Best Rap/ Hip-Hop Albums of the s

Music nostalgia tends to move in year cycles, so it's no surprise that -- following the '90s-rap revivalism of the s -- we're already seeing some early s rap trends resurfacing in today's rap music. Some of the classic albums have already celebrated their 20th anniversaries, and other early s classics will be turning 20 before we know it, so we thought it'd be a good time to look back on some of best rap album of the 2000s on early s rap albums that hold up especially well and still feel relevant and influential today.

The early s were a crucial time for rap. Artists like Jay-Z and Eminem made the genre more popular than ever, as a new critically acclaimed rap underground started to take shape, led by artists like DeltronMadvillain, and El-P. Some fans and critics tried to paint the underground as more authentic than the mainstream, but even El-P himself didn't see it that way.

Init's normal for mainstream rap albums to be among the most acclaimed albums of the year, but 20 years ago, that wasn't always the case. A lot of the most innovative music of the time lived on mainstream rap albums, and a good deal of those albums have become relics of the CD era when albums were pressured by major labels to have a little best rap album of the 2000s on of everything the love songs, the radio songs, the street songs rather than to be best rap album of the 2000s on, Illmatic -style classics.

It was often a singles-dominated market and even some of the best artists failed to release albums without filler, but the highs on those minute albums hold up and shouldn't be lost to history.

The tough New York rap and West Coast gangsta rap that dominated the '90s continued into the early s, but they eventually made way for other scenes best rap album of the 2000s on subgenres to take over. The early s saw Southern rap finally have the moment that Andre said it would back at the Source Awards, and we're still feeling the effects of that today -- it's now more common to hear New York rappers try to sound like Atlanta than the other way around.

The early s also birthed the first album by Kanye West, the pink polo-wearing rapper with a Benz and a backpack who irreversibly changed the very idea of what a rapper could be.

It's never easy to pinpoint the exact beginning and end of an era, but this list goes from through very earlywhich saw the release of a certain instant-classic album that felt like the last cough document of the early s sound.

Later that year, Kanye would release his Jon Brion collaboration Late Registrationwhich started to shape a rap future that would look and sound much, much different. The 25 albums on our list aren't necessarily the definitive 25 best rap albums of the early s, but all 25 hold up in ways that make them feel especially essential today. Also, we stuck to one album per artist. Read on for the list unranked, in chronological order and leave your own favorites in the comments The Wu-Tang Clan had dominated the '90s both as a group and as individual artists -- thanks in no small part to Ghostface Killah, whose debut album Iroman is among the Wu-Tang's finest work -- but by the end of that decade, there were serious doubts in the hip hop best rap album of the 2000s on that the group had anything left to say.

Ghostface wasn't giving up that easy, though. He tapped the Wu-Tang's production mastermind RZA to helm about half the tracks best rap album of the 2000s on this song album, and he matched the production with some of the best rapping of his career. It's a bolder, richer, more modern-sounding album than Ironmanand it helped the Wu come into the new decade swinging. Would they be the timeless group they are today had this album not saved them from becoming '90s relics?

Maybe not. The first album on this list was still largely rooted in the sound of the '90s, but the second one hit fast forward another 1, years. Deltronthe self-titled debut album by the supergroup of Del the Funky Homosapien, Dan the Automator, and Kid Koala, wasn't just lyrically a concept album set in ; it still sounds futuristic today.

Automator's production is hypnotic and psychedelic and sounds like a trip through outer space, and Del's tongue-twisting rhymes and sci-fi themes make it even more dizzying.

Among the album's guests was Blur's Damon Albarn, and he credits the album as a major inspiration on Gorillaz, whose debut single "Clint Eastwood" the following year featured Del returning the favor.

Deltron never became the superstars best rap album of the 2000s on Gorillaz did, but this album remains the Iggy Pop to their Ziggy Stardust. If you listen to alternative, psychedelic rap today, there's a good chance it was influenced either directly or indirectly by Deltron Sometimes the stuff that's meant to be the most futuristic ends up quickly sounding the most dated, but not this album. We very possibly aren't done experiencing its influence and impact.

Lil' Kim got her big break after Biggie took her under his wing, and her instant-classic debut album Hard Core was met with its fair share of comparisons to Big's work, but Kim best rap album of the 2000s on had a clear voice of her own and that came through on the loud, brash album.

Big's tragic passing took place the year after Hard Core came out, and Kim paid best rap album of the 2000s on to him with the title of this album. She said she "felt Biggie's spirit" while making it, and despite or because of? The glossier production sounded distinctly like what we now think of as "s" compared to the very '90s-sounding Hard Coreand Kim was an even tougher, more compelling rapper on this album than on its predecessor.

And while it lacked best rap album of the 2000s on Top 40 hit, The Notorious K. When Kim raps "I guess you know by now who's number one," she practically dares you to best rap album of the 2000s on it could be anyone else.

