I was supposed to put a list together like a year and a half ago when louder did his. I'm still thinking about it. I doubt I'd have much on there that was new to you, because many of my faves are classics from the 90s and early 2000s.

I'll send you a message though or something. :)

some of the greatest of all-time albums (hip-hop wise.. haven't heard that new K Gordon yet). :)

Pitchfork just called it a "classic" rant.. are they lurking this thread? if so, please review Nostalgic 64. haha.

my list would be slightly different now. for instance i tend to prefer late-era Kanye now. and i'd probably have Good Kid M.a.a.d City thrown somewhere there too.

I'm sure my list is diff too. I'd prob make a diff list each year haha.

Ok, in all honesty, do you need/ want an ordered list of my personal favorites, made from the present with the present in mind, or do you want a definitive all time thing? So, probably zero 2013 albums, and a fair amount of classics, with an oddball here and there?

Because I'm gonna give it to you straight: I will go nuts over the latter, and probably miss actual work time for the former.

Can I just shoot you an unordered list of the first albums that I think of when I think of hip hop? That I might be able to have to you by tomorrow.

I take lists so seriously that I haven't actually completed one in ten years. That's why I have the same ten favorite bands now as I did when I was in my 20's.

You want this in a pm or what? Don't write checks your ass can't cash, Asskiss.

Top 15 albums all-time (in ranking order by overall musical and cultural impact, not necessarily reflects my preference or taste, I don't even like many of these artists but their impact is undeniable)

(1) Dr Dre "The Chronic"
(2) Run DMC "Sugar Hill Gang"
(3) Tupac "Me Against the World"
(4) LL Kool J "Bigger and Deffer"
(5)Tribe Called Quest "Midnight Marauders"
(6) Geto Boys "The Geto Boys"
(7) Nelly "Country Grammar"
(8) Fugees "The Score"
(9) NWA "Str8 Outta Compton"
(10) Wu-Tang "Thirty-Six Chambers"
(11) Beastie Boys "Licensed to Ill"
(12) Outkasts "Aquemini"
(13) Kanye West "The College Drop Out"
(14) Jay Z "Vol 2.. Hard Knock Life"
(15) Nas "Illmatic"

explanations forth-coming..

I think this album had the biggest impact on music, culture, and two entire generations of Americans, its almost like the Beatles of rap music. The 1990s might not have existed with The Chronic and Nirvana's Nevermind, its the Hendrix and Beatles of the 1990s.


There might not be rap music with out this, its only ranking bellow The Chronic in terms of over-all impact.


Not necessarily Tupac's greatest album, neither one of the greatest albums on its own merits musically, but this is Tupac's first popular album, it solidified his impact as perhaps the most widely known rapper, I'm talking worldwide. You could ask BILLIONS of people and they will all unanimously know these three artists: (1) Michael Jackson (2) Bob Marley and (3) Tupac.


I don't particularly dig LL, but this record put him into the mainstream American narrative. Rap music was elevated out of a street scene to the night club scene. This is critical evolution of rap music, it puts rap music on the radio in a way much different than Run DMC did. Run DMC put street music on the radio, LL Cool J put out pop-rap music. The "hearthrob" rapper originated with him, and his career had surprisingly longevity for what seems to be such a shallow artist.

Tribe invented their own genre of rap music, they made it fresh, and there have been dozens of inspired groups after the fact, but these were the first, and this is their most widely recognized albums (my favorite is still The Love Movement)


These guys were more notorious than renowned, but they are the pioneers of what would become 1990s gangsta rap.

I'm giving late 1990s Nelly the credit for making the Down South sound become the dominant sound in rap music for the past 15 years running. Where ever rappers come from, the beats and the flow reflect that Down South. Geto Boys usually get this credit, but I don't think Down South rap took off until the late 1990s early 2000s..

This might be the most substantive and intellectual of rap groups to dominate the mainstream radio. This album is noticeably subversive, and yet it spawned top-40 radio hits? Lauren Hill paved the way for the Beyonce era, and she did without having to shake her ass, rather by speaking her mind. Too bad it got to her head. I think Fugees paved the way for Roots/Hieroglyhics/Outkast/Black Eyed Peas era in the early 2000s when for a brief window, actual HIP-HOP rather than rap took over the radio. I think that was actually a better era than the 80s or 90s, even if those aren't my favorite groups. Intelligent and well-crafted hip-hop had heavy rotation and radio airplay. It ain't been revived either..


