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[Machine]

Fear of a Black Planet and Paul's Boutique have already been mentioned so I'll toss out a couple others:

This came out my freshman year in college and I still listen to it from time to time. After growing up listening mostly to the local AOR station, this was the start of me expanding my musical horizons.

I can't even explain it, I just love it.

 

[karmaforgotme]

To me this was Ice Cube's peak (yes even over The Predator). It is a vicious political album that will truly offend everyone on at least one track (how Ice Cube went from this to family movies is still beyond me). There are so many touches of brilliance both sonically (sp?) and theme wise.

 

[NotSelf]

Midnight Marauders partly nostalgia I remember I had this on tape and I would never forward a song I would just let the whole album play through. There's allot of really great albums I enjoyed during the 90s another one that just came to mind is Hard to Earn.

 

[gamz]

It's Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill

What I love about it is that it's far from serious, it's silly and humorous and really their own best example of their albums that fuses hip hop and rock (rap-rock) incredibly well and the best example in general of it to date in my opinion along side with Run–D.M.C.

Yep. Mine also. Love that stripped down Rubin production. There's a rawness to it and never feels old. Sounds just as fresh as it did in the 80s.

 

[Koozek]

Slum Village - Fantastic Vol. 2

OutKast - Stankonia

Common - Be

Madvillain - Madvillainy

Jay-Z - The Black Album

The Grouch & Eligh - No More Greener Grasses

Little Brother - The Minstrel Show

 

[Upinsmoke]

So Many. Too many.

Honestly it's mood dependent, or an album that related to a period of my life growing up.

That's the great thing about hip hop, it's not so much how good an album is at face value but how it relates to stages of your life and Alot of albums for me represent a period of youthful recklessness or helping you through a difficult period of your life.

 

[Courage]

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
GZA - Liquid Swords
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Organized Konfusion - Stress: The Extinction Agenda
Nas - Illmatic
Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt
Madvillain - Madvillainy
Danny Brown - XXX
Ice Cube - Death Certificate
Outkast - Aquemini
Common - Like Water for Chocolate
Dalek - Absence
Death Grips - Exmilitary
Ghostface Killah - Ironman
Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
Scarface - The Diary
Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle
UGK - Ridin Dirty
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die
KRS-One - Return of the Boom Bap
Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music

 

[Skiptastic]

Album: Eminem - The Slim Shady LP

Why: I was an angry white teenager when it came out.

In all sincerity, I feel like it has the best mix of "silly" Eminem, serious Eminem, and rap battle style Eminem. Plus, out of the limited exposure to rap that I had before that time, Eminem felt like the Jackie Chan of rap. Jackie Chan was never shown to be this perfect fighting machine: it always felt like he was going to take hit after hit but eventually come out on top because he's just that damn tenacious and talented.

Eminem always felt like he was putting himself down, creating a persona of being bullied, people not liking him, him being a bad role model and having STDs and drug issues. But at the end of the day, he didn't give a fuck and would still come at you hard and just had this amazing flow and style.

Spoiler

Oh, and I was an angry white teenager, so it was perfect for me.

Jedi Mind Tricks - Violent By Design

I really like this album. Never would have expected a rap song to quote Antz, but it works. And Stoupe is so fucking good here.

 

[DamnBoxes]

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[Nameless]

ATLiens/Aquemini - Oukast
The Storm - OGC
Muddy Waters/Dare iz a Darkside - Redman
Ready to Die/Life after Death - BIG
Marshall Matters/Slim Shady LP - Shady
Hell on Earth/Infamous - Mobb Deep
Illmatic/Stillmatic - NAS
Mystikal - Mind of Mystikal
Prince Among Thieves - Prince Paul
Nocturnal - Heltah Skeltah
E. 1999 Eternal/Creepin on a Come up - Bone
Goodie Mob - Soul Food
The Big Picture - Big L
Liquid Swords/The Chef/Supreme Clientele/Enter Da 36 Chambers - Wu
Jewelz - OC

I like these albums and the ones I'm forgetting because they each have been spat upon until coated with a thick layer of hot fire.

 

[SamuelSupreme]

Will post after work.

 

[AlphaDump]

There is nothing like old outkast.

Southernplayalisticcadillacmusik - Myintrotoletuknow comes out so damn strong. HootieHoo is a classic.

