15. Run-D.M.C. - Raising Hell

Raising Hell wasn't the moment of inception, but it may be the maturation point.

Hip-hop existed well before Run-D.M.C. ever laced up their beloved Adidas shell tops, sequestered to New York's five boroughs, acting as regional art form to the initiated and novelty to the uninspired. "Rapper's Delight" managed to crack the Top 40 and Debbie Harry insipidly stammered through a few bars on "Rapture," but these were merely ripples before a tidal wave, too nondescript to change minds or inspire imitation.

Rap needed to be defined before it could succeed. Genres need a personality to develop an audience, living and dying by their gallery of acolytes, abiding by a set of core values and reinforcing cliches. While the hip-hop sound was too diverse to be singular, siphoning the juiciest bits of rock, funk and disco into call-and-response communal experience, the attitude was unparalleled, especially in the case of our aforementioned hell raisers. Touting epic quests for lyrical dominance, punctuated by tag-team choruses and an epicurean's passion for fresh kicks, Run-D.M.C eschewed the status quo while they constructed a new one, taking "the beat from the street" and putting it on MTV. This exposure coupled with a persuasive, solipsistic, first-person narrative struck a chord with audiences, erecting a culture composed exclusively of its raw materials.

Concisely written and far from subtle, Run and D.M.C state their case without loquacious monologue or flowery exposition, favoring feverish emotion over poetic eloquence. Their candid content is carried over loud, intermittent shouting, a racket forceful enough to shake the listener by the stereocilia, yet never grating or straining for the profane. Run takes the higher register, playing the scrappy upstart, hustling to get in every word, occasionally treating his fans to a lively, saliva-spewing bout of championship-level beat boxing. D is the deep, thoughtful one, measured in his pacing, vocally more akin to a spoken-word performer and carrying that profession's capacity for lively oration.

Thematically, everything's as black-and-white as the diction, ladling applause on the rhymes, clothes and heritage, while leveling a hefty amount of ridicule on slobs, loose women and the ever-present copycat. While the storytelling rarely bares its fangs, favoring gentle sexism and sophomoric silliness over subtext, "Proud to Be Black" proves Run-D.M.C. can expand beyond superficial generalizations, voicing righteous anger without aggression or violent retaliation, each meritorious word accentuated by the album's potent blend of throbbing bass and break beat.

The brusque percussion is a tidy pairing of hissy cymbal clash and propulsive bongo roll, played at accelerated rates, resulting in a lean, masculinized pulsation. Rick Rubin's pioneering clatter is a dense wave of noise, diverted only by Jam Master Jay's spirited scratching, which colors outside of the lines and implements much needed chaos to the assembly line artificiality. Jay's gruff cuts are bursts of excitable cacophony, as jarring as a crack of thunder, often marking the end of a bar or playing back up to the vocal duo's moments of festive interplay. Gracefully slicing and dicing the guitar bits of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," Jay's physical motions border on the divine, transforming water into wine and seamlessly blending contorted turntable work with Rubin's propensity for speed and unbridled guitar wankery.

"Peter Piper" acts as ode and example, idolizing Jay as supreme ass shaker and turntable athlete, wisely allowing his adroit handiwork to live up to the noble portrait painted by his vocal counterparts. Treating their verses as a bout of verbal jump rope, Run and Darryl Mac finish each others' sentences like excited schoolkids, spouting out measured, emphatic exclamations, peppered with references to Greek mythology and British nursery rhyme. Their words are playfully chased by boisterous bass kicks and a formative treble two-step, delicately glazed by sugary sweet spoon-to-glass treble in the chorus, dancing between melodic beauty and manic episode.

It's a dizzying amalgam of varying sounds, made ordinary only by decades of carbon copying, a crime for which Run-D.M.C. and their army of devotees share equal responsibility. Yet, is it possible to shake something so influential out of the cultural DNA? Nearly 30 years of hip-hop innovation hasn't bred out the cadence, bass throb or narcissism invented here, only magnifying them into self-parody or knowing satire. Maybe the genius behind Raising Hell lies in its ability to be replicated, forging an entire culture from its mannerisms and electronics.

Hip Hop Top 50 Vol. 2. Playlist

Submitted for your approval, a second sampling of tracks from the Hip Hop Top 50. Despite Spotify's claims of an encyclopedic and endless catalog of music, Dr. Dre's The Chronic is noticeably absent, leaving him unrepresented on our mix. In his honor, I've added a second track from Doggystyle, spotlighting his unique style of production. Also of note, De La Soul's "Me, Myself & I" contains elements not present on the studio LP. For that, we sincerely apologize.

