30 best hip hop albums of all time, ranked: classic hip-hop albums revealed
The best rap albums of all time - including NWA, Nas, 2Pac and more.
It's the perfect time to celebrate the best hip hop albums and the best rap albums of all time. Last year hip hop the grand old age of 45. It began with a birthday party in the recreation room of an apartment building, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, in the west Bronx, New York City, hosted by Clive Campbell, also known as DJ Kool Herc.
Today it's home to some of the most vital, culturally relevant music in the world...
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30. Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
Hip hop isn’t short of the odd cocksure character or seven, and in Lupe Fiasco the most brazen of musical genres gained another confident young man upon the release of Food & Liquor. Fiasco’s debut album it displayed the nous of a man wise beyond his 24 years. Reminiscent of Kanye West’s The College Dropout, there was a pop sheen to these urbane stories of sex and aspirational stardom. Two things Fiasco wouldn’t be short of from here on in.
29. Scarface - The Fix
Not many musicians release their defining work seven albums in. Even less so in the frenetic world of hip hop where youthful bravado generally trumps maturity every time. But then Scarface is different. An astute businessman as well as recording artist, he knows his audience inside out, being able to give them what they want. And The Fix is the arch example of that. A lurid trip into the rags’n’riches lifestyle of hip hop hustlers, it’s a high octane ride from start to finish.
28. Jurassic 5 - Jurassic 5
Those bored by the gangsta rap heyday of the mid-Nineties found much succor in the backpack underground sounds that began to emerge in the later part of that decade. Company Flow represented New York’s wild experimental edge, while on the other side of America, Jurassic 5, with their emphasis on turntablism, were all about recalling the likes of De La Soul. On Jayou, Concrete Schoolyard and Lesson 6: The Lecture, the six-piece pleasingly put a smile back on the face of hip hop.
27. Dead Prez - Let's Get Free
Upon release, Let’s Get Free was rightly acclaimed as a clarion call for righteous and political hip hop – not for nothing were the duo of stic.man and M-1 lauded as the most revolutionary rap outfit since Public Enemy. And while Let’s Get Free is a bombastic and unrepentant call to arms, there are lighter touches too, displaying that sometimes subtlety is just as powerful as an iron fist.
26. The Pharcyde - Labcabincalifornia
Thankfully, it wasn’t all braggadocio in hip hop in the mid-Nineties. Los Angeles four-piece The Pharcyde followed their mesmeric debut, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, with another lesson in irreverent sonic adventure. The jazzy, soporific vibes of Runnin’ recalled kindred spirits A Tribe Called Quest, while the inventive Drop (with an equally original video from Spike Jonze) displayed a steely experimental edge. The group would fall apart after this release with Fatlip leaving, but this was some parting gift.