When they all rap together, it's captivating but when they go solo, they start to have a few misses. It's quite clear that (just like with the Fugees), one of the three is a much stronger MC than the others. Scarface is extraordinary, he feels like he's from 20 years after the other two. Willie D gets a little lost (although he ends the album with Trophy which is probably his best moment) and Bushwick Bill sounds very Ice Cube. It feels like he's going to bust into 'Straight Outta Compton' at any given moment. His style does sound a little stuck in the 80s but it really works when we get to 'Fuck A War'. This track is urgent, angry and highly critical of George H. W. Bush and every word still hits hard 30 years later.

 

But the absolute stand-out track and the one that makes the whole album worth the listen is 'Mind Playing Tricks On Me'. The song is a haunting look at the paranoia and PTSD that can come out of the trauma of the gangsta lifestyle and feels especially relevant when you consider how much gansgta rap was glamorising the topic. There's no surprise why this became their biggest hit and one of the most referenced songs in rap. OutKast, Biggie, The Game, Clipse and The Insane Clown Posse are just some of the artists who have sampled or covered the song and Kid Cudi has said that he always wanted to make his own version of this song and that it was the inspiration behind his most-iconic single 'Day N Nite'. It just shows how little critical reception really means as Rolling Stone have ranked this album as the 67th best Hip-Hop album of all-time and this single in particular as the 5th greatest Hip-Hop and the 192nd greatest overall song ever despite only awarding the album 2/5 when it was first released.

 

As yes, on the track 'Chuckie', Bushwick Bill really is rapping from the POV of the doll from Child's Play.

66. Three 6 Mafia - Mystic Stylez 1995 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Da Summer, Fuckin' With Dis Click, Big Bizness

 

 

Three 6 Mafia are a Hip-Hop group from Memphis, Tennesse that consists of DJ Paul, Juicy J, Gangsta Boo, Crunchy Black and the two late MCs Lord Infamous and Koopsta Knicca. Originally formed by DJ Paul and Lord Infamous when they were both still in school under the name 'Da Serial Killaz', the two eventually met Juicy J and changed their name to 'The Backyard Posse' before finally settling on Three 6 Mafia and introducing the new members. In 1994 they released their first mixtape 'Smoked Out, Loced Out' before realising their debut album the folowing year. It was not until the 2000's until the group started to find commercial success but their 1995 debut remains highly influential. They have released 9 studio albums with their most recent being all the way back in 2008. Juicy J in particular has also found success as a solo artist, featuring on Katy Perry's #1 single Dark Horse in 2014. However, the group are best known for their historic win at the 2006 Academy Awards for their single 'It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp' from the film Hustle & Flow.

 

We're going all the way back to their commercially-unsuccessful, independently released debut album 'Mystic Stylez' for today's review. Produced fully by DJ Paul and Juicy J, this is often regarded as a milestone in Southern Hip-Hip and an introduction to both crunk and potentially horrorcore music. This is an incredibly violent album, the lyrics tell countless tales of murder, drugs, and Satanism and it's all made all the more effective by the menacing and sparse beats that accentuate the dark, murky vibe. Even the diss track on the album (Live by Yo Rep) is not much about criticising Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, it's more about just stating, in graphic detail, the many ways they plan on murdering the opposing band members. This album is so unrelenting that the few moments of (comparative) levity give you full on whiplash. The album ends with potentially its worst track. I don't know why every gansta rapper(s) feels that they need a graphic sex-jam but Three 6 are no expectation and we get the completely out-of-place 'Porno Movie'. However, the other moment where it departs from it's grim nature was actually the stand-out track, Da Summer. Sampling Rick James, the song is a relaxing, chill ode to smoking some weed with your mates and it's the perfect tonic to the rest of the album and features a perfect laid-back hook.

 

It's worth pointing out that DJ Paul was still a teenager when this was released and J was only a couple years older so to produce an album that sounds as good as this is incredibly impressive. Gangsta Boo was only 15 when they recorded it too and she already sounded like one of the greatest female MCs based just off this album alone.

