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

[Boostin' Kev]

Like the Ocean Colour Scene analogy. That release was ok, definitely a popular album for non hip hop fans who wanted to listen to the genre. Jayou and Concrete Schoolyard were nice but totally overplayed at the time. They took a lot of stick for that album for the same reason people like Pro Era/Action Bronson are just now in that if you wanted to listen to some old school then why not put on something by Cold Crush or Fantastic 5 instead? Still if it raised a bit of awareness for hip hops founding fathers then its only a good thing.

[Colin M]

8 =

DJ Shadow

Endtroducing.....

(1996)

Around 1993 and 1994, a new term entered the lexicon of popular music - Trip-Hop. Although it would come to be shorthand for a very specific type of the music it was applied to, the moody female vocals over smoky jazzy breaks of Portishead and Massive Attack et al, it was initially a catch all term for a host of varying music, from the Mo Wax stable with artists like DJ Krush and La Funk Mob, to the acid meets breaks of The Dust Brothers (soon to become Chemical Brothers) or Bomb The Bass. This described the meeting of multiple musical worlds, and was indicative of a marriage of hip hop beats with the druggier sounds of other "dance" styles. DJ Shadow aka Josh Davis would semi mock the term on a version of Unkle's "The Time Has Come" with a sample of his own voice leaving an answering machine message for Mo Wax head honcho James Lavelle, where he corrupts the lyrics to MC Shan's "Living In The World Of Hip Hop". This throwaway message was a simple reference to the labelling of his (and others') music as something that was never intended when recording, and is a convenient signifier of where he was really coming from in those early days. DJ Shadow was in no doubt that his music was just hip hop, and that he was simply following on from his heroes.

By 1996 when Endtroducing was released, it was hotly anticipated. His run of singles for Mo Wax (In/Flux, Lost And Found, What Does Your Soul Look Like?) had established his modus operandi, becoming more and more epic in scope as they went on. Shadow was a purveyor of the finest sample based music, layering multiple loops, beats and sound snippets on top of each other to create a cinematic and evocative stew that sounded like Pete Rock meets The Orb, beats tough as old boots combined with heady and trippy looped samples. The sleevenotes to Endtroducing though tell us exactly who Shadow was influenced by, with a list of producers and DJs who can be seen as the architects of that classic era sound. To Shadow he was merely following in the footsteps of the pioneers, from Melle Mel and Flash to Large Professor and The Bomb Squad. That he chose to painstakingly construct music that was not designed to accompany an MC was almost incidental. That the music didn't need an MC was certainly not incidental - Shadow may have been making hip hop, but this was taking those ideas and developing it into something grander in scale.

If the methods were pure hip hop in tradition, the music itself was not always obviously so. "Stem/Long Stem" combines punk/metal with violin samples and electro beats and scratches, amidst the spookiest riff ever committed to tape. "Mutual Slump" threw together a clattering beat with a Bjork sample and spaced out speech samples that recall The Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds", albeit recreated by a noisy garage band. "Changeling" uses Tangerine Dream snippets to build towards a soothing epic climax, while "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain" sounds as much like a dub exercise until it goes double time, Shadow half mimicking the drum and bass that was trip-hop's contemporary "electronica" cousin. Despite its makeup, Endtroducing would attract a whole host of fans for whom the idea of hip hop would previously have been off limits. Whether it convinced many to check out the work of those listed in the sleevenotes is another matter.

For all Endtroducing can sound all encompassing, continuing that sampling tradition of taking any and all other musics and stitching them together to make something new, we intuitively know and knew then that it was still hip hop at its core. The cut and paste intro of "Best Foot Forward" is a direct descendant of "Cool Breeze On The Rocks" from 3 Feet High and Rising. "The Number Song" sounds like a hip hop party classic. The drums thump throughout, and while "Midnight In A Perfect World" has the dreamiest most gorgeous bed of sound you can imagine, it's underpinned by an unmistakably hip hop beat that betrays it's masters intent. Endtroducing was endlessly mimicked, yet for every Blockhead that came along, nobody came close to the level of perfection that Shadow achieved on this debut masterpiece. Instrumental hip hop did not begin with Endtroducing, and certainly didn't end, but it seems almost impossible that anyone could produce a record of this type again without sounding totally indebted to Davis. And while he probably thought that of himself and his forebears when making Endtroducing, his audience know that he took the art of the sampler to a higher level, and created something that went beyond what any of us imagined hip hop could be like.