16. Genius/Gza - Liquid Swords

Don't judge a book by its cover.

Liquid Swords may be as fastidious and handsomely mounted as its Prentis Rollins' inked artwork, but confusing it for cartoonish fantasy would be a grave lapse in judgment. This is investigative journalism, as objective and stark as an obituary, completely drained of the sex, camaraderie and revelry that so many "gangster" rappers use as commercial leverage. Speaking as omniscient narrator, The Genius rarely steps in to plead his case, leaving his small-time crooks without conscience or voice of reason, abandoned to forever circle the drain of their violent and hateful lifestyles. It's thematically oppressive and hopeless, all the more depressing when held up to the so-called legitimate forms of business it parallels, making its subliminal social commentary more of an attack on free enterprise and bureaucracy than the black market.

Gary Grice, known solely as Gza to those familiar, drafts sanguine sagas as detailed and ornamental as a gourmand ruminating over the buttery notes of a Bearnaise. Passions in science, chess and samurai mythology seem too bookish for an author of true crime exposés, but Gza imbues his wordy expositions with a lived-in realism and morbidity, always burying his street warriors in a casket built of their own paranoia and superstition. Simile and metaphor are his preferred rhetorical devices, as odd and unprecedented as his influences, strung along endless lines of rhyming suffixes and "unbalanced like elephants and ants on seesaws." It's astonishing how much he can squeeze into small spaces, delicately flipping near rhymes off the tip of his tongue and turning other rappers' gimmicks and word games into achievements of "rec room era" MC wizardry. His brilliance even extends to social commentary, intended to "defraud the hoax" of religious and scholarly hypocrisy, standing defiantly against faux activism and willful ignorance.

In contrast, the sound profile is more subliminal than confrontational, building off of airy atmospherics and welcome intervals of silence. Breathing room not only allows Gza's words to stand firmly in the forefront, but exposes the jagged edges of RZA's source material, comprised mainly of tormented keys and slowly bubbling bass lines, as dark and viscous as crude oil. RZA seems to carry a common thread throughout the piece (he is sole producer), repeating 4 notes in sequence, wavering from speaker-to-speaker, as if to send a signal to the attentive listener, luring them into his darkened, concrete basement. The hypnosis is broken only for nightmarish passages from Shogun Assassin, made all the more ominous because of obvious parallels to Gza's austere subject matter. Besides this penchant for cinephilia, Liquid Swords thematically breaks new ground for RZA, occupying the future worlds and technocentrism present in ambient and computer-based compositions.

"Killah Hills 10304" personifies this artificiality, made of pure steel and industrial mechanics, slumping back and forth with pounding bass purr and wrinkled VHS-tape slur. RZA rips the soul from his formula, leaving behind a sonic corpse, wrought with remote pulsations and monotonous, squeaky keys. The squelched rhythms are barely given more than a few notes, repeating endlessly, never allowed to blossom, but steadily building a claustrophobic and synthetic atmosphere. The Genius' words are tension incarnate, adding live flesh and tissue to the proceedings, painting a crimson portrait of global corruption. His exhaustive universe of characters never feels fabricated, all sneaky and corrupt, desperate enough to surgically implant a kilo of cocaine into a bum leg or hide a bomb in a bottle of champagne. All images of pleasure or power are symbolically bathed in blood, striking a shadowy, three-dimensional vision of street life caked in the grit most mainstream "gangsters" wash away in the recording booth.

The lyrical authenticity and aural chilliness make for an incongruous pairing on paper, but the truculent behavior of Gza's characters fit this alien, emotionless din like a glove. His works of violence are money-motivated and impersonal, showing the detached nature of the drug game and its crippling effect on those trapped in its clutches. By removing the superhero bravado often attributed to "coke" rap, The Genius has made a work of gripping realism and profound morality.

17. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill

Walking a tightrope between satire and frat-boy idiocy, Licensed to Ill bestows an almost mythic grandiosity to the spoils of youth, adorning its three Beastie Boys with a harem of wenches, flowing goblets of Olde English and bellies full of the Colonel's chicken. Certainly some of this pomposity is hubris, and the Boys realize the inherent absurdity of the act, masquerading as pirates, drifters and outlaws, quick to bed your girlfriend or break your glasses. There's nary a sign of conscience or high-minded pretension, but the group dynamic and stubborn sincerity are gleefully confrontational, drawing reference points to everything from Schooly D to AC/DC to The Three Stooges. This eclecticism is birthed from New York City's cultural melting pot and the vision of whiz-kid producer, Rick Rubin, who abetted the Beastie Boys in sparking a deep connection with millions of like-minded delinquents, yearning for limited supervision and maximum destruction.

