The 200 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time

The first on-record appearances of “Nasty” Nas (Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque,” “Halftime” from the Zebrahead soundtrack) were like Shakesperean, fuck-thou freestyles resituated into songs in the studio. But Illmatic‘s tight, 10-track set cast a timeless spell — project poetry with documentary depth and vocalese so subtly resonant you could see and smell the Queensbridge Houses stairwells. Ultimately, Nas’ musings were the intuitive philosophy of a 20-year-old old soul, but the roll call of masterful producers — key man Large Professor, plus Pete Rock, DJ Premier, and Q-Tip — artfully shaped the songs with such affecting jazz-funk brush strokes that they felt divinely inspired. —C.A.

Ridin’ Dirty marks UGK’s creative peak. Everything is deeper here: The bluesy rhythms are richer and slower – yep, that’s guitarist Leo Nocentelli from the Meters on “Diamonds & Wood” – and the performances are razor sharp. The late Pimp C established himself as one of the genre’s greats, a dynamic Southern producer who could rap and sing with equal finesse. Meanwhile, Bun B stands out for his aggressively textured lyrics, and he blacks out on “Murder.” The album vividly evokes the sensation of smoking out and drifting through the Texas streets, a time and place of that resonates decades later. —M.R.

Emerging from a childhood scarred by poverty, abuse, and incarceration, Earl “Dark Man X” Simmons came hungry and heartfelt on his five-times-platinum debut. In 1998, he was the undisputed hottest rapper in the game because of his technical ability on songs like single “Get at Me Dog,” but his debut LP revealed a multifaceted, emotionally rich tangle of contradictions and confessions. X was boastful (“Ruff Ryders’ Anthem”) and prone to grisly murder scenarios (“X-Is Coming”), but he takes a moment for an earnest, a cappella prayer to the heavens (“Prayer”). He raps as temptation (“Damien”) and as God (“The Convo”), airing his demons and aspirations, painting both the horror of his existence and the power of his triumph. —C.W.

Has any artist hit a hot streak like Lil Wayne circa 2007? The New Orleans MC was on fire, stunting with a barrage of brilliant underground mixtapes that made everyone else in the game look slow. Da Drought 3 was his crazed peak, two discs of Weezy cruising to Anita Baker and smoking weed by the acre, in his blunted-out Louisiana drawl. (It also had the first showcase for his new discovery, Nicki Minaj.) The high point: “Upgrade,” where Weezy freestyles over a Beyoncé hit, declaring, “Put a motherfucker on ice like the Maple Leafs/That’s a hockey team, and I ain’t on no hockey team/But I’m a champion — where’s the fucking Rocky theme?” —R.S.

From the hedonistic chaos of “Freak Hoe” to the diamond-encrusted self-promotion of “Rich Sex,” Future’s double-platinum opus is the dark lothario at his best. For years after its release, there was not a college party or apartment pregame that went un-soundtracked by DS2, and ever since, wherever there are vices to be enjoyed among rap fans, there is some Future record to be played. Plus, by tacking on modern classics like “Fuck Up Some Commas” and “Real Sisters,” DS2 presents a rare instance in which a deluxe repackaging actually enhances the original album rather than bloating it. —M.C.

“Inside every man is a bad girl!,” Lil Kim declared in her debut hit, “No Time.” And all over Hard Core, she proved she was that girl. The Queen Bee was the femme in the Bad Boy crew, the self-proclaimed “rap Mae West.” Nobody could top Kim for raunchy sex-and-money talk. She flosses with her mentor Biggie on four of Hard Core’s songs. (Biggie called her “my lieutenant.”) Ironically, her two most iconic hits from this era were remixes she left off the album: “Crush on You” and “Not Tonight,” a Top 10 feminist jam with Missy Elliott, Left Eye, and Da Brat. —R.S.

