10. 50 Cent — Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003)
50 Cent has somehow gone from beloved gangster rap underdog (Vice magazine was one of his earliest champions) to tolerated mainstream icon (complaints about Get Rich or Die Tryin’ the movie were surprisingly muted) to sneered-at, underperforming rap cliché, all in about half a decade. Critics loved him when he was telling us how to rob Keith Sweat, but when he bought Rick Ross’ baby mama a fur coat, well, that was over the line. (As for the pubestached youth, they’re not entirely sure what they think of him these days.) Regardless, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ will surely still sound good in 20 years and will likely hold up as the work that most successfully harnessed the dying genre of gangsta rap’s commercial potential. Though it is more light-hearted than Eminem’s albums and tougher than Dre’s albums, it will ultimately be remembered as—to paraphrase R.A. the Rugged Man—that album you and your five-year-old, white, female cousin could both enjoy. From “P.I.M.P.”’s steel drums to “In Da Club”’s birthday-party lead-in to the masterful hip hop power ballad (all too rare, aren’t they?) “21 Questions,” there was something for every family gathering. As for the heads, well, you couldn’t find any more sinister summer-blazers than “What Up Gangsta” and “Wanksta.” The beauty of 50’s image was that, although you believed he would shoot his adversaries in the head, you also believed that the two of you would be fast friends. That’s a fine line to walk, and one he hasn’t walked since.—Ben Westhoff
MP3: 50 Cent-“Heat”
09. J Dilla — Donuts (2006)
There’s a tall stack of classic hip hop records that stand heavy with the weight of their creators’ reflections on mortality, but few of them are as immediately affected by it as the self-eulogy of Donuts. It’s the sound of a restlessly evolving producer realizing he no longer has all the time in the world, and using what he has left to summarize everything he loved about making music. It’s there in the heartbreak of a longing vocal from Dionne Warwick or the Escorts or the Three Degrees, the retro-futuristic aspirations of a vintage electronic Raymond Scott composition, the sophisticated funk bounce of Kool & the Gang, the call-to-arms siren scream of Mantronix—all connecting in the framework of what may be the perfect, final culmination of hip hop sample culture.
—Nate Patrin
MP3: J Dilla-“Workinonit”
08. Jay-Z — The Black Album (2003)
As of this writing, I don’t know who won the poll. But I bet it wasn’t Jay-Z. And here’s why: Rap fans are snobs. “Real” rap fans (say that they) want to keep rap out of top 40 and away from the mainstream. Jay himself even bragged, on “99 Problems,” that “I got beef with radio . . . they don’t play my hits/I don’t give a shit.” But that’s a lie on an otherwise brutally honest album. In truth, everyone wants to be loved, and when our heroes become successful, we dig it, too.
As for content, although Biggie did a semi-autobio on his first joint, The Black Album spanned from day one to retirement—showing Jay-Z change from thug to poet, expressing love and vulnerability between bursts of braggadocio and toughness. Did Jay really retire? Of course not. No one expected him to. But the Jay who came back was a
different artist—older and more introspective.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe The Black Album will win this poll, or will be the highest-ranked Jay-Z album. But I doubt it. To most of us, that’s like putting Sergeant Pepper’s above The White Album. One is all hits, the other is cutting edge and cool. But when nobody’s around, honestly, which one do you listen to more?
—Ekko (Berkeley Place)
MP3: Jay-Z-“What More Can I Say”
07. Kanye West – Graduation (2007)
Kanye West is the hip hop Kevin Smith, a guy who works with peers more talented than he, an artist with great ideas that isn’t scared to fail, an advocate for gay rights, and most importantly a devotee of artsy dick and fart jokes.
College Dropout was Kanye’s Clerks, an album about the college you skipped out on while you’re working the grave shift, still ain’t making shit, eating Salsa Sharks and playing roof hockey with GLC and Consequence. Late Registration was definitely Mallrats, a chance for bigger things now that everyone (Miramax/Def Jam) was paying attention. Sure there were some memorable moments (break out hit “Gold Digger” is then-newbie Jason Lee as Brodie) but both failed when attempting to overcharm and please everyone. Which means Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy was most certainly Kanye’s third LP, Graduation.
Let’s be honest: we listen to Kanye for the beats, the same way we watch Kevin Smith films for the dialogue. Chasing Amy is my favorite Kevin Smith film because of its writing, just as Graduation is my favorite Kanye LP because of the hybrid of chipmunk soul and cold electronic textures via Daft Punk and DJ Toomp. Both movie and album are built on a very basic idea and they execute like a well-greased guillotine.
