25 Golden-Age hip hop albums I think you should hear
A list/playlist I curated for YOU whether you (think you) like rap music or not!
I'm about to drop an essay on the recent war of words between Drake and Kendrick Lamar, but here’s a pre-emptive soundtrack as an appetizer to wash it down with. This list had been swirling around in my head since late 2021 until all the recent online chatter about diss tracks inspired me to dust it off. Enjoy…
Depending on who you ask, the oft-cited Golden Age of Hip Hop spanned the period roughly from 1987 to 1993. It’s been variously argued that the Golden Age started a little earlier (or later), and that it ended anywhere from ‘93 to ‘98. Any which way, I had a fairly sizable window — 5 to 10 years’ worth of music — to draw from in presenting you with this crop of albums that I personally recommend regardless of your level of interest in rap music.
You can split hairs over the respective arguments for when the Golden Age started and ended by clicking here, here, here, here, here, Wikipedia, and even a site named hiphopgoldenage.com. I thought I’d find the definitive answer in Public Enemy frontman and self-fashioned rap historian Chuck D’s 2017 coffeetable book Chuck D Presents This Day in Rap and Hip-Hop History, which catalogs key points in the timeline organized according to a year-by-year format.
Alas, the book doesn’t offer a verdict on the exact duration of the Golden Age, and that’s probably for the best. And in any case, when I interviewed Chuck D about the book, he stressed the importance of keeping up with new developments:
You can’t have any biases, and you’ve got to be astute enough and have respect for all periods of the music in order to make great parables and comparisons to the classic stuff that’s already revered. There’s a lot of information from the last 10 years that takes up a good amount of space in the book because you’ve got to honor that.
You also owe it to yourself to look further back into the beginnings of the genre too:
I personally like this short take from United Arab Emirates-based YouTuber Asahd Anaami, whose channel focuses mainly on tantric and yogic healing arts. I think Anaami falls into the trap of glorifying street culture as a purely positive force for social change. Still, his view — which is often parroted here in the U.S. by academics, public intellectuals, and music critics — is instructive about how rap music has resonated with around the world.
Clearly, hip hop culture has struck a nerve with people who identify and sympathize with the plight of black Americans, and who regard the music as a socio-political vehicle in much the same light as we see from proponents of punk and folk. Across vast physical and cultural distances, there’s a temptation to romanticize the music’s hard-edged depictions of street life and conflate them with cries against oppression. I have a more ambivalent, complicated view, which I get into in the forthcoming Drake-Kendrick post.
My goal here is to draw attention to some of lesser-cited releases from that time. Which means I intentionally sidestepped the most iconic, household-name titles: Raising Hell, Paid in Full, Criminal Minded, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Straight Outta Compton, 3 Feet High and Rising, Paul’s Boutique, Mama Said Knock You Out, Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, Jazzmatazz, Midnight Marauders, 36 Chambers, Illmatic, ATliens, etc. (Though, as you’ll see, I cheated a little.)
FYI: THIS IS NOT A RANKING, AND THE LIST IS BY NO MEANS EXHAUSTIVE.
Fans of Golden Age rap can no doubt come up with dozens of titles I overlooked. I’m also not even suggesting that this is the “best” or most “important” period in the history of the genre. I mean, there’s clearly a historical importance to that particular stretch of time, when production values began to evolve from the barebones early sampling techniques that had initially formed the music’s backbone and shared vocabulary.
As producers expanded their scope, they felt free to weave dense layers of samples because the legal system hadn’t yet caught up to artists using samples without proper clearance. Copyright-infringement lawsuits filed against Biz Markie, the Beastie Boys, and De La Soul ended up having a direct impact on the trajectory of the genre. Looking back, a palpable sense of creative vitality surged through the music in the handful of years leading up to that point.
That said, fans of contemporary acts like Run The Jewels, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Lupe Fiasco, Murs, Little Simz, Pharaoh Monch, Homeboy Sandman, Shabazz Palaces, Quelle Chris, Open Mike Eagle, etc, etc, etc, have plenty of grounds to make the argument that the genre has never been more fertile than it is today — to say nothing of now-veteran innovators like MF Doom, J Dilla, DJ Logic, Aesop Rock, the whole Def Jux crew, and on and on.
