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Why you'll love it...
By All Means Necessary is often discussed like it’s some departure from Criminal Minded. The moment KRS turned into “The Teacha” and became a politically minded, socially conscious wordsmith. In reality, this is who he already was. Misunderstanding and tragedy is what compelled him to not only refocus on the role he wanted to play in hip-hop, but create an album that gave way to a very important movement in hip-hop, too.

By All Means Necessary is an essential and definitive BDP and KRS album. It marks the moment where KRS wasn’t just concerned with being a great emcee but a teacher, too, continuing his exploration of sociopolitical subjects on BDP’s following three albums, as well as throughout his solo career.

Why you'll love it...
The success that Run-D.M.C. enjoyed through its first three albums is impossible to overstate — before the trio from Hollis, Queens, stomped its shell-toe Adidas through the music industry, hip-hop was completely unproven as a commercial force. Just about every ‘’first'' in the genre’s history was accomplished by Run-D.M.C.: It was the first hip-hop act to earn Gold, Platinum and multi-Platinum album certifications, the first to have a music video play on MTV, the first to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone, the first to nab a Grammy nomination, the first to sign a major endorsement deal.

In a previous edition of liner notes for Tougher Than Leather, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D gave the album its props and shared memories of going on the road with the group after it dropped. He geeks out over the funk and rock samples for the title track as well as the way they cut up their older songs into ‘’Soul To Rock And Roll,'' and claimed ‘’Run’s House'' was ‘’the written theme for all of hip-hop'' in 1988.

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Released on September 5, 1989, Stone Cold Rhymin’ contains 13 songs and zero curse words. The sepia-toned album cover depicts Young in profile, cradling an old broadcast microphone and looking more like a dapper doo-wopper than a hip-hop hero. In terms of playing it straight, the songs are shocking in their innocence. At the 1990 Grammy Awards, “Bust A Move” won for Best Rap Performance. It was clear that hip-hop wasn’t going to back the NY-or-nothing mentality, and New York’s ire was real. Grumpy Village Voice don Robert Christgau deigned to give Stone Cold Rhymin’ a “B+” in his letter-grade consumer guide. “His polysyllables and quick lips aren't as fresh as he thinks they are,” sniffed Christgau. Au contraire: Stone Cold Rhymin’ still sounds fresh after all these years.

Why you'll love it...
"""Many Tribe fans consider the band’s next album, 1993’s Midnight Marauders, to be its magnum opus. But you don’t arrive at the perfect nocturnal LP without first releasing a focused work like The Low End Theory, which winnowed the colorful expanse of People’s Instinctive Travels into a seamless listen. The Low End sounds minimal in comparison and is a mostly drum’n’bass record of subtle bells and whistles. Tribe represented freedom, and some 30 years after The Low End Theory, it’s still a sonic marvel and one of the best hip-hop albums of all-time."" "

Why you'll love it...
"Despite a boisterous personality from Chad “Pimp C” Butler and a steely menace from Bernard “Bun B” Freeman, the Underground Kingz rose as most men do: from gifted measures despite hard-scrabble surroundings. By the time they were 19, they crafted a crude, yet wholly Southern debut album titled Too Hard To Swallow. The genius within Too Hard To Swallow arrives when you realize it is an album of promising sonic development and two rappers wanting to find their footing as the rappers from their section of Texas."

Premium KiT Version. 1x Album Package 1x KiT Album 1x Booklet 5x Track Sheet 6x Sticker 1x Coaster 1x Iron on Patch 1x Carabiner Click It, Doggystyle. Join us in celebrating 30 years of Death Row Records. We are honored to present to you the release of the Doggystyle Album in a brand new Music Format. This is not Doggystyle on vinyl, cassette tape, or compact disc, but a KiT Album. All the same album glory as those older versions, but with even more options. Including the first ever Dogg House, as well as exclusive, never been sold merch goodies; like a coaster for your Gin N Juice. Including Exclusive, Never Been Sold Merchandise.