Aquemini - Chonkyfire, Skew-it-on-the-barbie, Art of Storytelling pt 2. Way ahead of its time.


Notorious BIG - Ready to Die. Gimmie the loot. Biggie changes his voice on the fly throughout the song making you think there are 2 people on this track.

GZA/RZA - Liquid Swords - 4th Chamber. Incredible song and album.

Method Man - Tical - Every song on this cd is solid. Raw as hell. Method man has one of the best rap voices.

Eminem's first 3 albums. Top tier production value, unmatched lyrics and flow. People forget how incredible he was. White America, Till I Collapse, Rock Bottom, Stan, etc etc.

 

[mr2xxx]

Doggystyle- No album better represents the G Funk style that dominated the air waves in the early to mid 90s.

Edit: misread as album, I'll add more later.

 

[FreedomFighter]

I'll elaborate when I'm not on mobile but, in no particular order:

Dead Prez - 'Let's Get Free'
Immortal Technique - 'Revolutionary Vol. 2'
The ROOTS - 'Things Fall Apart'
Mos Def - 'Black on Both Sides'
Reflection Eternal - 'Train of Thought'

 

[TheFrza]

Smif-N-Wessun - Dah Shinin'

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...

Nas - Illmatic

 

[torre_avenue]

The greatest rap album of all time. Featuring a DOOM and a Madlib at their creative peaks, Madvillainy is what a concept album should be. It's relatively short, madly inventive, and best of all, it's just so consistent in its greatness. The marriage between DOOM's rhymes & flow and Madlib's combination of his sampling of old Indian music pieces to German TV shows to a fucking accordion is too perfect. "Madvillainy" is the kind of album that happens once in a lifetime.

 

[Lambtron]

New Kingdom - Paradise Don't Come Cheap: This album is 20 years old this year, and it still sounds fresh as hell. There's nothing else quite like it. A couple of dudes into funk and punk made the grimiest rap album I've ever heard. It sounds like driving through the desert in a convertible, you can feel your skin being pelted with sand. A fucking masterpiece.

Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein: Somewhere up thread someone mentioned this as being better than RTJ2. Truer words have never been spoken. It took me a handful of listens to really get this album, and it's not an easy listen. The album is super long, the songs are way long, the production is dense, but jesus it's a triumph. It's perfect winter headphone music.

UGK - Ridin' Dirty: The epitome of country rap tunes. Amazing production, amazing bars. UGK are the GOAT.

 

[RunTheBrules]

To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
The album we needed for 2015. Like Kanye with MBDTF, K.Dot set out to expand what hip-hop could be with this album. While not the first concept album in hip-hop, or sound drenched in jazz, Kendrick does what he does best: blend these elements, and then some, to form a uniquely focused but broad reaching hip-hop experience that leaves the listener thinking after each listen. A top tier album in terms of production that would be excellent without Kendrick, but as a true MC, he is the true star of the show, taking each song beyond it's previous limitations.

36 Chambers by Wu-Tang
If you don't bob your head to this, you probably just don't like hip-hop. Same goes for Liquid Swords.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West
It's like Kanye brought high-art to hip-hop. I feel like he expanded the sound of hip-hop music and what it could potentially be.

Illmatic by Nas
Really, what more could I say about this album that isn't in this thread?

 

[chaislip3]

Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Really interesting, sonically pleasing production with pretty brilliant lyricism and storytelling. One of the most important albums in years.

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
The album sounds larger than life. A real work of art.

Outkast - Aquemini
Outkast at their best. Not much else to be said.

NWA - Straight Outta Compton
One of those albums that inspired some of my favorite rappers. It has so many classic songs on it.

Dr. Dre - 2001
The production on The Chronic was already top-notch, but I feel like it was even better on this album. Xxplosive is one of my favorite beats ever.

There are other albums from Kanye and Kendrick that would make my list, but I didn't want my list to be full of those two artists.

 

[HawkeyeIC]

Gone

Ye's best song.

 

[HawkeyeIC]

 

[Grover]

i dont listening to too much rap, and especially not entire albums

does the first Rage Against The Machine album count?

thats like rock rap?

Take The Power Back
Wake Up

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Immortal Technique - Revolutionary Vol 2
Lupe Fiasco - Food and Liquor
Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid Maad City
Danny Brown - XXX
Common - Be

Are some of my favs.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

These guys proved rapping in Dutch can be hard as fuck.

