Apr 30, 2016

Since @BigCountry posted his ten favorite albums of all time, and since he asked me to do something similar, I decided to put together a list. Over the course of the weekend I'm going to slowly (two at a time?) reveal what I believe to be the top 20 rap albums released since January 1, 2000.

To be honest, I'm procrastinating a little bit--I'm on, like, four deadlines as we speak. So my posts are not going to be as thoughtful and considered as BC's; each album will probably come accompanied by one or two sentences of explanation, but I'll add in what I think is the best song from the record as a Youtube link.

I'm not limiting it to one album per artist, though I will immediately take the cop-out route and say that I didn't consider 808s & Heartbreak as it's really not a rap album.

Please post saying that you'd like to be mentioned. I don't want to steal anyone else's mention list. The first few will be up this afternoon. Start guessing.

 

Apr 30, 2016

So the first thing you have to know is that I cheated. In a handful of instances, I have two albums at one spot on the list. Obviously this helps to include more from the wide pool of deserving records; but to keep it from spinning out of control, I only split a number if it made thematic or logistical sense.

The second thing you have to remember is that "best albums," even when you expand it to include mixtapes as I did, is a somewhat narrow way of looking at rap music. This was a singles genre for a long time, and in some ways, it still is: even though I have two Wayne projects on here, this list doesn't really reflect his hold over the rap world for a half-decade. Nor does it give proper--any--credit to snap music, to Gucci Mane, to any number of rappers or stylistic movements that can't be properly accounted for by one LP-length work.

Last: this simply isn't enough. Even stretching the definition of "20," I don't have Vince or Earl or Shabazz Palaces or Future or Common or Mac Dre or Masta Ace or dozens of other deserving rappers and groups. My initial list--made off the top of my head--had over eighty records. If anyone's curious about what else I considered, reach out to me when it's done and I can point you in direction of new stuff to listen to.

With all that said, here's the list:

#20 YG -- My Krazy Life (2014):


YG's Still Krazy is about six weeks away from coming out, but his Def Jam debut hasn't left clubs or car stereos in Los Angeles. For any artist--but especially one who sat on a major-label shelf for a half-decade--My Krazy Life is remarkably uncompromising, a block-to-the-strip-club coming of age story over the new decade's best production.



#19 Lil Wayne, Tha Carter (2004):


In hindsight, Tha Cater is easy to pinpoint as the start of Wayne's superhuman run in the mid- and late-2000s. But in 2004, it was an endpoint of sorts--not only Mannie Fresh's last album with Cash Money, but the furthest Wayne could push his original sound into the pop sphere.



#18 M.O.P., Warriorz (2000) / Ka, Grief Pedigree (2012):



Released more than a decade apart, Warriorz and Grief Pedigree are at the opposite end of another spectrum: the volume knob. M.O.P. and Ka represent the extremes of New York--the exultant and brash or the quietly sinister, respectively.




#17 Ghostface Killah, Fishscale (2006) / Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II (2009):



With Life is Good, Nas made the first great rap album that's explicitly about middle age. But with Fishscale and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II, Ghost and Rae made masterpieces as they started staring down 40. Each of their writing styles--Ghost's impenetrable free association, Rae's bare, grim naturalism--proved durable while nearly all of their contemporaries became legacy acts.




#16 Devin the Dude, Just Tryin ta Live (2002):


Maybe the least-heard album on this list, Just Tryin ta Live is slow-burning, careful, and considered in the way of Andre's best work or Scarface's more contemplative writing. Devin never became the cult hero he should have north of the Mason-Dixon, but he's one of the most reliable rappers of his era.