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25 years later, Funkdafied still stands tall in the G-funk canon as a record that’s lean, mean, and a nonstop delight to listen to. Where many of her contemporaries’ albums weathered far worse with age, given the gratuitous nature of the subgenre, Da Brat and Jermaine Dupri gave us nine records that play the game without giving themselves the opportunity to grow stale or outlandish.

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“The Coup’s second album, 1994’s Genocide & Juice, was an emboldened level-up from their first full length. While early Coup material had moments that blossomed on later efforts, Genocide & Juice was where those ideas deepened, becoming more pronounced as their catalog grew. Production wise, it’s replete with colorful samples, thorough skits and big bass, a perfect intersection of ’90s sample-based ingenuity and West Coast funk.

Genocide & Juice is mainly two things: neighborhood tales and unapologetic worldviews bound with fisted activism — made by the group’s core members at the time — Riley, Pam the Funkstress and E-Roc. But there are voices and sound effects woven throughout that give it more texture. Killer production that was able to sound both clearly professional while retaining its edge. At a concise 14 tracks, this album is one of the best sophomore efforts by any group, in any genre.”

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Tical calls back to an oft-romanticized period when rockin’ the mic was more than enough, with no filler in sight.

Why you'll love it...
The man born Omar Credle is an ornate wordsmith; his tone is rough and rococo — every verse is like a boosted spool of handmade silk. There’s a meticulous rasp to every O.C. utterance, wherein his lavish darts seem composed by a Crooklyn corner-stander tickled by his technical brilliance.

O.C., on Word...Life, had to compete in this impossible climate (in which Nas was rap’s messiah, and B.I.G. squared mad circles the instant he uttered, “It was all a dream”). Against all odds, O.C.’s first LP captivated in its quiet way.

Limited edition of 500 copies, featuring a black vinyl, a printed inner sleeve, and a sticker.

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"Tha Hall of Game, with all of its bright moments, kick-started Earl Stevens’ legacy — a showpiece enshrined in a sterling catalog. The record was another level up into the mainstream consciousness, ballooning his rebrand further in a locale where he was already king. Twenty-five years later, it comes as a more revealing record, a mark of growth under a veneer of player anthems and boundless slang. E-40 jostled himself into rap immortality with this release, which remains legendary — expertly calculated in every sense and impossible to ignore, a West Coast power move by Earl and the Stevens family."

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Long before this album was released, Busta Rhymes made his name as the king of the feature. In those days, you couldn't just walk into the studio and be the last to rap on a song, you had to be special. Busta proved that he certainly was that so there was a lot of pressure on his debut album, The Coming, and he proved he was up to the challenge.

Limited to 3000 copies, the VMP exclusive version of Busta Rhymes' The Coming is pressed on Cloudy Red vinyl at GZ Vinyl as part of our year-long celebration of Hip Hop with Warner Music Group and Hip Hop at 50. The 2LPs will arrive in a double gatefold, tip-on, foil-stamped and numbered jacket. It was mastered by Cicely Balston at Alchemy Mastering at AIR.

Released only on CD in 1996, this cult album from the gogo-acid jazzfunk-hip hop scene, which left its mark on an entire generation, is finally available on vinyl, with the added bonus of vintage remixes of DJ Dee Nasty's “Paris A Le Blues”. The album was also a huge success in Japan. With Lionel D., Dee Nasty, Omar D., D. Abuz System, Big Brother Hakim, La Malka Family... Mad In Paris was formed by the merger of two groups from the Paris suburbs, Créteil and Girgny, and took over the radio airwaves in 1996. A short-lived phenomenon, with just one album to their credit, they formed an ensemble of nine musicians and singers. The group scored a hit with “Paris a le Blues” on the eponymous album, which went beyond the hip-hop microcosm, as more mainstream radio stations, at a time when rap was on the rise, picked up on the Mad In Paris craze. They spent fifteen weeks in the top 50 at the time. It describes the malaise, the blues that stick to the City of Light, “from Barbès to Abbesses, from the Champs-Elysées to Les Halles”, pouring out its spleen. