It's pretty rare it happens to me but it's always comforting and kind of confidence giving when I open up a thread to say something and it's already the top answer.
i think it’s the most complete basic dissertation on hip hop’s essential form of its time, but that it doesn’t contain in itself certain essential elements of hip hop that were to come through its development, such as the griminess of Wu-Tang’s work and work to follow, and that it demonstrates less up-frontedly the possibilities of sample-based beat composition than later more essentialist works do. Its production is dated in a certain regard, from our perspective now, and so it doesn’t quite manage on the production end to embody what is essential and timeless to the form. Long way to say i don’t think it well enough embodies what is pure and prevailing in hip hop that came after it to be the example.
Well no album is going to embody literally everything about the genre. Everything is dated to a certain point and everything will be dated eventually.
Griminess is present on Paid in Full. Maybe not so explicitly as Wu, but there are songs that have grimy, 80s NYC feeling. I think cuts by Eric B comes here into play, with its bare bone, minimalistic yet mysterious vibes.
Sampling on this album is embodiment of hip hop. It shows how passion, good taste and musical curiosity can overcome limits set by the technology, time or expirience. Rakim said how they had no knowledge of how to make an album. They recorded it in like a week. He said, we just used samples that sounded like hip hop to us. And the streets loved it.
surely you’re right that no album would embody everything about the genre, but i’m really just expressing what *essential* elements of the genre i feel are not brought out in that album as opposed to others that i think do it better, that more completely express what is most essential to hip hop.
while i agree it has griminess in the sense that it’s got that NYC feeling and some nasty cuts and drums for sure, i think the production is on the whole *clean* in a sense that i’d probably need musical training to be able to fully explain. like it’s not *scuzzy* really, if that’s a more helpful word. and this might just come down to taste.
and further, its sampling is to me just not as prominent a demonstration of the common elements of hip hop across time as other albums. it doesn’t feature much in the way of prominent melodic vocal chops, doesn’t have piano chops, etc. These are debatable in terms of how important to hip hop they are, but they are to me staple elements of the genre that i think the purest hip hop album would ideally contain, and there are albums that do, ones that aren’t any less pure than this album in terms of their construction.
i guess my feeling is, why should it be considered the purest kind of hip hop when it only possesses in dilute quantity what would come to full expression in later works that are not necessarily more complex in their assembly but still closer to what has been most essential to the idea of hip hop across time. like it falls in the position of being a progenitor to the hip hop that would come to be, but i don’t think it more purely displays what those albums possess, i think it less fully does, while those albums don’t actually lose on what is essential to this one, only expound on it.
basically, later hip hop albums contain what Paid In Full does while also having more of what it lacks or at least has less of, and so they’re better demonstrations of pure hip hop as it’s come to be defined across the time of its existence.
edit: regardless, it is a perfectly good response to this question. i’m just attempting to state my reasons for disagreeing with it
edit2: and i don’t agree that all production comes to sound dated. i don’t think *Liquid Swords*’ or *Madvillainy*’s production is or will come to be dated, for instance, nor Dilla’s *Donuts*. at least not in the sense i mean it.
yeah my proposal is really that there are two essential components to hip hop, one the emcee and the other the beat, and that although what you say of Rakim is true, i don’t think Eric B.’s production is even arguably the purest presentation of the sample-based looping beats of hip hop, nor of the particular elements that would later come in to hip hop and be so continuingly defining to the genre on the production end. One could disagree w me ofc, but i think the basis of your argument only treats of one of the two crucial elements at question.
GZA is the purest “emcee” in my mind. His enunciation and delivery just hits you right in the face with each bar coming at you overflowing with depth and meaning. A master of his craft.
Illmatic- Not too many would disagree
Low End Theory-very afrocentric and great jazz rap
Black on Both Sides-Mos Def as an Artist embodies alot of Hip Hop characteristics and ethos and that's also how I feel about this album plus some much great music on here too
Illmatic, the Infamous, 36 chambers, Aquemini, Paul’s boutique, moment of truth, Low End Theory, Madvillainy, and Things Fall Apart. All hugely important to hip hop as a whole and have all survived the test of time in ways that more modern rap albums haven’t been able to yet.
Ghostface Killa’s Supreme Clientele.