Eazy-E had lunch at the White House with George Bush just a few short years after the Reagan White House tried to shut N.W.A down, for this record alone. Seriously, can you think of a more subversive, obscene, and not-give-a-fuck superstar groups of any kind of music ever? N.W.A. was like the sports team that has a new technique nobody knows about yet, and nobody is prepared to compete against yet, so they catch everybody slipping way off the radar. That record changed the world, even though it is essentially NOT for the mainstream, never for the radio.


East-coast rap almost died until the Wu revived it. Further, these guys spawned a hundred rappers just in their OWN FUCKING GROUP, let alone the magnitude of their cultural and social impact. Plus, they are actually hip hop with a rap tinted flavor. Just gritty enough for low-lifes, just intelligent and substantive for art-rap freaks, just mainstream enough for everybody else, all at the same time?


Turns out this was the biggest selling rap album of the entire 1980s. That stands on its own to make this list, let alone the multi-genre impact of these guys. They changed rap, pop, AND rock music in epic ways.


Outkast have evolved into becoming part of the fabric of America, for better or worse. They were honestly way to ecclectic, almost esoteric, for the mainstream, but America was charmed. This album had the radio singles which first introduced America to Outkast, its the honeymoon.


Jesus Walks was pimping so many elements it was like a perfect poker hand. It persuaded the conscious hip hop people. It had the Christians interested. It had the party crowd dancing. It was all over the radio, so peoples' mama was digging it. This is how Kanye became the dominant name of the 2000s


Same with Kanye, this record introduced Jay-Z to the mainstream American audience, and they embraced him in a pendulum swing from the whole Tupac/West Coast era of the 1990s. Between Jay-Z and Nelly, the rap world completely reoriented its radar from polar west to polar east.


This is essentially the Run DMC record of the 1990s. Just about EVERYBODY in rap music was inspired by this album, just about everybody who listens to rap music has this album in rotation. Makes the top-15 easily, though just underground to stay at the bottom of America's radar.
explanations forth-coming..[/quote]

remember, its not my list by taste, its my list by cultural and musical impact. See my explanation about Nelly above. I could have just as easily put in 36 Mafia but I think Nelly had more of a club popularity. He is the LL Kool J of the 1990s

Agree completely, I can't express my love for Outkast enough. They're like the polar opposite of Kanye West ;)

"TMZ reports that Kanye West has been charged with the misdemeanors of criminal battery and attempted grand theft for his alleged attack against a paparazzo at Los Angeles' LAX airport on July 19. His arraignment is scheduled for October 10 (a little under two weeks before his tour with Kendrick Lamar kicks off); if convicted, he faces a maximum of 1 year in jail".

ugh, so much bullshit. i saw the vid, Kanye didn't even hit him. that Paparazzo bitch just wants the $$$!

Drake's performance on Jimmy Fallon was AMAZING - http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon....o-much/n40731/

so hyped for the album of the year!!

We already discussed this, Killah Priest shit on everybody else this year, and I'm seriously all the more feeling like may the best rap album of all time. I keep listening to it, every day, and it only gets deeper and more engaging every time. Its like, I don't WANT to know all the words yet, I'm have an esoteric experience discovering them random moments at a time.


Do you listen to anything from the West Coast at all?

Yet you like Outkast, which is very close to a lot of grooving west coast rap. interesting. We have similar tastes, yet not.

Which is even wilder, because NWA is particularly westcost music. Well, wait, which NWA, Straight Outta Compton NWA or EFIL4ZAGGIN?

The earlier albums are more 80s East Coast style of rapping, but with 80s westcoast beats, but the 1990s NWA is straight up classic west-coast beats and flow, EFIL4ZAGGIN inspired about most of the west-coast beats from 1991-1995

That is just how we talk in Hood LA. In fact, I have a noticeable drawl which I picked up in part from my grandparents (who are all from the South) and in part from LA. The most common question I get asked like on a daily basis is, "Where are you from? Where is that accent from?"

Yes, I indeed have a very noticeable drawl, and also prefer to word "y'all" in the Missouri tradition. My folks come from Missouri, Texas, West Virgina, and North Dakota and a grew up in Baptist community transplanted straight out of Appalachia, which networked with all kinds of other Appalachian Baptists so I just essentially grew up around the drawl and picked it up.. Not EVERYBODY in LA has a drawl, but there are enough to have reenforced my own which I picked up from being so close to my grandparents (all four have/had strong drawl even after living in California for the past 50 years)

"Wu-Tang Forever" remix featuring the Wu themselves coming out soon. sweet!

cool list.

how do you feel about Check Your Head?

yeah, i fuck with the Beasties. on the other hand, can't Eminem just go away?

i mean this video is pretty cool, but the song itself is just the worst thing i've heard all year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab9176Srb5Y

why do the masses love this guy so much? he's such a bore. it pisses me off when people call this bullshit "real hip-hop".. his voice makes me wanna throw up, and his bars are just as dumb as every grade C mainstream rapper (maybe even worse). MMLP2 is gonna sound more like Linkin Park than the Beastie Boys.

