P&B's Top 30 Hip Hop Albums Of All Time

[Seymour Skinner]

I have one glaring omission that probably would have made my top 5. Stumbled upon it last night and was absolutely gutted. It's a classic so will still likely be high on this list regardless.

name it man

[GingerSaint]

name it man

Liquid Swords. Total blank spot in my mind.

[Seymour Skinner]

Liquid Swords. Total blank spot in my mind.

I managed to get 1 wu tang album in there. It wasn't Liquid Swords though, I went for Bobby Digital in Stereo

[Colin M]

27 =

Pete Rock & CL Smooth

Mecca And The Soul Brother

(1992)

Our countdown begins with a duo from "money earnin'" Mount Vernon, NYC, and one of Hip Hop's most eagerly anticipated debuts, and most enduring records of its golden era. Their 1991 "All Souled Out" EP, and Pete's production and remix work for the likes of Heavy D and Public Enemy had the rap community on tenterhooks for the release of their first album, and the masterpiece they delivered remains a favourite for devotees of the genre.

Friends since school, and destined like so many others to fall out, bicker in public and reunite over and over, the musical chemistry between Pete's sample heavy production and CL's voice is what makes this album hang together so readily. The booming beats and trademark horns that permeate opener "Return Of The Mecca" provide the perfect bedrock for Smooth's delivery and set the tone for the rest of the album. This is East Coast hip hop supreme - a notable peak of the sound delivered at a time where the West Coast style was about to dominate the airwaves.

The tracks here are stunning - the influence of the Bomb Squad on Pete is clear, as clipped funk phrases sit atop beats that seem designed to be blasted out of jeeps with industrial size sound systems. Yet it's an amazing headphone listen too, an opportunity to marvel at how much detail could be crammed in with what now seems like ancient technology. "For Pete's Sake" provides a classic example of the imagination of a skilled yet imaginative artist and technician pushing the EMU-SP1200 to its absolute limits. The clumsy verse he delivers is all part of the charm, never detracting from the captivating whole.

The album is packed with highlights - tracks such as "Ghettos Of The Mind" and "Anger In The Nation" show CL with a social conscience, mirroring his partner's old head on young shoulders, while the guitar line on "Can't Front On Me" and vocal loop on "Straighten It Out" showed it wasn't all about those ubiquitous horn samples. The centre piece and undoubted jewel in this crown though, is the eternal hip hop anthem "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y)", a dedication to their recently passed friend, but serving as a nostalgic celebration of life, and surely the greatest track to feature almost an entire verse where the rapper talks about his favourite aunts and uncles. It's the epitome of their sound and of the album - where street friendly beats met soulful hooks, a perfect marriage of Pete's production genius and CL's butter smooth voice.

[Seymour Skinner]

Bit of an odd number to start at but I'll take it

Edit: I'm a retard, that's the number of points it has

Edit edit: either way I've got something horribly wrong

[Colin M]

Should point out that we've got 31 albums to get through - the points mean some positions are tied, so we'll have 5 tied at 27th position in no particular order (basically the order in which I can think of stuff to say about them )

[Colin M]

27 =

Snoop Doggy Dogg

Doggystyle

(1993)

From one eagerly awaited debut to another, and perhaps the most highly anticipated first album that hip hop has ever seen. In 1993, Calvin Broadus was set for global stardom, yet still a million miles away from Starsky and Hutch, Moneysupermarket.com, patronage of Celtic FC and changing from a dog to a rastafarian lion. Back then the anticipation was all about his star turn 18 months earlier on Dr Dre's "The Chronic", where the rap world sat up and took notice of a new talent on the block who seemed somehow different to the rest of them. That partnership was thoroughly cemented on Snoop's addictive yet controversial debut.

It was that languid style that heralded the arrival of the definitive West Coast sound as the smoothed out G-funk beats - here was a sign that they did things different out in Cali. The voice wasn't entirely without precedence, Snoop's closest stylistic predecessor was perhaps the great Slick Rick, who was effectively covered here on "Lodi Dodi", and shares an occasional almost effeminate touch to his tone. Further tales of his way of life on tracks like "Gin and Juice" were aural honey to the ears, Snoop's casual delivery intertwining deliciously with Dre's high pitched synth hooks.