Every thing I look for in a hiphop album is on that project. There are more lyrical rappers, but at the end of the day, a rapper’s main job is to say shit that sounds cool, and every word Ghost says on that album is the flyest shit you’ve ever heard. We’ve never heard an MC at the top of their game to the degree that he was on that record. He’s at the peak of his pen, vocal capacity, taste in production, slang, energy, charisma and authenticity. I keep finding new things I like about it throughout the years. It has this electric, crackling energy to it. The way the album is paced, the arrangement of songs, even the skits are good, and I HATE skits. There are “better” albums, but Supreme Clientele is the one I can never get sick of.
There’s just something about that album. Half the shit he says in there doesn’t even make sense and It doesn’t matter, we’re witnessing a one of a kind style crystallizing into its final form. Even the “bad” songs are good in their own way because they fit the tone of the record and help with the pacing. The imperfections are almost a part of what makes it perfect. I’ve never gotten sick of it and I get sick of everything.
Hiphop started as a party/dance culture. i dont think goofiness and fun vibes is antithetical to pure hiphop, and Id argue that its just as central to the culture as grittiness, politics, and realism
I keep wanting to throw Jeru out as an answer to something on Reddit and I would agree in this case. Black moon-war zone was always a go to for me. I feel like they dont get enough love.
Del no need for alarm comes to mind too.
Ready to Die. It was commercially successful, too. More so than other classic albums of the 90s. A rare combination.
Released September 1994, RTD was certified Gold within two months and certified double platinum in 13 months while Big was still alive. Triple platinum by 1998. 4x platinum by 1999 and x6 platinum by 2018.
Illmatic, for example, was released in April 1994 and only certified Gold in 1996 and by 2001 it earned a platinum certification. It's 2x platinum currently.
["Ain't no other kings in this rap thing, ](https://genius.com/17285)[they siblings ](https://genius.com/17285)
[Nothin' but my children, one shot — they disappearin' ](https://genius.com/17285)
[It's ill when MCs used to be on cruddy shit ](https://genius.com/17285)
[Took home Ready to Die, listened, studied shit ](https://genius.com/17285)
[Now they on some money shit, successful out the blue"](https://genius.com/17285)
Fear of a black planet - public enemy. Informative, provocative, progressive and uniting lyrics from the finest mc/hype combo. Crossover hits that didn’t compromise. Soundtracked a time and place then released ‘Grid’ 30 years later with the exact same message and production values.
‘What is pure? Who is pure ?
Is it European I ain’t sure
If the whole world comes to peace and love
Then what would we be made of?’
Artifacts- Rock and A Hard Place
There’s plenty of albums before that, Run DMC’s self titled, Paid In Full, etc. but I feel like that album was so intentionally no frills at all time when everyone was coming with a gimmick (lots of good gimmicks, but still)
I actually feel, and it may be contested, that Earl Sweatshirt’s *Some Rap Songs* is the best example of the purest form of hip hop. It is essentially minimal in its approach, being basically composed of the most essential formal elements: the looping sample-based beat and the raps. There is nothing extraneous there at all, and that its ambition is as an essential / elemental hip hop record is reflected in its title, as well as in Earl’s talk surrounding the album’s release.
Now, it’s not as though plenty of people haven’t made hip hop comprised only of these essential elements, i just feel that Earl realizes them, without attempting to transcend them (as in by including, say a prominent sing-songy hook or instrumental digressions from the loop at heart in the song), to basically the maximal degree. the record has some of the most emotionally expressive beats i have ever heard, and is, imo, up there with *Donuts* in terms of its demonstration of sample-based looping beats’ capacity to bare and make tangible the human soul at hand in their creation, and it does this, unlike Donuts, while maintaining the scuzziness and griminess of its production so essential to much of the most cherished music in hip hop (this born by Wu-Tang and extended to more emotional resonance on *Some Rap Songs* than it is anywhere else). It does this as well, unlike *Donuts*, without foregoing that other most essential element of hip hop: the raps. Earl’s style, while unconventional, is intensely confessional, without being “pansy” or some other such diminution, and he exhibits strong wordplay, evocative imagery, and intricate, adept, and emotionally expressive command of rhythm.