The one and only Madvillain album has two eccentric hip-hop geniuses pushing each other to a peak of weirdo virtuosity: rapper MF Doom and producer Madlib. Doom started in the underrated Long Island crew KMD, but he became a cult figure on his own, a mysterious supervillain in a metal mask, using a string of aliases and costumes. He had perfect chemistry with Madlib, a West Coast maestro of warped funk samples. As Doom said, the album sessions were “like a telepathy thing. There wasn’t a lot of talking.” Madvillainy was strictly for the underground, but it was so dazzling, so original, nobody could resist. It stands as one of hip-hop’s boldest creative landmarks. —R.S.

With its thick timbres, faster tempos, dissonant keyboards, dynamite drums, and violent mix of hip-hop and electronic music, Kanye’s sixth studio album remains Kanye West’s most radical statement. Nothing in mainstream rap had the hammering percussion of “Black Skinhead,” the glitchy design of “On Sight,” or the ballistic New Orleans bounce of “Blood on the Leaves.” By turning up the distortion, contorting the samples, and rhyming with a petulant recklessness that was over the top even by Kanye’s standards, he found a new way to shock the world. Croissant: earned. —Y.P.

Cardi B built a reputation as Love & Hip Hop’s most beloved “regular degular smegular girl from the Bronx,” but when it came time to release her debut album, Invasion of Privacy, she threw herself into the music with the menace of a Louboutin rammed into someone’s throat. While it was the bellicose spirit of the Grammy-nominated lead single “Bodak Yellow” that set Cardi on course for a history-making career, the greatest achievement of the LP is how it coalesces into a full, unflinching portrait, with songs like “Best Life” and the mega-smash “I Like It” filling in the details of her rise from strip clubs to reality-show fame to hip-hop royalty. —J.L.

Rakim, for all his lyrical complexity, never confused us. (If anything, maybe he was slightly confused — when on his game-changing debut, Paid in Full, he rapped, “My unusual style/Will confuse you a while”—about how palatable his doctorate-in-physics-level rhymes sounded to the average hip-hop head back in 1987.) The timeless title track brought regal God-body purity to lyrics that were otherwise about getting to the bag. And on “Eric B Is President,” Ra dropped science that felt fun and easy as a P.E. course. Neither medicine nor candy, Paid in Full hit a therapeutic sweet spot in the culture. —W.D.

When people mention Ghostface as an all-time great, this is the one they’re talking about. His second solo full-length is Ghost at his purest quintessence, talking miraculous shit for an hour straight and stringing together outlandish imagery at a clip that would leave lesser MCs panting for breath. Lyrical displays like “One,” “Nutmeg,” and “Apollo Kids” — the one where he rhymes “Ayo, this rap is like ziti” with “strawberry kiwi” — fulfill the dreams of anyone who heard his scene-stealing verses on earlier Wu-Tang releases and wondered if he could sustain that energy for an entire album. He could, and it’s telling that an LP that includes Ghost’s first solo chart hit (“Cherchez LaGhost”) is better remembered for the outrageously inventive album tracks that surround it. —S.V.L.

“Guess who’s back,” announces Dr. Dre on the intro to “Still D.R.E.,” as Scott Storch’s cascading piano lines glide beneath him. The multi-platinum success of 2001 barely concealed all the problems Dre overcame to make it. His prior two projects, the 1996 label compilation The Aftermath and the 1997 supergroup The Firm, were commercial disappointments. He lost his brother to gun violence. He even had to change the name from The Chronic 2000 because his onetime business partner-turned-blood enemy, Suge Knight, stole it. These tabloid dramas lend fuel to hard-hitting tracks like “What’s the Difference,” “Forgot About Dre,” and “The Message.” Yet it all sounds like an unforgettable G-funk extravaganza, a hallmark of Dre’s ability to turn tumult to triumph. —M.R.

Real-life brothers Malice and Pusha T had been working with the Neptunes production duo since 1992, making songs in Chad Hugo’s basement despite his screaming parents. Ten years and one shelved album later, they emerged with Lord Willin’, a visionary combination of Clipse’s hard-nosed rhymes about the drug trade and the Neptunes’ futuristic bubble-funk. Single “Grindin’” was the most minimalist thing to hit the radio since “We Will Rock You,” and the rest of the album exploded prismatically with the type of rhymes that blended raw chops, punchlines, and ice-cold veins: Raps Pusha T in “Comedy Central, “I keep the streets so numb they call me ‘Novocaine’/I turn over ‘caine, over and over again.” —C.W.

A whole world of mythology exists in the 80-minutes of Drake’s 2011 opus, Take Care. Kendrick Lamar even finds himself awestruck during his feature on the album’s interlude, “Buried Alive,” essentially realizing that the record is a classic in real time. Indeed, Take Care is the most well-rounded project of Drake’s career, and marks the beginning of a new era in rap. Inspired production from Drake’s right-hand man, Noah “40” Shebib, engendered a dynamic shift in the sonics of hip-hop. Toronto-born Drizzy had already turned the genre’s masculine facade on its head by freely crooning alongside his verses, and with Take Care, the pair achieved sonic cohesion. Drake spends Take Care digging into his psyche, and it set the stage for the vulnerable and self-reflective ethos we see in rap today. —J.I.

Looking to express herself outside the hugely successful Fugees, 23-year-old Lauryn Hill came through with a feminist hip-hop-soul masterpiece on her 1998 debut. The opening one-two punch still stuns: The anthemic “Lost Ones” moves into the brutal breakup ballad “Ex-Factor.” The smash hit, “Doo Wop (That Thing)” is sandwiched between “To Zion,” an ode to her first child, and “Superstar,” a demand for more inspirational mass culture. At 77 minutes long, Miseducation spills over with brilliant (at times contradictory) insights, thrilling melodies, and plenty of moralizing — a righteous blockbuster that redefined every genre it touched. —J.G. 

The epithet “jazz rap” can’t come close to describing what Q-Tip, Phife, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad achieved on their second, classic LP. Though it samples session legends like Grant Green and Art Blakey, Tribe’s masterpiece is a whole multiculti mind state. Cool, eclectic, boho, and Black AF, it covered everything from anger management predicaments to the perils of date rape, and even gave us a random-ass number — 4080 — to sum up all that’s shady about the record industry. Tip’s husky, helium-toned couplets were a perfect match for Phife’s raspy everyman bravado. We still haven’t come down from The Low End Theory’s highs. —W.D.

A hip-hop legend so fantastical, it could only be the truth: Nine guys from New York’s outermost boroughs, steeped in Five Percent teachings and old kung-fu movies, crammed into one smoky studio for a lyrical battle royale that would reshape rap for the next decade. RZA’s sample collages set a new standard for hard-elbowed beats, and the Clan’s verses showed a stunning range of craftsmanship: the multisyllabic wisdom of U-God, the brainy arrogance of Inspectah Deck, the street-level insights of Raekwon, the crooked pop instincts of Method Man, the free-form wit of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the keyed-up yelp of Ghostface Killah. The sheer density of slang-encrusted myth-making on Enter the Wu-Tang made an entire generation of MCs step up their lingo and laid the blueprint for outsized crews to come from Odd Future to Spillage Village and beyond. —S.V.L.

Missy Elliott’s third album isn’t necessarily an advertisement for MDMA, although she chants, “This is for my ecstasy people” on “4 My People.” But it may be the most evocative reflection of an orgiastic moment when the hip-hop and R&B crowd discovered the delights of the club drug. The music is kinetic and sexually charged, and Elliott and longtime collaborator Timbaland craft some of their most unforgettable and innovative sounds. Everyone loves “Get Ur Freak On,” an instant classic where she spits party raps over a whirling, percussive dervish of drum and bass and Bollywood influences. Just as awesome is “Take Away,” which defines love as a “perfect match” greater than anything the jiggy era could offer. —M.R.

Following the fallout from his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance speech, Kanye West was fighting to win back the public’s favor. That fueled him to do something he hadn’t done before and maybe never will do again: exactly what we wanted him to. MBDTF is an upgraded amalgamation of everything that made us love Kanye: luxurious production, fluid features, and dexterous rapping over themes of grandeur, drugs, sex, and love. It combines the heartfelt vulnerability of The College Dropout, the orchestral soundscapes of Late Registration, the upscaled arena-raps of Graduation, and touches of the Auto-Tuned crooning of 808’s & Heartbreak. Kanye may think differently, but this album is a masterpiece. —M.C.