65. De La Soul - Buhloone Mindstate 1993 4.5/5

 

Highlights: Ego Trippin' (Part Two), Area, In The Woods

 

 

When we last saw De La Soul in this countdown (De La Soul Is Dead, #94), I wasn't a big fan of the album but said that I'm sure that I would have enjoyed pretty much any of their other projects more and now we've moved of their their follow-up (and third overall), Buhloone Mindstate, I can confirm that I did enjoy this album a lot more. My main issue with DLSID is that it was too long and with far too many skits bloating the run-time and for this album they thankfully ditched that ideal and made a nice, brisk 40-odd minute album with only two skits. As I mentioned, DLSID was a concept album and was about shredding their image as hippies by any means possible that led to an unconventional release but this feels like a return to sounding like a proper album and just sits so much better on the ears. They feel like they embraced fun-sounding music again which tracks like En Focus and Area just being a blast to listen to without any obvious message or meaning. All pretence of a concept is finally lost by the albums closer 'Stone Age' features Biz Markie beatboxing and the rhymes becoming so abstract that I barely understand what any line of the track is supposed to mean. There are still some experimental moments on the album, 'I Be Blowin' is a 5 minute instrumental jazz sax solo by Maceo Parker where there's no vocalisation at all and 'Long Island Wildin' features two Japanese MCs (SDP and Takagi Kan) spitting some short verses in their native tongue. They are both quite novel moments but neither really stood out to me in a huge way.

 

There are some slightly more serious moments on this album and they usually relate to the title of the album. If you were wondering what it means 'buhloone' is just a phonetic way of spelling 'balloon' and the repeated mantra in the album's intro (It might blow up, but it won’t go pop) helps explain that this refers to the band themselves promising that no matter what success they achieve, they will never sell out. This concept is explored most overtly in 'Patti Dooke' where they use the actress 'Patty Duke' as an example of white exploitation in the media by discussing the dance that shared her name that became popular in the black community in the 1980s. The topic is then touched on again in the track that most people consider to be the centre-piece of the album, I Am I Be. I'll let their own words speak for themselves, on the track Posdnous spits "I am Posdnous, I be the new generation of slaves here to make papes to buy a record exec rakes, The pile of revenue I create. But I guess I don't get a cut cuz my rent's a month late".

 

De La Soul music is largely absent from streaming services and this is no exception.

64. 50 Cent - Get Rich Or Die Tryin' 2003 5/5

 

Highlights: P.I.M.P., In Da Club, Many Men (Wish Death)

 

 

50 Cent is a rapper and actor from New York who is best-known for being the most successful artist signed by Eminem's Shady Records and for being a member of the Hip-Hop group G-Unit. 50 Cent has released 5 studio albums with his most recent, Animal Ambition, dropping in 2014 as his only release not through Shady Records. If you know one thing about 50 Cent, it is probably that in 2000, he has shot 9 times (in his face, chest, both legs, hand, arm and hip) whist in a car outside his house and miraculously lived to tell the tale. But what you may not know is that this incident ended up ruining his first chance at stardom. Before it happened, he was signed to Columbia Records and had recorded an album, Power of the Dollar' that was intended to be his debut, However, the shooting led to the album being repeatedly pushed back and eventually cancelled. 50 then recorded a bunch of mixtapes, releasing 4 alone in 2002, before one of them 'Guess Who's Back?' reached the attention of Eminem who signed him and history was made. 50 was one of the most successful artists of the 2000's decade but in 2007 he had a public war with Kanye West who decided to release his album on the same day as 50's. 50 famously said that if Kanye's album sold more than his then he would never release another album again and despite both albums opening to huge sales (it was only the second time in Billboard history that two albums had sold over 600k in the same week), it was Kanye who ended up victorious. While 50 did continue to release albums, this was seen as a major turning point in the sound of Hip-Hop and his gangsta style has never quite been as popular again since.

 

When it comes to 50 Cent, there is only really one album that needs to be mentioned. His debut, 'Get Rich Or Die Tryin' has established itself as one of the most enduring albums of our times and its easy to see why when you listen to it. There's very few albums where you can say that every individual track could have been a hit-single but this is definitely one of them. You can't argue with the choices, In Da Club is certainly in contention to be the definitive club track, but even the Ja Rule diss included on this album sounds like it was a potentially worldwide smash. A huge commercial success, this was the best selling album of 2003 and has been certified 9x platinum in the US. I was too young to really be aware of the hype surrounding this album's release but it's worth noting that even at 5 I was aware of at least 5 of the tracks on this album that can only speak to its impact. This was the most hyped debut album in rap since the early 90's when it was first being promoted in 2003 so it's remarkable that it someone how not just lived up to the hype, but surpassed it by some distance.