Sounding like a collision between power chord bombast and basement electronics, Rick Rubin's production work bears the crunchy thickness of distorted, atonal bass repetition and precious little nuance. His vision is tailored to fit the unique lyrical interplay of the group, lowering the volume to reveal the big punchline or setting off blaring machine gun beats to mirror the fervor of the team's "Ra Ra Ra" group cheer leading. Samples even parallel the storytelling, taking horns to the red-light district for "Brass Monkey" or lending juvenile toy piano to the schoolyard mock-sexism of "Girls." This isn't to say that Rubin is partial to making sample-based music, leaning more in personal taste to New York hardcore and working-class blues rock like Aerosmith and Motorhead. Lucky for him, the Beasties cut their teeth as gleefully-sloppy punk rockers, helping "cock of the walk" tough guy rants like "No Sleep till Brooklyn" ring with truth and ease their transition from one musical genus to another.

Think of "The New Style" as initiation and proper introduction. Ad-Rock ushers in the future of the form like he's reading off the fight card, steeped in echoes and enveloped in hushed silence. MCA counts off backwards, foreshadowing a wave of robotic, preset cymbal and tinny, homespun 808 thump. Rubin adds metal lick dissonance and abrupt breaks to the mix, further hardening an already brutish force. The Boys rhymes are spit out with a hurried intensity, as if some unseen force looms over, threatening to pull the plug on their mics. MCA is at once the best linguist and most metaphorical, alluding to higher artistic aspirations by comparing his popularity to Picasso's capacity for painting. Ad-Rock loves to accentuate his "Noo Yawk" accent, particularly at the end of each bar, straining his vocals to an aggravatingly high-pitch that perfectly compliments his egotistical flights of fancy. Mike D may not pack MCA's skill or Ad-Rock's sheer volume, but he's best with a witty quip, taking a laugh-out-loud jab at Jimmy Page's sex life that would be slightly offensive, if it weren't such an acid-tongued potshot at the worst indulgences of rock stardom.

That's not to say that Licensed to Ill is free of hedonism, even if said hedonism is done with a shit-eating grin. The Beasties would spend most of their career reforming the image created on this LP, eventually conforming to a rigid standard of tolerance, sexual equality and healthy living. Maturation is expected with age and most of their early infractions are forgivable, especially when seen as harmless teenage rebellion. If anything, Ill benefits from this feral recklessness, birthing a cross-breed of hip-hop's arrogance, punk's ardor and pop culture's triviality. Their eclecticism bulldozed through preconceptions about the genre, while stretching its vocabulary toward more obscure reference points, rarer sample fodder and knottier similes. Taking offense is to be expected, but we must sacrifice our "good taste" at the altar of artistic innovation.

18. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle

Hardly juvenilia, despite the sophomoric references to testicular size, Doggystyle finds an author in full control of his skill set, conscious of structure, never frantic and rather adept with onomatopoeia and masculine rhyme. For his age and lack of experience, his ability seemed supernatural at the time, but youthful stamina wasn't the reason for his success. Snoop understood the power of image and individuality, constructing a likable outlaw out of his tales of couple's bubble baths and streetlight shootouts. His vision was the film noir to hip-hop's action flick, more focused on coloring in his larger-than-life personality and foggy, deliberate lyrical flow than catering to purists or the old guard.

"Laidback" is both a personal assessment and perfectly suitable, since Snoop's rhymes are far more interested in toying with sounds and the rhyming syllable than force feeding content. Bragging and provoking the opposition accounts for the bulk of his subject matter, but mundane topics are given new life through an exhilarating propensity for accents, unnatural extensions of words and prosodic stress. Take "Tha Shiznit," for example, which playfully ridicules Luke of 2 Live Crew by concluding each sentence with an affected "E" or "A" sound, noting the opponent's weakness and fallibility with each dramatic rise in tone. His affinity for Slick Rick's wordplay and narcissism would be obvious, even without the "Lodi Dodi" cover, but Snoop's violence is more literal and far less episodic. Emotions are obvious from his intonation, noticeably most vivacious during a bout of self-glorification, but his words are most substantial when acting as conduit for verbal trickery. Despite all the distractions, he makes games of syntax seem effortless and, dare I say, elegant.