OutKast did it all. The production -- which combined sampling with live instrumentation and pulled from psychedelia, soul, funk, and more best rap album of the 2000s on was as musically ambitious as the classic '60s and best rap album of the 2000s on records that OutKast and other rappers were using as source material, yet OutKast and frequent collaborators Organized Noize still made it sound like ahead-of-its-time rap music.

And the rapping itself was just as out of this world as the music. Andre was still three years away from "Hey Ya! As always, Andre's out-in-space style is grounded by Big Boi's more down-to-earth style and bulletproof punchlines, best rap album of the 2000s on standout verses by Killer Mike and Gangsta Boo add grit to OutKast's increasingly melodic sound too. These days, it's easy to take for granted how fantastic OutKast were in their prime, and forget how they had to release masterpiece after masterpiece just to get accepted by the East and West Coast scenes that thought the South was a joke.

But whenever you take the time to really dive back into StankoniaOutKast sound even better than you remember. The hits "Ms. Jackson," "B. It's truly timeless. OutKast were well-established bybut that year also saw the emergence of another soon-to-be Atlanta rap star, Ludacris. Following Luda's independently-released debut Incognegrohe inked a major label deal with Def Jam South the now-defunct Southern branch of Def Jamre-recorded a lot of Incongegro 's songs, added a few very key new ones, and came out with the instant-classic Back for the First Time.

OutKast collaborators Organized Noize did produce one track on this album "Game Got Switched"but Luda represented a different side of the South than OutKast, and the album's most groundbreaking production came from two rising Virginia artists who hadn't contributed to Incongegro : The Neptunes "Southern Hospitality" and Timbaland "Phat Rabbit". Coming from Virginia, where they were pretty much equidistant from the New York rap scene and the Southern rap scene, The Neptunes and Timbaland absorbed all different kinds of regional sounds and came out with a maximalist, futuristic, genre-defying production Best Rap Album Of The 2000s Free style that would define the early s, not just within hip hop but within pop and rock and beyond.

Still today, one of the greatest Neptunes beats best rap album of the 2000s on all time is "Southern Hospitality," and it was also one of the earliest examples of Luda figuring out how to add real hooks into his music.

Later albums would find him getting more and more pop-friendly, but Back for the First Time is overall pretty raw. It's the Ludacris album of choice if you want him at his hardest and least frilly, and it remains a grand introduction to one of the most charismatic rappers of the early s. Best rap album of the 2000s on came into the s swinging after her breakthrough debut album Let There Be Eve Ruff Ryders' First Lady and her standout verses on Ruff Ryders' first two Ryde or Die compilations, but it was 's Scorpion that established Eve as a superstar and one of the seminal rappers of her generation.

With a Dr. Dre beat and a Gwen Stefani hook on "Let Me Blow Ya Mind," Eve was able to leave her mark on the mainstream Gwen would return the favor three years later by having Eve guest on the Dre-produced "Rich Girl"but don't let that song overshadow the rest of Scorpion.

Eve loads the album with menacing bars, and the bold, dark production of most of the album only makes her sound more sinister. Dre shows up again on "That's What It Is," which goes as hard as any of the Dre-produced hits of the era. A good 15 years at least before Run The Jewels, El-P was running underground rap as a member of Company Flow, a producer, a solo artist, and the co-owner of the Definitive Jux label.

Not a million miles away from the Deltron album, El's production on The Cold Vein pulled from the boom bap and turntable scratches of the '90s, but in a way that was cinematic and psychedelic and sounded like it was from the future. Vast Aire and Vordul Mega rise to the occasion with wordplay and tongue-twisters that are just as mind-bending as the production, and they always manage to talk about real shit, even when they sound surrealist on the surface.

Jay-Z made a name for himself rapping alongside Jaz-O and then Big Daddy Kane in the late '80s and early '90s, but took his time when it came to making his own album.

And while he was watching and waiting, the young Queensbridge rapper Nas released his debut album Illmatican instant-classic that received a now-legendary score of five mics from The Source and changed rap forever. Jay took obvious notes from Illmatic and sampled a line from it when he finally released his own debut album, 's Reasonable Doubt.

Gone was the fast-rapping Jay-Z of the Jaz-O days and in his place was an artist with a smoother, grittier style who told real-life stories of life on the best rap album of the 2000s on in Brooklyn over some of the finest production of the era courtesy of Ski, Clark Kent, Illmatic contributor DJ Premier, and others.

Jay-Z intended for Reasonable Doubt to be a classic, and it was, but it wasn't the instantly-game-changing album that Illmatic was and it couldn't compete with the flashy, pop-crossover "Jiggy Era" that Puff Daddy started to lead after Biggie's tragic death. So Jay-Z went in an increasingly pop direction, and by the time of his single "Hard Knock Life Ghetto Anthem ," he wasn't just competing with the "Jiggy Era," he was starting to take over.