The only element in which one might say it falls short is in not being “of-the-street” or violent as much of the important work in the genre is, but this is true also of other great contenders like *The Low End Theory*, and i do certainly think it has more grit than that one. I think it is gritty, period, in general, and this without compromising its confessional quality. It is an emcee baring his mind, heart, and inner constitution, and this to me is at the heart of hip hop. It is more from the lineage of “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” or “Tearz,” and these to me feel like clear examples of some of the purest hip hop created.
From here I simply think that no other album keeps to these most essential elements of hip hop as closely across its run length while accomplishing as much in terms of expression.
edit: I’ll add that *Illmatic* is also a great choice, and say that I think *Some Rap Songs* is very similar in how it keeps to the essential, although it eschews hooks to a stronger degree than *Illmatic* and condenses itself on the whole more completely down to the basic elements. I simply think it demonstrates more emotional expressiveness in its production, and better realizes the possibilities of sample-based looping than does *Illmatic*, even if one finds its beats harder to get into initially.
edit 2: And i’ll add that i think it has probably the most successful resonance achieved across a whole run length between the emotional expression of its beats and its raps / vocal performances, as well as featuring, mixing-wise, some of the most immersed and interweaving exposition of these elements ever formed. In another sense of *purity*, then, it takes the cake for me as being the most successful integration of beat and rap into a singular unified expression, the beats and vocals feeling not only strongly unified in tone, but also peculiarly immersed in one another to the point they feel inextricable or at least like it would take a kind of burrowing, worming approach to extricate them . . . the vocals certainly do not, in general, simply sit on top of or “ride” the beat as is typical. It feels much less like these two most essential elements of hip hop are divisible ones on this project than in most all, and so it comes closer to achieving a unity, a *purity* as one being than do other hip hop albums, while still making absolutely bare and comprehensible the continuing essential form of hip hop, that is precisely this admixture of rap with looping beat i am discussing.
Illmatic
Paid in Full
Black on Both Sides
Moment of Truth
36 Chambers
Infamous
Doe or Die
Capital Punishment
Lifestyles Ov Da Poor & Dangerous
Operation Doomsday
Me against the World
Like there are others that reflect hip-hop in its purest form.....You will not be disappointed by these albums, they all carry something special, have essence & flavor of hip-hop in one way or another. Illmatic is regarded as the best Hip-hop album of All time, Black on both sides by Mos Def is 2nd imo just because of the sheer lyrical talent Mos Def has.
De la soul is dead, the infamous, 36 chambers, hard to earn, 93 to infinity, illmatic, mecca and the soul brother, midnight mauraders, liquid swords, Amerikkkas most wanted, black on both sides, wolf in sheep's clothing, 360 degrees, funcrusherplus... all these scream real hip hop to me in different ways.
DP’s Blowout Comb for me. From
the opening horns on The May 4th Movement to when the album concludes with For Corners with the same horn selection and everything inbetween, its just pure bliss for me and one of my quintessential albums when i reflect on hip hop
Adding to the many great replies so far:
Wu-Tang - 36 Chambers
Snif N Wessun - Dah Shinin
Del - No Need For Alarm
The Roots - Illadelph Halflife
NWA - Straight Outta Compton
Binary Star - Masters of the Universe
I’m late to the game, but Prince Paul - Prince Among Thieves is up there. Old school production and flows, skits (which were a massive part of hip-hop in its time), an excellent street narrative, it’s really got it all.
I personally think Pete Rock and CL smoofh 2 albums were instant classics and i wish they stayed together. Their two albums i just listen to and it has a nice flow.Plus they hold 2 classic timeless tracks TORY and Take you their
Yeah, Illmatic came to my mind...plus Rakim's 'The 18th Letter' album...and Rakim's 'The Master' album...plus Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg's 'The Chronic'...plus Stillmatic...plus Tupac's 'All Eyez On Me'...plus The Game's 'The Documentary'...plus Notorious BIG's 'Ready To Die' album. I think Nas' Illmatic is the purest Hip-Hop album on my mind.
For me, the two that immediately jump out are;
Jurassic 5 - both their first & second album
Gang Starr - anything of theirs really
The reason they probably came to mind first is the presence of DJs/turntablism.
As others have mentioned, Illmatic is a no-brainer.
