10 Great, Post-1980’s Hip-Hop Albums
Preface: the following will be but some of many great hip-hop/rap albums since the 1980’s. My reason for skipping the 80’s is simple, as the time period was an incredible and flourishing birth of a renaissance with too many albums to list here. That being said, this list isn’t meant to be an authoritative list of my absolute favorites per se, but rather just a few that came to mind, of which, I continually listen every now and then. Yes, there’s many notable absences on here, from Snoop to Biggie, Eminem, Big L, Pun, etc., but…well, here’s just a taste of some I like, so therefore, I hope you enjoy (on the off-chance you’re a hip-hop person and might’ve perhaps, missed one or two here).
Without further ado:
#1. Illmatic (1994)
Nas
Maybe the best hip-hop album ever. A personal favorite, rivaled only by Kendrick Lamar’s 2017, DAMN. Illmatic is the feature-length debut by Queensborough-based rapper, Nas. This is a tour de force, a marvel of not only poetry through lyricism, but production. A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip serves as one of the many producers who gave this album life, and the production’s attention to detail only shines with repeated listens. It’s hard to put a specific genre to Illmatic, because each track stylistically drifts; New York State of Mind could quantifiably be labeled gangsta rap, but the sondering One Love feels more associate to generalized East Coast rap. Nas flies out the gates here, kicking down a sonic portal and into your ears with a jazz musician’s dexterous finesse (a parallel perhaps keen, for his dad loans instrumentation on the anti-ballad, Life’s A Bitch). Dreams soaked of ambition, gangster flicks, guns, death, cannabis, paranoia, hopelessness and more, Illmatic encompasses a unique though familiar palette of subject matter, varied from grandiose to self-effacious. Of course, the beats alone are of noteworthiness, transcendent of genre and time, moving to not only your stereo’s bass, but rhythm of your heart. This is obligatory hearing, not just for a hip-hop enthusiast, but anyone who’s a fan of music, storytelling and art.
#2. DAMN. (2017)
Kendrick Lamar
I’ve written a blurb about this album, which I’ll put here: “Winner of a Pulitzer among others, DAMN. bleeds and accosts, sways your ears with urgent, profound conviction, never letting go. Goosebumps amplified, beyond poetry or art, this is life personified. Searching, reaching, deep and vulnerable, DAMN. has literally made me weep. FEEL, the track I identify the most, is my soul, more than I’d like to admit. I feel like the whole world want me to pray for em’, but who the fuck praying for me? is understated profundity opining DAMN.’s themes. I feel like I can’t breathe, a heartbreaking, relentless, multi-entendre lyric, sears. Depression, hopelessness, violence, identity, oppression swivel, circle in and out of aural canvas. We’re taken on roads of memory, trauma over original, compelling beats. Melodic, LOYALTY invokes a type of neo-RnB-fusion, utilizing Erykah Badu-esque jams, soulful exploration. PRIDE injects existential conjecture atop ephemeral rhythm, and just feels so ahead of the curve. Why g-d, why g-d, do I gotta suffer, pain in my heart carry burdens full of struggle?...I dually love this record yet, grieve why it exists (if that makes sense). While I can make a lists specific to genres (i.e. jazz, hip-hop, etc.), DAMN. ultimately transcends its boundaries and limitations, stealing my heart every, single, time.”
#3. The Naked Truth (2005)
Lil Kim
Lil Kim has always been a personal favorite, starting from her 90’s days, rapping along the likes of Mobb Deep and Biggie. No stranger to controversy nor conflict, Kim garnered the Clinton-era reactionary attention regarding her lyrics’ explicitness about sex. Though now perhaps certifiably old-school (despite still making music or feuding with Nicki Minaj), Kim’s extraordinary nature has remained self-evident beyond her abilities on the mic, in-effect being a trailblazer who, with poetic-frankness, broke ground to breach taboos about sexuality, violence, or mental health. Her fourth album, The Naked Truth, remains the first and only album by a female rapper to garner the acclaimed ‘5 Mics’ via The Source. Just as Nas’s Illmatic, Kim raps the gamut, from grandiosity to depression, jealousy to sexual admonishment-it’s all here, like pages from a diary. The Naked Truth is perhaps an unflattering record, something so raw that it could very well be something of a spiritual successor to Ready to Die (which she often callbacks). Court, jail-time, professional vultures, feuds to some par-for-the-course, colloquial homophobia, Kim lets it flow without reservation, raw but focused, varied in production, overall making the sum of its parts greater than their whole.
