Random A-List for Set: Hip Hop

Hip hop.

Here are 12 A-list albums, selected at random from Set: Hip Hop. Use your Reload button to get more.

Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP [2000, Interscope]
Unless you hope to convince the platinum hordes that you live on Mars, there's even less point moralizing about this one than there was with the last. Right, Marshall Whoever is homophobic; right, he breathes. In context, the worst thing about his casual fag-baiting is that it's at once so received--like the shock-horror his boys envision in "Amityville," the one provocation here whose boundaries are predictable--and, because he's a devastating wordslinger in every context, so hurtful anyway. But the real Slim Whoever seems far more deeply disturbed about stardom, drugs, his marriage, and boning his mom--which latter, like it or not, is the fantasy (or whatever) that sets all the rest up, a big fat fuck you to the black culture Eminem respects and owes so explicitly, for if Snoop or Too Short or DMX would never say such a thing, just how bad can they be? Disable your prejudgment button and you'll hear a work of art whose immense entertainment value in no way compromises its intimations of a pathology that's both personal and political, created by one of those charming rogues you encounter so much more often on the page--exceptionally witty and musical, discernibly thoughtful and good-hearted, indubitably dangerous and full of shit. He may yet give a fuck--he has it in him. But not on anyone else's terms or timetable. A

Fugees: The Score [1996, Ruffhouse/Columbia]
They got black humanism, gender equality, and somebody to eclipse Duke Bootee in the Columbia alumni magazine. They sample "I Only Have Eyes for You" from before they were born, misprise "Killing Me Softly" like it was the Rosetta stone, emerge unscathed from the both-sides-of-gangsta trap, and aren't so nervous about being followed they won't leave landmarks on their soundscape. And astonishingly, they're not just selling to a core audience--this is one of the rare hip hop albums to debut high and rise from there. So you bet they're alternative--they'd better be in a subculture backed into defiant self-pity by rabid reactionaries, lying ex-liberals, and media moguls suddenly conscience-stricken over the nutritional content of what they always considered swill. Forget their debut, from before they discovered the gender-equality formula in which one girl learning equals two guys calling the shots. Forget the Roots, Aceyalone, Pharcyde. This isn't another terrible thing to waste. It's so beautiful and funny its courage could make you weep. A

FU-Schnickens: Greatest Hits [1996, Jive]
I'd say buy the real albums--there're only two--except that I already did and you didn't, gold single with Shaq notwithstanding. So maybe you'll try four from CD A and four from CD B, including the pace-setting "La Schmoove" and the impossible "Sum Dum Monkey," a speed-rapped run of sonic laugh lines so virtuosic it rockets beyond double-dare-you into a realm of ludic delight where few dare follow. The previously uncollecteds, a soundtrack track plus three new ones, pretend FU-revels are a dancehall offshoot, which bodes poorly and will convince no one. These guys obviously came from nowhere, whence they will now return--for natural comedians, a tragic end. A-

FU-Schnickens: Greatest Hits [1996, Jive]
I'd say buy the real albums--there're only two--except that I already did and you didn't, gold single with Shaq notwithstanding. So maybe you'll try four from CD A and four from CD B, including the pace-setting "La Schmoove" and the impossible "Sum Dum Monkey," a speed-rapped run of sonic laugh lines so virtuosic it rockets beyond double-dare-you into a realm of ludic delight where few dare follow. The previously uncollecteds, a soundtrack track plus three new ones, pretend FU-revels are a dancehall offshoot, which bodes poorly and will convince no one. These guys obviously came from nowhere, whence they will now return--for natural comedians, a tragic end. A-

