No. 1 Illmatic by Nas (1994)
Is there any question that this album is the pinnacle of 90s East Coast hip-hop? Everything about the debut album from the Queensbridge legend has been picked apart ad nauseum: the laundry list of excellent producers (Q-Tip, DJ Premier, Large Professor), the 19-year old’s knack for wordplay and powerful perspective on the world around him, the spirit of his predecessors as filtered through a persona that would point towards the future–it’s all been absorbed into the hip-hop lexicon. But that is only a testament to this album’s greatness. Not only is Illmatic the greatest ’90s East Coast hip-hop album–it could very well be the greatest hip-hop album of all time.