As an album Doggystyle also served as a further platform for the whole Death Row stable - there are star turns most notably for Snoop's posse The Dogg Pound, Lady of Rage and RBX on classic tracks such as "Serial Killa" and the, erm, crudely titled "For All My Niggaz & Bitches". Snoop was undoubtedly the leader of the pack of a new breed of West Coast performers ready for their turn in the spotlight. The magnificent "Murder Was The Case" added exceptional (and real) drama to the mix, perhaps remaining a career highlight.

Doggystyle was met with mixed reviews - rap's ongoing issues with mysogyny and sexism often don't sit well to say the least, and a cursory glance at the track names alone give a little insight into some of the attitude within. Rap fans didn't care and bought the album in droves, the opportunity to hear hip hop's great new talent atop its super producer's new dominant style too significant to miss. Snoop has now had a long and colourful career, but has probably never sounded as utterly vital as he did on his debut statement to the world.

[Seymour Skinner]

How many entries did you get for this OP?

[Dosser-fae-the-shire]

I managed to get 1 wu tang album in there. It wasn't Liquid Swords though, I went for Bobby Digital in Stereo

The f**k??

[Seymour Skinner]

The f**k??

I expected a response like that

I just really, really, like it

[Colin M]

27 =

Mantronix

The Album

(1985)

There's a conventional view that hip hop and electro were one and the same in the early 80s, only to split into two disparate entities, one path navigated and led via Run DMC, the other ultimately leading to the advent of acid house and techno. While the reality will certainly be far more complicated than that, it's easy to see Mantronix as sitting firmly at that fork in the road. The debut album of the wonderfully named Kurtis Mantronik and his rhyming partner MC Tee gathered their run of then astonishingly fresh sounding 12" singles together into a statement that is still cited as influential today and remains a head spinning listen.

Mantronix as influence on music since is regularly stated - it's almost obligatory for an Autechre interview or feature to mention them, and they're cited constantly within the electronic music sphere. What we see as "proper" hip hop also still owes a huge debt though, and the Mantronix DNA runs through several strains of the genre, from E-40 to the production of Mannie Fresh, or even Timbaland's production at its most electronic. The use of the TB-303 here on "Bassline" invents acid hip hop before acid was even a thing, an intriguing concept viewed through the prism of hindsight. The edits of the "Mega-Mix" provide an early blueprint for the cut and paste aesthetic of DJ Shadow or Cut Chemist, albeit with a robot soul and dub friendly topping.

If there's any sense of the music here feeling dated, it is most likely in the pre-Rakim delivery of MC Tee - perhaps adding a whiff of nostalgia to listening to it today, yet as a contemporary record Tee's delivery is hardly the worst, and the vocals suits the skeletal yet shapeshifting arrangements. They often end up feeling as intertwined in the flow as the stabs of synth or vocoder additions ("Needle To The Groove" still sounds stunning to these ears) and it's hard to imagine these tracks serving as mere fodder for a more dominant modern ego driven rapper.

The future for Mantronix was an ever shifting trip through genre, other hip hop classics still to be delivered were complimented with trips into house and other forms of contemporary dance music. "The Album" though is still a dizzying experience and a reminder of a road less travelled - hip hop as a futurist music. It's striking now nearly 30 years later how many of the standard hip hop buzzwords and catchphrases don't apply to "The Album"; no focus on grit, no worry about "the realness", and a musical palette entirely sourced from the cutting edge technology of the time, before the sound of the genre came to be defined and almost completely underpinned by samples of (initially quite specific) "music of old". Instead, and as their name suggests, Mantronix applied a Kraftwerkian fusion of man and machine to produce a blinding set of electronic hip hop experiments, that could still rock the clubs and the lino-wielding breakdancing kids' ghetto blasters alike.

[Colin M]

How many entries did you get for this OP?

Think it was only about 20 - there were a good bit over 100 albums nominated though!