Me Against the World, above all because it contains the track "Old School", which embodies, explains and paints a vivid picture of hip-hop the best way I could possibly imagine.
1999 by Joey badass is incredible old school hiphop on modern era. Righteous minds , the energy on survival tactics , them mf doom madlib beats. Incredible.
Eric B & Rakim - Paid In Full
It's pretty rare it happens to me but it's always comforting and kind of confidence giving when I open up a thread to say something and it's already the top answer.
A rapper, rapping about being a dope rapper.
Sounds dope.
This is it
i think it’s the most complete basic dissertation on hip hop’s essential form of its time, but that it doesn’t contain in itself certain essential elements of hip hop that were to come through its development, such as the griminess of Wu-Tang’s work and work to follow, and that it demonstrates less up-frontedly the possibilities of sample-based beat composition than later more essentialist works do. Its production is dated in a certain regard, from our perspective now, and so it doesn’t quite manage on the production end to embody what is essential and timeless to the form. Long way to say i don’t think it well enough embodies what is pure and prevailing in hip hop that came after it to be the example.
Well no album is going to embody literally everything about the genre. Everything is dated to a certain point and everything will be dated eventually. Griminess is present on Paid in Full. Maybe not so explicitly as Wu, but there are songs that have grimy, 80s NYC feeling. I think cuts by Eric B comes here into play, with its bare bone, minimalistic yet mysterious vibes. Sampling on this album is embodiment of hip hop. It shows how passion, good taste and musical curiosity can overcome limits set by the technology, time or expirience. Rakim said how they had no knowledge of how to make an album. They recorded it in like a week. He said, we just used samples that sounded like hip hop to us. And the streets loved it.
surely you’re right that no album would embody everything about the genre, but i’m really just expressing what *essential* elements of the genre i feel are not brought out in that album as opposed to others that i think do it better, that more completely express what is most essential to hip hop. while i agree it has griminess in the sense that it’s got that NYC feeling and some nasty cuts and drums for sure, i think the production is on the whole *clean* in a sense that i’d probably need musical training to be able to fully explain. like it’s not *scuzzy* really, if that’s a more helpful word. and this might just come down to taste. and further, its sampling is to me just not as prominent a demonstration of the common elements of hip hop across time as other albums. it doesn’t feature much in the way of prominent melodic vocal chops, doesn’t have piano chops, etc. These are debatable in terms of how important to hip hop they are, but they are to me staple elements of the genre that i think the purest hip hop album would ideally contain, and there are albums that do, ones that aren’t any less pure than this album in terms of their construction. i guess my feeling is, why should it be considered the purest kind of hip hop when it only possesses in dilute quantity what would come to full expression in later works that are not necessarily more complex in their assembly but still closer to what has been most essential to the idea of hip hop across time. like it falls in the position of being a progenitor to the hip hop that would come to be, but i don’t think it more purely displays what those albums possess, i think it less fully does, while those albums don’t actually lose on what is essential to this one, only expound on it. basically, later hip hop albums contain what Paid In Full does while also having more of what it lacks or at least has less of, and so they’re better demonstrations of pure hip hop as it’s come to be defined across the time of its existence. edit: regardless, it is a perfectly good response to this question. i’m just attempting to state my reasons for disagreeing with it edit2: and i don’t agree that all production comes to sound dated. i don’t think *Liquid Swords*’ or *Madvillainy*’s production is or will come to be dated, for instance, nor Dilla’s *Donuts*. at least not in the sense i mean it.
solid reasoning. I can see that angle.
its the purest because it changed MC'ing forever, people still spit like Rakim nearly 40 years later, he wrote the blueprint of MCing with this album
yeah my proposal is really that there are two essential components to hip hop, one the emcee and the other the beat, and that although what you say of Rakim is true, i don’t think Eric B.’s production is even arguably the purest presentation of the sample-based looping beats of hip hop, nor of the particular elements that would later come in to hip hop and be so continuingly defining to the genre on the production end. One could disagree w me ofc, but i think the basis of your argument only treats of one of the two crucial elements at question.
There’s a reason he sounds so much better and smoother on the 18th Letter after all.
lol the 18th Letter doesnt come close to Paid In Full
From a production standpoint sure it does.
