Ranking the 20 Best Years in Rap History

Best Rap Albums: Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy; Drake’s Thank Me Later; Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday; Waka Flocka’s Flockaveli; Rick Ross’ Teflon Don

Best Rap Songs: Rick Ross and Styles P, “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast)”; Kanye West and Pusha T, “Runaway”; Eminem, “Not Afraid”; Drake, “Over”; Waka Flocka Flame, Roscoe Dash, and Wale, “No Hands”

Breakout Rapper: Nicki Minaj

Moments that Defined the Year: Drake, J.Cole, and Nicki Minaj set the groundwork for hall-of-fame runs; Kanye West launches the weekly G.O.O.D. Friday series; Roc Marciano releases Marcberg, an album that would dictate the direction of underground New York rap for the next decade

In 2010, the basic formations of the following decade took shape, with their architects using revolutionary sounds and aesthetics to carve their likenesses into eternity.

Wiz Khalifa’s Kush & OJ was basically the Sozin’s Comet for kids who made smoking weed their whole personality. Waka Flocka teamed up with Lex Luger to push maximalist trap sounds to their limit on Flockaveli, delivering indelible bangers in the process. South of Georgia, Rick Ross decided he fucked with Luger, too, and that admiration led to “BMF (Blowing Money Fast),” a timeless single that could make even the lamest person you know feel like they were Big Meech. With Friday Night Lights, then-underdog J. Cole composed everyman dream-chaser songs for people to feel cool even if they weren’t.

And then there were Drake and Nicki Minaj. Riding the momentum of So Far Gone, Drizzy continued erasing the lines between rap and R&B, dropping his debut album, Thank Me Later, collecting countless plaques along the way. Describing Drake’s impact on a list like this one feels like an exercise in redundancy, so, let’s just say this was the beginning of a LeBron James-esque run of inevitable dominance. In her own way, the same was true for Nicki, whose debut album, Pink Friday, taught eventual superstars like Doja Cat the virtues of elite rhyme dexterity, genre fluidity, and Technicolor camp.

The year was also a trampoline for an established artist to reach his absolute apex. That fall, Ye morphed into rap’s Santa Claus, serving up weekly G.O.O.D. Friday drops that felt like gifts under a Christmas tree. Big Sean, Lupe Fiasco, and Yasiin Bey on the same song? That really happened. So did “Looking For Trouble” and “Runaway” and “Monster.” Kanye didn’t have an official press conference for the moment he signed Pusha T, but their joint Funk Flex freestyle session might as well have been. With its triumphant horns and layered vocals from eclectic guests—everyone from Rihanna to Elton John and Kid Cudi—“All of the Lights” legitimately sounded like the opening of heaven’s gates. As a whole, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was the perfect nightcap on an all-time great year—brilliant, diverse, and unhinged. —Peter A. Berry

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death; Puff Daddy’s No Way Out; Missy Elliott’s Supa Dupa Fly; Wu-Tang Clan’s Wu-Tang Forever; Jay-Z’s In My Lifetime, Vol. 1

Best Rap Songs: The Notorious B.I.G., “Hypnotize”; Puff Daddy, Lil’ Kim, the Lox and the Notorious B.I.G. “It’s All About the Benjamins”; Missy Elliott, “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)”; Busta Rhymes, “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See”; Mase, “Feel So Good”

Breakout Rapper: Missy Elliott

Moments that Defined the Year: Bad Boy takes rap to new commercial heights; a burgeoning underground rap scene emerges to counter the jiggy era; Hype Williams’ trademark Afrofuturistic style begins to take shape

For 22 weeks of 1997—nearly half the year—Bad Boy Records was camped out at the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100. The jiggy era of bright club bangers—’80s pop samples and Hype Williams videos with shiny suits and fisheye lenses—ruled the day, often courtesy of Bad Boy head honcho Puff Daddy. Given what we’ve learned about Combs from the horrifying allegations in a recent series of lawsuits and a federal investigation, there’s now a sinister undertone to the glitz and glamor of Bad Boy’s peak. For better or worse, though, the label changed the game in 1997, from how rappers sampled and made videos to how much they could expect to sell. Tragedy and triumph were intertwined when Biggie was murdered on March 9, followed by the release of his instant classic Life After Death 16 days later. Biggie was mourned by the hip-hop nation, but multi-platinum debuts from Puff and Mase kept the Bad Boy party going the entire year.

Even the underdog successes of 1997 were artists Combs had tried to sign to Bad Boy, including Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes. Elliott broke out with her wildly creative debut album, Supa Dupa Fly, after writing hits for other artists alongside visionary producer Timbaland. Busta Rhymes released his most successful album, When Disaster Strikes…, in 1997, ruling MTV with unorthodox flows and cartoonishly entertaining videos. An overhyped album by a supergroup (The Firm with Nas, AZ, and Foxy Brown) and Jay-Z’s uneven sophomore album, In My Lifetime Vol. 1, hinted at the growing pains of the jiggy era, as New York’s sharpest lyricists adjusted to a flashier status quo.

Of course, Bad Boy was a polarizing force even at its peak, and there were ample alternatives, including grittier unit shifters like the Wu-Tang Clan’s Wu-Tang Forever. As mainstream rap became bigger, more materialistic, and more homogenous, underground hip-hop was becoming fiercely independent and confident in its principles. With the releases of Company Flow’s Funcrusher Plus and the first Soundbombing compilation, Rawkus Records was quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with. Nineteen ninety-seven was a year that had something for everybody, but different factions of hip-hop fans were headed in radically different directions, and the rift would only get more pronounced in the years ahead. —Al Shipley

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Kanye West’s Late Registration; Young Jeezy’s Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101; Common Be; The Game’s The Documentary; Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter II

Best Rap Songs: The Game and 50 Cent, “Hate It Or Love It”; Kanye West and Jay-Z, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” (Remix); Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, and Boo, “So Icey”; Young Jeezy, Three 6 Mafia, Young Buck, and Eightball & MJG, “Stay Fly”; Young Jeezy and Akon, “Soul Survivor”

Breakout Rapper: Young Jeezy

Moments that Defined the Year: The breakout success of Young Jeezy and Gucci Mane; 50 Cent beefs with half of New York; the regionally and topically diverse selection of popular rap

If 2005 were Paid in Full, it would be the moment Ace Boogie shouts, “Everybody eats.” Rap fans did, and they got full. This was the year backpacker-adjacent rappers served offerings that both secured the present and the future of the subgenre. Short-lived as his run was, the West Coast got its designated savior. Heads looking for something new found exactly that—all it takes is a cursory glance at the year’s releases to see that the rap gods were feeling extra generous, taking the time to give diverse fanbases the most extreme versions of exactly what they wanted.