[Colin M]

27 =

Kanye West

Yeezus

(2013)

It's easy to throw all manner of superlatives at Kanye's as it's an astonishing artistic achievement, an almost unique example of a global pop music megastar throwing caution to the wind and harnessing the talents of a cast of many to make a cohesive, thrilling, cutting edge, noisy yet hook-filled statement. It's even easier to just say it like it is - Yeezus sounds fucking brilliant.

Hip hop is a genre largely defined by men going on and on and on about how great they are - at rapping itself, sex, attaining wealth, violence and occasionally video games. With that in mind, it's sometimes quite astonishing that Kanye's monstrous ego so easily outshines them all. More than any other hip hop artist though, West wears his heart on his sleeve. The irreverent sampling of Nina Simone on the wonderful "Blood On The Leaves" underpins tales of relationship betrayal and abortion, delivered in Kanye's unique style. He's on point and sounding hungry for the whole album, and it's hard not to see it as an exhilarating window into his psyche.

A question raises it's head - is it even hip hop? The answer in two parts is simple; who cares when it sounds this good? Perhaps it's easier to push the boat out when you're a megastar, but the boldness of making an album destined to be snapped up by millions and filling it with industrial beats, bleeps and siren synths, and distortion all over the place speaks for itself. Music today needs Kanye. And there's the second part of the answer; Hip hop should sound like this. Far from suggesting a genre that lost its potency, Yeezus is deeply in the tradition of much of the best hip hop, absorbing influence and swallowing sounds from other styles and genres into itself, emerging as a sharp and coherent wave of energy.

It's only ten tracks long yet packed with highlights. "New Slaves" is as engaging an explosion of anger as anything from Death Certificate or The Devil Made Me Do It. "Hold My Liquor" is a slow burning gem, underpinned by buzzing synth and topped with psychedelic guitar. Closer "Bound 2" recalls Kanye's early trademark style of sampling soul loops, a style that seems a lifetime ago the rest of the time. "Black Skinhead" is an unholy trinity of industrial music, punk and hip hop. Yeezus was a breath of fresh air for a mainstream artist in 2013, and love him or hate him, Kanye can't be ignored.

[GingerSaint]

I didn't have this album on my top 10 but I have fallen in love with Kanye (again) recently. His sound grabs the attention of hip hop lovers but also more mainstream Pop and R&B listeners. He is utterly insane and doesn't give a f**k about anyone and that brutal honesty in his music really appeals to me. Blood On The Leaves is brilliant.

Is anyone re-thinking their top 10 after the first few on the list? I know I am.

[Seymour Skinner]

I didn't have this album on my top 10 but I have fallen in love with Kanye (again) recently. His sound grabs the attention of hip hop lovers but also more mainstream Pop and R&B listeners. He is utterly insane and doesn't give a f**k about anyone and that brutal honesty in his music really appeals to me. Blood On The Leaves is brilliant.

Is anyone re-thinking their top 10 after the first few on the list? I know I am.

Kanye is the Goat hip hop artist IMO, all 6 of his albums could be considered classics, no one else has his consistency.

[GingerSaint]

Kanye is the Goat hip hop artist IMO, all 6 of his albums could be considered classics, no one else has his consistency.

A Tribe Called Quest had 3 legendary albums and, similar to Kanye, each one was better than it's predecessor (IMO). 2pac's first 5 albums were also pretty amazing for me and can we really count all his posthumous stuff against him?

But you're right, Kanye doesn't really have a bad album at all.

[Colin M]

27 =

Jay-Z

Reasonable Doubt

(1996)

Music is littered with stories of rags to riches style success, artists payin' dues and working the underground scene waiting for the right break. Hip Hop is no exception. In 1996, Jay-Z's debut album emerged, not from nowhere, but from a long period of working hard to get ahead, selling tapes from his car, and the occasional turn on other artists' records (most notably the legendary Big Daddy Kane), supplemented by his other hustling activities to "pay the rent". To mere mortals, the release of as mature an album as Reasonable Doubt would have felt like the end of something. To the young Jigga, it was just the beginning of his ultimate aim of global domination.

