Pretty much the greatest rap album ever : Nas' -
illmaticAlso, anything from Mos Def (
The Ecstatic, amazing album), Lupe Fiasco, Mobb Deep (
The Infamous, legendary album.)
I also prefer The Notorious B.I.G (
Ready to Die, Life After Death and Born Again) over Tupac
Good rap is hard to come by nowadays, all you really get is a bunch of guys rapping about their ego,money and the cars they got to borrow for their music videos (Honestly, why would Lamboghini or Ferrari make a car for someone who just got the money advanced from signing with their record label).
There was a good article on Gizmodo about some guy talking about how Jay-Z represents money and not true hip-hop/rap.
Quote:
Yes, Jay-Z is a cool black guy who has nice flows and a famous, pretty wife and knows CEOs and other fun things, and white internet people have embraced him orgasmically just like they bizarrely embraced janky coke rap a couple years ago. But Jay-Z represents one thing: money. And you, cool kids, always aspire to be about more than that. Let's have good idols instead of empty ones that are all shiny.
http://gizmodo.com/5494550/enough-with-the-jay+z-fetishInteresting read but its only a rant so don't need to take it too srs.