Bells and whistles are handled by Dr. Dre, who, upon first glance, seems confident enough in the sound he'd pioneered a year prior to shamelessly recycle it. Further investigation reveals an expanded palate and a slackened intensity, with the stone-faced Dre loosening his belt and letting his inner lounge act take the reins. The nostalgic atmosphere and heightened sense of whimsy work marvelously with Snoop's paced and harmonious oration, especially when spiced up with giddy sleigh bell and bleary-eyed Detroit-style soul choruses. Moments like "Ain't No Fun" even feel like a sly wink, pairing uproariously sexist pillow talk with roller-disco kitsch.

Best of all, Dre's compositions act as pedestal for Snoop's towering persona and, though most of the affair is relatively radio ready, the baleful moments are just as palatial, transforming Snoop from the role of glamorous playboy to sadistic villain, accordingly backed by vampirical organ and scaly synthesizer. "Murder Was the Case" best displays this sonic and lyrical versatility, replacing placid party vibes with chambered drum and gong, the blunt echo of struck aluminum and disembodied moans.

Snoop's pulp storytelling shines best when allowed to control the narrative and "Murder" is a drug dealer's take on the Faust legend, with Snoop himself playing a flamboyant criminal mind, hampered by a desire for wealth and an impatient, unholy benefactor. If the scope of the story and vision weren't already cinematic enough, the track was followed by an 18-minute short film, further developing the cult of personality surrounding Calvin Broadus. Yet, silver-screen aspirations and media personality were never Snoop's most endearing qualities. His ability to construct compelling poetry was what has endeared him to the public for so long and Doggystyle was the moment that Snoop Doggy Dogg's esoteric diction and imperial slackerdom became as American as apple pie.

19. Kanye West - Late Registration

Ambivalence overwhelms Kayne West from the first note of Late Registration, with "nothing's ever promised tomorrow today" acting as proverb for an endless range of uncertainties, most prominently career and life itself. Having survived his own brush with death, West's diary-entry intimate accounts of his mother's struggles and grandmother's passing resonate with despair and powerlessness, comforting only in their relatability and honesty. It's this gift to draw from personal experience and connect with an audience that stands as West's finest character trait and one that best lends itself to a narrator as flaky and conflicted as his listening audience (myself included).

Realizing the power of the podium he speaks from, West has actively politicized his lyrics the second time around, hoping at most to bring about social change and at the very least disseminate his wealth of ideas. Attacks on social strata, drug culture and blood diamonds are both brave and clever, able to point a finger at corrupting elements in the black community here and abroad, while never letting the author off the hook or allowing him to sound self-righteous. He realizes that his jewelry might not be conflict-free and his actions reek of "do what I say, not what I do" hypocrisy, but his poetic diatribes are his vehicle for forgiveness and self-improvement. Late Registration always feels like a learning experience, sonically and emotionally, and Kanye hopes some of his personal growth will rub off on the listener.

The musical platform for this catharsis was fashioned by West himself, though composer Jon Brion was brought in to lend a gravity to the proceedings, found in the cinematic sweep of the strings and intimate delicacy of the soft, homemade piano loops. Influence spans the 20th century of black music and beyond, taking cues from "jump blues," Prince's melody and sexuality and Dr. Dre's smooth California organ. This play for universality isn't a rapper gone pop, but a man too broad in his scope to leave anything off the table, even if that means getting too big for his britches or straining for grandiosity.

"Addiction" is the zenith of outre arrangement and the shape of a sound to come, far more pensive and troubled than Kayne's output up to that point and possibly an early manifestation of the fevered militancy that would become an obsession on Yeezus. Somber guitar is gently strummed and looped, building tension out of crunchy cymbal and the robotic clap of a synthesizer. Radiohead's shadow looms large, spiritually responsible for the cold exterior of the artificial percussion. Off-setting the numbing rhythm is a warm center of grief, bubbling over with the troubled confessions of a self-diagnosed Bipolar personality. Though West struggles to fight off his darker urges, he surreptitiously yearns to spend, drink and screw as means to temporarily distract from his shortcomings.

