Hip Hop — Recently Added

A tight little EP by LA beatcraft maestro Knxwledge – showing some impressive stylistic range! The vocal track "Relapse" features Traffic on the rhymes, Knxwledge's production bringing in a laidback funky electro soul vibe for Traffic's gritty, though introspective LA streets-schoole ... 7-inch, Vinyl record

The classic debut album by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – one of the pioneering groups in hip hop -history- not that we didn't need to tell you that! With prototypical party jams and the original conscious rap landmark "The Message", all over old school grooves laid ... LP, Vinyl record album

An excellent reissue of the Wild Style soundtrack that exactly reproduces the original single LP format! The album's nice and lean, with 12 great tracks – including "Wild Style Theme Rap 1" by Grandmaster Caz & Chris Stein, "Basketball Throwdown" by Cold Crush Bros ... LP, Vinyl record album

A Shaolin hip hop essential! Heavy numerological rhymes, and the some of the best production on any Wu project ever. One of our absolute favorite albums in the classic Wu pantheon – indisputably one of the very best – one of the very few that plays with hard solidity from start to ... LP, Vinyl record album

A masterful second album from 2Pac – and a breakout that helped lay the groundwork for his brief but ever rising repuation and legacy! Kicking off with the thumping "Holler If Ya Hear Me" with the frenetic, almost Bomb Squad level wall of sound production by Live Squad that's ... LP, Vinyl record album

DAMN!, indeed – Kendrick has yet to take even a small step down from the creative peak he's been riding for years – and takes another daring step forward with this strong, strident, no-mess-taking classic in the making! The surprise-announced DAMN! finds him taking on timely concerns ... LP, Vinyl record album

If Paul's Boutique was the Beasties' psychedelic hip hop Sgt Peppers, then Check Your Head is their White Album – a raw, stylistically sprawling, yet always connected batch of live instrumentation – backing rhymes that range from stream of consciousness to expertly written. Check Your ... LP, Vinyl record album

Untitled Unmastered, though masterful material from Kendrick Lamar – another great stride in his astonishing mid teens creative win streak– a low key and low stakes release compared to the huge platform for To Pimp A Butterfly, but damn, it sure does resonate with a similar haze of ... LP, Vinyl record album

The third album from Eric B & Rakim – absolute classic MC/DJ duo hip hop and maybe their most solid from beginning end, as impossible as that should've been after high bars they set with Paid In Full & Follow The Leader! By this point, Rakim was firmly established as one of hip hop's ... LP, Vinyl record album

The restlessly inventive Madlib beats and production for Pinata, the excellent duo project with MC Freddie Gibbs! If you'll forgive us a little bit of repetition – because we KNOW we've written this before – there's just something extra riveting about Madlib's production work for ... LP, Vinyl record album

Streetwise raps from Freddie Gibbs, backed by inventive production from Madlib – here on one of the best records yet on 'Lib's own Madlib Invazion imprint! If you'll forgive us a little bit of repetition – because we KNOW we've written this before – there's just something extra ... LP, Vinyl record album

Damn! The MASSIVE collaborative album from the dynamic duo of Madlib and J Dilla! Essentially, Madlib handles the production on the even numbers in the set with Dilla on the vocals, and the roles are reversed on the odd numbers. Each producer does his own thing, as only he can do it – ... LP, Vinyl record album

The much-hailed major league debut of Kendrick Lamar! Includes "Bitch, Don't Kill My Vibe", "The Art Of Peer Pressure", "Money Trees" with Jay Rock, "Poetic Justice" with Drake, "m.A.A.d City" with MC Eiht, "Singing About Me, I'm Dying Of ... LP, Vinyl record album

J Dilla at his grittiest, most rugged & raw – in both the production and rhyme realm – with all beats and rhymes by the Dilla himself! This set originally opened our ears to a different side of Dilla, a harder hitting aesthetic, with beats and grooves from out of leftfield that ... LP, Vinyl record album

A groundbreaking meeting of musical icons – with veteran jazz greats, a couple of then-young guns, and one of the MCs who helped bring jazz into hip hop in the first place! Jazzmatazz bridges both stylistic and generational boundaries in incredible ways, not only an earnest effort by Guru to ... LP, Vinyl record album

