When my man Math Boogie said we should each talk about five Hip-Hop Essential Albums, I jumped all over the idea. I love Hip-Hop, but have turned a deaf ear to a lot of the current minstrel acts draped in Hip-Hop cloth. For me, Hip-Hop is a pure thing: a mic; MC’s; turntables; DJ. So when it came time for me to make my list, the choices were simple and obvious.
As always, this is my opinion, which makes it the right one.
Michaelangelo’s Hip-Hop Essentials
Public Enemy, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Essential Songs: “Bring the Noise”, “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos”, “Night Of The Living Baseheads”
From 1988-1992, the biggest band on the planet wasn’t the Rolling Stones or Poison or Nirvana. Nope, the biggest, baddest band on the planet was a group from Strong Island, Public Enemy. Their militant, pro-Black lyrics scared more White folks than integration. With Terminator X behind the wheels of steel, Professor Griff and the S1W’s providing the stage presence, Flava Flav playing the court jester, and Chuck D spitting ferocious lyrics, PE wasn’t a band so much as a force of nature. And nothing proved this more than their second album, It Takes A Nation Of Millions… From the sonic shotgun blasts of the album’s opening track, “Bring The Noise”, you knew immediately that you were listening to something you’d never heard before. The production from The Bomb Squad provided the perfect aural landscape for Chuck D as he brought lyrical Armageddon to the masses:
“Never badder than bad ’cause the brother is madder than mad/
At the fact that’s corrupt as a senator/
Soul on roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope/
‘Cause the beats in the lines are so dope”
No subject was taboo, as Chuck and the gang tackled everything from crack addiction to Blacks in the military. They spoke of their admiration for Louis Farrakhan and their antipathy for the government. They eschewed the pacifism of Martin Luther King for the “By Any Means Necessary” mantra of Malcolm X. They were a nuclear bomb in the stale musical world, and when they were through nothing would ever be the same.
Beastie Boys, Paul’s Boutique
Essential Songs: “Shake Your Rump”, “Hey Ladies”, “Shadrach”
When The Beastie Boys left Def Jam to move to Capitol Records, it was thought universally that they would fade from sight. Sure, they had the biggest-selling rap album of all time in 1986’s License To Ill, but they were considered a novelty, a joke band, The Clown Jesters of Rap. Everyone assumed their 15 minutes were up. But the Boys moved to the Left Coast, hooked up with the Dust Brothers, and dropped possibly the most influential album in Hip-Hop history.
The Beastie Boys stepped up their lyrical game tenfold, dropping references on anyone and anything, from Jack Kerouac to Donald Trump to The Flintstones. Their first single, “Hey Ladies”, showed off their lyrical skills:
“Hey ladies in the place I’m callin’ out to ya/
There never was a city kid truer and bluer/
There’s more to me than you’ll ever know/
And I’ve got more hits than Sadaharu Oh/
Ton Thumb Tom Cushman or Tom Foolery/
Date women on T.V. with the help of Chuck Woolery/
Words are flowing out just like the Grand Canyon/
And I’m always out looking for a female companion”
But what solidifies this album’s classic status is the production work of The Dust Brothers, as they showed just what you could do with a sample. Taking samples from sources as wildly diverse as James Brown, Johnny Cash, and The Sweet, The Dust Brothers crafted a sonic vehicle that propelled The Beastie Boys from the token White boys of Hip-Hop into mainstays that would still be dropping multiplatinum albums twenty years after they started.
LL Cool J, Radio
Essential Songs: “I Can’t Live Without My Radio”, “Rock the Bells”, “I Need A Beat”
Whodathunk that a 17-year old could shake up Hip-Hop? That’s exactly what James Todd Smith, aka LL Cool J (Ladies Love Cool James) did in 1985 when he dropped his first album, Radio. The liner notes say “Reduced by Rick Rubin”, as the virtuoso producer worked with J to condense and concentrate his lyrics into something that would mesh with his minimalist productions, and the combination was one of the deadliest the Rap world had seen. LL would throw down the lyrical gauntlet with his single “Rock the Bells”:
“L.L. Cool J. is hard as hell/
Battle anybody I don’t care who you tell/
I excel, they all fail/
I’m gonna crack shells, Double-L must rock the bells”
With those words, LL would toss his name into the ring as one of the most vicious lyrical battlers on the planet. His verbal wars with MC Shan and Kool Moe Dee would become things of legend and serve notice to other MC’s that they should think twice before stepping up to the plate against him. He would also be noteworthy as the first in a long line of stars Def Jam produced. Radio would propel LL to a three-decade-spanning career in music, television, and film, and stands today as one of the hallmarks of the early days of Hip-Hop.