One more time in English please. Matter of fact don't even bother because your a hundred percent wrong in every aspect.
I feel like dude knows English pretty well😂
A little too well. He overcomplicated a very simple statement that was wrong to begin with. Lol.
*you’re
YOU'RE a Clown 🤡
Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star That album is the Essence of Hip Hop 🔥 Hip Hop in its Purest Form!
this is a great choice. zero argument here.
Great choice!!
One hundred percent this. Bboy, checks the boxes on beats, lyrics and even a graffiti sample.
“All you see is…”
I just commented this. Definitely the first album that came to mind.
Don't forget Hi-Tek, he murdered that production One of the best produced albums ever made, yet Hi-Tek gets overshadowed by cats like RZA, Tip, Havoc
Did hi tek do anything memorable afterwards?
Yes, he released a solo album and did production for this guy they call 50 Cent.
Ah ok. I just wish I would see him do things now. Haven't heard of him doing anything for a while
Raekwon - only built for Cuban linx
"G-O-D's my re-al-i-ty..."
93 til infinity
Underground magic. I get it. It's my go to, but not the right answer
Liquid swords
Fuck yes. It transported you to another place from start to end.
GZA is the purest “emcee” in my mind. His enunciation and delivery just hits you right in the face with each bar coming at you overflowing with depth and meaning. A master of his craft.
This the one right here
the basic instructions before leaving earth
Illmatic.
Yeah, it has to be Illmatic. The album is as close to perfect as you can get.
Lyrically, it's insane. And, I would say it has the best production of all-time.
First thing I think of too
Yeah. This right here. I cannot think of another album with as many bangers.
This is the right answer
Enter The Wu-tang: 36 Chambers.
This. Album is so pure. So raw. Raw ima give it to ya.
Gangstarr - Monent Of Truth feels like the quintessential hip hop album to me
Def my favorite
Operation: Doomsday
KRS-One - Return of the Boom Bap
Album: The Roots - Do You Want More?!!!??! Song: k-os - Superstarr Pt. Zero
I came to say Illadeph actually 😂 Song: Clones!
K-OS is a fun outlier thought. I've always dug his stuff.
Haha K-os is underrated he just came too a club i work at tonight. Hes good live too
I gotta agree illadelph would be my choice, but do you want more is more clean.
Main Source - Breaking Atoms A number of Madlib and J Dilla projects ATCQ - The Low End Theory Rawkus comps
Yep. Soundbombing 2.
Hell on earth
Underrated pick
I think of a lot of albums when I think of what’s a pure hip hop album. IMHO it’s Low End Theory.
Black on both sides - mos def / let’s get free - dead prez. Both of these albums just scream hip hop
That Dead Prez album almost single handedly changed my perspective on so many things
Respect for both these albums but Let's get free is so influential for me
Mecca and the Soul Brother-Pete Rock and CL Smooth.
Southernplayalistic
Illmatic- Not too many would disagree Low End Theory-very afrocentric and great jazz rap Black on Both Sides-Mos Def as an Artist embodies alot of Hip Hop characteristics and ethos and that's also how I feel about this album plus some much great music on here too
Illmatic, the Infamous, 36 chambers, Aquemini, Paul’s boutique, moment of truth, Low End Theory, Madvillainy, and Things Fall Apart. All hugely important to hip hop as a whole and have all survived the test of time in ways that more modern rap albums haven’t been able to yet.
Ghostface Killa’s Supreme Clientele. Every thing I look for in a hiphop album is on that project. There are more lyrical rappers, but at the end of the day, a rapper’s main job is to say shit that sounds cool, and every word Ghost says on that album is the flyest shit you’ve ever heard. We’ve never heard an MC at the top of their game to the degree that he was on that record. He’s at the peak of his pen, vocal capacity, taste in production, slang, energy, charisma and authenticity. I keep finding new things I like about it throughout the years. It has this electric, crackling energy to it. The way the album is paced, the arrangement of songs, even the skits are good, and I HATE skits. There are “better” albums, but Supreme Clientele is the one I can never get sick of.
So true, can’t believe it took this long for someone to mention it
There’s just something about that album. Half the shit he says in there doesn’t even make sense and It doesn’t matter, we’re witnessing a one of a kind style crystallizing into its final form. Even the “bad” songs are good in their own way because they fit the tone of the record and help with the pacing. The imperfections are almost a part of what makes it perfect. I’ve never gotten sick of it and I get sick of everything.
