Me and a mate of mine finished off the 92 (football league grounds) last year. He did the driving, I chose the music (cos he has very few CDs and a limited musical taste/knowledge), but his one stipulation was “no bloody rap music!”. So I decided to make him a CD of the more accessible rap tracks to try to convince him it’s not all shouty old rubbish and I wondered whether it may interest anyone on here. Sort of repaying the favour for everybody who gave me recommendations (and CDs) when I said I didn’t like reggae and asked for some pointers last year. Yes, some rap music is very shouty and some is indeed rubbish (just look at whatever is in the singles charts), but there is such a variety of rap music that I’d be surprised if there’s not at least one track out there for everybody.
So I am going to stick the tracks on here, over the next howeverlongittakes (I have no idea how to do a Spotify playlist, nor do I know if all these tracks are on Spotify, but they’ll be on YouTube, cos everything is!), and hopefully folk who say they don’t like rap music might give one or two a listen. Some are by well known artists, one or two are well known tracks, some include samples of well known tracks, some tracks are not as well known. There are a few jazz influenced tracks and a couple from more soulful producers which may appeal to some AWers, along with one that might appeal to 70s glam rock fans and one that The Stone Roses may have heard! Some are by black rappers, some by white rappers and a couple are by an overweight, blind, albino muslim, who just happens to be my favourite (not deceased) rapper. They are not necessarily the absolute best rap tracks or my own top 20 (although several of them would be on that list), but hopefully they’re enough to demonstrate that not all rappers just bang on about guns, money and sex.
I’ll start with my favourite (deceased) rapper, an obvious one for the jazz fans. Guru went on to release the Jazzmatazz series of albums, which I heartily recommend. The first one featured contributions from the likes of Donald Byrd, Lonnie Liston Smith and Roy Ayers. And here is Guru’s short history of jazz.
Sticking with the jazz theme, here’s Digible Planets.
And a bit of Manc jazz rap – with a political edge:
I was put off rap for many a year during the times when my adorable (?) teenage sons played the likes of Public Enemy at ear-shattering volumes all of the day and all of the night. And yes I did stand at the bottom of the stairs just like my Dad and shout “Turn that bloody racket down!!”
It wasn’t till the jolly little tykes left for University that I was able to get beyond my adult (?) prejudices.
Looking forward to this, Paul
That’s a pity because Public Enemy are responsible for one of the greatest singles ever made, released on Tamla Motown no less! Fight The Power is visceral and enervating, the lyric inches from your face and unflinching, plus Branford Marsalis soloing on sax. The Do The Right Thing movie’s full version is best.
I hated Public Enemy for around six months cos it was young and loud and very sweary. Once I got past that I realised how great they were. I even drove my fluffy little chikadoos to Brixton Academy where we all had a great time (albeit with me at the back and my gorgeous offspring doing unspeakable things near the front)
Please, Sir! I know the Stone Roses one, Sir!
Thanks for his, Paul. I am close to being a rap numpty.
Changing theme slightly, here’s the aforementioned blind, albino, Muslim, Brother Ali. None of those descriptors really define his work though, although he does poke fun at it in a good way, in another of his that’s coming up. Latterly his messages have been quite inspirational and spiritual, without shoving any religious stuff down our throats. Here’s my favourite track of his, from my favourite of his albums.
Next up are labelmates of Ali’s, Atmosphere. Minneapolis’ Rhymesayers is probably my favourite label at the moment. They have some great artists, having put out records by the likes of Evidence, MF DOOM, Aesop Rock, Jake One, Dilated Peoples, Eyedea & Abilities, Blueprint and Grieves, who’s coming up later. Atmosphere are rapper Slug and producer Ant, who is more or less the label’s house producer, quite literally, as his studio is in his basement, which is full of the old obscure soul albums he mines for samples. Ant has produced most of Brother Ali’s output, for example.
So much good music has come out of Minneapolis/Minnesota! Here’s You by Atmosphere.
