Tough. Illmatic will always be there, because it, along with Madvillainy, is the reason I got into hip-hop in the first place. Madvillainy is a tough one, because it's definitely the most important Doom album for me in terms of opening up my understanding of hip-hop. In fact, I probably like it more than most of my favourite hip-hop albums by other artists. However, as far as Doom's albums go, I love Operation Doomsday even more, and the more I get my head around King Geedorah the more I think it might also be a superior album. I also adore Black Bastards. Doom's definitely my favourite hip-hop musician at the moment, all told, so if I allowed more than one of his onto the list it would probably just be like 60% Doom...
Beyond that, it gets a bit trickier, because the genre's so varied and I haven't really been heavily into it for that long. Liquid Swords is currently my favourite Wu Tang release, so that would go on there. Mainstream cliche or not, I'm a huge fan of The Blueprint, primarily because Kanye on the top his game is a wonder. I'm also currently loving Donuts very much...
Further on from that, the problem becomes that their are so many I love, but roughly equally. The list would probably resemble:
- Doom - Madvillainy/Operation Doomsday/King Geedorah, depending on the day.
- Nas - Illmatic
- GZA - Liquid Swords
- Jay-Z - The Blueprint
- KMD - Black Bastards
- Dilla - Donuts
- Beasties - Paul’s Boutique
- Whichever Doom I didn’t pick at #1
- Ditto
- Company Flow – Funcrusher Plus
I don’t know, that list seems totally unsatisfactory somehow. Would need to really sit down and listen to all the favourites properly in a short space of time to work out a real list. Also, I
finally ordered Black Star, should be coming in the post today, and seeing how much I love Reflection Eternal and Black On Both Sides, that may well end up on there… Anyway, enough rambling.