Seriously, it’s amazing how well-proportioned every fan’s plate was. Californians got the Game’s The Documentary, a 50 Cent-cosigned, Dr. Dre-produced blockbuster that re-energized the West Coast; conscious rap fans got a return to form from Common with Be and new energy from Little Brother’s underground gem The Minstrel Show; the streets—or rather the trap?—got Young Jeezy’s Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101, a pantheon-level gangsta rap epic riddled with anthems and timeless, yet fresh d-boy aphorisms; and general pop fans got their sophomore album fix with 50’s The Massacre and Kanye West’s Late Registration. If the College Dropout had made him an A-lister, LR is when Ye joined rap’s S-class, releasing legit pop hits like the Jamie Foxx-assisted “Gold Digger.” Consider this: by selling 860,000 copies in its first week, Late Registration eclipsed the opening-week total of any Jay-Z album. The student had surpassed the mentor.

And finally, 2005 is ground zero for GOAT-level Weezy. While he was already a platinum-selling star, Wayne’s run of mixtapes—including the Suffix tape and the first Dedication tape—and Tha Carter II define the moment Wayne became Weezy F. Baby, the superstar. Tracks like “Fireman” and “Hustler Musik” showcased Weezy at his most nuanced and adventurous, swirling pathos with kaleidoscopic wordplay and effortless, inescapable charisma.

In total, 2005 marked not only a convergence of dope albums, but the nucleus for the next decade or so of hip-hop. The trap got Jeezy. The rest of the country got Weezy. The whole world got Yeezy. And if you were a highly engaged rap fan in 2005, you got all of them at the same time. —Peter A. Berry

 

Complex Original

Best Rap Albums: Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy; Travis Scott’s Astroworld; Playboi Carti’s Die Lit; Nipsey Hussle’s Victory Lap; XXXTentacion’s ?

Best Rap Songs: Travis Scott and Drake, “Sicko Mode”; Lil Baby & Gunna, “Drip Too Hard”; Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Future, and James Blake, “King’s Dead”; Drake, “God’s Plan”; Juice WRLD, “Lucid Dreams”

Breakout Rapper: Cardi B

Moments that Defined the Year: Cardi B goes from social media darling to legit rap star; Kanye West releases five albums in five weeks; Drake and Pusha T spar, leading to the all-time classic diss “The Story of Adidon”

Twenty eighteen is unquestionably a great year for hip-hop, when a new generation of bubbling rap stars broke through. But there is a bittersweet aroma still in the air. Some of the year’s most impactful albums turned out to be swan songs from young rappers who died too soon. Mac Miller released the contemplative and musically progressive Swimming just a month before falling victim to an accidental overdose. XXXTentacion topped the charts with ? three months before being murdered. And the inspirational and ambitious LA rap star Nipsey Hussle released his long-awaited debut Victory Lap in 2018 before being gunned down in early 2019. Rappers that could’ve been leading hip-hop into a new era had their lives cut short abruptly, and in some ways hip-hop is still reeling from those deaths.

A generation gap continued to widen between the established A-list and the rising stars. Travis Scott’s Astroworld and Playboi Carti’s Die Lit showed a nation of teens how to rage, while established superstar J. Cole pushed back against the druggy SoundCloud rap zeitgeist on his album KOD. Lil Baby and Gunna’s duo project Drip Harder established the Atlanta duo as Young Thug’s most promising successful protégés. And Cardi B’s swift ascent from social media darling to reality TV star to multi-platinum rapper was completed with the massive success of her debut Invasion of Privacy.

Drake was riding high in 2018, but increasingly embattled. The double album Scorpion proved to be a crowning commercial moment, his only album to send three singles to No. 1 on the Hot 100. In the middle of that string of hits, however, Drake took an L in his long-simmering beef with Pusha T. The Clipse rapper’s diss track “The Story of Adidon” embarrassed Drake with the revelation that he’d secretly fathered a child, as well as cover art showing that Drake had taken a strange photo in blackface during his early acting days. Pusha T’s Grammy-nominated album DAYTONA—the best album from Ye’s G.O.O.D. summer albums series—didn’t come close to approaching Scorpion’s sales, but there was little argument over who won their war of words. —Al Shipley

 

Complex Original

Best Rap Albums: De La Soul’s 3 Feet High And Rising; Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique; Kool G Rap and DJ Polo’s Road to the Riches; EPMD’s Unfinished Business; Jungle Brothers’ Done By the Forces Of Nature

Best Rap Songs: Public Enemy, “Fight The Power”; Big Daddy Kane, “Smooth Operator”; EPMD, “So Wat Cha Sayin’”; The D.O.C., “It’s Funky Enough”; Queen Latifah and Monie Love, “Ladies First”

Breakout Rapper: De La Soul

Moments that Defined the Year: Public Enemy’s release of the seminal “Fight the Power” for Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing soundtrack; producers like Prince Paul, the Bomb Squad, and the Dust Brothers take rap production to new sophisticated heights; the Native Tongues movement takes off, with stellar releases from Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and Queen Latifah

The legal and financial consequences of hit records built on samples of other records would begin to reshape the sound and the business of hip-hop in the early ’90s, particularly after Gilbert O’Sullivan sued Biz Markie in 1991 for the unauthorized use of “Alone Again (Naturally).” Before that, however, the wild west days of sampling reached their zenith in 1989. De La Soul’s work with producer Prince Paul on the Long Island trio’s debut 3 Feet High and Rising opened up new creative possibilities with a playful, genre-agnostic approach to sampling. The Beastie Boys pivoted away from the rowdy rock riffs of Licensed to Ill for the sampledelic classic Paul’s Boutique, a dense sonic collage produced by the Dust Brothers.

Public Enemy’s production team, the Bomb Squad, had pioneered the kitchen sink approach to sampling on the group’s first two albums. The only song Public Enemy released in 1989, the landmark Do the Right Thing soundtrack single “Fight the Power,” crammed over 20 samples into five minutes. Even albums that weren’t so overtly maximalist, like EPMD’s Unfinished Business or the Jungle Brothers’ Done by the Forces of Nature, often had five or six samples in a single song.

