Tell me which three of these rap albums I absolutely need

supreme clientele
death certificate
the infamous

death certificate
the infamous
wu tang forever (?)

you can cross these off the list

So:

The Blueprint
Supreme Clientele
Wu Tang Forever

followed closely by liquid swords and supreee clienele.

reasonable doubt is better than the blueprint.

I'm not sure what I'm even typing this for. Here's the deal; those are mostly canonized rap classics so you'll find lots of people who'll go to bat for many of them and many who will want to tear them down. I have no idea what your taste is like but i like all of those albums to varying degrees and if you like rap music chances are you'll like most of them too, to varying degrees.

here is a list of jay cds i reach for:

vol 2 - all the time
black album - quite a bit, i figure less and less as time goes on
la roc familia - fairly often
vol 3 - occasionally
unplugged - once in a while, usu on the days i also want to listen to my lauryn hill CDs

the other jay-z discs i consider disposable.

these two for sure

then pick one of these...
Ghostface - Supreme Clientele
Ice Cube - Amerikkka's Most Wanted**
Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

if only three --

Gza - Liquid Swords
Ice Cube - Amerikkka's Most Wanted
Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx

If you're going for comprehensive in the Wu selections, then Forever is the way to go. But all of the rest, save Tical, are better albums.

And that Slick Rick album is pretty fantastic.

wtf? eh?!? there's lotsa love for liquid swords here, or so i thought!

GZA - Liquid Swords - The greatest rap album ever. The most consistent Wu-Tang offering, endless banging sewer beats, plus it made me reevaluate GZA as the Wu's secret weapon. If you take the time to break down all the lyrics on this CD, you'll be in awe of his skills.

I learned much from such with cons who run scams
Veterans got the game spiced like ham
And from that sons are born and guns are drawn
Clips are fully loaded, then blood floods the lawn
Disciplinary action was a fraction of strength
that made me truncate the length one-tenth
With his thump, tweeters hit like air pumps
RZA shaved the track, niggas caught razor bumps
Scarred tryin to figure who invented
this unprecented, opium-scented, dark-tinted
Now watch me blow him out his shoes without clues
Cuz I won't hesitate to detonate, I'm short fused

4th Chamber alone is a hall-of-fame Wu collaboration, and Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth is the best rap song of the 90s. Nothing on this album's going to take you by the throat and shake you, it's meat and potatoes but if you're patient enough to dig its grooves it'll rearrange your DNA but good. Shortly after this album was recorded the RZA's basement studio was flooded and he lost all his analog equipment and beats - it was the beginning of the end for the classic Wu-Tang period and Bobby went digi-tech on us...

The rest are hit or miss depending on your mood and taste, but if the ghost of ODB put a gun to my head I'd have to pick Supreme Clientele.

death certificate is so angry its awesome. that one song (horny lil devil?) where he says "she ain't with the paleface, cuz ya'll fuck at a snails pace" hahah

that song? best song of the 90s? i can think of 3 or 4 bone-thugs-n-harmony tracks that slay that one.

i don't want anybody to take my comment as a slam on bone thugs - they have more good albums than GZA does anyway so it's not that huge of an observation to say they have better tracks than the bad ones on "liquid swords"

Anyway, I think the reason I like Liquid Swords so much is that it was the first one to impact me as an album from Wu Tang - "CREAM" was the first song, cause i was like 10 when that dropped and it was all over the radio and it literally frightened me, but as far as albums go, I just love the noir-like atmosphere RZA creates musically and GZA creates lyrically. And all the tracks seem to contribute to this, at least lyrically. "Bum nigga sleepin on the bench, they had him wired. Peeped my convo, the address of my condo and how i change a nigga name to john doe." I haven't listened to any Wu album in quite a while - i just burn out on them all every couple months - but I still have lyrics like that burned into my skull, little snapshots of jet-black nighttime smoky mystical urban scenarios played out with meticulous lyrical detail.

I think I like Cuban Linx more these days, though; its a lot longer but just as consistent, so it has more to feed me.

I love love loved Blueprint when it was released. The sound was so refreshingly pretty, after a couple years of bounce-addled sci-fi keyboard beats (no negative judgement on those obv) that it was entirely refreshing. It doesnt burn quite as brightly just because of all the SOULFUL SOULFUL rap music it spawned I suppose. But at the time it was like a blast of vinyl-sampling sun shine. "Heart of the City," oh man. I think my favorite Jay album now is Vol. 3. Black album I burned out on wayyy before Blueprint tho - and it was my favorite album that year!

"Basic Instructions" impacted me pretty hard too. My favorite Killah Priest performance for sure, not that that says too much.

Infamous is probably my favorite out of all of these, although unlike strongo i still listen to...maybe a third of them on a regular basis. And yeah, Amerikkkas most comes with the kill at will ep now, i'm pretty sure it says that on BMG too.

Heresy! That track is absolutely essential. It's the only rap album intro that I would ever listen to with no care of hearing the rest of the album's songs.

like wd it not be funner to discuss this very month's new albums from dmx, david banner, lil kim, three 6 mafia, maceo, paul wall, trina??

Though, being typically perverse, I'd go for Jeru The Damaja's Sun Rises In The East ahead of any of them. "Come Clean" = the beginning of time?

can you get notorious ee eye gee "ready to die"????

-- hold tight the private caller (giaou...), September 26th, 2005.

havent been reading much ilm lately eh? we dont like new rap any more. Was there ever even a Young Jeezy thread? ('we' =/= 'me')

By "nothing grabbing you by the throat and shaking you" I meant that the album doesn't come out blasting with both barrels (like say, Straight Outta Compton or It Takes A Nation of Millions). Liquid Swords is a mood/groove thing, and when you build up the reps of those kinds of records they can come off as kind of disappointing. But regarding 4th Chamber you are totally OTM. I've heard pretty much everything Wu-related up through Iron Flag, and 4th Chamber is on a very short list. That shit runs deep, kittens.

I was curious about this myself! I would have thought that at the very least "And Then What" would have merited some discussion

These two are essential. You must not pass on them.

The rest are minor classics, with the exeption of, maybe, the blueprint. I'd probably go for Slick Rick or Amerikkka's most wanted. Or maybe Liquid Swords or Critical Beatdown. See it's hard. Um... get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon
get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon
get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon
get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon
get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon
get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon
get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon get Mobb Deep and Raekwon

Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
Ice Cube - Death Certificate

Jay-Z - The Blueprint (I've never liked anything I've heard by him, to be honest, but I LOVED the new Kanye album [I hated his first -- let's not turn this into a Kanye discussion here] and I know he produced some of the tracks so I decided to get it since it's a free selection)

Mobb Deep - The Infamous

Forgot to add that I came across another free selection coupon I had that I hadn't noticed, which let me get another album.

Don't worry, for those of you whose recommendations I didn't choose, because I'll probably be getting most of these eventually.