 

[Systolique]

because of the real
g r o o v e

 

[pablito]

Lil Ugly Mane - Mista Thug Isolation

Madvillain - Madvillainy

Wu-Tang Clan - Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Dr Dre - The Chronic

The Doppelgangaz - Lone Sharks

Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein

Plenty of others but I'll stop here

 

[JinjoUnchained]

Great choice too...

"From the first to the last of it delivery is passionate, the whole and not the half of it, vocab and not the math of it, projectiles that them blasted with, accurate assassin shit, me and Kweli close like, Bethlehem and Nazareth". -- Mos Def

"I'm like shot clocks, interstate cops, and blood clots, my point is your flow should stop". -- Talib Kweli

...damn

 

[Andrew Korenchkin]

Great choice too...

"From the first to the last of it delivery is passionate, the whole and not the half of it, vocab and not the math of it, projectiles that them blasted with, accurate assassin shit, me and Kweli close like, Bethlehem and Nazareth". -- Mos Def

"I'm like shot clocks, interstate cops, and blood clots, my point is your flow should stop". -- Talib Kweli

...damn

This one....I own it but I haven't dug into it as much as I should.

 

[Soodanim]

There's so many not-quite-obvious choices in this thread, I have a lot of listening to do.

 

[Extollere]

I'm old and been listening to hip hop seriously since the early 90's so it feels weird choosing something so recent, but I've come to accept the fact that Kendrick is now my favorite MC of all time and Good Kid Maad City is my favorite rap album. It's damn near flawless.

I think this might be me...

 

[Andrew Korenchkin]

Young Mc - Stone Cold Rhymin'

I dont think there is a single swear word on the album and at the time I thought it was really soft but I managed to listen to it heaps for some reason, probably because all the songs are easy to rap along to.

These days album's sound is pretty unique to me. Also a shout out to RUN DMC Tougher than leather, good album to rap along with.

Can't believe I missed this one, and while it's not my favorite rap album, it's arguably the most underrated rap albums ever. Young MC was a cut above guys like Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

Now or Never as his 2nd album is dam near perfect. If it wasn't for his first album (and Regulators) I probably wouldn't even listen to rap

 

[phanphare]

all these MF DOOM shouts and none of yall listed his best album

 

[Nokterian]

Cypress Hill - Temple of Boom

That album was on repeat when i was a teen those beats still a great album.

Busta Rhymes - When Disaster Strikes and E.L.E

Those 2 albums where my jam and still are just great quality of hip hop.

Dr.Dre - The Chronic and 2001

Both also fantastic album

Wu Tang Clan - Enter the wu tang 36 chambers

One of my first albums listening to hip hop such a great album.

because of the real
g r o o v e

Boom biddy bye bye was on repeat so many times. And yeah the groove man goddamn.

 

[hiphoptherobot]

elephant eyelash is better than alopecia.

Agreed.

 

[Dicer]

Public enemy: It takes a nation of millions
De La Soul: De La Soul is dead
K9 Posse: K9 Posse
Slick Rick: The great adventures of
Dr. Octagon: Dr. Octagonecologyst

 

[Jay Sosa]

Young Thug: Barter 6
Wacka Flocka: Flockaveli 2
Migos: Rich N Timeline
Gucci Mane: Traphouse
One Be Lo: Sonogram

 

[TheFrza]

all these MF DOOM shouts and none of yall listed his best album

This is an interesting opinion, one I haven't really heard before. Generally it's Operation Doomsday, Mmm Food or Madvillainy.

I may have to listen to it again and give it another shot. I know I love Vaudeville Villain, Let Me Watch and Saliva

 

[The Interrobanger]

 

[MrToughPants]

Favourites already listed.

It's Dark and Hell is Hot deserves a mention as one of the greatest hiphop albums.

 

[phanphare]

This is an interesting opinion, one I haven't really heard before. Generally it's Operation Doomsday, Mmm Food or Madvillainy.

I may have to listen to it again and give it another shot. I know I love Vaudeville Villain, Let Me Watch and Saliva

Take me to Your Leader is underrated as well but I may just be nostalgic to those old godzilla movies

 

[theignoramus]

Reasonable Doubt is only getting better with age. It's aged extremely well.