Ambitious MCs were also elevating the art of rhyming in 1989. Juice Crew legend Kool G Rap pioneered street-oriented multisyllabic rhymes on his debut with DJ Polo, Road to Riches. The D.O.C., a Texan affiliated with N.W.A, released one of the most lyrical West Coast classics, the Dr. Dre-produced No One Can Do It Better. Unfortunately, five months after the album’s release, the D.O.C. was injured in a car crash that changed the sound of his voice and permanently hampered his career, though he continued writing for Death Row artists. Hip-hop had grown by leaps and bounds in the decade since “Rapper’s Delight,” and the pivotal innovations of 1989 made the boom years of the 1990s possible. —Al Shipley

 

Complex Original

Best Rap Albums: Drake’s Views; Ye’s The Life of Pablo; ScHoolboy Q’s Blank Face LP; Travis Scott’s Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight; Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book

Best Rap Songs: Ye and Kid Cudi, “Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1”; Rae Sremmurd and Gucci Mane, “Black Beatles”; Chance the Rapper, 2 Chainz, and Lil Wayne “No Problem”; Lil Uzi Vert, “Money Longer”; Young M.A “OOOUUU”

Breakout Rapper: Lil Uzi Vert

Moments that Defined the Year: The 2016 XXL Freshman cover; Ye’s Life of Pablo rollout and Madison Square Garden show; Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” and the #MannequinChallenge take over pop culture

Two thousand sixteen was when hair became a symbol of “everything that was wrong with hip-hop” among rap curmudgeons. The seeds of countless “my generation vs. your generation” memes were planted in 2016, with grinning rappers with colorful dreads like Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert positioned as the main foes to the solemn superheroes of the past, such as Nas and Biggie. It was the year when “mumble rap” emerged as a slur for the music enjoyed by anyone under 25 who didn’t know what a Funk Flex freestyle was. (The phrase was first used passively in 2014 by former VladTV journalist Michael Hughes; Wiz Khalifa resurrected it in the summer of 2016.)

There was clearly a divide between young progressive, melodically advanced SoundCloud rappers and slightly older blog era MCs who were more aligned with traditional lyricism. The rise of streaming, which became the primary way young fans engaged with music, allowed niche platforms to flourish, enabling young rappers to adopt a DIY approach, channeling a similar rebellious approach that Soulja Boy employed back in the mid 2010s.

You could see the friction not just among fans but even with rappers. Who could forget when Snoop Dogg dismissively mimicked the Migos flow, or when J. Cole spoke critically of “Lil Whatever” on “False Prophets (Be Like This)?”

Now let’s look at the 2016 XXL Freshman cover, often regarded as the ’96 NBA draft of XXL Freshman covers. (For the record, that cover features three different colors of dreads.) It appears incredibly prescient today, with Yachty, Uzi, 21 Savage, and Kodak Black standing at the center. Look closer and you can see XXL hedging, though, with more traditional blog-era rappers like Dave East, Anderson .Paak, and Lil Dicky being represented. But you saw the divide widen when the cyphers dropped. As of 2024, the one featuring all the SoundCloud figures has 200 million views; the G Herbo and Dave East one has a polite 11 million.

There was just enough blog era-inspired hip-hop to convince fans that SoundCloud rap might be a fad. Albums like Views and The Life of Pablo are considered classics now, but they were initially viewed as disappointments. (Joe Budden essentially launched a new career by shitting on Drake’s fourth album, while Kanye was tinkering with Pablo for weeks after its release.) Even well-regarded follow-ups from Cole, YG, and Chance the Rapper couldn’t overshadow their previous albums. Fans often speak about 2016 in glowing terms, often declaring it as the best rap year of the 2010s. But, more accurately, it was just the start, the early signs of what the future of rap would look and sound like—even for the fans who couldn’t quite understand it. —Dimas Sanfiorenzo

 

Complex Original

Best Rap Albums: Kanye West’s Yeezus; Drake’s Nothing was the Same; Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap; Migos’ Y.R.N. (Young Rich Niggas); Pusha T’s My Name Is My Name

Best Rap Songs: Kanye West, “New Slaves”; Big Sean, Kendrick Lamar and Jay Electronica, “Control”; Drake’s “Started from the Bottom”; J. Cole and Miguel, “Power Trip”; Migos, “Versace”

Breakout Rapper: Chance The Rapper

Moments that Defined the Year: June 18 (the day Ye, J. Cole, and Mac Miller drop albums); the birth of the Kanye West Yeezus era; Kendrick Lamar shocks the rap world with his “Control” verse

People often talk about September 29,1998 as being the best rap release day ever. But let’s give some respect to June 18, 2013—the date when J. Cole, Kanye West, and Mac Miller all dropped highly anticipated albums, with Born Sinner, Yeezus, and Watching Movies With the Sound Off, respectively. This date wasn’t a coincidence; it was instigated by Cole, who famously rapped on “Forbidden Fruit,” “I’mma drop the album same day as Kanye/ Just to show the boy’s the man now, like Wanyá.” At a time when Cole was only two albums deep and Kanye was one of rap’s biggest superstars, Cole decided to move his album up a week to directly compete with Yeezus, the follow-up to Kanye’s opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

This is rap at its best, when artists are trying to compete. And this is what makes 2013 among the best years in rap history: There was a competitive energy that was felt throughout the genre. With Jay and Wayne in the elder statesman point of their respective careers, Kanye being in a more experimental stage, and Drake still a level away from the throne, there was a sense that dominance was up for grabs. You could hear it in a posse cut like A$AP Rocky’s “1 Train,” where all the rappers were vying for the best verse. And it was crystallized when Kendrick Lamar dropped his verse on Big Sean’s “Control,” calling out most of the rap game and sparking endless debates about who the king of rap really was.

The year was an embarrassment of riches. A month before June 18, Kanye overtook pop culture by debuting “New Slaves,” projecting a video of himself on buildings across the country. His god complex was in overdrive, so the public was skeptical about an album titled Yeezus. The polarizing industrial rap album split opinions when it dropped in June, but Yeezus ultimately became a pivotal point, influencing the next generation of rap stars like Playboi Carti, Trippie Redd, and Travis Scott (who worked on the album).

And you can’t mention 2013 without highlighting the left-of-center Chicagoan Chance the Rapper, who uploaded his second mixtape, Acid Rap, and emerged as the breakout star of the year, solidified by a Complex cover. Few years had the momentum that 2013 did, and it was all thanks to these artists not being afraid to pick up their pens and spar. —Jordan Rose

 

Complex Original

Best Rap Albums: Eminem’s The Eminem Show; Scarface’s The Fix; Clipse’s Lord Willin; 50 Cent and G-Unit’s 50 Cent is the Future; The Diplomats’ Diplomats Volume 1

Best Rap Songs: Eminem, “Lose Yourself”; 50 Cent, “Wanksta”; Clipse, “Grindin”; Missy Elliott, “Work It”; Nas, “Made You Look”

Breakout Rapper: 50 Cent

Moments that Defined the Year: 50 Cent and Dipset redefine the modern mixtape; Eminem and Dr. Dre sign 50 Cent to a joint deal; Eminem’s 8 Mile debuts atop the box office a couple of weeks after the soundtrack goes No. 1

Just for fun, let’s take a look at a handful of the XXL cover stars from 2002: post-Great Depression DMX; Wu-Tang Clan, after dropping their least successful album; a Biggie anniversary issue; Suge Knight and what remained of Death Row; Bone Thugs-N-Harmony promoting the album with that Phil Collins song; Birdman at the nadir of Cash Money; and another anniversary issue, this time about 2Pac.