 

Apr 30, 2016

#10 Roc Marciano, Marcberg (2010) / billy woods, History Will Absolve Me (2012):



Roc Marciano went from also-ran to avant-garde leader by molding himself into something foreign: an anachronistic anti-hero, the unshakeable p---- suspended in amber. If there was a New York renaissance this decade, it came out of he and Ka's respective bedrooms, and Marcberg is still the blueprint. Conversely, billy woods resurrected his career by making himself vulnerable. History Will Absolve Me's title was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek--the Castro speech it's taken from was powerful, but Castro was wrong. Against heavy odds, the sprawling, labyrinthine record made woods a sought-after commodity after nearly a decade of inactivity.




#9 Outkast, Stankonia (2000):



The critical and popular acclaim caught up with Outkast a half-decade after their creative peak, which makes sense--the world was never built to process them in real time. Stankonia saw them hit a point of near-ubiquity just as the duo was starting to splinter, but in some ways that makes the record all the more fascinating. It's obvious--painfully, sometimes--which ideas came from Andre, which from Antwan. "B.O.B." remains the most innovative rap hit of the century.



#8 Nas, The Lost Tapes (2002):



Stillmatic is the best rebrand of all time, and God's Son further established New Nas as a thoughtful, Important rapper who made Important music. But tucked in between those two albums on the release calendar was The Lost Tapes, a collection of unreleased material--some of which had been leaked with the rest of his planned double album I Am... The Autobiography. The structure alone sidesteps most of the problems that hamper Nas's commercial releases: bricked singles, ultra-deliberate sequencing. It also has the sharpest, most engaged writing of his post-It Was Written career.



#7 Scarface, The Fix (2002):



No one has made an album this great this late in his or her career. The Fix is the best case scenario for the "one last job" scene, the victory lap for one of the two or three most commanding voices to survive the '90s. Every line sounds like advice from your dad if your dad would k--- you without a second thought.



#6 The Clipse, h--- Hath No Fury (2006):

http://www.stopthebreaks.com/wp-content/uploads/h----hath-no-fury.jpg

The Clipse have been dissected to death. Their time on the shelf at Jive yielded a series of mixtapes that caused a sea change in the critical discussion about hip-hop, putting the duo at the forefront. When the long-delayed h--- Hath No Fury finally came out in 2006, the beats sounded like they were beamed back from thirty years in the future. All the funk and brightness of Lord Willin' gave way to clashing synths and metallic percussion. The brothers became supervillains.

 

Apr 30, 2016

#5 Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010):



My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy might be the best album ever made about celebrity. I've also come to believe that it's the sweet spot for Kanye as a rapper and writer: still goofy and self-effacing, but with just enough megalomania to make everything tick.



#4 Rich g---, Tha Tour, Pt. 1 (2014):



Aside from Life After Death, no record in rap history has such an absurd batting average despite being so long. Quan said they were the best duo since Outkast and he wasn't lying.



#3 Madvillain, Madvillainy (2004) / J. Dilla, Donuts (2006):




In a two-year span, Stones Throw put out two of the most singularly great hip-hop records in the genre's history. Madvillainy is a fever dream; Donuts is clear-eyed and confrontational.




#2 Jay Z, The Blueprint (2001):



The best rapper alive at the height of his powers: dispatching Nas (and Prodigy, and Amil); losing 92 bricks; stealing beats from Ghostface; dodging prosecutors. A tour de force.



#1 Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele (2000):



No one has ever used the English language like this.

 

Apr 30, 2016

lol stop with this bs, no one believes you. You're a bad troll with horrendous taste in music and cheeto dust all over your soul.

 

Apr 30, 2016

#15 Lil Boosie & Webbie, Ghetto Stories (2003):



The Clipse are widely considered the greatest duo to come out of the South during the 2000s, and not without reason. But their closest competitors are Boosie and Webbie, the cult heroes from Baton Rouge. Their first official collaboration, 2003's Ghetto Stories, is still their best: loose, hilarious, terrifying.



