5. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
Interscope (2000)
Marshall Mathers is the angriest, most provoking rap release of the last decade. Women and gay rights groups revolted against the album like it was the plague. "Kim" and "Kill You" were decried as often as songs like "Stan" and "The Way I Am" were praised. Politicians, parents and every other authority figure did everything they could to keep the CD away from kids. The album and Eminem were the most talked about things in the world of music during Y2K. As usual, controversy only helped Mathers move more than 1.7 million copies in its first week, being the No. 1 record in the country for eight consecutive weeks and selling more than 10 million copies.
But after the storm died down, an incredibly dark, twisted and pure genius work surfaced and survived.
- Eddie Strait
4. OutKast - Aquemini
La Face (1998)
Before Aquemini, the late '90's were truly the Bad Boy era. Sean "Puffy" Combs and his New York machine had a hold on the industry: Lyrics were diluted, beats utterly empty and half-cocked. Ma$e ruled the charts. It was a bad time.
Then OutKast returned the vivacity and realness to mainstream rap. Based around a peculiarly southern accessibility that many now enjoy here in the Lone Star state, it fashioned a deep bond between the Dungeon's syrupy beats and Andre and Big Boi's aware, insightful, yet hard and fast lyricism. The substance of this album is extraordinarily immaterial - it's not all about the Benjamins - but Dre and Boi never get wack enough to abandon the driving necessity of rap: We all got kids to feed.
- Cass 'Money' Luskin
3. Dr. Dre - 2001
Aftermath (1999)
Social critics that would pan hip-hop need look no further than 2001. It's a behemoth: 22 tracks of the most anti-woman, blind-violence-championing, homophobic bars ever laid to wax. Kurupt summed up the album's themes best, "Bitch, gargle and swallow a nut up/shut up and get my cash." Its across-the-board popularity didn't help either. Thus the dilemma rational hip-hop heads face, "unacceptable ... but totally awesome."
By Millenium's end, Dr. Dre had already tried going corporate but, in doing so, stopped being interesting. 1995's Aftermath found him preaching, his persona a boardroom presiding, suit-styling father figure; "been there, done that," he exclaimed. Though happily married with kids, Dre, fueled by his newfound spotlight as Eminem's cosigner, couldn't resist returning to his N.W.A./Chronic/G-funk roots.
Ever the production wizard, Dre's THC-soaked orchestration fueled intergalactic grooves with moonbeams and meteor showers at his command. Think of the most high you've ever been, and it doesn't approach the state of mind this guy was at; we're talking unparalleled creative capacity. 2001 is a light-speed brain warp built around bitches, blunts and big TVs. 2001 is The American Dream at its most unfiltered and vile.
His cronies stepped their game up too - Hit Man's day at the office murder narratives made you think twice before starting the car, Snoop's silky stoner flows were sharply focused and delectably laid to wax; Eminem's left-field musings brought purple pills to the bash.
2001 is a concept album about partying, vaulted to the top of this list through undeniable artistic, albeit pig-headed, merit.
- Ramon Ramirez
2. Kanye West - The College Dropout
Roc-A-Fella (2004)
By the time The College Dropout dropped in 2004, hip-hop heads and suburban school kids alike were tripping over themselves to pluck the album off record store shelves like choice fruit from a bin of bad apples. Kanye West had gone from being Jay-Z's personal producer, with four tracks on The Blueprint, to a hyped career in hip-hop as "Rap's Next Savior." And indeed, "Jesus Walks," the album's biggest single, seeped into the cultural consciousness like holy water for sins of the hip-hop past.
Dropout is easily the most important debut of the modern era. Like Illmatic and The Slim Shady LP before it, the 20-track classic from the only backpacker sporting Louis Vuitton signaled the arrival of an artist who changed the landscape of popular music. Produced exclusively by West, Dropout was undeniably fresh in both sound and lyrics, with 'Ye's soul-drenched beats becoming the industry standard and his provocative rhymes drawing the likes of Black Star and fellow son-of-Chicago, Common. With impossibly good songs like "Spaceship" and the Jay-assisted "Never Let Me Down," Dropout was simply in a league of his own.
- Reggie Ugwu
1. Jay-Z - The Blueprint
Roc-A-Fella (2001)
"The ruler's back," proclaimed President Carter on the first track of The Blueprint. Tackling his beef with Nas on the "Takeover," the usually mild-mannered Jay-Z unleashed his venom with rhymes, "four albums in ten years nigga? I could divide/ that's one every let's say two/ two of them shits was due/ one was - nahhh, the other was Illmatic - that's a one hot album every 10 year average."
True, Nas later dominated the battle on "Ether," but Jay exposed Esco on this and many other diss tracks. Hova continued his lyrical barrage with warmly orchestrated, soul-heavy tracks such as "Heart of the City" and "Never Change" from up and coming producer Kanye West.
The Blueprint provided unforgettable lines like "sensitive thugs, y'all all need hugs" or "I drove by the fork in the road and went straight" spit over clever samples that likewise birthed the career of the Louis Vuitton Don. West was joined by superstar producers Just Blaze, Timbaland, Eminem, Bink and Poke & Tone. The Blueprint produced one of the greatest hip-hop ballads of all time that had every guy saying "I can't see 'em comin down my eyes/ so I gotta make the song cry." A review of The Blueprint wouldn't be complete without a mention of "Renegade," originally a Royce Da 5'9 joint, yet it took Jigga replacing the Detroit rapper to create a masterpiece with the industry's new poster boy, Eminem.
The difference between rap and hip-hop is the musical aspect, and The Blueprint is the epitome of hip-hop, and denying the fact could be considered blasphemy of the God MC. Jay captured the essence of the album perfectly in the less impressive sequel, The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse, "The Blueprint classic/couldn't even be stopped by Osama Bin Laden."
- Jerod Couch, 'Young NOVA'
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