This collection of artists doesn’t fully capture what made 2002 such a special year for hip-hop. It was a time when innovation and energy surged from the streets. Commercial rap had become too tightly intertwined with R&B, largely due to the dominance of Murder Inc.—a label so emboldened they could pretend to be signing Nas. (There’s a famous Boondocks strip about Ja Rule that summarizes how annoying their success had become.) However, the real energy was happening underground—not in a Jansport-wearing, rapping-about-rapping kind of way, but in the “I’m going to rap about killing you in a mildly clever way” kind of way.

Throughout the ’90s, mixtapes—driven by DJs with either strong connections or sticky fingers—became a powerful distribution force for leaked music. By 2002, artists had taken the lead and started collaborating more closely with DJs to curate a different kind of experience. That year marked the development of the modern mixtape, thanks to two New York acts emerging simultaneously.

Cam’ron’s The Diplomats’ Volume 1 and 50 Cent’s 50 Cent is the Future created the archetype for the modern “promo use only” mixtape, which featured a mix of original tracks and remakes. The idea of flipping popular songs wasn’t new—Google Ice Cube’s “Jackin’ for Beats.” But the novelty lay in how 50 and Cam transformed existing hits in their own perverse but infectious way. Dipset turned the romantic Product G&B and Santana song “Maria Maria” into a cautionary tale about a sex worker with an STD, while G-Unit flipped Jonell’s breakup jam “Round and Round” into an anthem about having an abundance of hoes.

50 Cent was the big winner of this strategy; his remixes and street breakout “Wanksta” were all over the radio, replacing the syrupy sounds of Ja and Ashanti. By summer, Eminem and Dre had signed 50 Cent to a million-dollar joint deal, bringing a reckless energy back to hip-hop and momentarily recentering New York City.

Speaking of Eminem, signing 50 was just as beneficial for him as it was for 50. In 2002, Em was releasing movies, getting Oscar nominations, and releasing seventh-inning stretch music. In short, he needed some kind of connection to the streets. And you saw the impact right away. By February 2003, just a couple of weeks after 50 dropped Get Rich or Die Tryin’, Eminem would appear at the Grammys…wearing a durag. —Dimas Sanfiorenzo

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Run-DMC’s Raising Hell; Salt N Pepa’s Hot Cool & Vicious; Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill; Schoolly D’s Saturday Night!: The Album; Stetsasonic’s On Fire

Best Rap Songs: Eric B & Rakim, “Eric B Is President”; Ice T, “ 6 N The Morning”; Run-DMC, “Peter Piper”; Boogie Down Productions, “South Bronx”; Ultramagnetic MCs, “Ego Trippin’”

Breakout Rapper: Rakim

Moments that Defined the Year: Rakim debuts, providing a new way to rap; the Bridge Wars between KRS-One’s Boogie Down Productions and Marley Marl’s Juice Crew goes down; Run DMC’s album Raising Hell and the single “Walk This Way” become chart hits

When exactly constitutes the golden age of hip-hop? Agreeing on its time period can be as contentious as defending your top five MCs. Some champion two golden ages: a boom-bap era of 1983-1992 (from Run-DMC’s “Sucker MCs” to Dr. Dre’s The Chronic) and the platinum era of 1993-2000 (post-Chronic to the onset of file sharing). Others say the dawn of Def Jam Recordings kicked things off around ’84, sunsetting the golden age with the mid-’90s murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. But 1986 stands as one of the greatest years in hip-hop because the culture was wopping, snaking, and cabbage-patching its way through pivotal innovations.

Speaking of top five, at the start of ’86, most fans might have put Run, LL Cool J, Melle Mel, Slick Rick, and maybe Roxanne Shanté on their lists. Come summertime, Rakim belonged on everyone’s list; the 18-year-old Long Island native moved the goal posts of top-tier hip-hop lyricism with “Eric B. Is President.” Backed with “My Melody”—an equally seismic single on rap’s landscape—Eric B. & Rakim’s debut single practically invented what’s come to be known as flow, elevating MC delivery and wordplay like a bell that couldn’t be unrung.

By 1986, hip-hop’s sonic evolution had solidified, especially in terms of production. Three years prior, Run-DMC stripped “record[s] down to the bone,” replacing much of the genre’s musicality down to sparse beats that more accurately reflected street jams. But in ’86, DJ Marley Marl (uncredited co-producer of “Eric B. Is President”) started programming his Roland TR-808 beat machine with snatches of drums from James Brown for game-changing classics like MC Shan’s “The Bridge” and Biz Markie’s “Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz.”

2 Live Crew ushered in sexual expressiveness (“We Want Some Pussy”) that also changed things forever. California gangsta rap got its start (Ice-T’s “6 in the Mornin’ ”), white boys showed up (Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill), and an indie rapper somewhere in Oakland plotted hip-pop domination (MC Hammer’s Feel My Power). But 1986 already ranks high in hip-hop history on the basis of the reinvention of rap lyricism and the start of James Brown’s omnipresence. —Miles Marshall Lewis

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: 2Pac’s All Eyez on Me; Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt; OutKast’s ATLiens; Fugees’ The Score; Lil Kim’s Hardcore

Best Rap Songs: Jay-Z, “Dead Presidents II”; Nas and Lauryn Hill’s “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)”; OutKast, “Elevators (Me & You)”; The Fugees, “Ready Or Not”; 2Pac and Dr. Dre, “California Love”

Breakout Rapper: Jay-Z

Moments that Defined the Year: Jay-Z makes his official debut with a critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful at the time debut; Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown revolutionize female empowerment in rap; 2Pac dominates the charts before his tragic death

Nineteen ninety-six was a roller-coaster ride. For starters, many historians (and purists) regard this year as the definitive end of the golden era, the point when boom-bap took a backseat to more commercialized sounds. Rap audiences were diversifying and less enthused about the jazz samples and unpolished production of years past. De La Soul stopped working with Prince Paul; A Tribe Called Quest dropped Beats, Rhymes and Life, which didn’t quite live up to the standard of their first three releases. And Nas went more mainstream, connecting mostly with the Trackmasters on his glitzy Illmatic follow-up It Was Written.

This shift signaled something new on the horizon, though once The Fugees returned (following their unrefined ’94 debut), they brought with them a fusion of singing and rapping that introduced hip-hop to the pop audience in an entirely different way. Once Jay-Z entered the scene that summer, hip-hop’s purity was challenged by way of commercialized drug raps that placed the hustler ahead of the lyricist (though let’s be clear, Jay is both). With the re-entry of Lauryn Hill, followed by the release of Lil’ Kim’s and Foxy Brown’s albums in tandem, we saw multi-dimensional female MCs who all had superstar potential.