 

This album was executively produced by Dr. Dre & Eminem and features numerous different producers across the whole album but still manages to sound unbelievably cohesive. It's not unfair to say that the sound of this album was revolutionary in Hip-Hip at the time. No-one before (and very potentially no-one since) had blended the gangsta and R&B styles as well as this. It's impressive how 50 managed to build-up his hardcore persona with lyrics detailing his life as a dealer in deliciously violent detail while still sounding so commercial and pop. Gangsta rap had been popular since N.W.A. but it was never dominating radio and the charts or defining what pop music was until 50 Cent. I'd compare this album's impact on Hip-Hop as quite similar to Quentin Tarantino's impact on cinema when he made Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. He created his own niche and it worked so well that suddenly everyone wanted to release songs where they act like a G and have a big, club-ready hook over a R&B beat. But no-one does it quite like 50 did here (including 50 Cent with his subsequent releases) and this will forever remain as the prototype of the sound. This album still sounds incredibly fresh. Even if the specific-genre has died out, this album has defied the trend and remains absolutely timeless.

63. Black Star - Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star 1998 5/5

 

Highlights: Twice Inna Lifetime, Hater Players, Astronomy (8th Light)

 

 

As the title suggests, Black Star are a rap-duo consisting of MCs Mos Def (now known as Yasiin Bey) and Talib Kweli. We've already seen from Bey with his 1999 album 'Black On Both Sides' appearing at #103 so I'll give a bit of an introduction to Talib Kweli. Kweli is a rapper from New York who, despite being best known for his work with Bey, has also had a successful solo career, releasing 8 solo studio albums between 2002-2017. I know him best for his fun feature on fan-favourite 'Get Em High' from Kanye's debut album The College Dropout. The duo's name of Black Star is a reference to the Black Star Line which is a shipping line formed by Marcus Garvey. They have released two studio albums with their long-awaited sophomore album, No Fear Of Time, being released this year. However, it only available through podcasting network Luminary who host their podcast with Dave Chappelle.

 

If you are to read my comments on the Mos Def solo album, you will know that I loved it and felt that the only moments of weakness was when he tried to expand outside of rap and incorporate some singing or more vocally-spacious songs and I'm happy to report that there is none of that in this album. This is just pure Hip-Hop from two of the most electrifying, engaging MCs around. You can tell that this is from two artists who really really are students of the game and care about their craft and, whatever the topic of the song, they want their verses to be remembered. Both rappers are known for their activism and there's plenty here for people who want tales that examine black culture and try to inspire positive change but there's also a fun-side. Take 'Children's Story' for example. This is a remake of the stand-out track of the same name from Slick Rick's album that we looked at before but instead of focusing a young criminal that gets in over his head, it focuses on a wack MC/producer who samples classic hits to score easy big pop-crossover hits in what seems like a shot at P. Diddy. The album closes with one of the all-timer posse-cuts in 'Twice Inna Lifetime'. The track features Jane Doe, Wordsworth & Punchline and is just a fun cypher-like track where each rapper has some run dropping some hard punchlines.

 

This is the complete opposite to the 50 Cent album that we looked at yesterday in the sense that the greatness of 'Get Rich Or Die Tryin' is completely style over substance, whereas this album is more in the substance over style boat but no effective or amazing. When you think of the late 90's era, you probably think of Diddy's overblown production but Black Star wanted to let the lyrics do the talking and while the beats aren't flashy they are perfect for what this album is trying to achieve. And the true star of the album is the chemistry between the Bey and Kweli. Both were working on solo projects that they intended to be their debut before working with each other on the original 'Soundbombing' and releasing how well their sounds work together. Their both great on their own but after hearing this you feel like they were destined to find each other. This album just sounds right. I think it would be the perfect introduction of conscience rap to someone who says they don't like rap music.

62. MF Doom - Operation: Doomsday 1999 4.5/5

 

Highlights: The Finest, Doomsday, Who You Think I Am?