#14 Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city (2012) / Blu, NoYork! (2011/2013):




The Dre connections made fans and critics draw parallels between Kendrick Lamar and The Game. Blu was Kendrick before Kendrick--the cerebral L.A. native who was going to save West coast rap. But instead of staying the savior route, he went off the commercial rails for a variety of reasons; in doing so, his music got weirder, and better. Despite Blu's lack of standing in the scene, NoYork! is the best encapsulation of the city's beat movement: a confusing, confounding, frequently brilliant record. The next year, Kendrick lived up to the promise of Below the Heavens--and The Documentary--with his debut, the best commercial debut of the decade so far.

(A caveat: theGODleebarneslp, which Blu released as a single mp3 on his Myspace page in January 2010, would be in the top five of my list, but was excised due to its poor sound quality and the lack of a proper release.)




#13 Open Mike Eagle, Dark Comedy (2014) / Flash b--- Grenada, 10 Haters (2011):




Hellfyre Club doesn't exist anymore, at least not the way it did in 2014. That year saw acclaimed LPs from milo, Open Mike Eagle, Nocando, and Busdriver. The latter three are titans in the world of underground rap; 10 Haters paired Nocan and Driver in perhaps the most virtuosic record on this list. Mike Eagle's Dark Comedy is dense and intensely personal, ferrying you through rural highways and hotel rooms in the desert with jarring detail.




#12 Kanye West, The College Dropout (2004) / Cam'ron, Purple Haze (2004):




On the extended outro to "Last Call," Kanye cracks a joke about Dame throwing Cam on every song of his debut "to save the album." The Roc brass didn't have to do that, though a Dipset cameo might be the only thing The College Dropout is missing. While that record caused a paradigm shift in what mainstream male rap stars would become, Purple Haze moved Cam into an absurdist extension of his own reality. It's the creative apex of one of the most creative rappers to ever live, complete with one of Kanye's greatest cameos.




#11 Lil Wayne, Da Drought 3 (2007):



How's this for an anti-climax? Lil Wayne is probably the greatest pure rapper of the period in question--he certainly has the highest peak--but his best single work doesn't quite crack the top ten. Still, Da Drought 3 is a brilliant mixtape, and nearly every beat he touches here becomes inextricably tied to the borrower, with a handful of songs ("Dipset," "Ride 4 My n----s," "Live From the 504," "Upgrade U") that are singularly great in a way freestyles almost never are.

 

Apr 30, 2016

@Michael Myers @YDB @Iceman @Mow @El Ares @Jehovah @Radeem @Fazers @Swizz @Koolo @Mike Tyson @BigCountry @Winter @Big Mitch @Sav @swr @Packman @Boos @Enigma @Perry The Platypus @Mikey

first quarter is up for you guys

 

Apr 30, 2016

Garnet ff banned from posting in this thread

 

Apr 30, 2016

If NSYNC - No Strings Attached isn't included I'm outta here bro.

 

May 2, 2016

@WPG i think the frat rap argument is fairly disingenuous -- particularly early on, that was very clearly eminem's space. undoubtedly you remember his collaborations/alliance with marilyn manson, limp bizkit.

but beyond that, he played warped tour, hfs, a bunch of shows when he was first acclimating to the national spotlight which positioned him as 'the' rapper for largely rock-focused (white) audiences. 100% a college scene and along with a handful of other rappers who "Crossed over" then (thinking ice cube), rly demonstrated there was a niche for rappers connecting with ~bro~ types.

(ofc, granted eminem quickly pivoted from that - and the rappers being mentioned here are more explicitly/cartoonishly frat boy personas - but i think it's worth underscoring again that yes... eminem has a legacy, he existed, he contributed to broader musical trends lol. you can dislike him, downplay him, but i think "whitewashing" his impact is just a bridge too far.) good list tho -- and i hate to relive old discussions. but my heart sinks (and tears well up) when i see ur eminem disdain manifest into a critical blind spot

::puts down stan hat::
::stabs narsh in the abdomen::

 

Apr 30, 2016

 

Apr 30, 2016

please rename this to "20 favorite albums"

like my homies at pitchfork said, you really don't know how to judge the quality of music so don't even try to make a top 20