The most sobering moment of 1996 came with the death of Tupac Shakur that September. Losing parts of hip-hop’s identity in exchange for global exposure was one thing, but seeing a driving force behind that global reach be murdered was entirely different. Just six months later, The Notorious B.I.G. was also murdered, and the need to counter the growing perception that rap was inherently violent became more urgent. Hip-hop was fighting against its own stigmas: too gangster, too flashy, too rough, too polished. An identity crisis ensued, which became a gift and a curse for creativity. It’s hard to consider 1996 a happy year given its end, although it’s still one of the best. And, in many ways, it was only the beginning. —Kathy Iandoli

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Wu Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers); A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders; De La Soul’s Buhloone Mindstate; KRS-One’s Return of the Boom Bap; Snoop Doggy Dogg, Doggystyle

Best Rap Songs: Wu-Tang Clan, “C.R.E.A.M”; Souls of Mischief, “93 ’til Infinity”; Snoop Doggy Dogg, “Who Am I (What’s My Name)?” A Tribe Called Quest, “Award Tour”; Jeru the Damaja, “Come Clean”

Breakout Rapper: Snoop Doggy Dogg

Moments that Defined the Year: New York becomes a relevant rap city again; November 9—the day A Tribe Called Quest releases Midnight Marauders and Wu Tang Clan releases Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers); Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle breaks SoundScan records

The story of 1993 marks New York City finding its footing again after years of West Coast domination. In ’92, Dr. Dre’s The Chronic practically ended rap’s first golden age and started its second, after N.W.A, Ice Cube, MC Hammer, a relocated Beastie Boys, and others had shifted hip-hop’s epicenter. In 1994, with Illmatic and Ready to Die, Nas and the Notorious B.I.G. made clear that the five boroughs were far from finished. But 1993 went a long way toward starting that conversation, through the seminal releases of A Tribe Called Quest’s third consecutive masterpiece, Midnight Marauders; the eclectic release of their Native Tongues brethren De La Soul’s Buhloone Mindstate; and the debut of a nine-man crew straight outta Staten Island, Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

The rejuvenation of NYC’s creative juices proved that hip-hop’s aesthetic could simultaneously contain the underground grit of Jeru the Damaja’s “Come Clean,” the sonic sheen of Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang,” the funky disjointed clamor of “Method Man,” the black radio commerciality of 2Pac’s “I Get Around”…and on and on. A harbinger of things to come, ’93 made clear that hip-hop needn’t oscillate between NY and Cali—or Atlanta, Houston or New Orleans—and that rap could concurrently represent artists from coast to coast as much as any other genre.

And the mainstream beckoned: Pop princess Janet Jackson included Chuck D on her album (janet.’s “New Agenda”) and co-starred with Tupac in director John Singleton’s Poetic Justice. CB4 demonstrated that rap clichés were as ripe for parody as the rock tropes which inspired This Is Spinal Tap. But what really crowns ’93 as one of hip-hop’s best years is that all its diversity seemed to coexist comfortably. “Either/or” suddenly became “and/both.”—Miles Marshall Lewis

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums and Mixtapes: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly; Future’s DS2; Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late; Young Thug’s Barter 6; Travis Scott’s Rodeo

Best Rap Songs: Kendrick Lamar, “Alright”; Future, “March Madness”; Fetty Wap, “Trap Queen”; Travis Scott, “Antidote”; Drake, “Back To Back”

Breakout Rapper: Fetty Wap

Moments that Defined the Year: Drake vs. Meek Mill remakes what rap beef looks like in modern times; Future releases five projects in one calendar year; Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” becomes one of the great protest anthems

I vividly remember being a teenager, driving down the Garden State Parkway and hearing Fetty Wap and Monty’s remix of “My Way” with Drake for the first time. The unexpected break and that famous line—“All I gotta do is put my mind to this shit. I like all my S’s with two lines through them shits”—hit so hard.

Those were the beginnings of Drake’s peak years, when he could take something bubbling regionally and make it pop globally. When I think back on 2015—easily one of the 10 best years in hip-hop history—I remember those convergences and how vital, as always, being outside was to the music.

The number of classics that dropped that year was staggering. Rap was still an in-real-life phenomenon; even when the music explored dark themes, it remained a community affair. From Drake’s “Know Yourself” to Future’s “March Madness” to Big Sean’s “Blessings,” the year was filled with chant-along anthems. The classic projects are endless: Pluto’s DS2, Travis Scott’s Rodeo, Young Thug’s Barter 6, and, of course, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. Even Kendrick Lamar’s dense, political album To Pimp a Butterfly hit outside thanks to “Alright” and that song’s presence at protests and rallies. Rap would begin to change after this year, becoming more insular as melodic emo rap started to dominate the charts.

What really solidifies 2015 as an all-time great year is the beef between Drake and Meek Mill. Tension over a lack of Twitter support escalated into ghostwriter accusations, culminating in the first great social-media-based rap beef. All of a sudden the Summer Jam stage got replaced by the Twitter timeline.

Drake kept the rap world’s attention by dismantling Meek with “Back to Back”—the first diss track nominated for a Grammy—and unleashed a barrage of memes from Twitter during his OVO Fest performance in Toronto that summer. Drake, a rapper who first embraced being a meme with DJ Khaled’s “No New Friends” in 2013, was now utilizing the format to take out a foe. By the time he put out the “Hotline Bling” video in October he mastered the meme. At that point, there was little Meek could do except scream into the ether. —Jordan Rose

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Eric B. & Rakim’s Paid in Full; Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded; L.L. Cool J’s BAD: Bigger and Deffer; Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s Hot, Cool & Vicious; Too Short’s Born to Mack

Best Rap Songs: LL Cool J, “I’m Bad”; Public Enemy, “Rebel Without A Pause”; Eric B and Rakim, “Paid In Full”; Boogie Down Productions, “Criminal Minded”; Big Daddy Kane, “Raw”

Breakout Rap Act: N.W.A

Moments that Defined the Year: Rap acts like Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy bring a new and advanced sociopolitical lens to hip-hop; the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill becomes the first rap album to top the Billboard 200; Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys co-headline the national arena tour “Together Forever.”

By the time Eric B. & Rakim’s Paid In Full made its rounds, most MCs were left scrambling. It had been a year since “Eric B. For President” and “My Melody” introduced the world to contemplative lyrics and understated deliveries. Words aimed at “party people” were succeeded by clever metaphors and a sense of nobility. As monumental as Paid In Full was, it wasn’t the only bold debut that defined ’87’s embarrassment of riches.