So my list is just meant to be an entry point, a nudge that will hopefully inspire you to start burrowing through stacks of old albums. But whether you’re just starting out or whether you’re already a fan looking to brush up and/or go deeper, I think you’ll be just as well-served by these recommendations as you would by browsing the more obvious choices. On the flipside, I didn’t wanna just rattle-off the most obscure releases I could find. Seasoned genre aficionados will no doubt already know many of these selections here, but hopefully they’ll feel inspired into further discovery too.
25. Divine Styler — Spiral Walls Containing Autumns of Light (1992)
First, take all your assumptions about the music you’d expect to hear from a West Coast rapper who came up as part of Ice-T’s Rhyme Syndicate (and collaborated with Everlast from House Of Pain) and then crumple them up into a ball. Then, throw them out the window with so much intention that they fly through a quantum portal and end up falling in another dimension. Spiral Walls is hands-down the most unique album made by a rapper that I’ve ever heard. In truth, it’s not even a rap album.
I didn’t include it on the playlist because any of its tracks would have thoroughly derailed the flow. I mention Sun Ra further down — in its rapturous devotion to Allah, Spiral Walls hews closer to the mind-warping free jazz of spiritual searchers like Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders, but in style and tone it stands entirely on an island by itself. The epic 9-plus minute centerpiece “Heaven Don’t Want Me and Hell is Afraid I’ll Take Over” serves as a fitting microcosm of a listening experience that leaves you in a different place than where you were when it started.
24. Das EFX — Dead Serious (1992)
If you’re for looking an example that epitomizes the vibe, energy, and production aesthetic of hip hop’s Golden Age, this debut album by EPMD protégés Das EFX is about as good a place as any to start. Producers Chris Charity and Derek Lynch (AKA Solid Scheme Music, who produce all but two of the tracks here), hit the bullseye on a level of polish that preserves the assertiveness of their bass-heavy grooves. MCs Dray and Skoob will forever be remembered for ending words with -iggedy, but Das EFX were no novelty act, and Dead Serious has aged remarkably well.
23. Above The Law — Livin’ Like Hustlers (1990)
The product of N.W.A.’s production team, Livin’ Like Hustlers bears the stamp of N.W.A.’s in-house producer Dr. Dre and in-house lyricist The D.O.C. But Livin’ Like Hustlers lands on a smoother, more soulful sound that lends a touch of sophistication to its life of crime. While gangsta rappers tended to focus at the level of individual killings and vengeance for blood feuds, Above The Law came off more like seasoned mobsters: criminals with a bigger-picture vision for their own longevity and for staying one step ahead of the legal system. (fun fact: The video for “Untouchable” was directed none other than Failure guitarist/frontman Ken Andrews.)
22. KMD — Black Bastards (recorded 1993)
Before his transformation into the mysterious MF Doom persona, the late Daniel Dumile was first introduced to the world as Zev Love X, one of two MCs in the lighthearted trio KMD. Black Bastards was supposed to be the group’s sophomore effort, but a combination of tragedy and cold feet from the record label conspired to keep the album on the shelf for years before its official release.
Black Bastards exhibits virtually none of the off-kilter genius that would later characterize Doom’s output, but its certainly not without its quirks. And KMD’s spirited approach hearkens back to the innocence of the time, even as the group was going out of its way to harden its subject matter and sound.
21. Jeru The Damaja — Wrath of the Math (1996)
Venerable music critic Robert Christgau summarized this album thusly: “no metaphor, fantasy, or conspiracy theories — just straight postgangsta dope.”
Hard to top that!
20. Nice & Smooth Ain’t A Damn Thing Changed (1991)
With their heavily R&B-inflected style, Nice & Smooth proved that rap could be melodic and catchy without losing its power. Of course, R&B and hip hop would later converge into an almost indistinguishable blob in the years to come, but Ain’t a Damn Thing Changed reminds us that hybridizing the two forms was once a bold move, and their marriage of rapping with singing still sounds fresh after all this time.
19. Scarface — Mr. Scarface Is Back (1991)
This one gets my award for one of the greatest album covers ever. And I love it how Scarface was in a band with three of the guys shown pointing guns at each other. I mean, you could say that the members of The Geto Boys appear to be on the same side in this staging of a narcotics transaction gone wrong, but it’s not like the relationships among bandmembers were exactly harmonious.
No surprise: when left to his own devices, Scarface doesn’t flinch in his depictions of street life, but he renders them with a sincere self-loathing and a sense of despair that verges on poetic. (Fun fact: I saw The Geto Boys perform in New York and get roundly booed. They would’ve been booed off the stage but for the fact that they refused to leave. I was impressed.)
