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
Long Live the Kane
1988
Kane was already ghostwriting for half the Juice Crew when he made it, and Marley Marl gave him beats built from single drum hits.
★ 5.0
Daily Operation
1992
DJ Premier chopped the loops so short they barely repeat, and Guru delivers everything in the same flat voice, which somehow makes it land harder.
★ 5.1
Be
2005
Kanye West produced most of it and J Dilla the rest, and Common's father closes the record talking over the last track.
★ 5.1
Vol. 2...Hard Knock Life
1998
Jay-Z sampled children singing from the musical Annie for the title track, an idea nobody around him thought would work until it did.
★ 5.4
Criminal Minded
1987
Scott La Rock was shot dead a few months after it came out, which turned the guns on the sleeve into something else entirely.
★ 5.5
Death Certificate
1991
Cube split it into a death side and a life side. Several chains refused to stock it and Billboard ran an editorial against it.
★ 5.5
Watch the Throne
Jay-Z and Kanye West
2011
They recorded much of it in hotel suites around the world to stop it leaking, and the gold sleeve was designed by a Givenchy designer.
★ 5.6
Tha Carter III
2008
So much of it leaked in advance that he recorded a second album's worth. The A Milli beat is one chopped-up vocal repeated endlessly.
★ 5.7
Run the Jewels 2
2014
They gave it away free online, as they had the first one, and Killer Mike's verse about being stopped by police arrived weeks before Ferguson.
★ 5.7
Black on Both Sides
1999
Mos Def plays several of the instruments himself, and opens by pointing out that hip hop cannot be doing well if its people are not.
★ 5.7
The Score
1996
Recorded in a basement studio in New Jersey for about a hundred thousand dollars, and Killing Me Softly was a Roberta Flack hit from 1973.
★ 5.9
The Slim Shady LP
1999
Dr. Dre heard the demo through Jimmy Iovine and signed him within days. Eminem had been washing dishes in a Detroit restaurant.
★ 5.9
Raising Hell
1986
Aerosmith had not heard of Run-D.M.C. and were barely working when Rick Rubin got them into the studio to redo Walk This Way.
★ 5.9
Licensed to Ill
1986
Kerry King of Slayer plays the guitar solo. Rick Rubin built the beats out of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC drums played very loud.
★ 6.0
Check Your Head
1992
They picked their instruments back up and built a studio with a skate ramp in it, which is roughly how the record sounds.
★ 6.1
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
2003
50 Cent had been shot nine times two years earlier, and the bullet still in his jaw is part of why he sounds like that.
★ 6.4
The Infamous...
1995
Havoc and Prodigy were nineteen when they made it. Q-Tip helped with the production and is credited on the sleeve under a false name.
★ 6.6
Things Fall Apart
1999
Questlove and Black Thought began by busking on Philadelphia street corners, which is why a live band plays everything here rather than a sampler.
★ 6.7
The Eminem Show
2002
Eminem produced most of this himself rather than handing it to Dr. Dre, and it leaked so widely that the release was moved forward.
★ 6.7
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
1995
It came out on a purple cassette, and Ghostface Killah appears on so much of it that people argue whose album it really is.
★ 6.8