This freshmen class included soon-to-be legends Ice-T, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre, all of whom were informed by Schoolly D and Spoonie G’s streetwise edge. But in between cuss words and misogyny were hard stances on race, government greed, and police violence. Ice-T’s Rhyme Pays and N.W.A.’s N.W.A and The Posse emboldened a bubbling LA movement that had finally gained ground on the East.

More debuts set the tone for the year: Public Enemy’s Yo! Bum Rush The Show foreshadowed the group’s brand of politically enlightened bombast that would fully peak on later albums. Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded, highlighted similar themes of injustice and empowerment. This focus on activism uplifted rap from mere entertainment to powerful statements of awareness.

To some, rap was just spectacle in 1987, but the audience nevertheless grew as musical innovations developed. The advancement of studio and sampling techniques by Paul C, Marley Marl, and the Bomb Squad enriched production, giving fans varied soundscapes and more choices than ever, drawing in listeners with a sense of new energy. Rap was splintering into unique subsets and artists were fully aware of each other, driven by competition but also a need to differentiate. Nineteen eighty-seven was a year of innovation where everything—new voices, new regions, new ideations—seemed to intersect at once. It was also an entry point for eventual legends that shaped rap’s sound and dominance for decades to come. —David Ma

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele; Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP; OutKast’s Stankonia; Nelly’s Country Grammar; Slum Village’s Fantastic, Vol. 2

Best Rap Songs: OutKast, “B.O.B.”; Eminem, “The Way I Am”; MOP, “Ante Up”; dead prez, “Hip-Hop”; Black Rob, “Whoa!”

Breakout Rapper: Nelly

Moments that Defined the Year: Eminem emerges as the biggest rap star; Nelly puts St. Louis on the map with a fresh commercial style; Jay-Z and OutKast go toe to toe, once again, with The Dynasty: Roc La Familia and Stankonia dropping on the same day

Two of the highest-selling rap albums of all time were released in 2000—and they emerged from the Midwest. Nelly’s debut, Country Grammar, seemed to come out of nowhere, or more specifically St. Louis, Missouri, with his accessible, melodic rap style and sticky regional slang eventually moving over 10 million copies. Detroit’s Eminem, who’d broken through in 1999, reached his commercial peak the following year with his first diamond-certified album, The Marshall Mathers LP.

Nelly and Eminem crossed over in completely different ways, for completely different reasons, but they both served notice that New York and L.A. wouldn’t dominate the hip-hop conversation in the new millennium as easily as they had in the ’90s. Meanwhile, the Detroit group Slum Village’s indie breakthrough Fantastic, Vol. 2 was an underground sensation. Slum Village’s J Dilla also produced much of Chicago trailblazer Common’s first gold-selling album, Like Water for Chocolate, including the hit single “The Light.”

Ghostface Killah came into his own as the Wu-Tang Clan’s most consistent solo artist with the release of his surreal and offbeat second album, Supreme Clientele. The fact that arguably the most exciting album to come out of the five boroughs that year was a relative commercial disappointment, however, was an omen of what was to come: Atlanta was quickly solidifying its role as the most consistent hit factory in the South—and soon, the nation at large. OutKast’s fourth album, Stankonia, was a critically acclaimed smash, although it turned out to be the last time we’d hear André 3000 and Big Boi trading verses for an entire album. When OutKast toured in support of the album, their opening act was Ludacris, who quickly became one of Atlanta’s defining stars of the era after releasing his debut Back for the First Time. —Al Shipley

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…; Mobb Deep’s The Infamous; 2Pac’s Me Against The World; Goodie Mob’s Soul Food; Smif N Wessun’s Dah Shinin’

Best Rap Songs: Mobb Deep, “Shook Ones, Part II”; Ol’ Dirty Bastard, “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”; The Pharcyde, “Runnin’”; Raekwon, “Incarcerated Scarfaces” 2Pac, “Dear Mama”

Breakout Rap Act: Mobb Deep

Moments that Defined the Year: The landmark 1995 Source Awards; the rising East Coast vs. West Coast tension; the dominance of Wu-Tang Clan continues

“Any artist out there that want to be an artist and want to stay a star, and don’t have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos, all on the record, dancing…come to Death Row.” If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen this moment from former Death Row Records CEO Marion “Suge” Knight. Those infamous words, directed at Puff Daddy at the 1995 Source Awards, summarized the atmosphere in one pithy dis. Beef in hip-hop was nothing new, going back to the formative days of Busy Bee v. Kool Moe Dee. But entire American coasts turning against each other arguably led the culture down a fatalistic path that thankfully hasn’t been revisited since.

It’s complicated, but this tension and some of the greatest music ever qualify 1995 as one of hip-hop’s all-time great years—much of it swirling around one of its most emblematic icons, Tupac Shakur. At the top of the year, Shakur started a prison sentence for sexual assault (he served nine months) and released a No. 1 album while imprisoned (Me Against the World). His one-time homie, The Notorious B.I.G., dropped the ill-timed “Who Shot Ya?” Stewing in jail and concocting conspiracy theories about who fired on him five times in a Quad Recording Studios robbery the previous year, Shakur partially blamed Biggie. Their respective affiliations with California and New York threatened to turn hip-hop against itself, as personal animosities publicly boiled over.

Meanwhile, Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown debuted as sexpot fashionista MCs; Dilla damn near created a new time signature with his production on the Pharcyde’s Labcabincalifornia; RZA orchestrated a three-peat with Raekwon (Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…), GZA (Liquid Swords), and (Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version); and hip-hop was so inextricably linked to pop culture that Yo! MTV Raps got canceled—its purpose fulfilled. But the conflama within hip-hop, along with instant classic singles like Mobb Deep’s “Shook Ones Pt. II” and ODB’s “Brooklyn Zoo,” cements 1995 as one of the greatest rap years ever. —Miles Marshall Lewis

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN.; Tyler, the Creator’s Flower Boy; Migos’ Culture; Jay-Z’s 4:44; Lil Uzi Vert’s Luv Is Rage 2

Best Rap Songs: Kendrick Lamar, “HUMBLE.”; Future, “Mask Off”; Lil Uzi Vert, “XO Tour Llif3”; Playboi Carti, “Magnolia”; Cardi B, “Bodak Yellow”

Breakout Rapper: XXXTentacion

Moments that Defined the Year: Kendrick Lamar wins a Pulitzer Prize for DAMN.; hip-hop officially becomes the most popular musical genre in the U.S.; SoundCloud rap has its crossover year

Many years ago, rappers replaced rock stars as the artists who consistently made the most culturally relevant and consequential music in America. It wasn’t until 2017, however, that the numbers backed up what everyone had been sensing for decades and hip-hop officially became the most popular genre in the United States for the first time, according to Nielsen’s year-end report.