They are not perfect pieces: Amy looks like shit thanks to its $250K budget and “Drunk and Hot Girls” still sucks thanks to pre-Auto Tune. Ben Affleck is the least believable stoner of all time. “Homecoming” loses to “Beach Chair” for Best Use of Apple’s Dad. Hooper X should’ve gotten his own movie by now. Lil’ Wayne spits the only guest bars on Graduation and gets chomped by George McFly’s adopted black son.
But the payoffs are the most rewarding of each guy’s career.
“Flashing Lights” is still beautiful, full of color, 2 step drums, gallant strings, and a butter smooth hook from Dwele. The bridge of “I Wonder” is glossy, joyous, and sincere. The colossal pause during “Everything I Am” as you wait for OG Chris Martin to bring in Chuck D’s “Here… we go again!” still gives me goosebumps. I’ll pick “Stronger”and “The Good Life” on the JumboTron at sporting events over Supermanning a hoe any given Sunday.
808s and Heartbreak turned Kanye into George Michael. Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen have pushed Smith into near-OG status. Graduation will probably be the last “lyrical” album of Kanye’s career as Amy will be the final “lesbian describes fisting to uptight suburbanite comic geeks” scene in Smith’s canon. ‘Ye and Silent Bob added more colors to bigger projects, but their melding of precise working parts on their third projects cemented their status as polarizing pop stars who always have something to say and usually pull it off.
Snoogins! (My apologies.)
One second…
Toomp killed this shit. (That’s better.)
—Zilla Rocca
06. Eminem — The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
There’s never been a rapper like Eminem and you can tell by his lack of imitators. Really, who? Asher Roth? Bubba Sparxxx? Fred Durst? The only artist who’s ever worked an aesthetic even remotely similar to Eminem is ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, and you can tell by how chagrined Em was at his competition taking him on, denying Yankovic permission to make a video for his “Lose Yourself” parody. Eminem’s so vain about his wits that he doesn’t even beef with rappers, he spars with other comedy acts. If anyone’s still perplexed why he took aim at Triumph the Insult Comic Dog—a fucking puppet we all cried—it’s because no one outfunnies the funny man. It’s not the smartest tack, but it is the least fair, and most misanthropic way, which makes it gangsta.
Eminem’s career was made taking down soft targets: lightweight rappers like Benzino and Everlast, lightweight bystanders like Moby, LFO, Versace, Liberace, and weak characters like his wife and his mother. He found a kinship in 50 Cent, who also made his name taking sledgehammers to knife-wielders: Ja Rule, Fat Joe, Rick Ross. But the reason Eminem’s no ordinary schoolyard bully is because his scenarios are ridiculous to the point of satire, and satirical to the point of political, but not so political that the message goes over people’s heads; just enough people that he can snag those who are in on the joke and those who ain’t. Perfect.
No matter what I say as the Knowledgeable Critic, there will always be people who hear “Kill You” or “Criminal” as a license to hurt somebody. And there will always be people who get the joke. But most will generally understand that Eminem, while in on the joke, is hardly immune to it himself. These contradictions and imperfections keep most casual-to-excited hangers-on from admitting The Marshall Mathers LP is the scariest, most exciting, original and possibly greatest record produced during their lifetime. That’s okay, who would want it to be? Take refuge in the filler tracks with D12 or Dre bait like Xzibit and Snoop. Take comfort in the now-provocative-now-tiresome downturn that befell Encore and everything on for doing what he’s always done rather than leading us to the promised land. Eminem is selling imperfection. Hilarious, politically incorrect, human and disturbingly inhuman imperfection.
That imperfection often rides with hooks, as on the bouncy first single “The Real Slim Shady,” or triumphs of craft like the stalker fable “Stan.” But it’s mostly hunger and appetite and a nearly Olympic desire to keep topping himself, upping every ante and distending topics into creepy, vile places if that’s what it takes to close off any other remaining entrances to his summit. No matter how difficult or uncomfortable Marshall Mathers gets to listen to, it is always outdoing everything expected of it for this reason. The opening “Kill You” is the definitive depiction of the cycle: “You don’t wanna fuck with Shady/ Cuz Shady will fucking kill you/ (laughs).” Repeat to finish, past him raping his grandmother, disposing of his wife’s body, politely turning down a fan and telling him to treat his pregnant lady better, accepting fellatio from Insane Clown Posse. All of which are funny as hell, too good for rap and often comedy too. If that’s not an honor worth defending from a puppet dog, I don’t know what is.