 

 

MF Doom is a rapper who was born in London but moved to New York as a young child. We have already seen Doom before as a member of KMD who's album 'Mr. Hood' was at #198. Despite living in America for most of his life, Doom never became an American citizen and was denied re-entry to the country after an international tour in 2010. After this, he relocated back to London where he lived until his untimely death in 2020 at the age of 49. MF Doom was the most famous, but still only one of many personas he adapted for his releases and is based on the Fantastic Four villain 'Doctor Doom'. When rapping under this name, Doom took on the persona of a supervillain and his albums feature frequent skits using sampled from old Marvel TV shows telling his story. As a solo artist, Doom released 6 studio albums but his most celebrated release was his collaboration with producer Madlib as the super-group 'Madvillain'.

 

This was Doom’s first solo studio album and was released 8 years after KMD had released their only album (until their cancelled 2nd album was eventually released in 2000) and during this time Doom had apparently been homeless for a few years. But after gaining some hype from attending freestyle events In 1997 with makeshift masks covering his identity, Doom was finally rediscovered and released this album through Fondle ‘Em Records. If you want word to sum up this album it will be raw. He produced all of this album himself and finds himself rapping over jazz, soul and cartoon samples. It’s pretty unique and something that can only come from one mind. This is far from the sort of music that could ever come from a committee. The uniqueness can be mostly summed up by one track, ‘Hey!’ that sees him laying his verses over the Scooby-Doo theme tune with Scoob himself providing the adlibs. There are moments where this album didn’t work for me: I found the instrumental on ‘Rhymes Like Dimes’ pretty poor and it ruined my enjoyment of his tight flows and while Tick, Tick... is an interesting concept with the everchanging tempo, it ends up being quite annoying to listen to but you can’t help but love the sheer creativity and experimentation this album provides. And Doom himself always sounds incredible. Not in terms of production, as the album is very lo-fi and unpolished and the recordings are quite scrappy but his flows and syllable-delivery is immaculate. He fits in rhymes that you feel no-one could have achieved.

 

The skits are plentiful and they are all based on sampled of old cartoons. As far as skits go, they're not that annoying and they're pretty vital in setting up that the whole concept of MF Doom is so I'd say they're worth listening to.

61. Scarface - The Diary 1994 5/5

 

Highlights: Hand Of The Dead Body, I Seen A Man Die, No Tears

 

 

Scarface is a rapper from Houston, Texas who rose to province as a member of Geto Boys who's album I only listened to on Sunday (We Can't Be Stopped, #67) as part of this countdown. As a solo artist, Scarface has released 11 studio albums with the final of these being released in 2015. I said last week that Scarface was by far the strongest rapper in the group so it's no surprise that he is the one who has his own appearance in this list. Scarface is highly-regarded in Hip-Hop with The Source Magazine naming him the 16th best lyricist of all-time. Too show how respected he is, on his 2002 album 'The Firm', he managed to have features from both Jay-Z & Nas despite the pair having one of of rap's biggest beefs at the time.

 

On the Geto Boys album, I thought that Scarface sounded like he was from the future compared to his band-mates. His flows and schemes sounded so fresh for a 1991 album so I had high expectations going into this. 'The Diary' is his third solo album after he made his Geto Boys debut but listening to this. I think his technique had become much more basic and simple and sounds much more like what you associate with 90s rappers. I was a bit disappointed for the first few tracks but as it progressed, I started to really dig it as it suited the blunt, direct depictions of the violence and issues of gangsta life that was the album's theme. He also throws in some lovely turn of phrases that the simplistic flows helps highlight ("Imagine peace on this Earth when there's no grief. Imagine grief on this Earth when there's no peace", "A tisket a tasket, a n***a got his ass kicked. Shot in the face by a cop, closed casket"). The whole album is just subtly affecting without the need to be show-offy. On 'Hand Of The Dead Body', my favourite track on the album and a collaboration with Ice Cube where they point out the hypocrisy of claiming rap music causing violence and not TV and film made by white artists, Scarface's sounds very Tupac. So much so that if you told me it was Tupac rapping beforehand, I would have believed you.

