Hip Hop — Recently Added

Talib Kweli strongly carrying the torch for classic, mic-centric hip hop – still going strong after a solid couple decades in the game! It's invigorating to hear him delivering such precisely spat, brilliantly written rhymes track after track here – he's one of the best ever of his kind ... LP, Vinyl record album

The return of always sharp Wu Tang hero – with a pretty solid set on Nature Sounds! Includes "Return Of The Masta Kill" feat Young Dudas & Cappadonna, "Loyalty Is Royalty (RIF – Rappin' Is Fundanmental)" feat AB & JR, "Therapy" feat Method Man & ... LP, Vinyl record album

The last great Notorious BIG single issued in his lifetime! "Hypnotize" gets your head nodding right out of the gate, Puffy & company's production bringing a funky heft to that impeccably sampled bass groove from Herb Alpert's "Rise", Biggie spitting pure charisma all the ... 12-inch, Vinyl record

Detroit producer/MC double threat Black Milk is back with a rhymes-centric effort after the soul jazzy instrumentals of The Rebellion Sessions with Nat Turner – a true-to-form move given his unpredictable, diverse career to date – and sure enough it's another creative win! Compelling ... LP, Vinyl record album

Soul searching rhymes in a distinctive narrative style by Lando Chill! The Boy Who Spoke To The Wind has a farther reaching sound than his first album, though it's his unique, not so chill voice that impresses us even more. It's innovative stuff production wise, with a far-reaching global hip hop ... LP, Vinyl record album

An impressive blend of jazz and hazy hip hop beatcraft from Kiefer – his best yet! We dug Kiefer's earlier Kickinit Alone a lot, too, but Happysad feels like a next level effort. Jazz piano really stands out as the leading light in the sound here – it's the real thing, too – ... CD

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

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

The essential early 90s classic by The Pharcyde, the group's high water mark, and one of the greatest hip hop albums of the era! Along with Del and the Souls Of Mischief, the Pharcyde were one of the few West Coast units to achieve any kind of widespread popularity using the uniquely loopy, ... LP, Vinyl record album

The Beasties' peak-era, retro-style instrumentals LP! Even at their weakest vocal moments, we've always dug the Beastie Boys' firm commitment to funky instrumental backing – their albums are filled with lots of nice interludes, instrumentals, and backing grooves – but they often seemed ... LP, Vinyl record album

It's been more than 20 years, but the Doctor is in! "Octagon Octagon" is the first new track by the legendary trio of Kool Keith, DJ Qbert and producer Dan The Automator working together under the Octagon name in a couple decades, and it's a solid return to form. You know they have faith ... 12-inch, Vinyl record

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Kid Koala, and Dan The Automator pool their skills for this dawn of the 2000s sci-fi hip hop classic – the masterful Deltron 3030! The guest list is almost too long to get into, but Money Mark, Prince Paul, PB Wolf and Mr. Lif are all here, along with many others. ... LP, Vinyl record album

The second album from EPMD, and the second triumph! Unfinished Business continues in the style of the classic debut, but that's anything but a problem at this point, there was really no one at their doing like Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith at the time! Their style of heavy east coast funky soul ... LP, Vinyl record album

Mobb Deep steps into a new millennium with a slightly bigger sound, but without losing the plot! Long-heralded for being gritty and raw in the best kind of way, Prodigy & Havoc had nothing left to prove on that front – so taking a slight left turn with a more introspective lyrical bent ... LP, Vinyl record album

The last album from Prodigy & Havoc's classic run in the 90s – still with the distinctively raw, now legendary street style of the early to mid-period Mobb Deep – with appearances by Nas, Raekwon, Big Noyd, 8-Ball, Lil Cease, Lil Kim and more. In their prime, Mobb Deep had a way of ... LP, Vinyl record album

A vital third act in the thankfully ongoing RTJ saga! The first album was unsurprisingly excellent, but surprisingly popular. The second album not only turned out to be a bigger hit, it was also a creative peak for both El-P and Killer Mike – which is really saying something. So the stakes ... LP, Vinyl record album

A raw duo effort from MC Freddie Gibbs and producer Statik Selektah! It's a nice one, with solid boots and some stark, moody touches like an ominous bit of organ, strains of cinematic soul strings, timeless scratches and more – with guest appearances by Daz, Slaine, Reks, Termanology, Fred ... LP, Vinyl record album

Unfiltered portraits of the artist formerly known as Red Pill – delivering the goods under his own name on a solid set for the Mello Music Group! Real life, self searching and personal statement making hip hop from a voice rooted in classic 90s school craft – not so much with a neo-class ... LP, Vinyl record album

Too Short's third LP on Jive, the last one before he started becoming a parody of himself. A few tracks have the same humor as his first two Jive LPs, and it includes the hit "The Ghetto" using the classic Donny Hathaway melody, and "Ain't Nuthin But A Word To Me" with Ice Cube ... LP, Vinyl record album

J Dilla at his grittiest, most rugged & raw in the production realm – on his long unreleased original mixes for his early 00s classic Ruff Draft! 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

The first, independent, Roots LP with so many classics that never made it to their later import and major label releases. What more can we say... Tracks include "The Roots Is Comin", "Pass The Popcorn", "The Anti-Circle", "Writers Block", "Good ... LP, Vinyl record album

The game changing Def Jam classic – and possibly the greatest album by the Beastie Boys – even though they'd grow up a whole lot after this! Profane party anthems galore, and the Beasties would distance themselves from much of the attitude of this album, making their career arc from ... LP, Vinyl record album

Danny Brown moves over the Warp label still riding high on a longstanding creative win streak – title aside, this exhibition is magnificent – hopping back and forth stylistically between straight-forward, compelling boom bap and brazenly manic weirdness! Danny's bugged out approach to ... 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

20th anniversary edition of Nas's masterpiece Illmatic – which will probably stand forever as one of the greatest hip hop full lengths of its time – maybe even for all time. Nas has had some creative ups-and-downs over the years, but nothing can take away the impact of this damn near ... LP, Vinyl record album

DJ Quik's classic debut – arguably one sturdiest records bridging the first wave of the LA gangsta rap era to the G Funk era of the early-to-mid 90s – and definitely one of the tighter and most focused albums of its kind around that time, when rap records were getting largely getting a ... LP, Vinyl record album

A modern classic hip hop soundtrack to Black Panther that should make T'Challa proud! It was pretty clear early on that Black Panther might be one of the greatest modern super hero movies – and an important one for the political and cultural climate of the late teens – so the pressure ... LP, Vinyl record album

Crazy noise, and a crazy great album from Stezo – really the one and only set that the man ever gave us – but a gem that really represents that great shift in hip hop lyricism in the generation of Rakim, EPMD, and Audio two! The production is wonderful – full of raw samples, but ... CD

The first Beatnuts full length LP - and as a double LP for superior sound – raw NYC hip hop at it's early-to-mid 90s finest! Raw, funky and jazzy beatcraft that's pretty much a blueprint for some of our east coast hip hop of the era, with sharp, on point rhymes, this one's a pure classic and ... LP, Vinyl record album

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Kid Koala, and Dan The Automator pool their skills for this dawn of the 2000s classic – the masterful Deltron 3030 – pared down the sci-fi hip hop funk essentials on the Automator and Koala instrumentals! One of the benchmark albums in the leftfield ... LP, Vinyl record album