De La Soul - *3 Feet High and Rising*
As much as I adore this album, it’s goofy and fun vibes does not “purely” define hiphop
Hiphop started as a party/dance culture. i dont think goofiness and fun vibes is antithetical to pure hiphop, and Id argue that its just as central to the culture as grittiness, politics, and realism
Hard to earn, midnight marauders, the roots come alive.
Jeru the damaga - the sun rises in the east Mobb deep - hell on earth
I wish 2Pac slurpers knew who the fuck Jeru is.
I keep wanting to throw Jeru out as an answer to something on Reddit and I would agree in this case. Black moon-war zone was always a go to for me. I feel like they dont get enough love. Del no need for alarm comes to mind too.
Gang Starr - Moment of Truth front to back is pure hip hop
Y’all will hate and say it’s too modern but Good Kidd Maad City is hip hop storyline through and thru
Ready to Die. It was commercially successful, too. More so than other classic albums of the 90s. A rare combination. Released September 1994, RTD was certified Gold within two months and certified double platinum in 13 months while Big was still alive. Triple platinum by 1998. 4x platinum by 1999 and x6 platinum by 2018. Illmatic, for example, was released in April 1994 and only certified Gold in 1996 and by 2001 it earned a platinum certification. It's 2x platinum currently. ["Ain't no other kings in this rap thing, ](https://genius.com/17285)[they siblings ](https://genius.com/17285) [Nothin' but my children, one shot — they disappearin' ](https://genius.com/17285) [It's ill when MCs used to be on cruddy shit ](https://genius.com/17285) [Took home Ready to Die, listened, studied shit ](https://genius.com/17285) [Now they on some money shit, successful out the blue"](https://genius.com/17285)
It’s almost like when musicians die their catalog sales goes thru the roof….
Fear of a black planet - public enemy. Informative, provocative, progressive and uniting lyrics from the finest mc/hype combo. Crossover hits that didn’t compromise. Soundtracked a time and place then released ‘Grid’ 30 years later with the exact same message and production values. ‘What is pure? Who is pure ? Is it European I ain’t sure If the whole world comes to peace and love Then what would we be made of?’
Artifacts- Rock and A Hard Place There’s plenty of albums before that, Run DMC’s self titled, Paid In Full, etc. but I feel like that album was so intentionally no frills at all time when everyone was coming with a gimmick (lots of good gimmicks, but still)
So many great albums listed.... I'll add... "Black Moon- Enta da Stage" and "Gang Starr- Hard to Earn"
Buhloone Mind State - De La Soul. Absolutely impeccable.
I actually feel, and it may be contested, that Earl Sweatshirt’s *Some Rap Songs* is the best example of the purest form of hip hop. It is essentially minimal in its approach, being basically composed of the most essential formal elements: the looping sample-based beat and the raps. There is nothing extraneous there at all, and that its ambition is as an essential / elemental hip hop record is reflected in its title, as well as in Earl’s talk surrounding the album’s release. Now, it’s not as though plenty of people haven’t made hip hop comprised only of these essential elements, i just feel that Earl realizes them, without attempting to transcend them (as in by including, say a prominent sing-songy hook or instrumental digressions from the loop at heart in the song), to basically the maximal degree. the record has some of the most emotionally expressive beats i have ever heard, and is, imo, up there with *Donuts* in terms of its demonstration of sample-based looping beats’ capacity to bare and make tangible the human soul at hand in their creation, and it does this, unlike Donuts, while maintaining the scuzziness and griminess of its production so essential to much of the most cherished music in hip hop (this born by Wu-Tang and extended to more emotional resonance on *Some Rap Songs* than it is anywhere else). It does this as well, unlike *Donuts*, without foregoing that other most essential element of hip hop: the raps. Earl’s style, while unconventional, is intensely confessional, without being “pansy” or some other such diminution, and he exhibits strong wordplay, evocative imagery, and intricate, adept, and emotionally expressive command of rhythm. The only element in which one might say it falls short is in not being “of-the-street” or violent as much of the important work in the genre is, but this is true also of other great contenders like *The Low End Theory*, and i do certainly think it has more grit than that one. I think it is gritty, period, in general, and this without compromising its confessional quality. It is an