Jay-Z's worldview on Reasonable Doubt sets the tone for much of his career - the subject matter here is largely a combination of street rap imagery aligned with mafioso style empire-building schtick. Self-proclaimed "reminiscence of a young Bobby De Niro" and ethos defined by "never prayed to God I prayed to Gotti", along with the (probably unneccessary) Scarface parodying skits, paint Jay-Z as the central character in a Scorsese style New York running criminal business as a part-metaphor for his own fledgling, soon to be huge Roc-A-Fella empire. Chief concerns are making money ("Dead Presidents"), living the high life (he's sippin' Cristal throughout the record), and womanising (Foxy Brown has a star turn as traditional gangster's moll on "Ain't No Nigga"). It's not all endless materialism though, and in true gangster-flick tradition the pressures show on our anti-hero, with "D'Evils" and the closing "Regrets" serving to temper the otherwise celebratory stance.

Musically Reasonable Doubt is superb, a combination of archetypal mid-90s boom bap beats with mostly open soul and funk samples painting a fabulous widescreen backdrop to Jay-Z's entertaining imagery. DJ Premier was at his absolute peak and churning out classics back then, adding to his roll call of great collaborations with beats for "D'Evils", "Friend or Foe" and "Bring It On". The bulk of the production though is taken up by lesser known names such as Ski and DJ Clark Kent (a veteran DJ not then known for his own beat work) and they bring their A-game throughout, the chopped funk samples of "Politics as Usual" and rolling piano loops of "Coming Of Age" just two musical highlights in an album where the standard never seems to drop.

For all the depiction of a way of life that makes Reasonable Doubt a cinematic and engaging escape, by then Jay-Z's pure rapping talent was fully honed. His flow and ease of delivery puts him up there with most of the greats, and when he cuts loose on "22 Two's" we're reminded that he can play hip-hop as ego sport as much as deliver tales of street hustling life. The charisma and ability are already prominent here at the beginning of a long and incredible career that shows little sign of easing off even now. Many would contend though that he's never sounded as consistently great as he does on this thrilling debut, remaining a high watermark of his catalogue.

[sjc]

from the album: Waxing off - The greatest hip hop hits.

[Colin M]

26

Gang Starr

Daily Operation

(1992)

In 1992, Gang Starr's third album was highly anticipated, coming in an era where it felt like every other week brought a new potential classic. After the relative false start of "No More Mr Nice Guy", DJ Premier and Guru had staked their claim for greatness with the early 1991 followup "Step In The Arena", setting out their formula with Premier's scratching and sampling beatsmith providing the ideal counterpoint to Guru's lyrical combination of braggadocio and concioussness. They were making their way to the forefront of East Coast hip-hop, defined by DJs and producers digging in the crates for more obscure samples to use to compliment their MC partners. Daily Operation is a high watermark for the time and in many ways feels like the perfect distillation of the craft, stripping away any unnecessary layers to leave the spiky contours of the tracks with the smooth monotone of Guru's voice. It was and still is for many a perfect example of what hip-hop was about - beats, rhymes, and life.

From their sample sources and tracks like "Jazz Thing" from the Mo' Better Blues soundtrack, Gang Starr had been perhaps unfairly pigeon holed as leading purveyors of "jazz rap" - a perceived movement that drew in groups such as A Tribe Called Quest, Toronto's Dream Warriors, and fellow Brooklyn-ites Digable Planets (Guru would of course go on to release a series of albums that were definitively jazz rap, collaborating with icons such as Donald Byrd and Roy Ayers). It neatly described much of the music at the time for the rock press, desperate to define a scene of cuddly beatniks in the face of the ever growing onslaught of "gangsta" rap. Daily Operation feels a bit like an antidote to those views, breaking free from the shackles and placing itself at the heart of street music. The beats here are more minimal than before, and the sampling on Daily Operation more obscure in approach, shorter snippets looped repetitively to create a starker, more abstract palette. This was the beginning of Premo's definitive sound, arguably the chief figure of 90s rap production, laying the foundations of his own working methods, to be followed by a huge cast of followers and imitators.