#4. Speech Therapy (2009)
Speech Debelle
Winner of the esteemed Mercury circa 2009, Speech Therapy remains today as a beautiful, compelling and flavorful album. Debelle, who spent her formative years in the UK, recorded from Australia, of which lends to her individual cadence and flow. Unusual for a typified hip-hop production, Debelle and production utilized live instrumentation for each track, giving Speech Therapy its unique, interesting mix of live-ish and studio. Her poetry as her flow are of similar congruence, considering Debelle meshes irregular yet syncopating tempos amid bebop jazz drums, upright bass and xylophone, oscillating her rhythms to heighten the emotionality tethered the words. Spinnin’ might be one of the most heartfelt, tear-invoking songs ever, a slalom between hopeful yet cynical, an earnest yet depressed ballad from a daydreamer. Intimate can be apropos to rightly describe Speech Therapy in a nutshell, its recording refracting a certain warmth like listening to vinyl (i.e. ambiance-the recording’s crackling space between layers of arrangement and instrumentation). Speech Therapy perhaps won’t be for everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s exactly just what makes it so special and moving, a beauty of art.
#5. All Eyez On Me (1996)
2Pac
Discussing what’s the “best” Tupac record is an exercise in futility, though more often than not, it’s Me Against the World that’s generally regarded to be one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever (which, I’d wholeheartedly agree). All Eyez On Me, a Quincy Jones helmed production of ambitious proportions, stands for me as the definitive Shakur at his apex. California Love alone remains still instantly recognizable, to this day played on perpetual rotation. What I love about this album is something perhaps his others lacked: an ineffable, je ne sais quoi of joy being alive (though this album certainly has its dark moments). There’s a feeling of All Eyez On Me being something akin a victory lap for Shakur, celebratory as it is laudatory, a cracked bottle of champagne bubbling rebellion to communion, taunts to plaudits, death on the heels of the wings of life. Whenever I do go back to remember 2Pac, it’s always this record, a beautiful Muhammad Ali-like snapshot of reclamation and declaration, equal parts mythologizing the man, yet, depicting him intimately familiar. And though most hip-hop-heads outright argue Biggie was the better wordsmith and MC compared their contending trajectories, I forever chose Pac for the rebelliousness of his energy, and soul.
#6. Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (1994)
Raekwon, with Ghostface Killah
Okay, so there can be a separate a list just for Wu-Tang (to which, I’ll happily list a few, anyways: Supreme Clientele, Liquid Swords, Enter the 36 Chambers, 6 Feet Under, etc.), but if I had to pick one, it’s undoubtably Raekwon’s 1994 debut. What makes Only Built for Cuban Linx shine from the heavy-hitters of its contemporaries is the knowingly-façade-embedded references and wordplay it endows, imbues, transcribes, pays homage. Director Brian DePalma’s 1983 crime-classic, Scarface, is all over this record, like Raekwon and Ghostface never stopped rewatching. Yes, the album does maintain a certain, tongue-in-cheek proverbial tone about itself, though I’d say it only emboldens and strengthens the prevalent core tenants. In other words, Cuban Linx’s tango atop a tightrope between playfulness and deadly earnestness regarding drug dealing comes off (oddly) sobering, for the purposefully juxtapositioned interplay here does work – in effect, the correlations and parallels between gangster films and life has surreality, to which, the players and pawns feel reflected off the silver screen. In the case for of being an amazing hip-hop album, Only Built for Cuban Linx stands on its own, though has one exceptional guest appearance by Nas on Verbal Intercourse.