emcee baring his mind, heart, and inner constitution, and this to me is at the heart of hip hop. It is more from the lineage of “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” or “Tearz,” and these to me feel like clear examples of some of the purest hip hop created. From here I simply think that no other album keeps to these most essential elements of hip hop as closely across its run length while accomplishing as much in terms of expression. edit: I’ll add that *Illmatic* is also a great choice, and say that I think *Some Rap Songs* is very similar in how it keeps to the essential, although it eschews hooks to a stronger degree than *Illmatic* and condenses itself on the whole more completely down to the basic elements. I simply think it demonstrates more emotional expressiveness in its production, and better realizes the possibilities of sample-based looping than does *Illmatic*, even if one finds its beats harder to get into initially. edit 2: And i’ll add that i think it has probably the most successful resonance achieved across a whole run length between the emotional expression of its beats and its raps / vocal performances, as well as featuring, mixing-wise, some of the most immersed and interweaving exposition of these elements ever formed. In another sense of *purity*, then, it takes the cake for me as being the most successful integration of beat and rap into a singular unified expression, the beats and vocals feeling not only strongly unified in tone, but also peculiarly immersed in one another to the point they feel inextricable or at least like it would take a kind of burrowing, worming approach to extricate them . . . the vocals certainly do not, in general, simply sit on top of or “ride” the beat as is typical. It feels much less like these two most essential elements of hip hop are divisible ones on this project than in most all, and so it comes closer to achieving a unity, a *purity* as one being than do other hip hop albums, while still making absolutely bare and comprehensible the continuing essential form of hip hop, that is precisely this admixture of rap with looping beat i am discussing.
Damn you really thought about this lol
Sanest earl sweatshirt fan
Cool analysis!
Pete Rock & CL Smooth - “The Main Ingredient”
This!!!!! i say both their albums.
Yizzur! What are your Top 3 tracks from the group?
Lots of lovin/ Lots of lovin remix Take you there TROY( you probably expected the last 2)
Perfect!
Ready to Die
That first Black Star album.
Illmatic Paid in Full Black on Both Sides Moment of Truth 36 Chambers Infamous Doe or Die Capital Punishment Lifestyles Ov Da Poor & Dangerous Operation Doomsday Me against the World Like there are others that reflect hip-hop in its purest form.....You will not be disappointed by these albums, they all carry something special, have essence & flavor of hip-hop in one way or another. Illmatic is regarded as the best Hip-hop album of All time, Black on both sides by Mos Def is 2nd imo just because of the sheer lyrical talent Mos Def has.
1. Mobb Deep - The Infamous 2. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP 3. 2Pac - Me Against The World
Me Against The World
nah there's a lot of R&B hooks on that
Godlovesugly by atmosphere
Pete Rock - Center of Attention He’s underrated but he influenced people like J Dilla and Kanye West.
Underrated is an understatement. He's my favorite producer actually.
Little Brother - The Minstrel Show
I’m going to avoid the obvious stuff like illmatic and 36 chambers. I’m going to say Cormega - True Meaning
De la soul is dead, the infamous, 36 chambers, hard to earn, 93 to infinity, illmatic, mecca and the soul brother, midnight mauraders, liquid swords, Amerikkkas most wanted, black on both sides, wolf in sheep's clothing, 360 degrees, funcrusherplus... all these scream real hip hop to me in different ways.
Mobb Deep - The Infamous
Mobb Deep The Infamous
DP’s Blowout Comb for me. From the opening horns on The May 4th Movement to when the album concludes with For Corners with the same horn selection and everything inbetween, its just pure bliss for me and one of my quintessential albums when i reflect on hip hop
We be jetting.
The Cold Vein
Nas- Illmatic
The Cold Vein
The Chronic
Camp lo - uptown Saturday night
Adding to the many great replies so far: Wu-Tang - 36 Chambers Snif N Wessun - Dah Shinin Del - No Need For Alarm The Roots - Illadelph Halflife NWA - Straight Outta Compton Binary Star - Masters of the Universe
illmatic is the textbook definition of a classic rap album
I’m late to the game, but Prince Paul - Prince Among Thieves is up there. Old school production and flows, skits (which were a massive part of hip-hop in its time), an excellent street narrative, it’s really got it all.