—Dan Weiss
MP3: Eminem-“I’m Back”
05. Outkast — Stankonia (2000)
For my sixteenth birthday, in February of 2000, I got a Diamond Rio mp3 player. It held 32 megabytes of memory, or about 12 songs. During my sophomore year, those songs included “Project Chick,” “Forgot About Dre,” and whatever DMX songs were current. It also held the first single off Stankonia, “Bombs Over Baghdad.” From the moment the twinkling synths were interrupted by Andre’s breathless “one, two, one, two, three, YEAH,” I was hooked. Hooked to the point where I would spend anatomy class after anatomy class memorizing both verses, wondering how to do the ragtop, and what exactly a “power music electric revival” constituted. The song sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before, and to this day, it’s my favorite rap song ever. And with Stankonia, it’s just the start.
Were Stankonia to include just its singles (“B.O.B.,” “Ms. Jackson,” and “So Fresh, So Clean”) and an hour of filler, it likely would have merited inclusion on this list. Thankfully, these songs are surrounded by even bigger triumphs. Massive, towering songs that owe their success to tiny details that teach you something new upon each listen. The change-up in “Humble Mumble.” Big Boi’s sage relationship advice contained in the ad-libs of “We Luv Dees Hoes.” The entirely new dictionary Andre creates using only different iterations of stank and funky.
Stankonia is witty, wide-ranging, and revolutionary (Kanye and Lil’ Wayne as we know them today don’t exist without this record). Previous releases had only hinted at the experimentation that pervades Stankonia. And while that freedom eventually lead to joint solo albums rife with refutations of a break-up (and a Grammy), on Stankonia Big Boi and Andre are together. And when Big Boi and Andre are together, we’re winning. That’s funky.
—Trey Kerby
MP3: Outkast-“B.O.B.”
04. Kanye West — The College Dropout (2004)
“Do the fans want the feeling of A Tribe Called Quest, but all the got left is this guy called West?” Well, he was more than that. He was more than the first rapper with a Benz and a backpack too, more than chipmunk soul and a broken jaw, more even then songs about insecure overconsumption and conflicted Christianity. On each track of his sprawling debut The College Dropout, Kanye West proved himself to be more.
He called himself the “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer of the Roc” back in those days, and made cracks about how he hoarded his best beats for himself, but West’s trademark arrogance had a different quality on his debut album, back when he really was the only one convinced he could become a superstar on par with the best in the game. Sure, back in 2003 and 2004, we knew he could produce—we had seen his name in tiny print on the liner notes on Jay-Z records—and, OK, maybe we were prepared to acknowledge “Through the Wire” was a clever idea. “Slow Jamz,” too, was irresistible and catchy and had a good joke about Michael Jackson, but it was really a Twista song, wasn’t it?
Then “Self Conscious” hit MTV—this was all beforeDropout had even dropped, remember—and it got a little harder to dismiss this guy as a beat maker with ideas above his station. He had some good jokes, (“She couldn’t afford a car so she named her daughter Alexis,”) and some awkward rhymes (“She had hair so long that it looked like weave/then she cut it all off now she look like Eve”) but neither distracted from the earnestness of his critical self-analysis or the unexpectedly empathetic portrait of a young and adrift undergraduate who hasn’t worked out how to grow up. But even that could not prepare us for the album to come.
The College Dropout was made to be a classic. West could not allow himself anything less. And that is why it is too long, why it contains a couple too many skits hammering home its anti-education theme, and why it crams in too many different ideas to be the kind of cohesive masterpiece that is The Blueprint or Illmatic or Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). But it is as worthy as those records because it makes sense that an album about its creator forcing himself to surpass everybody’s low expectations should try a little too hard.
Kanye will never sound effortless. His rhymes will never sound organic like those of Nas, or have Jay-Z’s off-the-cuff insouciance. West became a great rapper because he strived, and because he cared enough to strive. The College Dropout had to be good enough lyrically to prove West was more than a producer, and it contained all the carefully contrived wordplay and punch lines he needed to get himself taken seriously. It even has, in “Never Let Me Down,” a track on which he betters Jay-Z, the best in the game.
But it’s not the emceeing that makes this record such a vital and important musical artifact of the young 21st century. It’s because, opening salvo be damned, Kanye West cares. He feels the indignity of working a bullshit retail position when he has far more talent than the manager patting him down in the stockroom. He’s genuinely outraged that “racism still alive, they just be concealing it,” and that black folks “can’t make it to ballots to choose leadership.” He needs you to understand the importance his family and his faith holds for him. And he cared that his record should be great. Through sheer force of will, it is.