#7. New English (2016)
Desiigner
This one is technically a mixtape debut, though nevertheless, I enjoyed New English upon its 2016 release. Out of every pick on this list, Desiigner’s first wasn’t held with critical acclaim, instead met with an almost universal, “meh” from reviewers, though popular on the charts. Criticism about the New York rapper were of his style (referred to as “mumblecore”), something of a variant flow ripped from contemporary-Future, but I disagree. Desiigner’s cadence, purposeful blur of slurred diction blended with a neo-Southern twang was refreshing, especially on the advent of an era soon-to-be-mired by rappers attempting to mimic Ye’s 2016, The Life of Pablo. Speaking of Ye, everything about New English’s sound can be attributed to GOOD Music and Def Jam’s supplementation of cutting-edge producers, the likes of which would be on Pablo (Menace, for one). Although this album doesn’t reinvent the wheel so to speak, what it does is hyper-textualize a certain aesthetic, something dark, experimentational yet raw. Desiigner himself is an eccentric wordsmith, catechizing a type of “Ambien-style” intoxicant, prophetic with what became of the many acts that followed his permutated affect (e.g. a drawled slur of heavy, dark rap). Another choice which won’t be for everybody, but I myself have continually enjoyed every so often.
#8. Boy in da Corner (2003)
Dizzy Rascal
“Grime,” a unique, localized flavor of hip-hop emergent from the commixture of electronica, drum and bass, house and techno with rap (though its scene and interest has seemed to wane since its heyday) came about via the UK in the early 2000’s. A few names came to be associated with grime, though it was Dizzy Rascal who was to be a poster boy, eventually breaking into mainstream appeal. Boy in da Corner, like Debelle’s Speech Therapy, exceeds itself and boundaries, transgressive though mesmerizing, which then-garnered a 2003 Mercury Prize. Syncopated, erratically shifting tempos on calcified, buzzed electronic pings scatter the sonic landscape, for which Rascal utilizes his own impossibly distinct style to predelict the inequities of being Black in England (among other subjects, of course). In laymen’s terms, transliterating Boy in da Corner’s sound: take a 1980’s pinball machine, blend it with an Atari and a turntable, mix in foley off a casino floor, then short-circuit it via random number generator. Brand New Day might be one of my favorite hip-hop songs ever, even if Rascal’s incredible flow can be near-unintelligible for the non-avid listener, but it’s also why I love Boy in da Corner: having the guts to be itself among a sea of soundalikes.
#9. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
Lauryn Hill
I almost don’t want to write anything for this record, because not only does it speak for itself, by itself, but also, it’s so damned good and has been written about time-on-end. Hill, deific in my eyes, has this precociousness about her talent, and by that I mean, she’s so deliberate with her schema, harmonies, arrangements, lyrics, that I feel she has to try being imperfect. Winner of a staggering 5 Grammys (with 10 nominations, the first woman ever to receive such recognition), The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a poetic, edifying memoir as it is mythological retaking of personal agency, a theorization of life itself as it is confessional. Hill utilizes and subverts expectation, especially in-context to her post-Fugees trajectory, coming out blazing without self-consciousness and making this record one of the highest selling from a female artist. There’s very few records that ever feel palpably important, yet Hill’s only record-to-date feels exactly just that: an event, a once-in-a-lifetime achievement preceded by none. Without doubt, I can honestly say this is literally one of the best albums of all time, worth many a-listen.
#10. Hell Hath No Fury (2006)
Clipse
Pharrell has always had a knack for being innately interesting, irrespective project or production. His overt homage of a production company, Star Trak, helmed what became Clipse’s stunning second album in 2006, Hell Hath No Fury (though legend has it, recording began years prior due to label issues). Clipse, a duo of rapping brothers, Pusha T and Malice, showcase their intelligent wordplays and extenuated verbosity amid the Stevie-Wonder-esque synths (courtesy the Neptunes, enriching an otherwise standard sophistical-metro-southern rap, i.e. Outkast’s Stankonia). Emanant throughout Hell Hath No Fury is a suave asperity intermixed atop a cadre of sci-fi-sounding synths, drum machine beats and arrangements minimalistic in-aesthetic. The subject matter remains familiar, from slinging coke to violence and dreams of buying German automobiles, although Clipse raps in such a fresh way, it feels brand new. Out of perhaps any Neptunes record, this one stands as my favorite, utmost being its no-frills nature, no prolonged instrumentals, skits nor fillers, for Hell Hath No Fury begets what ties it down, declaratory within its ascendency.