[Dosser-fae-the-shire]

Really like Endtroducing but wouldn't have considered it in my favourite hip hop list.

[Boostin' Kev]

Me neither. Hope there's at least one DITC release in this list.

[Colin M]

8 =

A Tribe Called Quest

Midnight Marauders

(1993)

Full disclosure time - A Tribe Called Quest remain my favourite musical artists of all time. The 90s encompassed my entire teenage years and first few of my 20s, and for all the genre hopping that I continue to indulge in, the hip hop of the first few years of that decade are my go to musical love. And Tribe are at the top of the pile. Between them and the JB's "Done By The Forces of Nature", they were the gateway between the crossover success of De La and PE to a whole new universe of music to discover. Nostalgia is part of the human condition, and there's no trigger for me quite like hearing the opening bars of "Award Tour", to be 16 again, enthralled by the magic and the way their music somehow unlocks those feelings of excitement. There are the days of the week, the colours in the rainbow, the signs of the zodiac.... and there are Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, and Jarobi - A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.

What was it about Tribe that inspired people to call them their favourite? It wasn't just me - I've heard many people, from us mere mortals to the likes of DJ Shadow describe them in the same way. And in that hip hop sporting contest analogy, they wouldn't be obvious gold medal contenders - The Rakim's and Kane's topped the best MC charts, the Bomb Squad, Dre and Premier the producer ones. Q-Tip's description of them on "Buggin' Out" as "not the best, not the worst" suggests a mediocrity that couldn't be further from the truth - to me they were the best. They just had the knack of creating great hip hop "songs" (for want of a better word), at least two album's worth of stone cold classics, that tapped into the sound and feel of great black music, and added to that lexicon with aplomb.

Midnight Marauders sounds somewhere in between the colourful poppy and jazzy samples of their debut, and the stripped back tougher beats of "Low End Theory". And yeah - those beats here kick like nothing else, crisp, punchy, underpinning the phenomenal hooks that permeate the album. Heads know the name Bob Power from this album, and between the production (largely handled by leader Q-Tip) and his engineering, this sound in hip hop has for me never been bettered, rarely matched. The sampling is incredible, from the smooth Minnie Ripperton melody on "Lyrics To Go" to the Ronnie Foster backing on the awesome "Electric Relaxation", to the flute samples on the Large Professor helmed "Keep It Rollin'", to the Biz Markie loop that's the siren call for "The Chase Part II". Tribe represent hip hop's love affair with jazz, funk, soul, and all the spaces in between, like no other group.

And before we hand all the credit to Tip for his undoubted leadership of the group, let's hear it for the Five Foot Assassin Phife Diggy Dawg. While he was transformed from the frankly dorky awkward contribution on their debut on "Low End Theory", on Midnight Marauders he's on fire, and is so eminently quotable throughout. "I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian".... "When's the last time you heard a funky diabetic?"... "cock is longer than a hat worn by Dr. Seuss".... Between the two of them, ably supported by Ali Shaheed on the turntables, there's never been a greater chemistry within a hip hop group. There probably never will be.

The cover of Midnight Marauders has a double meaning - firstly, it serves as a who's who of hip hop as it stood in 1993, with everyone from Kool DJ Red Alert to MC Serch to the Beastie Boys to Black Moon seemingly on show in its rogue's gallery. Secondly though, the front is dominated by the weird red black and green woman whose abstract image first appeared on Low End Theory, yet here she appears to have sprung to life, and she's even given a voice on the album's interludes (and I could listen to them alone forever to be honest). The whole album mirrors that as a step on from the more minimal sound of Low End (and I'm hopefully not giving anything away by saying "more on that later"), as if they spent the time in between painting in some of the spaces to create this colourful masterpiece. I'll still be worshipping it in another 21 years, and hopefully it'll be as loved then too.

[GingerSaint]

This is my favourite album ever. The sound, the lyrics and the chemistry between Tip and Phife are all equally amazing. Oh My God is my favourite track but there are so many to choose from.

[Boostin' Kev]

It's a great album. Don't have Tribe as high in my favourite choices as some others but in terms of making beats, rhymes and life theyre hard to beat.

[Nizzy]

I made it my policy to only pick one album per artist. This would've been on my list otherwise.

[Boostin' Kev]

Me too. Low End Theory gets the most props but I prefer this one. Another great write up by the way Colin.

[BigTidy]

I've always considered Midnight Marauders their best.

[Dee Man]

I always remember a critic in Hip Hop Connection magazine reviewing a Tribe album and saying "Who the f**k uses the words 'window sill' in their raps?"

