Manufacturer: Mercury Records Ltd (London)
Manufacturer: Illegal Art
College Drop Out, the debut from the most sought-after hip-hop producer not named Pharrell, delivers the unthinkable: West magically sledgehammers home his opinions on taboo topics over beats that are equally daring. The envelope-ripping beats shouldn't come as a surprise given that he's supplied the soundscapes to monster singles by everyone from Alicia Keys ("You Don't Know My Name") to ...
With its cinematic origins The Odd Couple is the natural title for the second album by a pair who seem to spend as much time in wardrobe as the studio and whose recordings are often compared to film scores. Their greatest hit, 2006's "Crazy" was even built around a chunk of a spaghetti western soundtrack. Yet after the success of 2006's excellent St Elsewhere, the collaboration of ...
Manufacturer: Warner Bros.
On Boy in the Corner, 18-year-old East Londoner Dylan "Dizzee Rascal" Mills sets himself the task of melding British hip-hop with UK-garage. Both styles have an unenviable history of providing a sonic backdrop to violence and criminality, and both are subject to excessive scrutiny from obsessive purists who view miscegenation as heresy. So it's little surprise that Mills' debut sounds so ...
Manufacturer: Xl
It Takes a Nation of Millions was the sign that hip-hop had exploded like a grenade. A rap record as abrasive, hard-core and eloquent as a Winston Churchill speech, the 1988 disc is one classic track after another: tense, multilayered, harmonically wild music. Chuck D declaims like a master preacher with foil Flavor Flav's voice darting around his. They have got the desperate energy of ...
Manufacturer: Virgin
Manufacturer: Furious
Manufacturer: The End
Badu and her large turban appeared out of nowhere in early 1997, on a murmuring, romantic album that trod the median between old-school soul and contemporary electronic R&B. Badu's songs, especially the hit "On & On" and the catchy "Certainly", recall Sade in their polished, subtle sexiness. Badu almost never raises her voice--save the occasional "ooh-wee!" exultation--but she skilfully uses ...
Manufacturer: Universal / Island