The long awaited sides C & D in Madlib's incredible blend of Bombay soundtrack-styled funk, blunted Eastern beats, and all round stunning Middle Eastern accented hip hop instros! This time out Madlib, er, Beat Konducta is conducting beats, strings & things from India and/or otherwise East ... LP, Vinyl record album

Hazy beatcraft steeped in Indian soundtrack style funk, strings and percussion from the indefatigable Madlib – Volume 3 in the increasingly adventurous and conceptual outings of the Beat Konducta! This time out Madlib, er, Beat Konducta is conducting beats, strings & things from India ... LP, Vinyl record album

Gang Starr at pretty close to peak level here on 1994's Hard To Earn – and rather than continue to ride the waves they made on the previous couple classic albums, Guru sharpens the lyrical tone just a bit – spitting some more incisive rhymes over apporpriately gritty soul jazz beats ... LP, Vinyl record album

Common lean, filler free late 80s Finding Forever – a set that's definitely the thematic follow up to the semi-comeback BE LP – and a solid one, with highpoints that equal Com's best work of the decade! The set is largely produced by Kanye West, with some terse, harder hitting moments, ... LP, Vinyl record album

A groundbreaking meeting of musical icons – with veteran jazz greats, a couple of then-young guns, and one of the MCs who helped bring jazz into hip hop in the first place! Jazzmatazz bridges both stylistic and generational boundaries in incredible ways, not only an earnest effort by Guru to ... LP, Vinyl record album

How 50 Cent manages to stand out as such a genuinely exciting MC is in such a crowded field of street hip hop around the time this breakthrough came out is as mysterious as it is beside the point. Dr. Dre's love for that minimalist ghetto synth orchestra sound is in full depth here – this is ... LP, Vinyl record album

A huge moment for LL Cool J – and a set that has him balanced nicely between the sharp rhymes of his roots and the rising stardom of his role in the larger world of R&B as well! Marley Marl produced, and the whole thing's still got a nice edge – even though some of these tunes ... LP, Vinyl record album

Ghostface in his comfort zone of dusty cinematic soul beats, strings samples and distinctively dexterous wordplay on The Lost Tapes! Contrary to the title, this an all new effort as opposed to a dive into the vaults – with the production credited to Big Ghost LTD and guest appearances by ... LP, Vinyl record album

Drake still with lot of sting left in him after all these years on top! You really gotta hand it to him for keeping creatively ambitious at a point when he might be able to do just as well on the charts even if he phoned it in, but he's not doing that at all on Scorpion. There are sparsely-furnished ... LP, Vinyl record album

Busta Rhymes at his explosive late 90s best, capping off an end times-anticipating trilogy here with the follow-up to The Coming and When Disaster Strikes! An approaching mass extinction apocalypse is as sound of a backdrop for Busta's wildly extrovert rhyme style, one of a kind voice and manic ... LP, Vinyl record album

Grouch steps up his game! As you might expect from the title, Grouch was in no mood to suffer fools at this point, but the record isn't about angry rants, it's more thoughtful and measured in approach than that by far, and he's at his most versatile on the mic on this one. Titles Includes "I'm ... LP, Vinyl record album

Kanye West's & Kid Cudi's joint debut as Kids See Ghosts! Each looks inward and tackles existential personal issues on the lyrical front, with kind of a spacey melancholy vibe to the production, and with cool synths and fuzz-steeped production with some really interesting samples in the mix ... LP, Vinyl record album

The somewhat slept on second album by Das Efx – and in hindsight, it's just as solid as Dead Serious – maybe even more consistently strong than the breakout debut! Dray and Skoob keep up the loco syllabic tempo and tongue tripping rhymes on this one – over the head nodding Solid ... LP, Vinyl record album

A thematic rap triumph from the hip hop superhero team of Czarface – already a veritable supergroup featuring Boston underground veterans 7L & Esoteric with the Wu Tang's Inspectah Deck – bringing in Wu MVP Ghostface Killah for the unsurprisingly massive Czarface Meets Ghostface! ... LP, Vinyl record album

A collaborative effort from Madlib and Freddie Gibbs – the union of one the most prolific producers in abstract hip hop and a hugely talented rhymer! We've said it before and we imagine we'll say it many more times, but Madlib really delivers when he's paired with straight forward MCs – ... 12-inch, Vinyl record