Going pop in the late '90s and early s also meant getting dissed by other rappers, among them Prodigy of Mobb Deep and Nas, whose feud with Jay-Z was about to boil over as Jay-Z geared up for his best album since Reasonable DoubtThe Blueprint. Months before its release, Jay made Hot 97 Summer Jam history by debuting "Takeover," a diss track aimed at Prodigy and Nas, during his set, alongside a childhood photo of Prodigy in dance clothes on the big screen.

The finished version of "Takeover" ended up on The Blueprintand the studio version proved it to be not just a brutal diss track but also a genuinely great song, and one of many on The Blueprint. Production came largely from Just Blaze and Kanye West plus Bink, Timbaland, Eminem, and othersand together they established best rap album of the 2000s on rich, soulful production style that would dominate rap for years.

Unlike his previous guest-filled albums, Jay carried the album almost entirely by himself, and he never lost steam. The only guest appearance came from Eminem on "Renegade," and look, Nas is best rap album of the 2000s on, Em out-rapped Jay on the track, but Jay still packed some of his finest rhyme schemes into that song.

That's mostly a good thing, but like his former collaborator El-P whose Def Jux label he was signed to in the early sAesop Rock was always one of the genuinely good ones. He's always sounded like he has a lot of respect for the hip hop traditions that his music is steeped in, and he's always been a great rapper and producer.

He remains prolific and consistently good to this day, but he was nearly unstoppable in the early s, during which time he released a handful of now-classic records, including Labor Days. In hindsight, Labor Days doesn't actually sound like the antithesis to albums like The Blueprint ; it feels like it's coming from a similar place as Jay-Z was. The production largely by Blockhead and Aesop himself sounds very much inspired by the hazy, head-nodding boom bap of '90s New York rap, and Aesop's word-scrambling delivery falls right into the pocket.

Jay-Z's claim that Nas had a "one hot album every 10 year average" wasn't entirely fair, but by the end of the '90s, it was hard to deny that Jay-Z was enjoying more critical and commercial success than ever and Nas' relevancy was fading.

But when Jay-Z brought national attention to their feud on "Takeover," it lit a fire up under Nas' ass and resulted not just in the response track "Ether" but also in the best Nas album since Illmatic. Like "Takeover," "Ether" is brutal but also a great song though, as was too often the case in early s rap, it's riddled with homophobia. It's the reason "ether" -- as in, to utterly destroy someone -- is now a verb, and it's also the reason that "stan" is a noun.

It comes from Eminem's song, but Nas made it a noun. Stillmatic is more than "Ether" though, and Nas making such a great album really spoke more volumes against Jay-Z's claims than any line in "Ether.

El-P is an artist who never stops inventing himself, and whose old stuff never sounds outdated no matter how many times he pushes his career forward.

These days, he's more famous than ever as one half of Run The Jewels, but he was running underground rap two decades ago and his music from that era sounds as forward-thinking today as it did then. After the breakup of his great '90s group Company Flow, El went solo with his debut album Fantastic Damagea drastic artistic leap from Co Flow's already-classic Funcrusher Plus. As both the rapper and the producer, El had full creative control over Fantastic Damage and was able to establish himself as a true visionary.

More than just a collection of beats and rhymes, Fantastic Damage is full of musical ebbs and flows and really plays out like a much grander statement than any of its individual songs could on their own.

Lif, and moreand it's especially thrilling to listen back to El-P's raps on this album now that we're so used to hearing him with Run The Jewels. We've seen so many rappers make one or two classic albums and fall off, but it's less often that we see someone evolve over time like El-P. The place he's at now as an artist really makes you see his classic records in a different light.

If we're picking one album per artist, a lot of people would go with 's near-perfect The Marshall Mathers LP for Eminem, but if pressed, I always go with The Eminem Show because it feels like the grand finale to the classic Eminem era.

An artist who almost always knew how to title an album, Marshall Mathers introduced the world to his massively offensive alter-ego Slim Shady on 's The Slim Shady LPhe introduced us to the man behind the madness on The Marshall Mathers LPand he took a look at the impact Eminem the artist had on the world with The Eminem Show. He also admitted the show was over with 's Encoreand then made best rap album of the 2000s on series of failed comeback attempts with RelapseRecoveryThe Marshall Mathers LP 2and Revivalbefore finally abandoning this trend on the still-just-okay-sounding Kamikaze and Music to Be Murdered By.

Eminem catapulted to the forefront of rap because of white privilege but also became a scapegoat for everything white suburban conservatives hated about rap, and there's perhaps no better response to all of it than "White America," the first proper song on The Eminem Show.

And then there's "Sing for the Moment. You might argue that song ruined white rap forever and also unfortunately convinced Eminem he needed more and more ballads on later albumsbut it also spoke directly to and validated the feelings of a lot best rap album of the 2000s on kids who needed to hear it.

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