—Jonathan Bradley
MP3: Kanye West ft. Talib Kweli & Common-“Get Em High”
03. Madvillain — Madvillainy
In the early parts of the decade, rumors of a collaborative album between hip-hop underground stalwarts Madlib and MF DOOM nearly sent fans into convulsions. The former, with his dusky break beats and obsessively crate-dug samples, developed an output so vast, it proved that even those who presumably smoke at least three-quarters of a pound of weed every day can be prolific, driven artists. As for the man born Daniel Dumile, he reemerged from a self-imposed exile wearing a mask and peppering his superlatively-complex rhyme schemes with third-person references to himself. With the classic Operation: Doomsday under his belt, it seemed as though DOOM turned not only MC’ing, but the idea of being an MC, into high-art.
The few tracks on Madvillainy that were redone in response to the leak of unmastered Madvillain joints sound a little different than in their original form; DOOM’s delivery is slower, more blunted. They come from a voice far deeper and less fiery, and yet they sound more cohesive with Madlib’s blunt-stained, art-damaged quasi-boom-bap. Listen to DOOM’s intonation as the assertive horn stabs toward the end of “All Caps” split the beat apart at the seams. What about how Villain’s low growl trudges its way through the eerie swamp of “Meat Grinder”? In these versions, DOOM’s voice compliments the music, instead of beating the beats up like before.
And really, cohesion is part of what makes Madvillainy such a classic record; the crackling vinyl that steadily courses through the melodic madness and cartoonish vocal samples is never interrupted by a glossy synth beat. The instrumentals, including and especially the sinister thump of certified banger “Supervillain Theme,“ give the vocal-driven tracks a bit of breathing room. The only hook—and the word “hook” is being used very liberally in this instance—on the entire album is a bizarre, seemingly pitch-shifted gremlin repeating the word “raid.” It can be presumed that “cohesive” could be synonymous with “anti-mainstream” here, as the back-to-basics, “shut the fuck up and rap” aesthetic is how the record raises the bar as far as rap albums go.
If The Source was still relevant in 2004, it could have literally made every DOOM verse on Madvillainy into a Hip Hop Quotable and have been set for the remainder of their tenure as a magazine. In his Pitchfork review, Rollie Pemberton, a talented MC in his own right, headed each paragraph with a DOOM lyric, something that hardly, if ever, happens in music criticism. I mean, what can you say about DOOM that he hasn’t said about himself? He holds the cold one like he holds the old gun. He’s a hopeless romancer with the dopest flow stanzas. He’s giving y’all nothing but the lick like two broads. This could literally go on for days. But even amidst the punch line-fury, DOOM can step out of “himself” and into the shoes of a vulnerable Viktor Vaughn, who berates a cheating lass, but with a clever, meta twist: “That’s you if you want a dude who wear a mask all day.”
Madvillainy is the prime example of a super group being far more than the sum of its parts. This is no cynical cash-in from two huge names; this is a statement that forced fans to scribble their descriptions of each of its creators, replacing the word “genius” with “legendary.” Madvillain is the rare work of two solo artists coming together and hashing out a masterpiece so flawless, each man has yet to surpass its brilliance.
—Douglas Martin
02. Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele
I’m still uncertain as to what inspired G-Unit lapdog Tony Yayo to say Supreme Clientele was actually written by Theodore Unit lapdog Superb, but if his intent was to better “So Seductive” in terms of making people give a shit about him, the endeavor was a wild success. It’s hard to imagine too many rap blogs without a high degree of fluency in Supreme Clientele, and inevitably, Yayo’s claims were attacked mercilessly and unanimously.
But even amongst the more notable controversies surrounding authorship (Dave Grohl wrote I Get Wet! Kurt Cobain wrote Live Through This! To a far lesser extent, Gillie Da Kid wrote Tha Carter II!), this has to be the least plausible one ever. Imagine someone handing Ghostface a rhyme book with shit like “dick made the cover now count how many veins on it” with the implication, “naw, man—this is gonna be ill when you spit it. Trust me.”
The reason Supreme Clientele will be at the top of these kind of lists for years to come is that it’s the least likely record to be ghostwritten, as opposed to Ghost-written. Here, Ghostface bypassed all conventional conversational filters and just went straight from the cerebral cortex, his lyrics unhinged and unearthly, taking the listener to places that were at times frightening, but never less than thrilling. But he did so with a topical breadth that’s become Supreme Clientele’s most underrated aspect: plenty of critical favorites got weirder than Ghost, but you weren’t getting a straight up party rhyme like “Cherchez La Ghost” on an anticon. disc; on an El-P record, “Child’s Play” becomes “Stepfather Factory”; and whatever you want to call “Malcolm,” nobody was on that level. Of course, Supreme Clientele is more than happy to speak for itself : “Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious/Dociousaliexpifragalisticcalisuper/Cancun, catch me in the room, eatin grouper…” It goes great with a Remy Martin on diamonds.