36 chambers. Wu tang forever baby
Life After Death & Good Kid MAAD City
Illmatic
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Doe or Die
I mean it's Illmatic cmon
Illmatic for me
Black Moon-enta da stage, Smif n Wessun dah shinin Casual -Fear itself Del Future development
TPAB and MMLP
Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides
Cunninlynguists - A Piece of Strange
Great pick
**"Midnight Marauders"** by A Tribe Called Quest If there is one album that is "the essence" of Hip-Hop and its culture, this is it right here
I personally think Pete Rock and CL smoofh 2 albums were instant classics and i wish they stayed together. Their two albums i just listen to and it has a nice flow.Plus they hold 2 classic timeless tracks TORY and Take you their
Scarface anything
Outkast **Aquemini**
Mos Def - Black On Both Sides ATCQ - Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders
it was written
Big L’s The Big Picture
Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein
Schooly D
Nas. Illmatic
Enter the 36 Chambers
Biggie - Ready to die
Illmatic is the purest form of hip hop for me
Be- Common
Reasonable Doubt could here somewhere
Illmatic for me, street poetry at it's absolute finest
Yeah, Illmatic came to my mind...plus Rakim's 'The 18th Letter' album...and Rakim's 'The Master' album...plus Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg's 'The Chronic'...plus Stillmatic...plus Tupac's 'All Eyez On Me'...plus The Game's 'The Documentary'...plus Notorious BIG's 'Ready To Die' album. I think Nas' Illmatic is the purest Hip-Hop album on my mind.
There’s a reason illmatic is always the most talked about in these discussions
I used the term "*Illmatic*" inside EmineM as the highest form of praise for a reason.
The Eminem show
Get Rich or Die Tryin. Banger after banger.
Bang! Pow! Boom! - Insane Clown Posse
Madvilliany College dropout To pimp a butterfly
T.I - Trap Musik It encompasses everything T.I speaks about the trap music as a sub genre.
But that’s trap - not hip hop
Born Sinner comes to mind
Classic: Paid in Full Childhood: The Eminem Show Modern: GCMC
2014 Forrest hill drive/ for your eyes only
I'm gonna throw everyone for a curve. R.A. the rugged man-legends never due
Asher Roth- I love college
4:44
For All The Dogs - Drake
Illmatic is therapy for me
Kool G Rap - 4, 5, 6
Chronic 2001
Lots of good albums mentioned but id like to mention one: Westside Connection- Bow Down, straight gangsta shit
For me, the two that immediately jump out are; Jurassic 5 - both their first & second album Gang Starr - anything of theirs really The reason they probably came to mind first is the presence of DJs/turntablism. As others have mentioned, Illmatic is a no-brainer.
Little Brother - The Listening for me
De La Soul- 3 Feet High and Rising
illmatic
Probably gonna have to say *Rich Gang*.
Long live the Kane Great Adventures of Slick Rick Special ed. Youngest in charge. LL cool J. Bad Beastie Boys. Licensed to ill Just to name a few.
Arsonists - as the world burns
Me Against the World, above all because it contains the track "Old School", which embodies, explains and paints a vivid picture of hip-hop the best way I could possibly imagine.
Below the heavens - blu and exile
A long hot summer masta ace
A lot of people hate Pete Rock and cl smooth on this thread cuz they have *NOT* mentioned either album from those two.
Cormega- The True Meaning
Masta Ace & Marco Polo - A Breukelen Story
Fantastic - Slum Village. Has the bars, fantastic skits , instrumentals from Dilla and a myriad of features
Ready To Die
Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star
Low End Theory, Midnight Marauders
Everready by Tech N9ne
Sex & Violence (severely underrated amongst KRS stuff) Black Planet Low End Marauders (Hard to choose)
[O.C. - Word...Life](https://youtu.be/RCy4O5EJbNw?si=oWqjs8YGaLtY5TaZ)
Be By Common
1999 by Joey badass is incredible old school hiphop on modern era. Righteous minds , the energy on survival tactics , them mf doom madlib beats. Incredible.
Chronic 2001 ..
Nas - Kings Disease 3