EPMD, Strictly Business
Essential Songs: “Strictly Business”, “You Gots To Chill”, “It’s My Thing”
When people talk about the greatest producers in Hip-Hop history, a name that is criminally underrepresented is Erick Sermon. Along with his partner in rhyme Parrish Smith, he would create some of the biggest hits in rap history as the duo EPMD (Erick and Parrish Making Dollars). With Strictly Business, they would release one of the first true must-own albums in Hip-Hop. Riding over classic beats sampled from Rick James and Kool and the Gang, among others, Erick and Parrish would drop a tight, ten-track album that still influences young MC’s today. In the mix would be what amny consider one of the greatest song in Hip-Hop history, “You Gots To Chill”:
“I be the personal computer information on rap/
Like the B-I-Z Markie says, I’ll make your toes tap/
I format the rhymes, step by step/
Make em sound def to maintain my rep”
Like most other groups, flaring egos would split Erick and Parrish up in their prime. But at least we got a classic like Strictly Business before we were subjected to Das EFX and PMD solo albums.
Run DMC, Raising Hell
Essential Songs: “Peter Piper”, “My Adidas”, “Walk This Way”
Run-DMC were already the kings of Hip-Hop when they began work on their third album. They had the first rap video on MTV, the first Hip-Hop album to go gold, and performed at Live Aid, possibly the most-watched musical event in history. So when they went into the studio, they had to come up with a way to top themselves. The idea would come from Rick Rubin, Run’s brother’s partner at Def Jam and Run-DMC’s producer: do a cover song.
Hip-Hop has always been built around previously existing music. After all, the heart of Hip-Hop is the DJ, spinning records to keep the party going and providing a beat for MC’s to spit rhymes over. But remaking a song in its entirety? While it was a common practice in other forms of music, no one had thought to do it in Hip-Hop. So when Rubin suggested that they remake Aerosmith’s classic “Walk This Way”, the guys were perplexed, but in the end acquiesced, and the results would make musical history.
Run and DMC had a lyrical flow that’s been often imitated but never duplicated, as they would complete each other’s sentences and phrases, creating a seamless whole from two disparate personalities. The album kicked off with one of the most famous uses of cowbell around, “Peter Piper”:
“Now Peter Piper picked peppers but Run rocked rhymes/
Humpty Dumpty fell down that’s his hard time/
Jack B. Nimble was nimble and he was quick/
But Jam Master cut faster Jack’s on Jay’s dick/
Now Little Bo Peep cold lost her sheep/
And Rip van Winkle fell the hell asleep/
And Alice chillin somewhere in Wonderland/
Jack’s servin Jill a bucket in his hand/
And Jam Master Jay’s making out our sound/
The turntables might wobble but they don’t fall down”
The album is stacked with classic tracks, from “My Adidas” to “Raising Hell”, from “It’s Tricky” to “You Be Illin’.” But the song that smashed all the walls, that made a generation of White suburban kids into rap fans, that influenced the creation of bands like Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach, was their collabo with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry on “Walk This Way”. By getting Tyler and Perry to actually play on their version of the song, they built a bridge back to rock that still stands today. The video for the song played at least once an hour on MTV, causing a generation of kids to walk around with no laces in their sneakers. Without a doubt, this was the most important song in Hip-Hop history, and Raising Hell will go down as the original landmark of Hip-Hop.
That’s all for me, kids. If you don’t own these albums, then kill yourself now. At the very least, you should have your ears lopped off for Hip-Hop heresy. Get these joints now!