Not including the infamous Prince acolyte Tony M, obvs. 😉
Before diving into rap music, my knowledge of decent rap producers basically consisted of Rick Rubin and Dr. Dre. Two that I’d never heard of, but are amongst the most heralded, and rightly so, are DJ Premier of Gang Starr (above and below) and Pete Rock. Very little that either of them has done has been less than great, but my favourite work by Pete Rock is the stuff he did with rapper CL Smooth. Mecca and the Soul Brother was one of the first rap albums I got to and it remains one of my favourites. Here’s a typically soulful track from it.
One of the albums Pete Rock produced, InI’s Center of Attention, took a lot of tracking down, and a lot of money to buy, but it was well worth the effort and money, particularly as it came packaged with another of the more obscure Rock produced albums, Deda’s equally great The Original Baby Pa. Here’s Square One by InI.
I started here…the video is brilliant but the version on YT is bleeped which seriously diminished its power so this will do.
“I wonder if he even kissed me goodbye?
No I don’t, second thought I just fuckin’ wished he would die”
My problem with a lot of rap is I can’t understand what they’re sayinf which rather defeats the object.
Let’s give @fentonsteve his point, because he has undoubtedly guessed I was talking about this track in the OP, Young MC’s Know How. It was his second single, released in 1988, flopping in the States, but sneaking into the top 100 in the UK (he was actually born in Wimbledon, before moving to Queens, New York when he was 3). I imagine this was on the strength of its sales in Manchester, as both The Stone Roses and The Charlatans seem to have taken inspiration from it. Young MC went on to write the lyrics for Tone Loc’s two classics, Wild Thing and Funky Cold Medina, the latter of which I would have stuck on my mate’s CD had I remembered it sooner. Actually, I first knew Funky Cold Medina through The Frank and Walters’ cover version!
Young MC’s first album, Stone Cold Rhymin’, is great, but for me none of the other tracks better Know How, although my daughter would disagree, as Principal’s Office was the first rap track she liked!
I don’t know much about rap at all (my favourites are embarrassingly civilian: Rapper’s Delight, The Message, Lose Yourself, Life’s A Bitch). Am finding this thread massively interesting.
The first rap record….
from the first to the worst. Dylan does rap, and not in a ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ good way!
Let’s get the one that most people will know out of the way. This track has taken over from Breathe by The Prodigy as the track I use to test out audio equipment. If this track sounds good then I’m happy.
I started listening to rap music with no real preconceived views. I already had the half dozen albums that people who knew little about rap music had, and I knew a few of the names, even if I had genuinely never heard of rappers as well known as, for example, NaS. But I had heard of Kanye West, and from what I had heard I thought he was a dick, and subsequently I presumed his music would be rubbish. I now know that he is indeed a dick, but he has made some ruddy great albums. I like Kanye West’s albums way more than Jay-Z’s. Actually, Jay-Z joins 2Pac and Lil Wayne as major rap artists that I’m not really bothered about.
But Kanye West’s first half dozen albums are all fab and so full of invention. The track I chose is the noisiest one I put on the CD. It borrows a drum beat from a Marilyn Manson track and was produced by West and Daft Punk, but it owes a lot to 1970s glam. Seriously, after the intro you half expect Susi Quattro to start singing. It doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the tracks here, but so what!
It sounds more like The Glitter Band. The drums aren’t actually sampled from Marilyn Manson. They are leftovers from Daftpunk’s Random Access Memories.
Sorry, yes you’re quite right and I’d even read that it wasn’t from the Manson track as first thought, but that clearly didn’t stick and I went back to believing the first thing I’d read, in much the same way as it’s impossible to convince my stepmum that the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism*, because she once read it does!
*In actual fact, the percentage chance of it supposedly causing autism was way, way below the increased chance of contacting measles without the vaccine. With all the potential complications that contracting measles carries, including death, it meant that if the (now struck off) doctor’s dishonest findings were true, it was still far safer to have the vaccine than not!
Erm…quite.
