Christmas Day 1987 marks the day I was properly introduced to Rap when I was given the tape above as a present with a new Walkman. The Coldcut remix of 'Paid In Full' was included on the B-side of tape 1 and immediately caught my imagination. Admittedly it was more Coldcut's weird samples and scratching than an appreciation of Rakim's flow but I was only 9 years old.
Anyway, with that in mind and inspired by Tha Gawd's recent post (and some of the lists in the comments) I thought I'd drop my all time Top 20.
Choosing tunes tracks that make the cut was easy, narrowing it down and bumping them again to get it down to 20 was the tricky part. The only criteria was one track per artist.
Eric B & Rakim 'Move The Crowd' (1987)
Public Enemy ‘Welcome To The Terrordome’ (1990)
Ice T ‘New Jack Hustler’ (1991)
Ice Cube ‘My Summer Vacation’ (1991)
Main Source ‘Just Hangin Out’ (1991)
Pete Rock & CL Smooth ‘T.R.O.Y’ (1992)
Dr Dre ‘Let Me Ride’ (1992)
A Tribe Called Quest ‘Lyrics To Go’ (1993)
Nas ‘Memory Lane’ (1994)
Black Moon ‘Buck Em Down’ remix (1994)
Gang Starr ‘Mass Appeal’ (1994)
Common Sense ‘Resurrection’ Extra P remix (1995)
Raekwon & Ghostface ‘Rainy Dayz’ (1995)
Mobb Deep ‘Still Shinin’ (1995)
Camp Lo ‘Coolie High’ Paradise mix (1996)
Diplomats ‘I Really Mean It’ (2003)
AZ ‘The Come Up’ (2005)
Jay Electronica ‘Exhibit C’ (2009)
Red Cafe 'Heart & Soul Of New York City' (2009)
Curren$y ft Freddie Gibbs ‘Scottie Pippen’ (2011)
It's probably fair to say half the list would change if I did it again next week. I expected there to be more from the 00s as thats what I listen to most but when they were stacked against each other the 90s won the day. Feel free to hit the comments section and tell me why I should've gone with Midnight over Lyrics To Go or whatever.
Tracks that narrowily missed the cut: Made You Look, Still Tippin, Verbal Intercourse, On The Real, Uptown Anthem, My Melody, CREAM, Boyz N The Hood, The Roc (Just Fire), Say No Go, Mind Playing Tricks, 50 Bars, Nuthin But A G Thang, Lethal Weapon, Tonights Da Night, I Got Cha Opin (remix), Supastar, We Gonna Make It...a lot basically.
Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas!