18. De La Soul — Buhloone Mindstate (1993)
For better or worse (depending on your perspective), much of the music De La Soul put out after their debut 3 Feet High and Rising makes you work to appreciate its charms, especially when sitting down with complete albums. Buhloone Mindstate may not quite induce whiplash, but De La Soul were still refusing to rein-in their eclectic tastes. If it’s true that De La Soul have left their deepest mark on the genre their first time at the plate, the fact is they never stopped pushing boundaries. Buhloone Mindstate can be a difficult (albeit laid-back) listen, and that is precisely what earns it a spot on this list as a must-listen — along with thick, rich production from Prince Paul, his last work with the group.
17. Boogie Down Productions — Sex & Violence (1992)
Boogie Down Productions founder/leader KRS-One’s status as one of hip hop’s elder statesmen — and one of hip hop culture’s leading minds — was well entrenched by 1992. In a sense, Sex and Violence suffered from the icon status that BDP achieved right out of the gate with their debut album Criminal Minded, which put them on the map as the pre-eminent ambassadors of the Bronx as the world capital of hip hop.
Following the death of DJ/producer Scott La Rock, BDP re-branded via a streak of intellectually stimulating, consciousness-raising albums like By All Means Necessary and Edutainment. Sex and Violence is the final album before KRS retired the BDP brand, moving forward under his own name (with 17 solo albums to date). It may be tempting to relegate Sex and Violence as a footnote, but its messages still ring true.
16. Leaders Of The New School — T.I.M.E. (1993)
With their sophomore effort, the group that gave us Busta Rhymes hit their stride. Again, it’s hard for me to add more to AllMusic contributor Stanton Swihart’s assessment when he describes T.I.M.E. as "an endlessly interesting listen."
15. The Brand New Heavies — Heavy Rhyme Experience, Vol. 1 (1992)
A meeting of two continents, two genres, and two mindsets, Heavy Rhyme Experience showcases the British acid jazz outfit The Brand New Heavies alongside a round-robin of luminary MCs, each of whom gets a whole track to feature on. Despite all the different guests, the Heavies maintain a seamless flow, which speaks to the their uncanny ability to get the most out of one mood.
If rap albums were increasingly suffering from disjointedness, the Heavies also avoid falling into a monotonous rut. As a kind of musical summit meeting, Heavy Rhyme Experience beautifully combines its disparate elements while preserving their more distinctive qualities. Not to mention that it set the stage for the convergence of rap with organic instrumentation that The Roots would soon make famous.
14. Black Sheep — A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (1991)
I have a distinct memory of being in a roomful of people all dancing to “The Choice Is Yours,” the hit single off this album and one of the defining anthems of its era. Over a powerful sound system, everything about the music — the rolling bass, the driving groove, the staccato rhymes, the joyful swagger — swept through the room like a giant wave carrying all of our bodies with it. Indeed, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing stands out, among other reasons, for its giddiness and humor that can best be described as an aggressive form of good-naturedness. If you want to feel alive, put this album on and it’s bound to shake you into a better state.
13. Del The Funky Homosapien — No Need for Alarm (1993)
With his second album, Del The Funky Homosapien stepped out from the umbrella of his cousin Ice Cube’s Lench Mob production team and worked instead with fellow Oaklanders in the Hieroglyphics/Souls Of Mischief collective. With No Need for Alarm, Del took a decisive step forward — not just for him, but for West Coast hip hop. AllMusic contributor Nathan Rabin described the album as "a challenging, unique, and uncompromising follow-up, one well worth picking up for anyone interested in either the evolution of West Coast hip-hop or just the evolution of one of its most talented, eccentric, and gifted artists." (Del talks about the transition at the 52:37 mark of this interview:)
12. N.W.A. — Niggaz4Life (1991) / 100 Miles and Runnin’ (1990)
While Dr. Dre’s legacy will forever be defined by his work on Straight Outta Compton and The Chronic, he actually delivered his most detail-rich production right in-between those phases of his career. Orders of magnitude more dense and complex than Compton, tracks like “Real Niggaz Don’t Die” and the multi-part suite “100 Miles and Runnin’” also exemplify a more dynamic approach to tempo than the snail-paced G Funk style Dre canonized on The Chronic. While Niggaz4Life does in some ways presage what would come later, Dre’s production during this time breathes in a way that we haven’t heard from him since, which is unfortunate.
11. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy — Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury (1992)
Before he went on to form his pop-reggae/folk outfit Spearhead, Michael Franti left an indelible mark on hip hop with this album. A searing jolt of socio-political polemic, Hypocrisy is bolstered by the unique metalwork sounds of percussionist/programmer Rono Tse. And, for their short time together, the Disposable Heroes crafted an utterly unique rap-industrial hybrid that would sound right at home alongside the likes of Ministry, Consolidated, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Godflesh — even as it borrowed from Gil Scott-Heron.
Franti’s delivery hews a little too closely to Chuck D’s style, but he can be forgiven for the focus and incisiveness of his message. A year before Rage Against The Machine’s debut, Franti and Tse left us with a work that’s thought-provoking in the truest sense. (Keep an ear out as well for the equally distinctive bass/guitar work of Charlie Hunter, who was just at the cusp of making his mark as an octopus-handed innovator in his own right.)
10. Mobb Deep — Juvenile Hell (1993)
If you wanna know what it feels like to have to fight your way through a gauntlet of threats where you constantly have to knuckle-up and prove your mettle, look no further than the aptly titled Juvenile Hell. At the very beginning of the album, Havoc of Mobb Deep says “We about to take you somewhere you ain’t never been before — you won’t survive.” By this point, much of the machismo in rap was starting to look more and more like posturing, but there’s a toughness to Havoc and his late partner Prodigy’s approach that feels totally believable.
9. Brand Nubian — In God We Trust (1993)
A group built around Five-Percent Nation principles, Brand Nubian combined spiritual aspiration with an undisguised relish for physical confrontation. As they rhyme about the divine essence within black people — there are layers of meaning in the album title — they also embrace the hard-scrabble realities of the streets. That contrast forms the lifeblood of this album which, like so many others on this list, benefits from robust production. Even by that standard, though, there’s a kind of ultimate fullness to the sound of In God We Trust. Even when listening on headphones, the music seems to fill the room.
8. Cypress Hill — self-titled (1991) / Black Sunday (1993)
Picking up on where N.W.A. left off, Cypress Hill gave the world a glimpse into yet another facet of L.A.’s underworld gang culture, complete with gunplay, an ever-looming threat of death, and lots of weed. Cypress Hill brought a distinctly Latin flavor to the mix, along with a sense of humor that offset the music’s enveloping sense of tension. Heavily inspired by Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad, producer DJ Muggs similarly recreated the sensation of being dropped right into the middle of a chaotic streetscape.
On both these albums, sirens and bass grooves swirling around your ears from every direction. Muggs also gave the music an irresistibly woozy quality that comes about as close to an audio simulation of being high as we’ve probably ever heard, his mélange of sounds emanating as if from a thick cloud of smoke. Before Cypress Hill started veering towards self-parody, they revolutionized hip hop with these first two offerings, both of which sparkle with production that still sounds as innovative and alluring as it did when we first heard it.
7. Run-DMC — Tougher Than Leather (1988)
It may seem silly to include one of rap music’s most iconic groups on this list. After all, Tougher Than Leather hardly lacked for visibility on its release. The singles “Run’s House” and “Mary Mary” charted very well, the videos for those songs received heavy airplay, and the album itself was certified platinum two months after its release. Of course, Tougher Than Leather followed in the wake of Raising Hell, arguably the most pivotal album in hip hop history — certainly when it comes to hip hop’s crossover into the mainstream.
Mere days before this post, Chuck D reminded us yet again that he views Raising Hell as the greatest rap album of all time. Which means that Tougher Than Leather inevitably gets overshadowed, even though it epitomizes everything that was so appealing about the Golden Age of Hip Hop — most notably: the increased depth and texture of the soundscape. With Tougher Than Leather, Run-DMC took a decisive step forward, doing their part to leave their mark on an era they had themselves paved the way for.
6. P.M. Dawn — The Bliss Album...? (Vibrations of Love and Anger and the Ponderance of Life and Existence) (1993)
At the polar opposite end of the spectrum from the aggressiveness and hard-edged production of gangsta rap, P.M. Dawn introduced an unapologetically grandiose sound that fell much closer in sensibility to artists like Prince, Terence Trent D’Arby, and Soul II Soul than it did to the majority of their hip hop peers. Let’s just say there’s a lot to sink your teeth into here, as the band’s plush songs are packed to the hilt with sonic information. There’s a naked, almost defiant emotionalism to the music that, in less skilled hands, would fall prey to maudlin clichés, but P.M. Dawn manage to pull it off. With The Bliss Album, they also proved that rap music was only as limited as the imagination of its creators.
