What was the first hip-hop album to go number one in the UK?
While hip-hop took some time to expand beyond its American home, it has since come to take over the world. The UK, especially, has long been enamoured with it, with plenty of rappers achieving chart success there through the years.
Eminem is an obvious example. He first went to number one in the UK album charts more than a quarter of a century ago, with his Marshall Mathers LP topping the charts there in 2000. Anyone old enough to remember the period will recall how popular Slim Shady was in Britain at the time.
This would not be Eminem’s only visit to the summit of the UK album charts. He would do it several more times, including once with D12. Almost all of his albums since The Marshall Mathers LP have gone to number one in the UK, with Curtain Call 2, a greatest hits album, being the only exception.
Eminem’s friend and colleague 50 Cent soon joined the club, with his second album, The Massacre, hitting number one in 2005. His first album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, had missed out on the honour at number two.
A year after 50’s triumph in the UK, a British rapper finally topped the UK charts for the first time. This was Mike Skinner, working with his band The Streets, whose album The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living reached the top spot. This certainly wasn’t a straightforward hip-hop album in the sense that Americans had come to recognise, but it certainly was a rap record
More British rappers would release number-one albums in the years that followed. Tinie Tempah and Stormzy managed the feat, although, perhaps surprisingly, pioneering UK rapper Dizzee Rascal never managed it.
Kanye West, long before the recent controversy that saw him banned from the country, was once a majorly popular artist in the UK, scoring a couple of number-one albums there through the years, while Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Drake and several other rappers have all managed to top the album charts.
But they all stand upon the shoulders of the Wu-Tang Clan, who were the first to do it. Their second album, Wu-Tang Forever, was the first rap album to ever top the UK charts, setting the stage for a pivot towards rap music among the listening masses that would play out in the years to come.
Wu-Tang Forever was part of a healthy run of form for the group, with several solo albums preceding it and helping to secure their legacy as one of rap’s greatest ever collectives. Wu-Tang Forever was the cherry on top, and it took the UK, among other places, by storm.