With narrative development akin to a bestselling novel, Kendrick Lamar’s third album whisks us from Compton to South Africa and back again, with stirring meditations on everything from colorism to incarceration to wealth inequality along the way. Kendrick’s imagination here is deep and deft, as he dreams aloud of resilience, vengeance, and conversations with religious and rap deities. Both the sound and the words of Butterfly gracefully toe the line between diverse and disjunct with producers like Terrace Martin and Sounwave elevating Kendrick’s stories by bending jazz, soul, funk, and psychedelia into the shape of a hip-hop album. —M.C.

The crowning achievement of rap’s greatest year, Nation of Millions was hip-hop’s first masterpiece. Musically, it was Sgt. Pepper’s; lyrically, it was London Calling, a radical mix of controlled chaos, righteous anger, dizzying scratch workouts, and samples that collided like a demolition derby. Chuck D led the prophets of rage with his instantly recognizable stentorian shout, taking aim at radio programmers, the prison-industrial complex, the media, the surveillance state, and addictions to both drugs and TV. The four-man Bomb Squad production team picked only the most caustic and noise-bringing samples. World’s-greatest-hype man Flavor Flav brought the undeniable spotlight-stealing star power that ultimately crossed generations. Louder than a bomb, its influence crossed genre lines from hip-hop to heavy metal to shoegaze and beyond. —C.W.

After his landmark debut, Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z spent much of the late Nineties fighting to prove he was a chart contender and a worthy heir to his late friend Biggie. By 2001, he could sit back and relax, flowing effortlessly over the choicest crop of throwback-soul beats he ever bought, from an ascendant Just Blaze and a new guy from Chicago named Kanye West. This is also the album where he aired out his grievances against Nas and Prodigy (the brash, Doors-sampling “Takeover”), but he gets that out of the way early, leaving the rest of the album clear for extra-clever boasts (“U Don’t Know,” “Izzo,” “Hola Hovito”) and some of the most emotionally direct writing of his career (“Song Cry,” “Heart of the City,” “Never Change”). Quick and witty, confident and smooth, he never sounded better. —S.V.L.

By the turn of the millennium, Outkast were the standard bearers for Southern hip-hop, a regional form unfairly derided as less sophisticated than rap’s coastal variants. Stankonia finds harmony in the region’s myriad forms — booty bass and HBCU marching bands, protean crunk and trap, psychedelic P-funk and organic neo-soul. André 3000 and Big Boi, two of the best rappers of their generation, encompass the stylistic patchwork with panache, particularly on the hits “Ms. Jackson” and “B.O.B.” They really do sound “So Fresh, So Clean,” even as the “blue collar scholars” address hot-button topics like sex, abortion, and hypocrisy in American politics. “I met a critic, I made her shit her draws/She said she thought hip-hop was only guns and alcohol,” raps Andre on “Humble Mumble.” “I said, ‘Oh, hell naw/But yeah, it’s that, too/You can’t discriminate because you read a book or two.’” —M.R.

Ready to Die marked the precise moment when hip-hop’s golden age transitioned into its modern age, the height of New York hip-hop, and the sound of the greatest rapper of all time at the absolute top of his powers. The album starts with the theater necessary for such a high-stakes debut. Before he became the Notorious B.I.G., Christopher Wallace had been hustling and selling drugs to make ends meet, experiences he poured into hard-hitting, semi-autobiographical songs after he signed with Uptown Records in 1992. When his A&R rep Sean “Puffy” Combs got fired, Wallace’s future looked uncertain — but that all changed once Ready to Die was released on Combs’ Bad Boy Records in 1994. Biggie leavened his raw fatalism with a smooth, subtle sense of humor, perfecting a hard-soft dichotomy that would become a template for decades of artists. From the grandiose cinema of the four skits on “Intro” to the triumph of “Juicy” to the bleak honesty of “Suicidal Thoughts,” the album remains a grim, groundbreaking classic that stared death in the eye and became larger than life. —J.L.