5. 3rd Bass — The Cactus Album (1989)
3rd Bass’s debut exemplifies the production advances that were kicking into high gear as the ‘80s gave way to the ‘90s. Produced mostly by Sam Sever (with contributions from Prince Paul and Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad), The Cactus Album captures the noisy swagger of New York City during this period with a kinetic energy that’s just infectious. True story: I heard this album before I knew what the band looked like. On seeing the cover for the first time, I turned to the high school classmate who’d loaned me the tape and said “Wait — who are those two white guys?”
4. Ultramagnetic MCs — Critical Beatdown (1988)
Before Kool Keith re-fashioned himself as hip hop’s ultimate eccentric, he first came to prominence as a member of the group Ultramagnetic MCs. Their debut album Critical Beatdown straddles the end of hip hop’s formative era and the beginning of the Golden Age. Some of the material, in fact, dates back to ‘86, when most rap music still adhered to an established production template.
In many respects, Critical Beatdown follows a more traditional approach — or at least it appears that way on first glance. In his 2011 review for Sputnikmusic, contributor Louis Arp described Arp noted producer/MC Ced Gee’s "method of chopping up samples, rather than simply looping them like most of his contemporaries did, essentially changed the way the producer approached the hip-hop beat."
When I interviewed Kool Keith in 2021, he noted the distinction between the album’s lyrical tone and the conditions it was created in:
I mean, Ultramagnetic didn’t make Critical Beatdown over strawberry ice cream. You think we didn’t hear gunshots out the window when we were laying the vocals down on that album? There were times I’d leave the studio at 3:00 in the morning after working on a track like “Funky.” I’m walking home and I’m hearing gunshots and I don’t even know what block they’re coming from.
3. Souls Of Mischief — 93 ‘til Infinity (1993)
So much to say here, but I would suggest you just hit play and take-in the sheer vibrance and cleverness that permeates this album from start to finish. A staunch rebuke of the West Coast gangsta model, 93 ‘til Infinity stands as a testament to the fact that genre parameters are only as good as an artist’s willingness to reject them. Rarely does a debut capture a band staking their own claim to a style of music as if it’s theirs to define, but that’s exactly what happens here.
2. The Pharcyde — Labcabincalifornia (1995)
In several ways, the second Pharcyde album represents the Golden Age of Hip Hop at its zenith. By 1995, production values had come a long way since the previous decade, and the production here is positively sumptuous. Going a step further down the same trail that A Tribe Called Quest blazed with their classic Midnight Marauders, The Pharcyde blend hip hop, jazz, funk, R&B, and alternative-era sensibilities into a seamless flow.
The music here practically glows, so redolent with the spirit and ambience of its time that you’ll probably feel nostalgia even if you didn’t live through it yourself. And yet it still sounds startling. Meanwhile, the band oozes with personality. Released just as a new hip hop chapter was getting off the ground, Labcabincalifornia is both the perfect gateway to more recent developments and the perfect capper to an especially vibrant period.
1. Public Enemy — Fear of a Black Planet (1990)
Okay, so this is cheating a little bit, because this album is by no means “lesser-known.” But there’s just no way to leave Fear of a Black Planet off this list. The reason why I think it fits on here is that the avant-garde/musique-concrete aspects of the Bomb Squad’s beat construction sounded so alien and revolutionary in 1990, it was almost as if Public Enemy were aspiring to launch rap music into the cosmos the way Sun Ra had done with jazz. It’s undeniably the artiest album ever created by any of the groups on hip hop’s Mt. Rushmore.
Even after all these years, Fear of a Black Planet points decisively forward, and its heady cocktail of apocalyptic dread mixed with hope for the ascendance of Africa as a new spiritual and economic axis of global affairs still galvanizes as much as anything the genre has ever produced. In so many ways, this music sounds like a paradigm being demolished and re-birthed in real time. When we assess the voracious creativity of successors like Run The Jewels and Dӓlek, we have to recognize that Fear of a Black Planet is what set the stage for them to take hip hop any direction.
But that’s enough from me — check out the music yourself! <3 SRK