Shurely Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode is the sample at the beginning?
I knew before I scrolled past your intro that it would be this track you’d post, Paul. Yeezus is one of the greatest LP’s of this century (even though I’m not into the LP as a thing in itself anymore, but that’s another thread), much more sonically interesting and succint than the one everyone quotes as his best, MBDTF.
I mentioned not having heard of NaS until a few years ago. I must have been wearing blinkers, cos I’ve read a lot of music magazines and seen a lot of ‘best albums’ lists where he is placed highly. I just never really took much notice of rap music outside Eminem and the Beastie Boys. I already owned Public Enemy’s It Took a Nation of Millions… and NaS’ Illmatic is that albums only rival as all time greatest rap album in my eyes (and many others, it has to be said).
Illmatic is one of those rare albums that is pretty much perfect all the way through, like The Man-Machine (even Abbey Road has Maxwell’s Silver Hammer on it!). Every track is ace, but my favourite of them all is this one, NY State of Mind, which is not a cover of the Billy Joel song!
Another of my favourite albums is Masters of the Universe by Binary Star and this is the most well known track from it. In ‘hip hop cliche #3’ the duo met in prison, releasing their first album for $500 and then touring it extensively whilst on parole to raise the money to release Masters of the Universe, which is essentially a remixed version of their debut. It sold modestly, but was well received critically. However, the duo fell out and went their own separate ways shortly afterwards. A reunion 15 years saw the release of further music and One Be Lo, one half of the duo, is now releasing further Binary Star music without the involvement of his partner, Senim Silla. I don’t think either managed to top Masters of the Universe though, either together or alone.
Sorry for interrupting your dope flow, but could I possibly suggest this one? They had a much bigger hit with ‘Can I kick it?’, a song that appears in every football show at some point. But I think this was better.
No problem at all. They did loads we could choose from.
At the moment I am preferring listening to female rappers, especially those that blur the line between rap and contemporary R&B, like Dessa, Syd, Jamila Woods, Jean Grae, Haviah Mighty and Rapsody, so it surprised me when I had finished the CD that I only included one female rapper, Boog Brown. She; one of the many great rap artists from Detroit who appeared on the Sincerely, Detroit album from the great Detroit producer Apollo Brown, who also produced her first album. But if you like any of the female artists I have just named please have a listen to all the others, as there’s loads of great music to be heard. I’d particularly recommend Dessa’s A Badly Broken Code, Syd’s Fin and Haviah Mighty’s 13th Floor.
Here’a Boog Brown’s Music & Me, built around a sample from one of my favourite tracks by one of my favourite British Artists (I’ve even stood at his grave, after finding he was buried in the cemetery behind my street when I lived in Mill Hill!). A point for naming the song and the artist?
The track is produced by Tom Caruana, who made an unreleased (for obvious reasons!) album mashing up vocals from a variety of rappers with music from The Beatles that might interest some. It’s called An Adventure to Pepperland Through Rhyme and Space and it’s available on the interweb eel market if you look in the right places.
Not exactly rap but certainly hip hop, I love the “Funky Divas” album by En Vogue.
Some very early female rapping here (1938) courtesy of Naomi Smith.
(Willie “The Lion” Smith – Peace On You)
When trying to choose rap music for a non-rap fan, the obvious place to look was amongst the Native Tongues crowd. I didn’t include A Tribe Called Quest’s (Herbie Flowers sampling) Can I Kick It? or De La Soul’s Me, Myself & I, as I thought he’d already know them. Instead I plumped for De La Soul’s Eye Know, from their album 3 Feet High and Rising, otherwise known as the Sgt Pepper of rap.