The dominance started at the top. All year long, rap heavyweights dropped off career-defining albums that topped the charts and drew critical praise. Jay-Z proved it was possible to age gracefully in hip-hop (4:44); Kendrick dropped a Pulitzer Prize winner (DAMN.); Migos unleashed an Atlanta trap masterpiece (Culture); Tyler, The Creator began an acclaimed three-album run that changed everything for him (Flower Boy); and Future went back to back with a self-titled album and HNDRXX. By the end of the year, eight out of the 10 most popular artists in America were rappers.

But that’s not why 2017 was one of the top five rap years ever. A truly great year needs to have both a thriving mainstream and a surging underground. In ’17, the SoundCloud rap scene smashed the doors down and ushered in a whole new era of stars. Artists like XXXTentacion, Ski Mask the Slump God, and Lil Pump exploded from South Florida with rebellious, blown-out mosh-pit records that attracted massive cult fanbases. Meanwhile, SoundCloud pioneers Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti put out projects (Luv Is Rage 2 and Playboi Carti) that positioned them as leaders of the new school. A major label signing frenzy ensued, and before long, many of these “underground” artists were doing mainstream numbers. (If you need a refresher, just take a quick scroll down Lyrical Lemonade’s YouTube channel.)These days, there’s a lot of fond nostalgia from rap fans about the year 2016 (No. 15 on our list), but I have a theory that some of these memories are actually misplaced from 2017—a year that was holistically much stronger in hindsight. 2016 had a lot of great R&B albums (Blonde, Lemonade, and Anti, to name a few) and the SoundCloud rap era was getting its footing, but 2017 is the year when hip-hop really kicked into another gear. It’s a genre that’s always been ahead of the curve, and at a time when streaming platforms were completely changing the way people consumed music, rappers took advantage of the technology better than anyone, nimbly adapting to the breakneck speeds of the internet with a constant supply of hit songs. —Eric Skelton

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums and Mixtapes: 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin‘; Jay-Z’s The Black Album; T.I.’s Trap Muzik; OutKast’s Speakerboxxx / The Love Below; The Diplomats’ Diplomatic Immunity

Best Rap Songs: Jay-Z, “Encore”; Ludacris and Shawnna, “Stand Up”; T.I., “Rubber Band Man”; YoungbloodZ feat. Lil’ Jon, “Damn!”; Young Gunz, “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop”

Breakout Rapper: T.I.

Moments that Defined the Year: 50 Cent breaks Billboard records with his debut album; Lil Jon starts his crunk takeover; Jay-Z “retires” with The Black Album

In the summer of 2003, a mysterious ad began appearing in magazines. It showcased a blank tape label with 12 slots, each marked “untitled.” The ad prominently displayed the tagline “12 songs, 12 producers,” with names like DJ Premier, Ski, The Neptunes, Kanye West, and Just Blaze on the poster. It was a tease for what was purported to be Jay-Z’s final album.

You don’t need to be a Hov scholar to know that the story unfolded differently. Jay released The Black Album in November—with 14 tracks, not 12, and no Preemo or Ski—and held his “farewell” show at Madison Square Garden, only to return to rap a couple of years later. We now view that era as a pump fake, a time when Jay-Z pretended to retire.

I see it differently. Jay actually did kinda retire and ascended to C-suite status, becoming a rapper emeritus rather than an active rapper. (The fact that in the three years before his next proper album he released only one mixtape, largely created to promote S.Carter Reeboks, tells you what kind of time he was really on.) With Jay stepping back from the daily grind of rap, Nas exploring a more experimental phase, and OutKast seemingly going their separate ways, 2003 saw a changing of the guard..

It was a new landscape, and three movements paved the way in ’03: 50 Cent, who dropped Get Rich or Die Tryin’ at the start of the year, shattered sales records and effectively put an end to Ja Rule while borrowing elements from his playbook.

The South—specifically Atlanta—would fully emerge as a powerhouse. It wasn’t just Ludacris and OutKast, both of whom scored No. 1 songs and albums, but also upstarts like T.I. and Lil Jon who helped define the era. T.I. brought credibility as an MC from the streets in the mold of Jay-Z, while Lil Jon pioneered crunk music, injecting raucous energy into the national scene. While some Northerners claim that Southern rappers like Lil Wayne and T.I. borrowed East Coast styles on their way to the top, that narrative oversimplifies things. This year showed how transitional both sides can be, with figures like Cam’ron, Nas, and Mobb Deep attempting to ride the crunk wave.

Finally, this was the peak of The Neptunes’ reign. In May 2004, an Australian tabloid called The Age claimed that the Neptunes produced 43% of the songs on US radio in 2003. The uncited survey’s findings may be bullshit, but don’t lie: When you read it, you believed it. The sounds of P and Chad were so omnipresent—“What Happened to That Boy,” “Frontin’,” “Beautiful”—that you can’t discuss one of the all-time great rap years without mentioning them. —Dimas Sanfiorenzo

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: OutKast’s Aquemini; Jay-Z’s Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life; Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill; DMX’s It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot; Black Star’s Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star

Best Rap Songs: DMX, “Get at Me Dog”; Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, and Lil Wayne, “Back That Azz Up”; Noreaga, “Superthug”; Jay-Z, “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)”; The Lox, DMX, and Lil’ Kim, “Money, Power & Respect”

Breakout Rapper: DMX

Moments that Defined the Year: On September 29, Jay-Z, OutKast, A Tribe Called Quest, Black Star, and Brand Nubian all release albums; DMX breaks through, releasing two No. 1 albums in a single calendar year; Lauryn Hill becomes the first solo female rapper to top the charts

In February 1999, Lauryn Hill became the first rap act to win the Album of the Year Grammy for her masterpiece, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Walking onto the stage, she accepted the award from Whitney Houston and, clearly stunned by the moment, said, “This is crazy, because this is hip-hop music.” Her statement encapsulated the spirit of 1998, a pivotal period when hip-hop truly entered the mainstream, building on the commercial successes of the previous year. This transition marked a significant achievement for a genre that had fought for recognition for 25 years. While some may have objected to this shift, the success was long overdue; hip-hop had become a commercial and critical powerhouse.

Despite the prevailing mantra of “gettin’ jiggy with it,” many rappers found success by being themselves. Lauryn Hill’s debut effortlessly blended singing and rapping, paving the way for artists like Drake a decade later. As the flashy “shiny suit era” waned, DMX emerged with a grittier, less aspirational perspective—which contrasted sharply with the polished image promoted by Bad Boy—and helped resurrect Def Jam in the process. Meanwhile, in the South, various factions thrived—the steamrolling tanks of No Limit Records, the floss of Cash Money, and the mysticism of the Dungeon Family.