I always wished he had. Its like, guy wasn't that great a rapper, his flow and delivery sounded way too fake. His first singles seemed too much like parody rap to ever be taken seriously, I was surprised to find out that he wanted us to do such. Meh. I consider him like I do rappers like Wayne, all flash no substance. Pop music is meant to be shallow, empty, and meaningless, like the kind of shit you hear in an elevator or sitting in the chair at the dentist.

haha no, it's a new Drake song titled "Wu-Tang Forever". the song doesn't really have that much to do with the Wu though, so the fans are quite upset.

Check Your Head is my favorite Beasties album, followed closely by Ill Communications. I know it's hip to like Paul's Boutique more, but even growing up with them, those 2 albums blew my mind.

How can any MCs touch this record? Again. I don't even think Killah Priest knew how deep this record was going to get.. Its not a record, its a metaphysical reflection of Life in motion.

here's the Gucci Mane x Marilyn Manson song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s1LReScZKE

new Drake album is the weirdest thing he's ever done, but i like it a lot.

"Furthest Thing" is the best hip-hop song i've heard in a long time.

What? Again?

I just cleared every last one of the motherfuckers when louder was trying to hook me with N64. What the fuck?

that Drake leaked too?

What happend to Rocky's instrumental album that was supposd to drop in the Summer?

i don't know. i'm really excited about it, even though i don't think i've ever heard Rocky behind the boards.. oh wait, didn't he co-produce a few tracks on LONG.LIVE?

maybe he'll just drop it one day out of the blue? who knows.

and yeah Drake's album is really good. although it isn't the definitive "ALBUM OF THE YEAR" i was hoping for.

You know, "Killing Me Softly" might be the only rap single EVER that my moms was always singing and fell in love with.. That I think was the massive appeal of The Fugees, they lured in a lot of pop and mainstream people through some of their singles which were like the top tracks of the year all over the radio. It was a for better or worse situation, the fame clearly got to their heads, the way it did Tupac and other underground artists when they suddenly became the It Group (Black Eyed Peas, you know I'm looking at y'all, and Fergie, seriously, chick you are too buff, it always looks to me like she is wearing shoulder pads and I ain't talking about those Delta Burke 1980s lame kind of shoulder pads, I'm talking about NFL linebacker full-contact pads ;) )

There's "rap" in that song?

Yeah! The beat, there are "scratches" all around, the sampling, and Wyclef be coming with those rap choruses. Its subtle, but I don't think The Fugees intended that track to become some kind of "pop" song, it was just another rap tune from that album. Listened to in a vacuum, yeah its harder to spot, but bump it in sequence on that album in between The Family Business and The Score and it fits like a glove (beats wise)

I think the folks who bumped that single like crazy as pop music might have been surprised listening to "The Mask" or "The Beast"..

That album could have changed the world, but the singles were too popular and didn't promote the rest of the album well enough. Again, I think it definitely led to my favorite era in hip-hop, between 1997-2004 when a lot of underground, conscious, and genuinely artistic hip-hop dominated the narrative, until that Crunk shit blew it off the radio. However, I don't think enough people really contemplated just how revolutionary the lyrical content was to that record. Shit, I don't think that Lauren Hill and Wyclef even kept it real enough thereafter, they succumbed to their own pop hype, and became caricatures of themselves in the spot light. The best thing that ever happened to them individually was the decline in the popularity of their careers. It forced them to go back and internalize.. get back to their roots (sort of, Lauren is still sort of crazy, but Wyclef has redeemed himself more or less)

It's still around! Have there been any more mixes uploaded?

OMG I looooooove The Score. Props.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZa2lY9CFyM

Danny Brown's album is gonna be so crazy!

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertain...ip-hop/279791/

I miss massive sample-heavy Hip Hop.

uhm well no, happy to see you're still alive though. :o

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...8.story?page=4

Such focus has already paid off, said Steinberg. "He made his own record. He wouldn't listen to anybody. And there were songs — I'm just going to say this, and he's probably going to get mad at me — that could have been top hits on the charts that he recorded but he chose not to put them on the record. He wants to grow into his voice.

"He was like, 'I don't want to have a number one my first time around with this. Can I take my time with this?' I mean, we've had some crazy conversations."