Whilst undeniably a great album (it’s even been voted into the US Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry) it is responsible for the rise of the ‘skit’ on rap albums. We discussed skits on here a while ago and decided that, whilst the ones on the De La Soul album are good, you can count the other good ones on the fingers of…one finger! It also, along with the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, broke new ground with the amount of sampling used. So much so that it delayed the album appearing on streaming sites for years, because of the amount of uncleared samples, as well as the contracts for the cleared samples not including the (as yet uninvented) streaming of music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNzWuEYQpFA
A very similar feel for the next track, from a group that would easily fit in with the Native Tongues movement, Arrested Development. This is a rarity, in that Mrs Wad not only likes it, but even knows all the words! And her view of rap music is roughly the same as my mate’s. “Did he just say what I thought he said”, “don’t play this whilst the kids are downstairs” and “does it have to be that loud” are three of her catchphrases.
You might want to jump to 46 seconds to skip the introductions on this one.
I’m a big fan of Speech’s first solo album. Especially the track Ask Somebody Who Ain’t. (The second album was a bit of a letdown though.)
Let’s have one that’s not even by a rap group. Thievery Corporation have made some excellent albums across many different genres, one of my favourites being their bossa nova album, Saudade, which was discussed on the excellent thread that @tiggerlion started a few days ago. This one is from 2017’s The Temple of I and I and features rapper Mr. Lif, and whilst not a rap group and not really a rap album, it’s one of my favourite rap tracks.
Back to Gang Starr. I think this is my favourite rap track of all 29062 sitting in my iTunes library. Of all the great rappers there has been I choose one with a monotone voice as my favourite. Being a great rapper is more than that though and hopefully you’ll feel the same way as me if you’ve never heard this one before. Guru’s rap is supported by great production from DJ Premier, one of the best in the business, who’s making some great music now with Royce Da 5’9″ as Phryme.
On to Seattle for another of my very favourite albums, that took two attempts to buy a copy from the States. Well worth the wait. The Group is called Blue Scholars, the album is called Blue Scholars, the record label is called Blue Scholars and the track is called, of course, Motion Movement. You thought I was going to say Blue Scholars didn’t you! I nearly said Everton, but only Rutles fans would have got that one… I’m rambling now aren’t I. Just listen to the track, cos it’s ace.
From Seattle to Chicago, for another of my favourite rappers (I have a lot of favourites, okay), Qwel, formerly of the group Typical Cats, whose self-titled album I highly recommend. Qwel has released albums with so many different producers that he has 7 different ‘artist’ entries on my iPod, and that doesn’t include Typical Cats. I’d recommend the album he did with Kip Killagain, The New Wine, but his best work has been done with the producer Maker, with Beautiful Raw being the best album of the lot. This track is from it, but it’s one of those albums you could choose many tracks from.
Two to go and here’s a cracker. I’d bought a few CDs by this lad, and they come in nice, fancy, custom sleeves, like wot Sigur Ros, Spiritualised and Pet Shop Boys used to do. It’s a shame that for the effort made with the packaging, more people haven’t heard the great music contained within. He really is excellent and it was a surprise, on watching the free DVD with one of his albums (told you they made a lot of effort with them!), to see that he looks like one of the little kids with ASBOs that I try to keep my daughter away from.
But he has made some excellent albums, Together/Apart and Winter & the Wolves being my favourites, so if you like this track do check them out. I was torn as to whether to choose the audio track or a live version, as seeing that he looks like the kid next door doesn’t really fit in with most people’s view of American rap music, but what the heck, the track.’s great, he’s great and the performance is great.
And his name is Grieves. You’re welcome 😉
Ah, yes, that would have helped. Otherwise people might think it really is that kid on the estate with the ASBO.
The Streets?
Do you know, after I pressed the button on the Grieves track, I did think of Mike Skinner, but Grieves is probably a bit cleaner living.
H’e one of those Hippity Hoppity Rap people, but this is more soul
Plan B – Stay Too Long
I think his last album was nearly all soul, with barely any rap. I like Plan B. I remember seeing his first appearance on Jools Holland, doing Mama, and being transfixed to the screen. All his albums are good, but my favourite of his is a mixtape he did, Paint It Blacker, featuring different versions of some of the tracks from his first album, but where he was able to be a bit more liberal with the samples.