In 1998, countless roads led to success. This is best exemplified by September 29, 1998, often hailed as the best release date in hip-hop history, when Jay-Z, OutKast, A Tribe Called Quest, Black Star, and Brand Nubian dropped their respective albums on the same day. This lineup showcased the genre’s vast spectrum—from commercial street rap to burgeoning conscious underground to legacy acts taking one last stand.

Does individuality win? Sure, but so did falling in line with a pop formula. Nineteen ninety-eight proved that if you wanted to keep your soul, you could still succeed, though selling it was a sustainable option, too. —Kathy Iandoli

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back; N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton; Slick Rick’s The Great Adventures of Slick Rick; Big Daddy Kane’s Long Live the Kane; MC Lyte’s Lyte as a Rock

Best Rap Songs: N.W.A., “Fuck tha Police”; Marley Marl, Masta Ace, Kool G Rap, Craig G and Big Daddy Kane, “The Symphony”; Boogie Down Productions, “My Philosophy”; Ice T, “Colors”; Slick Rick, “Children’s Story”

Breakout Rapper: Slick Rick

Moments that Defined the Year: Rap’s first great posse cut, “The Symphony,” is released; N.W.A. helps invent a more aggressive form of gangsta rap; DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince become the first rap act to win a Grammy

If 1987 is the start of a new era, ’88 is when things explode. The vast amount of stunning debuts alone is undeniable. Rap was getting Grammy nods, female representation was plentiful, and ’87’s inaugural class had career-defining follow-ups.

The East remained a mecca where legendary debuts emerged: Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, and Biz Markie all tossed their hats in the ring for the first time, at the same time. First full-lengths by EPMD, Ultramagnetic MCs, and Jungle Brothers also added to 1988’s pulsating release schedule.

Newcomers De La Soul (“Plug Tunin’” and “Potholes in My Lawn”) and Gang Starr (“Movin’ On”) released promising singles. Out of the Juice Crew camp, rap’s first great posse cut, “The Symphony,” was released. Philly’s DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s single “Parents Just Don’t Understand” would go on to be the first rap song to win a Grammy. Ground was also being broken in the rest of the country. Houston’s Geto Boys debuted with Making Trouble, and Seattle’s Sir Mix-a-Lot dropped Swass. King Tee’s Act A Fool was another influential debut for the West.

Perhaps the loudest act was a group of young all-stars who dubbed themselves “the world’s most dangerous group.” N.W.A doubled down on the violence and aggression featured on their 1987 debut with Straight Outta Compton, which went gold and ushered in a wave of gangsta rap that would eventually rule radio.

Others also hitting ambitious strides were Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Too Short, and Eric B. & Rakim. We’d be remiss not to mention the number of important women that took over the spotlight: MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, and Queen Latifah emerged, eventually speaking to representation and equality through songs like “Ladies First” the following year. Others, like Sweet Tee, Ms. Melody, and Finesse & Synquis, all expanded the lane MC Sha-Rock and Roxanne Shanté paved just a few years before.

In 2018. Bobbito Garcia, from the Stretch and Bobbito show, talked to NPR about ’88. “It’s the last time there was truly a meritocracy where the best artists sold the most amount of records based on the fact that they were dope,” he said at the time. You might quibble with that conclusion, but can’t deny the fact that, in 1988, rap music somehow found a way to balance being skilled, radical, and commercially successful at the same time. There has never been a year with this many landmark releases that would ultimately become the framework for rap’s future. The sheer number of superb albums, the differences in style, and the watershed moments make ’88 almost unbeatable. —David Ma

 

Complex original

Best Rap Albums: Nas’ Illmatic; The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die; OutKast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik; Scarface’s The Diary; Gang Starr’s Hard to Earn

Best Rap Songs: The Notorious B.I.G., “Juicy”; Common, “I Used To Love H.E.R.”; Nas, “The World Is Yours”; Method Man, “Bring the Pain”; O.C., “Time’s Up”

Breakout Rapper: The Notorious B.I.G.

Moments that Defined the Year: Nas debuts with a game-changing, five-mic masterpiece; The Notorious B.I.G. breaks out with a critically and commercial successful debut; OutKast help put Southern hip-hop on the map with the release of their debut

In a 2023 episode of Idea Generation, Big Daddy Kane tells a funny story about the moment he knew things were over. He had just released his 1993 album Looks Like a Job For…, featuring production from the likes of Large Professor and Trackmasters. It underperformed, with Kane placing blame on the producers. But one day, while riding, he heard a Method Man song playing. Then he heard a Nas track. They were both rhyming “behind the beat.” And then Kane, one of the most technically gifted MCs of all time, realized what was the issue.“You’re the problem because you’re still rhyming like it’s 1988,” he said.

Hip-hop was on the cusp of greatness in ’94, even if fans didn’t have the same epiphany Kane experienced. The year brought forth emerging kings who remain central to GOAT discussions today. Within just five months, we witnessed the release of three of the 10 greatest debut rap albums of all time: Nas’s Illmatic, OutKast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, and The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die. Each of these artists laid the groundwork for what a superstar could be, blending lyrical mastery, storytelling prowess, and boundless charisma.

Nas burst onto the scene with a five-mic classic in Illmatic. Although it was initially a commercial disappointment, its influence on rap was undeniable. Not only did it create the super rap album format, with Nas enlisting production from Q-Tip, Large Professor, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier, but it also made rappers want to reach a new level of sophistication with their raps. Rappers ranging from Mobb Deep to Common to Jay-Z all talked about how Illmatic made them alter their style.

The Atlanta rap scene had been developing for years, but OutKast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, written when Big Boi and André 3000 were both teenagers, put ATL on the map, introducing the city’s unique slang to a national audience and carving out a space in a landscape dominated by coastal cities.

But the big breakout star of that year was The Notorious B.I.G., who was able to straddle the line of commercial success and the streets, with the now-disgraced Diddy smoothing out some of Big’s ferocity, allowing his charm to come out.

A seismic shift was happening, fueled by an abundance of possibilities. Biggie wasn’t kidding when he rapped, “You never thought that hip-hop would take it this far.” The quality of releases validated rap as a viable art form, and one that could make everyone a lot of money.

In the years leading up to ’94, a notable transition was unfolding. While the boom-bap sound began to wane, artists like Nas and groups like Gang Starr held onto a sense of purity before the genre’s landscape would change dramatically. What set 1994 apart was its immense potential for greatness—real greatness, the kind still talked about to this day. And while some of the players aren’t here to see that success 30 years later, their presence is still felt. That alone says everything. –Kathy Iandoli