What Would You call the Greatest Rap Album Ever?

[Indigo]

When most (or many) people hear this the first thing that comes to mind is Ready To Die (I think, at least through some personal experience)

But I haven't got that deep into it yet, I need to listen to it some more. It is "growing on me" progressively. An album I especially cherish is:


1. CunninLynguists - A Piece of Strange

Har har, they have an innuendo in their name, very funny. Regardless of that, the group itself is composed of geniuses, and fantastic lyricists that can compete with the greatest of both bands and rap artists--regardless of genre. Here're some examples of how deep the album can be: (lyrics may be slightly off, I noticed after looking might be wrong)

[Verse 1: Deacon]
You was manifested in an egg, developed in a womb
Born out of a moon belly, first day of doom
Crying out like you wanna be put back in there
Maybe later in an incubator for more care
Alone, get to your home and your cribs set
Put behind bars and you ain't even lived yet
On through the playpens, when will this fate end?
Parents can't make rent, money from the safe spent
Got building blocks out, making a house
Mama with her cheese blocks setting traps for a mouse
You watching her same loving hands that absorb pain, kill
You're learning that life's more than a board game
Still better line up the cubes in your rubix right
Piece the puzzle together, there's holes in your views of life
Only for sure thing is years, but you gotta fight
Keep the wind to your right or hit the pen flying kites

[Hook]
Living in a world no different from a cell [x4]

[Verse 2: Kno]
Walk up the rectangle steps, take a seat on the bus
Backpack, pack that sack meal for your lunch
Four cornered blackboard makes you act bored
No use paying attention, now you facing suspension
So its back on the block and the calling you square
try to get the label off but you're glued to the cable box
Closed Caption clothes and fashion, so attractive
As you lay on a box spring and old mattress
Choices blocked off, childhood gone
Just future cubicles and retirement homes
But you can't see it happening, live savagely
Only thing you put passion in is Zig-Zag packaging
Swallow Oxycontins to find solace
You need a fix so you hit some blockhead for his wallet
But the gun jams and the cops come to take ya
And now that bullet ain't the only thing thats caught up in a chamber (chamber)

[Hook]

[Verse 3: Natti]
From a cellular phone to a cell on a phone
Or trapped in confession seeking blessing trying to atone
With no more casual pounds with the hand on the clock
Now locked in city block working Lucifers Lot
Down to box for success, is that true or is it not?
In ya room coping with stress
Smoking Kools from out that box
s*** ain't cool, in detention no flinchin, that s*** ain't school
Cold sell for a quick sale, but April Fool!
Now your case is on the docket to face a box of your peers
And them bars they trying to take you to
Won't nothing like Cheers
Just years upon years, till your last box is near
Without your participation incarceration ain't clear
If the plots you got are flagrant
It's best that you leave em vacant
Cause there's cells in your mind, that'll free you everytime
Even the tales thrown in these bars can't be confined
Just be patient, nothing in life is by design

[Tim Means: Spoken Word]
It's 6pm again
And i'm tuning into CNN watching marines mow down
Crowds with machine guns
16 weeks training, Atilla the Huns philosophies
And now they're thinking we won't bring peace to these
Streets with the same techniques that s***'s hypocrisy
This ain't Democracy it's a Survival of the Fittest
A country built behind closed doors with gods as their witness
Picture this
People can become so blind that their ears can't listen
Trying to save their souls with penitentiareligion superstition
Never done unto others but claiming that they're Christian
While God's children are sittin home praying and wishing
For answers to their questions
Herd of the Armageddon wondering what side that we're destined
Life be a war ain't no time for restin
That's why you give up your seven to five, just to stay alive
Trying to fuel the fire inside before the God in me has died
Eyes, wide, trying to look out through this labyrinth
Hoping to leave this earth with the same presence that we came with
Trying to steer my path in opposite on opposite directions
That man came went
My soul came, spent, I tried to get it back
Thinking that if my heart stopped that my body could relax
But there's no time to be laxed
Because there's a war all through creation
God's Warriors are dying and gangsters are their replacements

On top of this they place an amazing song of beautiful electronic sound free of lyrics with the result being an absolutely astonishing instrumental.

Beautifully put together album. One of my favorites albums ever.

Honorable Mentions

CunninLynguists - Southernunderground (APoS had better beats if memory serves)

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Asheru & Blue Black - Soon Come (Don't know it well enough)

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And probably a few others.

[Captain Justice]

I don't really like rap too much, but I have a few songs so I'll just say my favorite album is Tha Carter III

[Indigo]

I don't really like rap too much, but I have a few songs so I'll just say my favorite album is Tha Carter III

That's a decent album but I would never say it came anywhere near the greatest Rap album in the history of mankind  :P

[Captain Justice]

haha yeah I figured....I don't really know enough about rap to have a valid opinion