 

[Andrew Korenchkin]

Favourites already listed.

It's Dark and Hell is Hot deserves a mention as one of the greatest hiphop albums.

Well yeah, you didn't know that already?

Seriously though, it's amazing how long I slept on DMX because I thought he was in the same vein as P. Diddy and the like. How fucking wrong I was. Too bad he hasn't recovered from his slump, because everything past Flesh of Flesh was mediocre and generic. I hate it when rappers drop their edge of personality. Same happened to Busta Rhymes.

 

[Fancy Clown]

Sounds straight from a dusty old club outta a film noir, hosted by the villain himself. The album ends with Doom rapping over a track full of applause and he's fully earned it. He's a rhinestone cowBOY.

 

[Twenty7KVN]

To me this is just the perfect mix of talent on this album. Questlove, Dj Premier, J Dilla and many more.

 

[MoodyFog]

Reasonable Doubt, created by my username-sake.
It's the prefect mix of high quality lyricism, not just mainly multi-syllable rhyming ala Nas or Eminem but top tier multi-syllable rhyming with amazing punchlines, metaphors, and a variety of other literary techniques that I believe Jay does better or as good as anyone else.
And then there's Jay Z's amazing flow(s) and humor/wit.
And lastly just the amazing song-writing which all of that play's apart in.
Something like Can I Live isn't a "rippity rapping" song, but it still display's a high level of technical proficiency while seeming simple effortlessly while Jay provides an amazing description into the exasperating, I don't know what to call it....life? Mentality of a hustler? While dropping gems and two verses that are qoutables as a collective, one of the best songs of all time.
And that's just one song, and this is just one album in his amazing career.
Man there's more I want to write about this so bad, honestly it's like a work of divine intervention, just that good, which I guess is why we call him Hova.

You are a good man.

 

[ThisGuy]

Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle


Pure gold, with just a few exceptions.
Fantastic production, great raps.

I would have to sit and think awhile on number 1. But this is up there. It was one of the first hip-hop albums I had access to, and out of everything available this is the one I played the most out of. I still play this to this day.

 

[LeroyPantwether]

It felt timeless in 1994, and still feels timeless in 2016. Smooth, conscious, sometimes-baffling raps spit over equally smooth jazz-infused beats. To me, there is no finer album in any genre.

yooooooo .... this all day

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

I still have a lot of catching up to do, but here are mine at the time being.

It Was Written by Nas
Illmatic by Nas
A Piece of Strange by Cunninlynguists
Hard Core by Lil' Kim
Labella Mafia by Lil' Kim
Habit That You Blame by Gavlyn
Rebel Soul by Isis
L.I.F.E. (Living in Fear of Extinction) by Nefertiti
Jeanius by Jean Grae
College Dropout by Kanye West
Cold Winter by Sheisty Khrist x Lo Fidel

I'll expand on these sometime in the daylight. Need my sleep.

It Was Written is my favorite because it comes from my favorite artist. A lot of cats tip the hat to Illmatic, but I feel It Was Written edges it out to me because of stellar songs such as "If I Ruled the World", "The Message" and of course the phenomenal storytelling track "I Gave You Power". "I Gave You Power" is a very layered song with many metaphors to wrap your head around. I give it to Illmatic for some good ass production.

I'm grateful for the day I learned of CunninLynguists and the first album of theirs I listened to was their best, A Piece of Strange. This is a no skipper for me. Whatever track comes on when I'm listening to my library it doesn't get skipped. The production on this shit is so good. Kno and Club Dub created some good shit with this one. "Remember Me/Abstract Reality" is the most trippy and tranquil track. This was the first album that brought Natti on officially and that was a great choice as I find his rhymes to be more than exceptional and consider him one of the greatest of all time. I go places when I listen to it. Last month in fact, was this album's 10 year anniversary. This was the album that pushed the group's style and made them stick out as they wanted their southern roots to be recognized and prior to it they were mistaken for everything, but southern.

XXL had an interview with them about the album's 10th anniversary and wrote this excellent piece on it. Here's an excerpt.

When did you first start developing the concept for the album?

Deacon: Like Kno said, SOS was around when it started being developed. I kind of remember us on tour riding around in a car, maybe in Texas somewhere&#8230;

Kno: Minneapolis, Minn.

