Apr 23, 2016

It's easy to name a handful of albums off the top of your head when discussing favorites, but until now I'd never really sat down and tried to discern an ordered list. Obviously lists like this can change pretty frequently as albums age poorly and tastes change, but I'm pretty confident in it at this point in time. Some of these probably will never leave my list, but if I'm being real, I wouldn't trust someone if they felt their ranking was concrete and forever -- it shows they aren't open to new music and don't have any interest in checking out older stuff they may have missed.

Anyway, this is purely subjective: ie, I'm not trying to discern which rap albums are the best, simply which ones are my absolute favorites (though clearly I think all of these are classic, or at the very least extremely good). I'm not gonna load it with safe 90s classics I like just because they're timeless, though obviously there are lots of great albums from that time period. I think everyone knows that "feeling" you get when you hear an album and you're certain you're going to love it forever, whether it was on the first listen or it took you a few before you "got it." That's what I'm talking about here.

A few things you should know about the list:
1. For the sake of diversity, the only rule I used when making it is that an artist can only appear once.
2. Hint: there are four albums from the 90s, one from the 2000s, and five from the 2010s. I'm probably a little biased toward the 90s and 2010s because I was a dusthead in the 2000s and didn't start really paying attention to new music like I do now until the 2010s. Make some guesses if you'd like!
3. I'm just trying to have fun with this, so these write-ups are more informal, off-the-dome blurbs of #mythoughts (shouts out @Narsh).

Like OP or tag me if you want to be mentioned when I update. I'm gonna try to do three or so every day so I don't drag this out too long.

Spoiler: #10

10. Future - Monster (2014)

Full disclosure: for how much I love Future now, I was late as f--- to the game. I'd tried listening to Dirty Sprite back in 2012 after he made the XXL Freshman list and couldn't get into him other than the titular track. Pluto and Honest didn't do much for me either when they dropped (I love them now though), and it wasn't until I heard Monster that I really 'got' Future. From the moment I heard that low growl on "Radical" and heard him say "Cowboy hat on me I went blonde cause I'm bougie/matter fact n----- I got St. Laurent groupies" I was sold.

When you're new Future's delivery and this style of production, it's hard to take in everything he says unless you're listening closely. For that reason, it took me a few spins to get past my immersion in the production and delivery and realize just how depressing this album is. For every "f--- Up Some Commas" there's a "Throw Away" and a "Hardly." Even songs like "Showed Up" that feel like pure braggadocio upon first listen are cries for help ("I was drugged up on so many drugs"). Released just six months apart, Monster is the come down from Honest. Both albums boast a smattering of infectious hooks, but the delayed sense of distraught and sadness is what makes Monster special in my eyes. The melodies get stuck in your head before you even realize what he's saying, and before you know it you can't go a day without thinking "I just downed a whole eighth of codeine...fixin' up the molly with the Spirte like it's protein." Even if you can't relate to why he's feeling what he's feeling, you can relate to what he's feeling. It's that ability to transfer emotion that I love.

Also, "Codeine Crazy." I think that speaks for itself. "I'm an addict and I can't even hide it."

Spoiler: #9

9. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty (2010)


I’m one of the seemingly few people who would put Big Boi above Andre, and that’s nothing against 3K. I’d never argue that putting him above Big Boi is a bad choice, but for me, Big’s post-Stankonia solo output (that includes Speakerboxxx, as I view Stankonia as the last true Outkast album) seals the deal. Though Big Grams and Vicious Lies & Dangerous Rumors don’t have nearly as high of a success rate as Chico Dusty (or even Speakerboxxx), they’re decent albums in their own right. I’m not so much of a fan of The Love Below, but to be fair, the last time I heard it was in 2014 when I was gearing up to see them at Sasquatch, so I should probably give it another chance.

As for the album itself: I don’t listen to it nearly as much as I used to, but there was a point in time where I honestly preferred it over and listened to it more than MBDTF…I think that’s partially because the girl I was dating at the time hated Kanye and this was one of the few rap albums she liked as much as me (not liking Kanye was an easy sign we should have broken up earlier, but I was 19 and dumb. Side note: sometimes when she would ask me questions I would answer “cuz I’m just a Chi-town cracker with a nice flow” to piss her off).

There are a lot of guests on Chico Dusty, but what I love is that he utilizes them to build an aesthetic rather than going the Game route and phoning them in to take up space and boost sales. Sleepy Brown and Big Rube are on here of course. George Clinton is on here. T.I. is on here. Too $hort stops by for four bars just because he can a la Rick Ross on “Monster.” “Shine Blockas" is one of the most fun songs ever. I love the Gucci verse (“They put Gucci in a cell then Madea went to jail/I make music, I make movies, I need Tyler Perry sales”) and I love even more that he’s not in the music video because he was in jail so they just spliced in translucent images of him during his verse. Even Yelawolf and B.o.B. hold their own (the latter of whom seemed really promising at the time, despite somewhat of a lackluster debut). For the most part, the guests seem like natural and necessary pieces of the song, and it really proves Big Boi’s ability to craft a consistent and holistic album. He’s not working with people just to work with them, he’s working with them for the greater good of the sound.

Bonus: it spawned this wonderful Black Keys mashup:

Spoiler: #8

8. UGK - Ridin’ Dirty (1996)

Despite this being widely considered UGK’s best album and one of the best southern rap albums of all time, I was a little late to the game on this one as well. It’s funny because back when I was still stanning Eminem I was bumping Super Tight and Underground Kingz, but I guess being fairly removed from the overall hip-hop canon comes with the territory of listening to Eminem a lot.

It’s absolutely baffling to me that people discredited the south for so long (and still do) when you had albums like this and ATLiens coming out in the same year (especially with an opener like “One Day”). It’s not even as if Ridin’ Dirty is particularly weird. In terms of samples, it flips most of rap’s mainstays — soul, funk, jazz, disco (and funnily enough, Pink Floyd). It’s almost as if it took sparse, gritty drums that characterized a lot of New York rap in the 1990s and blended it with the G-Funk sound that was coming out of California. For that reason, it’s an album I feel like I can put on almost anytime: it’s soulful enough for a sunny day, hard-hitting and catchy enough for background music at a low-key party, and thoughtful enough for when I’m feeling introspective.

Also, p---- C is the only person named Chad whose cocaine numbers I would believe.