Even before “Let’s Talk About Sex,” the group promoted body positivity and sexual freedom. The Queens trio became the first all-female rap group with an RIAA-certified Gold and Platinum album, and gave a bullhorn to women who were objectified daily within the then-male-dominated genre. Sampling Coal Kitchen’s “Keep On Pushin,” “Push It” equates sex with dancing and contains quirky basslines, varying synth melodies, and expressive, percussive bites. But in 1987, DJ Cameron Paul’s steamy remix of the song slammed the airwaves, sparking the album’s reissue with the tune (which they whipped up quick) and launching them into hip-hop legend status. “Push It” wasn’t on Salt ‘N Pepa’s 1986 debut, Hot, Cool, Vicious. Next Plateau Salt-N-Pepa – Hot, Cool, Vicious (1986) Listen/Buy: Spotify | Turntable Lab (vinyl) Read more: Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill paired rap with metal’s heaviness But if the sneering pranksterism of the record didn’t necessarily hold up, the effortlessly hedonistic fun absolutely does. The trio of Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D went to great lengths to distance themselves from the juvenilia and casual sexism of the record in the ensuing years, which is understandable enough. That’s also largely what set them apart, along with the tomfoolery (and Chuck Woolery) of their goofball stoner narratives, which included, among other things: getting high and watching Columbo, snatching gold chains, doing the Smurf, the Popeye and The Jerry Lewis-and chanting “ Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” eight times in a row, which we can most assuredly say had never been done on a rap record before. That background in making a more guitar-heavy ruckus heavily informed their Rick Rubin-produced debut Licensed to Ill, which referenced Motörhead, featured guitar from Slayer’s Kerry King, and overall feels like a firehose of anarchic brattiness that could only come from a group of punks. Plenty of rappers have dabbled in making rock music, but The Beastie Boys are the rare case of a hardcore band trading in their raucous din for 808 breaks and call-and-response rhymes in unison. Smith (JS), John-Paul Shiver (JPS), Jeff Terich (JT), Liam Green (LG), Noah Sparkes (NS), Tom Morgan (TM)ĭef Jam Beastie Boys – Licensed to Ill (1986) We present the 50 best hip-hop debut albums, in the order they were released.īlurbs written by: Adam Blyweiss (AB), Butch Rosser (BR), Casey Burke (CB), Emily Reily (ER), J. In taking a historical look rather than a hierarchal one, we opted not to rank these albums but to present them in chronological order as a kind of timeline of hip-hop since the early ’80s. It doesn’t comprise the whole of hip-hop-there’s almost no way it could-but as a set of 50 firsts, it’s as good as hip-hop gets. But through this list we see the earliest innovators on both coasts, the rise of Southern hip-hop, masked misfits, unique autobiographical perspectives, horror films set to 808 beats and more. Even so, given how many stone-cold classic rap debuts we considered, coming up with 50 was the easy part-narrowing it down wasn’t. Among them: Whether to include mixtapes, whether some releases were albums or mixtapes, whether a shelved promo release counted as a debut and so on. While that helped narrow down the focus-some of the best rappers didn’t release their first classic until two or three albums in-it also brought about some challenges. In commemorating this anniversary, we wanted to likewise chronicle a series of firsts for rap music: Debut albums. If you want to observe the greatest innovations in popular music of the past 50 years, look to where hip-hop has been and where it’s going. From its origins at block parties in The Bronx in the summer of 1973, hip-hop music has been in a state of constant evolution, developing a number of unique regional sounds in local scenes, crossing over with disco and pop, bringing about a revolution in sampling and production, going harder with gangster storytelling, stripping it back to skeletal trap beats and introducing various characters and alter egos.
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