And we’ll finish with the greatest rapper alive [opinion: mine!], Brother Ali. Although I am guilty of it above, he hates that any article about him always starts off by pointing out that he’s a white, registered blind, albino, muslim, and rightly so. But the reason I brought it up was to lead into this final track, his most well known one, where he uses all this, and all the insults he’s had to suffer over the years, to deliver inspirational advice to misfits everywhere. And isn’t, after pointing out all his ‘faults’, the line “You might think I’m depressed as can be, but when I look in the mirror I see sexy-ass me” the best line in rap?
If you like either of the Brother Ali tracks, I’d suggest seeking out Shadows On the Sun and All the Beauty in This Whole Life to start with, but all Ali’s records are worth listening to.
Rap is of course all about the vocal – and Snoop has great flow
Snoop is great, but I can’t help but feel he didn’t reach the heights he was capable of. I know this sounds crazy when he’s one of the most recognisable rappers there is and when Doggystyle routinely finishes in the top 20 in all the ‘greatest ever rap albums’ lists (it’s 22nd in mine!), but I reckon he was capable of making an album that would have rivalled Illmatic and It Takes a Nation of Millions at the very top. Instead, he did some of his best work on other peoples’ albums. Don’t get me wrong, he’s done some great albums (I particularly love 7 Days of Funk), but it’s a shame he never improved on Doggystyle.
Another go-to for non rap fans Warren G also has both flow and excellent sample choice (Michael mcDonald(:
That one was on the shortlist for the CD, but removed at the last minute! It’s great. Got a few of his CDs and really like them all.
I`m the wrong demographic and age for rap, but a bit of shouty is alright by me. So heres some shouty Irishmen…..
Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprosy are my go to act for intelligent, articulate rapping. This one includes a sample of Frazier Crane!
That one doesn’t, Tiggs.
It’s worth hearing twice, though.
Oops
@paul-wad
Thank you very much. I imagine you’re tired now so get some sleep eh?
Here’s one of two small hits I wrote and produced with Definition of Sound. Van graciously allowed us to use the sample and only took 25% of the copyright which i think was perfectly fair.
My first rap gig was Definition of Sound at my university student’s union. It was alright.
My next was Public Enemy at Reading Festival. It was insane.
Amidst all the bragging and shouting…some sincerity and humility to keep folks on the right path.
Well there’s this, which is absolutely marvellous (and probably very well known, but sometimes the better known tracks need to be posted). Probably more R&B than plain old hip-hop, but worthy of a place here nonetheless:
This is well known but a must. It’s the Rap track that lovers of Rock actually like. In addition, it captures the very essence of Rap: intelligent, imaginative, inspired and inspirational, it’s lightening in a bottle. Utterly fantastic. It is a brilliant single. As great as anything recorded in the sixties.
A very good candidate as the best rap track of all time, I’d say. An Eminem track that’s not trying to be funny, not attacking someone, just a great lyric and great production. I would have added it to my mate’s CD, but he’d have had preconceived ideas about Eminem and I wanted to get him away from anything he thought he knew. I was pushing it with Kanye!
Trying to convince the Dance crowd should be easier. There’s a lot of Funk in Rap and Hey Ya is probably the best example. If you think it doesn’t count as Rap, just pay attention to the vocal line. It is just one note, albeit surrounded by lots of little melodies.
From the start, I viewed Rap as a vehicle for expressing the black experience in America. Nobody does that better than Kendrick Lamar. If you aren’t impressed with this, then Rap is really not for you:
It’s Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly that kicked it off for me. I bought it on a whim, cos I’d read how good it was supposed to be and that was that. This lad really has the world at his feet.
They play him to death on 6 Music. I’m sure he’s very good for those who like rap, but I’m afraid my only reaction is ‘when will it stop?’ It’s just not for me. I don’t connect with it at all.
Me neither. I listened to his album everyone raved about and skipped through it in less than a minute. To my ears, derivative lash up of everything I don’t like.