—Ian Cohen
MP3: Ghostface Killah-“Nutmeg”
Sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a hero ‘cause what’s a hero? Sometimes there’s a man and well, he’s the man for his time and place.
—The Stranger.
Go ahead and throw stones. He’s not spitting like on Reasonable Doubt. He bites lines. It didn’t sell like Volume 2. It’s too NY-centric. It’s maudlin and overly sentimental. “Ether” killed him. Eminem killed him. Eminem can’t produce. Kanye West and Just Blaze saved him. Kanye West and Just Blaze are overrated. Volume 3 is underrated. Chipmunk soul sucks. Who the hell is Bink? That Trackmasters beat is awful.
Doesn’t matter.
The Blueprint isn’t the best rap album of the decade because it’s faultless, but because it steamrolls over its faults so effortlessly. It’s the sound of a victory lap, the sound of an artist at the top of his game making the album he wanted to make, current trends be damned. It’s swagger personified. It’s Rocky beating the Russians. It’s Ali beating Frasier. It’s MJ winning a ring. It’s the fuckin’ Blueprint.
When they make Jay-Z’s biopic, they should end it here. Reasonable Doubt was Jay’s street life. Volume 1 was his transition from those streets to the fame. Volume 2 found him on top of the world and Volume 3 saw him getting restless, experimental, unsatisfied with being a pop rapper. The Dynasty was Jay putting on his fam, and The Blueprint?
That was his baby, the one with the BDP title. The one that made the Rawkus kids swallow their pride and pony up 15 bucks, the one that launched Chicago kid Kanye West’s career, the album that for one second had the entire Hip-Hop nation rallying around one king for what will probably be the last time.
Recorded in a matter of weeks and produced by a cast of then unknowns, The Blueprint set the tone for the decade, making and breaking careers. For Jay, it was his moment of glory, the album on which he finally stepped out of Biggie’s shadow and put all doubts about his legitimacy to rest once and for all. For Nas it was the spark that reignited a career. For Mobb Deep it’s the blow that derailed one. For Just Blaze and Kanye West it was a chance to bring back sampling to prominence in hip hop after nearly half a decade of keyboard beats. For Eminem it was a chance to go toe to toe with the one man who could match him lyrically and commercially. For Beanie Sigel, Freeway, The Young Gunz, Memphis Bleek and, yes, Cam’ron and the Diplomats, it literally was the blueprint on which their subsequent releases were modeled. But for Shaun Carter, the man behind the persona, it was a chance to reflect, to take stock, to look back and to grow up. The Blueprint was Jay-Z’s peak and in subsequent years, haters and aspirants to the throne would cackle that he’d subsequently gone old, soft and weak. That’s a debate for another time but one thing’s for certain: The Blueprint is where a wizened Shaun Carter’s concerns became bigger than rap.
I don’t even have to do this; you know the songs, they speak for themselves. The hulking bass of “The Takeover,” the Jackson 5 soul of “Izzo,” the buttery “Girls, Girls Girls,” the strident “U Don’t Know,” Timbaland rocking a breakbeat on “Hola Hovito,” “Heart of the City,” “Song Cry,” “Renegade,” it goes on. It’ll never get old, it’ll never go out of style and it’s absolutely timeless. It’s the fuckin’ Blueprint.
All of these are good reasons to have The Blueprint top out this list, but I’d like to share one more. On September 11th 2001, I took the bus downtown after school to pick up a vinyl copy from Off the Hook records. I’d been bugging them for weeks, asking if they’d have it on time (Canadian release dates for vinyl were always iffy) and the owner assured me they would, so I braved what then seemed like possible death in order to cop it on the first day. I remember walking through skyscrapers, people panicking, muttering, always looking up, and when I got to the store, I went in, found it and went straight for the register. The one guy running the shop was going nuts, trying to get news about family in NYC and frankly, he must have thought that this white kid was crazy thinking about records at a time like this. I went home, watched the news for a few hours and for the first time in my life, felt very, very worried. Not worried on some “I’m failing math” or “my parents are gonna break up” shit but adult worried. Like, “is this the end of the world” worried.
But then a funny thing happened.
I went upstairs, took the clear blue vinyl out of the sleeve and played the record. I’m not going to pretend it was the first time I heard it—I’d had the MP3 version for a few days—but sitting in my room listening to the album, suddenly everything was alright again and all that mattered was Jay vs. Nas and sampling vs synths. And nearly 10 years later, I know that no matter how shitty things get on any given day, I can go home, put on the album and, for 60 minutes, that’s all that’ll matter again.
—Sach O