It's amazing the irrelevant shite your mind remembers, eh?

[Colin M]

8 =

Public Enemy

Fear Of A Black Planet

(1990)

Public Enemy's third came at a time when the group was at the height of their popularity and critical acclaim, yet also perceived to be in crisis. Following the revolutionary sounds of second album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, the group seemed to be on the point of disintegration. Minister of Information Professor Griff had been kicked out after a string of controversies ended with him making what were seen to be anti-semitic comments. Although Griff's impact on their sound may have been relatively minimal to the outsider, this division in a group where unity and solidarity were key to their entire ethos seemed to threaten their existence. Public Enemy had come out ready to fight the world, and there was a sense that some of the world didn't want to hear it and was ready to fight back. Internal differences in the Bomb Squad production team had also reared their heads, as so often seems to happen within successful groups. It's incredible then that PE responded to these strifes with such a coherent and powerful album, which for many is every bit the equal of their more celebrated second album.

For fans familiar with their earlier statement, Fear was notably denser in sound, the Bomb Squad's wall of noise approach seemingly turned up a notch to include even more layers of samples. Fear Of A Black Planet is an astonishing collage of loops, beats, stabs and grunts, where every little segment of sound seems to be percussive, where sampled sections of music are rendered as noise, providing the perfect chaotic backdrop for Chuck D and Flavor Flav to preach and perform against. With the James Brown-ish declaration on "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" that "Papa Got A Brand New Funk", the message was delivered that the music here had mutated into something that sounded new and revolutionary for the new decade. Guitars and horns seem to be rendered as sirens, yet all the time the music is underpinned by an undeniable funky impulse. Most apparent when they performed live, this was politics you could dance to. The unusual vocal delivery on "Pollywanacracka" and slowed down beats on "Reggie Jax", and helium voices on the title track (recalling Parliament/Funkadelic amongst other influences) indicated that the group were also willing to experiment with their sound, keeping things fresh without ever falling too far into cliche.

When Chuck described hip hop as "Black CNN", it's Fear that most obviously springs to mind. While other rappers' news may have amounted to little more than either the state of their ghetto or generic messages of consciousness, Fear sees PE and Chuck in particular touch upon a host of topics relevant to both the black community and wider world in general in 1990. From the spread of AIDS on "Meet The G That Killed Me", to inherent racism in the film industry on "Burn Hollywood Burn", to the paranoia of interracial genetics on the title track, Fear provides the world according to Chuck in the most exhilarating fashion. Not to be outdone, the clown prince of the group Flavor Flav shows that he could be as political as his chief cohort on "911 is a Joke", a criticism of police response times to crime in the black communities. Back with Chuck, "Welcome To The Terrordome" still sounds as gripping as its name suggests, while the fantastically noisy "War At 33⅓" is a personal highlight, leading towards the climax of 1989 single and anthem "Fight The Power", which almost feels bolted on given the intensity of the tracks that precede it.

PE are still going strong, particularly as a live act, and have delivered a number of albums of varying quality, gaining new generations of fans along the way. It's fair to say though that they've never sounded as vital as they did in the lead up to and on Fear Of A Black Planet. The production team would pretty much completely drift apart, with the core group members left to bring in new talent and contributors as they went along. At times in recent years there's even a sense that the military stylings and righteous anger is seen as ironic or even kitsch in a time where being apolitical is de rigeur. Perhaps that's just the old man in me talking. It would be easy to look at Public Enemy as being very much of their time, yet recent events in America and Missouri in particular indicate that society hasn't moved on as much as we'd like to think, and PE's music and worldview has as much relevance today as it did more then two decades ago. Regardless of this, there's still no greater shock to the system than the sonic assault and energy of Fear Of A Black Planet, an album that continues to resonate throughout troubled times.

[Boostin' Kev]

Yo Bum Rush and Nations would be better top 10 choices and may follow but that's another great review and as you said a lot of issues mentioned still sound relevant almost 25 years later such is the timelessness of PE and hip hop in general at this time.

[Dee Man]

I was sorely disappointed when that album was released. I probably never had and never have since anticipated an album with so much excitement just to be hit with a dull yin of an anti-climax.

I remember rushing down to Our Price to pick up my pre-order, rushing home and listening to it and thinking "Is that it?".