Deacon: Yeah, Minnesota. We were riding around and talking about local slang. I brought up &#8220;a piece of strange&#8221; and Kno instantly heard of it. I don&#8217;t think SOS had heard of it. I don&#8217;t think he knew what &#8220;a piece of strange&#8221; meant. And in Kentucky, &#8220;a piece of strange&#8221; just means a piece of side pussy. Like a one night stand, you know? I&#8217;m going out looking for a piece of strange. Instantly, Kno loved it and was like, &#8220;I wanna make an album!&#8221; And SOS was like, &#8220;Eh.&#8221;

Kno: &#8220;My girl will be mad about it&#8221; [laughs].

Deacon: Kno and I just looked at each other and instantly knew that&#8217;s what it is. We be having those synergy moments. That&#8217;s just what it is. There&#8217;s no turning back. And if you&#8217;re not with it, you&#8217;re not with us. And that&#8217;s kind of how it came to be.

Kno: And why I said Minnesota was I remember having that conversation &#8217;cause Unknown Prophets, a group out of Minnesota, had brought us up there to do a show. And I had literally just made a beat about a day before we left for the show and that beat turned into &#8220;Caved In&#8221; featuring CeeLo. I remember listening to it in the car and having this discussion about a piece of strange, what it meant, slang and whatever. I remember saying, &#8220;You know what would be dope is to get CeeLo on this beat.&#8221; And of course at that moment, we had never met CeeLo. We had no connection to him, so we were like, &#8220;Nah, that&#8217;ll never happen. That&#8217;d be dope if it happened though.&#8221; So, that was kind of the inception. &#8220;Caved In&#8221; and we already had, conceptually, a couple ideas for the later part of the album.

Deacon: To piggyback on that, another moment where Kno and I both just knew was when Natti dropped his verse for &#8220;America Loves Gangsters.&#8221; At that moment, we were like, &#8220;You&#8217;re in the group. This is the fucking concept.&#8221; It was real. Like Kno said, the universe just let us know. It all fell together so quick.

Kno: That generally happens for our albums. Things just click. When they&#8217;re ready to click, they click.

Deacon: All of a sudden, you&#8217;ve got an album. We&#8217;re just not doing shit and suddenly we got 17 songs. How did that happen?


Read More: CunninLynguists Look Back on 'A Piece of Strange' Album 10 Years Later - XXL | http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2016/01/...-album-10-year-anniversary/?trackback=tsmclip

Lil' Kim was the first female rapper I really connected to primarily because my big brother was really into her and I think back in the day I didn't hear most of Hard Core, or anything outside of the singles, so I grew up with those singles plus Notorious K.I.M. and Labella Mafia. I did go back to Hard Core however once my interest with genre was reignited and Hard Core is really a classic. Whatever motherfuckers say about thinking she didn't write the album or what not, I believe Kim when she said she wrote the shit in Notorious K.I.M.. The product that is there is great. She was different when she stepped on the scene. She was comfortable with expressing her sexuality through her music and had some good ass flow all throughout the album. "No Time", "Crush on You", and "Not Tonight (Ladies Mix)" were the singles from this album and those first two are some de facto club hits and while I don't like the "Not Tonight (Ladies Mix) as much, primarily because of some weak verses from the featured artists (Missy and Left-Eye) it is still an enjoyable track because of Kim and the beat. "Drugs" is my favorite track period from her. That fucking instrumental. OOH! That shit is so damn good, so damn good! Kim's flow on that track is also impeccable and I know that shit by heart like "Crush on You". Even though I don't like dick, I understand where she coming from on "Not Tonight" and it's self assuring song, plus I can condone getting my pussy ate. Hard Core is a cut above the rest.

As for La Bella Mafia I think I like it a bit more than Hard Core mainly because I heard it before Hard Core and it's always been more familiar with me. I can acknowledge that Hard Core is the better album. Her flow is better and it has better production. La Bella Mafia is still a good piece for me because Lil' Kim still has a lot of great memorable verses on it and a few funny interludes that are integrated into the songs outros. Lord knows Lil' Kim can't sing, but "This Is a Warning" is hilarious! The features on it are ok with Twista bars on "Thug Luv" being the only one I find being good. Too bad 50 Cent brings down "Magic Stick".

 

[Sullichin]

Run The Jewels 1 and 2 are my #2 and #1.