The five best self-titled hip-hop albums
Rap has some weight attached to self-titled albums. They are as though a mission statement, a line in the sand, a response to the question this is who I am.
Throughout the years, few people have really delivered on that promise. These are the ones that characterised movements, renewed sounds and had artists at their best. No filler, no re-invention to end in itself, just rappers in their entirety.
Certain of such records witnessed the dawn of new times, while other people solidified already established reputations. Each of the five has the goodwill of artists who knew themselves and embossed it on tape. They are not only good albums, but in fact they are very few instances when it did make sense to name the record after the artist.
Queens pioneers, New Jersey hitmakers, Latino rebels, boom bap purists and trap futurists, this list cuts across generations. They are united by a sense of purpose. Every one of them seems like a first time, even when it is not. That is how a self-titled hip hop album should be.
These are the top five that are above the others.
The five best self-titled hip-hop albums
5. Run DMC – Run DMC (1984)
The first hit by Run DMC struck the early ’80s like a window-smashing brick. Raw back drum machines, two voices exchanging barbed wire, and Jay Z cutting through the noise. It was the first major label breakthrough of rap and the first album to sound more like the streets and not the clubs. Prior to this record, rap albums were still trying to determine what they could be, and Run DMC provided an affirmative response to the question.
Its influence never faded. ‘Sucker MCs’ dismantled the disco age with a bare bones beat. ‘It Like That’ served chilled reality in a straightforward way. The guitar riffs played by ‘Rock Box’ were winning the game well before rap rock was a marketing craze. The album prepared the groundwork for the new school, rewrote the uniform code and broadened what the culture could appear and sound like. It is the beginning of modern rap history.
4. Naughty by Nature – Naughty by Nature (1991)
Naughty By Nature came with an attitude that broke neighbourhood boundaries. Their second self-titled album was a mix of street-born aggressiveness coupled with some of the most catchy ’90s hits. Treach ripped apart all those beats with technical prowess, and the production of Kay Gee held the funk, soul and block party together. It was a platinum breakthrough that made its teeth sharp.
‘OPP’ was the inevitable song, and it was irreverent in the superficial sense, but supported by the tight writing and rhythmic sting. ‘Everythings Gonna Be Alright’ dragged the tone into a shadowed plane, addressing the issue of poverty with a stark directness that bit deeper than the singalong choruses implied. Throughout the list of songs, the group demonstrated that they could switch between pop and hardcore grit without losing their identity. The album demonstrated that being on the charts and being authentic did not have to be incompatible.
3. Cypress Hill – Cypress Hill (1991)
The debut of Cypress Hill is one of the most imposing and bizarre left turns in early ’90s rap. DJ Muggs constructed a foggy, paranoid and hypnotic sound full of distorted samples and viscous basslines. B-Real and Sen Dog provided nasal menace and booming ad-libs on top. It was a different form of the West Coast album, one that had more to do with psychedelic rock than with gangsta rap.
Songs such as ‘How I Could Just Kill a Man’, ‘Hand on the Pump’ and ‘Phuncky Feel One’ defined the theme of their whole career. The album has not only unlocked the Latino voices in mainstream rap but has also created a subversive aesthetic that was attractive to skaters, metalheads and hip hop heads simultaneously. The impression of it can be seen in the cross-genre crowds that Cypress Hill draws nowadays.
2. KRS-One – KRS-One (1995)
His self-titled album made KRS-One a pillar of the culture in 1995, but his message was made all the sharper with fresh force. Produced over hard East Coast production by DJ Premier, Diamond D and others, the record had ‘The Teacha’ in complete control. The bars were nasty, intellectual and coming out right, the work of an artist who considered himself the conscience of hip hop.
The centrepiece is ‘MCs Act Like They Don’t Know’, a premier classic that criticises the industry but at the same time establishes a benchmark of technical excellence. ‘Rappaz R N Dainja’ kicks the doors off braggadocio and urgency. All through the album, KRS balances between battle rap and political commentary. It is a condensation of his self, loud, strict and commanding.
1. Future – Future (2017)
The self-titled project Future released was in the midst of a prolific streak, and it was the purest stream of his style. Trap drums, bassy sounds and emotional anarchy merge to create a body of work that presents all forms of him simultaneously. It is not experimental, it is final, the work of an artist who has enough faith in himself to place the bet on his strong points.
‘Mask Off’ turned into the cultural hot spot with its flute loop reverberating well outside of hip hop communities. All the sorrow beneath the machismo was exposed in ‘Feds Did a Sweep’, while ‘Draco’ and ‘Super Trapper’ provided the fans with the high-energy blasts that they wanted. The album established Future at the heart of 2010s trap, an unstable yet steady voice, pushing hits with an unattractively melodramatic touch.