 

May 2, 2016

::stands over @WPG's lifeless corpse::

this, my children, is why i dine with the s80 'Best Debator' chalice

 

May 2, 2016

what ppl? which legacy? feels like "real" hhhs are committed to treating eminem like hes vanilla ice. and where is ur list? paul has posted his, shouldnt be that hard to ctrl+v

Well, wait a minute, I don't think it's intellectually dishonest to (briefly) conflate what what we're talking about. "Rock rap" or however you want to describe was a subgenre in the late 90s; Eminem flirted with that strand of rap - especially in the advent of SSLP - before he embraced more reactionary pathos in MMLP; it's fair to say the same types of fans who liked RATM and Beastie Boys in 1997, also liked Eminem in 1999 when he did Warped Tour, and later went to see Asher Roth play at santa fe in college park when I Love College was popular.

You're being a tad deductive by assuming fight music was only for kids who painted their nails black. My friends liked Hello Nasty, Californation and SSLP in middle school. They liked MMLP too (and weren't against Asher, at least not initially, later on). There's a connective line you're rly underselling. it's overexposed, but youre crazy to think lose yourself doesn't hold up.

Understanding guys my age listened to rock groups that rapped, and rappers who easily crossed over into "rotation at rock'n'roll stations" is key imo. eminem's homophobia/misogyny/cartoonish violence/pop culture references certainly don't hold up. but i think there's a lot more to his legacy than that. im reluctant to cite actual examples for fear of being further bullied and stained with a scarlet letter. i will say i think the cult of personality in mainstream rap -- namedropping the people in your life, crafting a diary-like narrative -- took on a new hue after eminem's peak. you may think it's corny, but cleaning out my closet att was rly powerful, and i totally see confessional connective tissue from that to what kanye does now. does eminem's work rly live in a vacuum? in an era where music is soo accessible, even disposable, you don't think eminem deserves a little credit for elucidating just how compelling a personal narrative can be in carrying an album?

 

May 1, 2016

Great list

Question though: when did American Gangster go from top 1 to not mentioned at all?

 

May 1, 2016

*havent' heard those

Eminem has never in his life written a song as good as "Safe." Or "Sellout." Or "Heaven." Or "Guess Who's Back."

Eminem was, at one point, very good at the act of rapping. He raps well for stretches of MMLP. If that was the criteria for this list it would be 150 albums long. As far as "sounding better on the MIC" goes, I would pay $9.99 a month for the rest of my life just to ensure I'd never hear "The Way I Am" again.

How much is it really different? MMLP is about him being famous.

He was talented, sure. This is about narrowing down 17 years of rap music to two-dozen albums.

No, it absolutely doesn't. Aside from the constant pop culture references, he's just not hitting a point of view that held up during the Bush years. White teenagers and adolescents stopped being angry at everything and started going for the whole disaffected cool thing. Eminem and Kid Rock were the archetypes in 1999, sure--but now it's Drake and ASAP Rocky. It doesn't age well as a rap album, a pop album, or anything else.

It's also insane that you've heard maybe half the albums on this list? And instead of downloading something you're in here acting incredulous that Eminem isn't making the cut. I've written tens of thousands of words on Eminem. I just don't think any of his work merits more attention than these records. But to say it's better than The Fix is just...lol.

 

May 3, 2016

how did i know this would turn back into an eminem discussion

 

May 1, 2016

The top five (six) albums are up.

@Michael Myers

@YDB

@Iceman

@Mow

@El Ares

@Jehovah

@Radeem

@Fazers

@Swizz

@Koolo

@Mike Tyson

@BigCountry

@Winter

@Big Mitch

@Sav

@swr

@Packman

@Boos

@Enigma

@Perry The Platypus

@Mikey

@Fire Squad

@Chigzzer

@Dew

@Mraczewsky

@King V

@Pablo