 

The track that most would say is the highlight though is 'I Seen A Man Die' and it's not difficult to see why. The track is a sombre tale of a young man who is released from prison and wants to get his life back on track but the streets won't let him and he gets killed by his old enemies. Scarface is a brilliant story-teller and the third verse where he raps about the young protagonist dying in hospital thinking about his regrets is one that really makes you start to consider your own life. It's rightly considered to be a legendary song in Hip-Hop and it you can't help but to compare it to the signature song from the Geto Boys album 'Mind Playing Tricks On Me'. And Scarface must have had this song on his mind too because he treats us with a sequel to that very track. It might not capture the same magic of the original but it's still nonetheless a worthy follow-up. It does keep the same sense of paranoia of the original but with a lighter, more-optimistic tone. 'Goin' Down' is a pretty interesting track too. The chorus borrows the melody from Lena's '99 Luftballons' which is an inspired choice and probably felt like much more of a novelty before recent times where interpolations seems to appear on every song.

 

I've awarded this a 5/5 but it's a light 5/5 if that makes sense. For most of the album I was thinking this was another solid 4.5 but once I got to the end I realised that there was not even one track that I felt was noticeably weaker than the rest. There was a couple that stood-out as being really strong but everything else on the album was still incredibly consistently strong.

60. Kendrick Lamar - Damn. 2017 5/5

 

Highlights: Humble, DNA, Element

 

 

Kendrick Lamar is a rapper from Compton, California who is regarded by most to be the greatest rapper alive and has been named by artists as varied as Dua Lipa, Roddy Ricch, Christine & The Queens and David Bowie has being an influence. Kendrick is a founding member of the rap super-group 'Black Hippy' alongside ScHoolboy Q, Ab-Soul and Jay Rock. He made history at the Pulitzer Awards in 2018, with his album 'Damn.' becoming the first non-classical nor jazz album to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Other achievements for Kendrick include being awarded 14 Grammys, 25 BET Hip-Hop awards and being presented with the key to the city of his hometown Compton. Kendrick has released 5 studio albums with his most recent being released earlier this year. Each of his albums have been certified platinum or above in the US.

 

Damn is Kendrick's fourth album and is his best-selling and most commercial effort and gained him what is (incredibly) his only Billboard #1 as a lead artist with 'Humble'. But it seems to be a popular 'cool' opinion online to call this his worst album because it is his most accessible and poppiest album which I think is ridiculous. This is an absolute masterpiece of an album with the poppier moments (Humble, Love, Loyalty) often being amongst the highlights. And for a so called 'commercial album' this is packed with plenty of incredibly dense, complex concepts and layered rhymes that it would take anyone multiple listens to catch half of them. I love GKMC and TPAB but this is THE Kendrick album for me. It's more concise, more comprehendible and more straight-forward than his previous releases but without sacrificing any of the complexity or sharpness of his ideas or raps.

 

And this album has two of the Kendrick's all-time best songs. 'Humble' is everything you could want in a lead single. A massive hook that captures the world's attention right from the off and verses full of quotable that ensure you want to keep going back for more. But even more interesting is 'DNA'. I think this is one of the best performances in Hip-Hop history. He attacks the song with such ferocity that listening to it feels like taking a pure adrenaline shot. The track has lost none of its ability to hype me up even after 5 years of listening to it. It has the best beat-switch of any song and the Fox News sample is pure genius. 'XXX' feels like a song that shouldn't work with U2 sounding like such a random collaboration but Kendrick is such a master of the craft that he knows exactly how Bono can fit in to rap. The album then concludes with 'Duckworth' which I'm always blown away with its storytelling every time I hear it. I won't spoil it in case anyone has been living under a rock and never listened to this album but the song focuses about an incredible coincidence that led to his career and I've always felt you could make a great movie based on the song.

 

I found it very difficult to write about this album. I've listened to it so many times that I think I'm far too familiar to really assess this critically.

I haven't listened to 'Section.80' but I do think 'DAMN.' is the weakest of the 4 albums since then - though that just speaks to the other 3 being basically masterpieces. 'DAMN.' just feels a little bit less "important" and has more tracks that are a little disposable but most of it is still great (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).

 

It goes 'good kid, m.A.A.d city' > 'To Pimp A Butterfly' > 'Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers' > 'DAMN.' for me out of the ones I've heard.