The chants on "The Place Where We Dwell", crowd chatter on "Flip The Script", looped tones on the chorus of "Take It Personal" and slowed down stuttering beats of closing "Stay Tuned" are some of the examples of these abstractions, Premier's working methods and sound almost avant-garde in approach. The piano loops on "Take It Personal" are almost a blueprint for some of RZA's early Wu-Tang tracks, while the snippets of strings on "Soliloquay of Chaos" and brass on "2 Deep" are earworms, thrilling repetitive hooks that have your head nodding along even without Guru's interventions. The trademark scratch chorus is ever present here, the chopped grunts on "2 Deep" and Rakim lyrics on "The Illest Brother" providing two personal favourites among many.

It's not all about the tracks though, and Guru is on career best form on Daily Operation. An MC often overlooked in G.O.A.T. chat in favour of the more obvious heavyweights, at his prime he was highly regarded, and he's enthralling throughout the album. Whether delivering tales of, erm, woman trouble on "Ex Girl To The Next Girl", massaging his own ego on "2 Deep" or "The Illest Brother" or extolling the virtues of dope smoking on "Take Two and Pass", he coasts along atop the tracks. For all Premo's great collaborations with the likes of Nas and Biggie, there's sometimes a sense that nobody matched his style quite like Guru, bringing out the best in both of them. Daily Operation is the perfect example of that relationship and remains one of the defining records of an era in hip hop music, the likes of which many believe we'll never see again.

[Colin M]

24=

Beastie Boys

Paul's Boutique

(1989)

So the story in short: Beastie Boys made a smash global hit album, sparked Volkswagen bothering theft, found themselves frustratingly pigeon holed by a world that didn't seen to get that the persona wasn't entirely serious, fell out with Rick Rubin and Def Jam, and so retreated to redefine themselves as sampling innovators and cultural ambassadors with a heady masterpiece that conquered the critics and fans alike. Simple eh?

Not quite: in relative terms Paul's Boutique was a commercial flop at the time, although it did deservedly gather praise from critics, and an ever growing cult reputation that has seen it since grow into its status as an absolute classic album. It's also significantly important as a cultural and musical milestone, for both the group and popular music in general.

Sampling itself was de rigueur for hip hop in 1989, the drum machine plus DJ blueprint of the mid 80s having been surpassed by the relative affordability of sampling technology (affordable technology being perhaps the defining characteristic of most new music in the mid to late 80s). There's an important difference though in the idea central to the core of Paul's Boutique, shared by producers The Dust Brothers and the Beastie's themselves; while the technology offered most hip hop producers the technical means by which to create tracks that borrowed from records which would define the sound of hip hop, Paul's Boutique suggests another concept - that with that new technology, the entire output of recorded history offered a palette of sound source to be cut, spliced and looped into new forms with imagination the only limit.

Paul's Boutique then is not just important for the fact that it sampled, a lot, but also for what it sampled. (Most) rap albums in 1989 didn't liberally sample The Beatles or have hillbilly banjo interludes. Paul's Boutique is a shape shifting melee of beats and hooks from most forms of popular music among other things, a dense collage of beats and musical ideas, consciously or otherwise promoting the notion that sampling offered endless possibilities for musical expression (a notion fairly soon to be quashed by copyright law, making Paul's Boutique and other subsequent releases stand out during what proved to be a window of opportunity).

Treating the album as just an important one here would be an injustice - it's still a fabulous listen. The Boys themselves all trade their clever rhymes and pop culture references to fine effect throughout. Everything from Dragnet and Bruce Willis to Rapunzel and Donald Trump are mentioned. Characters like "Johnny Ryall" didn't seem typically hip hop either, and literally nobody seemed to be making weird fragmented rap suites like the stunning "B-Boy Bouillabaisse".

It took a while to gather its reputation, but Paul's Boutique was the beginning of the Beastie Boys' reinvention as curatorial leaders of cool, with the Grand Royal label and magazine, and a series of equally lovable followup albums to arrive in the following years. It's a great album to immerse yourself in for the uninitiated, and one that fans are still celebrating and going back to 25 years later.