Uptown Saturday Night
1997
Named after a 1974 Sidney Poitier film. Luchini is built on a Dynasty record, and the pair's slang was obscure enough that listeners traded translations.
★ 3.3
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
No One Can Do It Better
1989
He had written much of N.W.A's material, and a car crash months after this destroyed his voice permanently. He was twenty-one.
★ 3.3
Power
1988
The cover has his girlfriend in a swimsuit holding a shotgun, which got the record removed from a number of shops.
★ 3.6
Critical Beatdown
1988
Ced-Gee had already programmed half of Criminal Minded for Boogie Down Productions before making this, and Kool Keith raps like nobody else at all.
★ 4.0
The Diary
1994
Scarface came out of the Geto Boys and produced much of this himself. He talks over the beats as often as he raps.
★ 4.3
Thank Me Later
2010
Drake had been a teenage actor on a Canadian school drama, and made a record that raps and sings without marking where one stops.
★ 4.3
Strictly Business
1988
Both of them rap in the same flat monotone, over Zapp and Eric Clapton records, and somehow the lack of energy is the appeal.
★ 4.3
Regulate...G Funk Era
1994
The hit is built on a Michael McDonald song from 1982. Warren G is Dr. Dre's stepbrother and got nowhere near his budget.
★ 4.3
Section.80
2011
He put it out himself with no label, about the generation born under Reagan, a year before anyone outside Los Angeles knew his name.
★ 4.3
Deltron 3030
2000
Del plays a mech soldier in the year 3030 fighting a corporate empire with rap battles, and somehow it works.
★ 4.4
Cypress Hill
1991
B-Real pitched his voice up into that nasal whine on purpose, because he thought his normal one was too easy to ignore.
★ 4.4
Capital Punishment
1998
The first solo album by a Latino rapper to go platinum. Big Pun was dead of a heart attack two years later, at twenty-eight.
★ 4.5
Breaking Atoms
1991
Nas was seventeen and turns up for one verse near the end, which is where most people first heard him.
★ 4.5
Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde
1992
They started out as dancers, and it shows in how loose the record is. Their producer J-Swift built the beats out of jazz records.
★ 4.5
93 'til Infinity
1993
They were teenagers when they made it, rapping fast over a Billy Cobham loop about doing very little on a warm Oakland afternoon.
★ 4.5
What's the 411?
1992
Blige was discovered from a karaoke tape recorded in a shopping mall, and the title comes from the phrase for asking someone's business.
★ 4.8
Step In the Arena
1991
This is where DJ Premier worked out his method of chopping a record into single notes and rebuilding the melody from the pieces.
★ 4.9
Resurrection
1994
The famous song describes hip hop as a woman he has known since childhood. Ice Cube took it personally and started a feud.
★ 4.9
Ridin' Dirty
1996
There were no singles and no videos, and it sold on word of mouth across the South while nobody in New York noticed.
★ 4.9
Mama Said Knock You Out
1990
The title is what his grandmother told him when critics said he was finished. Marley Marl produced it and the comeback worked.
★ 5.0