One hip hop album everyone should listen to

Doggystyle is one of the greats. Snoop peaked early.

I'll go with Peoples Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. Smooth jazzy samples under hard as fck beats, with smooth jazzy Tip adding the final layer. It's representative of Dope Hip Hop, it's unobtrusive, and the lyrics have none of the usual gripes non-headz usually have with rap; no misogyny, no gangsta posturing, no materialism or champagne popping or anti-white-ness or reinforcements of the idea that all rap is the same. Just pure dopeness of the most excellent kind.

Have the Doggystyle fans all listened to the source album, George Clinton - Computer Games? Now that is a fine record...

As for an alternative intro, howsabout The Blueprint? V smooth, and got that "Girls, Girls" track which is a completely inclusive song which everyone can enjoy...

It's really hard to boil it don't to just one but I'd go with A Tribe Called Quest The Low End Theory

Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep

ONE.

Blu & Exile - Below The Heavens

1990's is easily the golden-era of rap music in my mind (damn near anything of any real worth is from that decade) as it's what i grew up on as a teenager (i was a teen from late 1992 through most of 1999).

but since the OP mentioned it... basically what first got me into music was the song Dre Day (from Dr Dre - The Chronic (1992)) but after that was the CD the OP mentioned and more specifically the "What's My Name?" song. i remember seeing those music videos (Dr Day/Whats My Name) on MTV back in the day.

in fact, i still have a recording from the radio of that song (What's My Name) which i first taped off the radio to cassette tape on Oct 22nd 1993 which i would have just turned 14 years old a little before that date. but obviously, i don't use that cassette anymore as i just hang onto it for nostalgia sake

so while Dr Dre/Snoop Dogg got me into music (as i listened to basically nothing but rap from about 13 years old til my mid-20's simply because no other music was enjoyable enough for me to listen to back in those days) i think raps all around peak for me personally is with 'No-Limit Records' (Master P's record company) in 1998 as a higher percentage of everything they released from 1998 or older is quality but after that they began their decline and were never the same overall. one of my favorite CD's (if not my #1 overall) from No-Limit Records would be 'C-Murder - Life or Death (1998)' (sadly, that was his first and only truly good album). i still have a large portion of these CD's i bought back around that time to which would be generally in the 1998-2000 range or so. i used to have a bunch of random rap CD's (including that Gravediggaz CD mentioned in another post in here above(but i dumped this to but i did rip the 'Bang Your Head' song to my computer in FLAC format before dumping this as i remember that was basically the main song i liked on that CD back in the day but i am not even sure if that would hold up for me all that much now) but i have since dumped a good portion of the ones i don't really care for/use much (i just backed some of the ones i dumped to FLAC) not all that long ago (earlier this year). but i still have about 69 Rap CD's (like the actual CD's i had since the old days) though as i just took a quick count and that's after i dumped a decent portion of what i did have earlier this year as i mostly just kept the ones i still might use from time to time.

but as far as the topic... with that 'recommend to someone who don't normally listen to rap', i might go with something from Bone Thugs-n-Harmony like The Art of War (1997) or Krayzie Bone - Thug Mentality (1999) (those are amongst my favorite rap CD's in the 1990's) as they don't sound like your typical rappers with their overall style/voice. i think those two CD's are easily the Top 2 CD's released from anyone tied to that group (Krayzie Bone is a rapper in the Bone Thugs-n-Harmony group if anyone is wondering. he was always my favorite rapper of the 4-5 of em and when he released the Thug Mentality album that further confirmed it). but with that said... Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle album i am sure is going down as one of those more hall-of-fame type of things. but i suspect for rappers in general that 2Pac would be hard to beat as he seems like he's got wider appeal than the vast majority of rappers i suspect.

p.s. if anyone finds what the OP is talking about (i.e. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle (1993)) interesting then this link will be of some interest... www.datafilehost.com/d/e4269017 ; have fun

fees



Yeah, but that usually happens with either someones first record, or not long after that, they peak and then go downhill. there are probably not that many who remain popular for many years as i figure you might get 5 years or so, maybe 10 if your lucky, and then mostly disappear off the radar. i realize there are exceptions but this seems to be the cast for most.

but i definitely agree that Doggystyle is definitely Snoop's best all around album and it's his first one.

Ugly Duckling - Taste The Secret