Stand-out tracks aside - Welcome to the Terrordome, Brothers Gonna Work It Out and Fight The Power - I thought it was just too much of a step in a new direction. Chuck D admitted at the time that he was experimenting with a new more funky vibe and that from then on in each new album would have a different unique sound. Gutted. I wanted PE to keep their raw, hard sound that they were renowned for.

I've just about got over it now though.

[Sloop John B]

It's quite noticeable in the current climate Stateside that there's no political rap group or anything anti Establishment like PE in the mainstream.

'I can't do nothing for you man' shows that Flav is more than just hype man. Crazy to think how talented he actually is musically rather than just being the guy that shouts "YEAH BOI!!!!!!!!"

[Boostin' Kev]

It still gets rhymed about have a listen to RAP Music by Killer Mike.

[Seymour Skinner]

Aye killer Mike has been very vocal about the situation in Ferguson, and guys like J Cole, young jeezy, fredo santana, macklemore etc have been at marches in support of Mike Brown

[Colin M]

6 =

The Notorious B.I.G.

Ready To Die

(1994)

At the time, Ready To Die seemed like something new. In retrospect, the album may not have been particularly different in make up to the music that precedes it, but post Wu-Tang, post Chronic, Biggie Smalls was a herald for a new era, representing a new generation of hardcore rap MCs, a rival to a throne previously assumed by Rakim, Kane, Chuck and Ice Cube. All of those heavyweights had their best records behind them, and here was a new one, a rival to Nas, an MC who seemed the real deal. While Biggie would indeed go on to represent a different era and style of hip hop as the lynchpin in Puff Daddy's Bad Boy empire and New York's champion in a coastal feud, looking back Ready To Die seems to belong to that earlier era, a classic album for a debut, quintessential hardcore rap music marrying themes of crime, sex, nostalgia and a level of braggadocio that positioned Biggie as more than just the latest contender.

There are certainly touches of the new about it - it's hard to think of a hardcore rapper that would have had a pop friendly R&B chorus on a track, as occurs on the "back in the day" vibes of "Juicy", acting as a precedent for his follow up. "Big Poppa" is pretty much a G-Funk backing, pointing towards a musical blurring of the division between coasts, even if their vocal rivalry would reach its heights in the years to come. In general too, the album's production provides classic mid 90s boom bap beats, largely helmed by unsung veteran Easy Mo Bee, who would part define the sound (both here and on Craig Mack's classic track "Flava In Ya Ear") for the next few years, more streamlined than the sampling stew of the earlier 90s. Overall though this still feels classic, a continuation of Marley Marl and Preemo's hard edged beats with funky chopped samples. The beats on the title track and "The What", co-starring Method Man, one of rap's other stars of the day, are perfect examples of this ethos, amongst a wealth of head nodding beats setting the scene for Biggie's vocals.

There's no doubt that Biggie seemed for real - when he spat forth a violent sense of anger and desire to do crime for the hell of it on "Things Done Changed" and "Ready To Die", you believe him. "Gimme The Loot" is self explanatory in its title, one of the best beats on the album topped by Biggie changing his voice back and forth, presenting himself as robbing everyone including pregnant mothers. There's probably no greater anti-hero track in the whole of rap music. By all accounts he was a surprise hit with the ladies too - so the frankly hard to listen to interlude on "f**k Me" and answer phone messages on "One More Chance" seem to complete the character - as ruthless in his attitude to women as he is to stick ups. I also can't think of too many rappers who so readily had several different lyrical flows to their arsenal, Biggie switching his style up several times throughout the album.

DJ Premier's abstract beats and scratches on "Unbelievable" provide a classic high point for both artist and producer, and like his soon to be rival Nas there was always a sense that if Preemo and Biggie teamed up for a whole album worth of tracks, you'd have a stone cold classic on your hand no problem. The closing "Suicidal Thoughts" may suggest a vulnerability, but there's also that sense that Biggie genuinely didn't give a f**k whether he lived or died, such was the life he had already seen at a young age. The death metaphor of the album means that it fits quite nicely as part of that so called golden era, Biggie ready for his rebirth on its sequel as high living playa amidst a hip hop scene almost wholly fused with smooth R&B. "Ready To Die" is a stunning artist statement, a powerful breakthrough for one of rap's greats.

[GingerSaint]

Juicy is one of my top 5 songs. Not a fan of the album as a whole though.

[Sloop John B]

Aye killer Mike has been very vocal about the situation in Ferguson, and guys like J Cole, young jeezy, fredo santana, macklemore etc have been at marches in support of Mike Brown

I meant more a rap group thats unashamedly political like PE or causes moral panic like NWA.