Jungle Brothers: Done by the Forces of Nature [1989, Warner Bros.]
Somehow these young Afro-New Yorkers have evolved a rap version of urban African pop at its most life-affirming: the boasts low-key, the propaganda beyond hostility, the samples evoking everything tolerant and humane in recent black-music memory, this is music designed to comfort and sustain. Between DJ AfriKa's casual drawl and sidetalk that ebbs and flows under the main track like an inner-city McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the sound is as original as De La Soul's, and the dreams of pleasure are straight out the urban jungle--in my favorite, a smooth brother muses to the Coasters' "Shopping for Clothes" as a tropical stream washes over his family jewels. And though I can live without promises that the final judgment is at hand, the JB's do wonders for one's sense of doom just by sounding merciful. A

L.L. Cool J: All World [1996, Def Jam]
He can be better than his singles, but more often he's been worse, and no other rapper has maintained the hit-making knack so long. The coups are the sex raps "Back Seat" and "Doin It." I must counsel against aspiring to his superstud fantasy. But it's a measure of his pop credibility that I suspect he could be telling some sort of truth. Oohh. A

Lyrics Born: Later That Day . . . [2003, Quannum Projects]
See: Spellbinder. A

McEnroe and Birdapres: Nothing Is Cool [2004, Peanuts and Corn]
Like most beatmasters, Vancouver's finest thrives with a partner, and although local legend Birdapres pitches in on music as well as words, it's really the collaborator's spirit and reach that make this a find. Effectively, McEnroe's Disenfranchised was a concept album about the indie-rock business. Still defiantly scenebound, this is a party record for people so determined to pursue their own idea of fun they're ready to go back to their j-o-b's on a buck-and-a-half's sleep. Bush and his war and even his economy loom over these Canadian pleasures, but that permeable border affords psychological protection--the beats are danceable in practice as well as theory, and there's no sense of hiding from grim reality. Living in it, that's all. Exemplary. A

OutKast: Idlewild [2006, LaFace]
In a poetic biz snafu, the not-actually-a-soundtrack that got mixed reviews in periodicals with July deadlines was substantially revised for its Aug. 22 release. But due to the usual dumb critical systole-diastole plus the premature burial of Idlewild-the-movie, the backlash didn't stop there. Me, I liked it fine before catching the near-empty late show where I fell in love. Flick's a sepia-tone "Moulin Rouge" that makes just as much hash of musical historicity--Big Boi the bootlegger's nephew raps with a territory band, Andre the mortician's son ivory-tickles like he's studied Debussy and dreamed Monk. Record's a joyous mishmash, so light-spirited that rumors of OutKast's demise are irrelevant regardless of accuracy, which nobody can gauge anyway. The endless grindcore finale that bloats proceedings to 79 minutes is their stupidest track ever, and occasionally a forgettable song sets down and rests awhile. But from the mainstream hip-hop Big Boi articulates with so much muscle to the retro swing Andre sings just fine, they sound happy to parade their mastery. Also on parade: Janelle Monáe. A

Prince Paul: Psychoanalysis (What Is It?) [1996, WordSound]
Melding classic reggae and Miami booty-bass, Muddy Waters harp and Schoolly-D scratch, cocktail vibes and sacred quartet, the Native Tongue beatmaster turned gravedigging heretic assembles "senseless skitstyle material" by "a motley crew of ill characters and cronies from around the way who resemble a P-Funk on crack (wait, P-Funk was on crack)" into a disturbing laff riot whose dramaturgy is more musical than De La Soul's songs. There's even a sweet-chorused romantic ballad about rape and homicide, two of each, but don't worry--they're only a dream, with a fake Viennese muttering eager encouragement in the background. A-

UTD: Manifest Destiny [2004, Illson Media]
In the mid '90s, before Black Star, Mos Def joined his little brother DCQ and great lost female Ces in this trio, and he's never been more likable--his wisdom is still eager, too untested for the quiet-confidence bit he developed soon enough. DCQ's broader style is downhome in a world where Bed-Stuy is Dixie. Ces is so articulate and direct--a woman speaking as a human, like Lyte at her best--you feel how the indie-rap boys' club must have gotten her down. And the market-ready kung fu of their demos moves with a catchy quickness. A-