Confidence and ego are reinforced on "Gone," if only as a defensive mechanism. 'Ye opens with a few jokes to warm up the crowd, taking diamond-hungry ladies to Ruby Tuesdays and alluding to The Golden Child, all effortlessly rolled atop a bouncy chopstick of a piano and his wheelhouse blend of Soul-sampling and tight percussion. Pals Cam'ron and Consequence make their mark; Cam with mush-mouthed, twisty rhyme schemes and Consequence with riches-to-rags verisimilitude. Yet, all lyrical gravity is wisely bestowed upon Mr. West, signaled by the arrival of a resounding string section and cinematic bombast. West's manifesto paints him as ahead of his time, but overwhelmed by blossoming celebrity and the media fervor that accompanies it. The attention doesn't bother him, since he relishes the opportunity to be viewed as the rap game's Jehovah, but he's not strong enough to deal with the lifetime of scrutiny that comes with a place at the top.

It's this struggle with the cult of personality that makes Kayne West a more complex artist on Late Registration. It's exciting to see his demons peak out, revealing a man both consumed and repulsed by his own narcissism. Much of his output would deal with Christian-guilt relating to arrogance, but never was it as urgent or real as the first time around.

20. Madvillain - Madvillainy

Perfectly marrying the sophisticated with the peculiar, Madvillainy is 22 disparate snapshots, completely stripped of mainstream rap's pop sensibilities and obsession with hooks and freed to be willfully obscure, off-the-cuff and hysterical. Super groups rarely succeed, let alone eclipse previous individual achievements, but pairing Madlib's capacity for regenerating the grooviest relics of jazz past and MF Doom's impossibly sophisticated, stream-of-consciousness jabberwocky was a stroke of genius, birthing a work beyond genre, song structure and conventional wisdom.

Vocalist and cover model MF Doom rhymes with a deep, stoned growl, working his tongue and lungs to capacity, all in the name of coughing up dense, symbol-laden, lyrical poetry. His verses are pop culture at its most arcane, showcasing a man obsessed with junk food, syndicated space operas and creamy clouds of marijuana smoke. His vocal ebb and flow can be rather entrancing, which slightly distracts from the complex use of simile and double entendre, demanding repeat listens and even note taking from his ever-growing army of disciples. Verbal trickery is the name of the game on "Money Folder," where he claims to have penned the rhyme after downing a few "Heines," only to reveal moments later that he was referencing warm derrieres and not cold beers. Gambits like this occur endlessly, often multiple times in a single verse, showcasing an author capable of constructing an extremely intricate narrative and demanding enough to expect listeners to keep up with his manic pace and rapier wit.

"Curls" intends to slow Doom's roll, opening on the low tinkle of steel drum, pulled back in the mix slightly as to not overshadow muted guitar strum and gently scraped hand percussion. Doom deliberately harnesses his flow, exposing the crackle in his smoke-damaged throat, but never stumbling over a syllable or gasping for air. His uncommon gift for phrasing shines radiantly, mutating banalities about money-grubbing women into an eloquent game of near-rhyme hopscotch ("reckless nekkid girls get necklaces and pearls"). It's exhilarating to hear his verbal ingenuity, particularly when classing up well-worn cliches, ranging from the joy of financial frivolity to the perilous life of the young hustler. This supposed "coming-up" story revels in absurd exaggeration, so implausible that it appears Doom's having a laugh at his peers' expense, mocking their eternal quest for authenticity. His farcical tales of toddler battle rapping and second-grade smoke-outs are accompanied by eerie Gothic organ and intermittent electro drum kick, camping up an already cartoonish anecdote.

Madlib gives the entire LP a sense of knowing mischief, rudely throwing seemingly incongruous pieces of jazz, soul and 60's ephemera at the wall, never giving a damn if any individual piece sticks. Somehow, amid the sound and fury, wavering from speaker to speaker, is a disorienting and brilliant piece of Musique concerte, constructed from thousands of lulling, symbiotic sound puzzles. Dashes of maraca and robust bass marinate with old-world accordion, book ended by superhero clips and bizarre B-movie sound effects, all corrupted and rearranged by constant breaks in tone and shifts in focus. Familiar elements are tossed in via bubbling bong rips and funk riff strut, acting as a buoy to the listener, forever drowning in a sea of details. This sense of security is temporary, washed away in a flood of half-audible cackling and faded dub scraps.

The elements are tightly packed, never showing their patchwork or revealing a formula, orchestrated with a surgical, almost inhuman, focus. Yet, this is not de rigeur studio product, but free-form experimentation, built around two friends sharing a laugh while pugnaciously stripping away two decades of perpetually-recycled genre convention. Rarely do inside jokes brim with such versatility, personality and boundless enthusiasm.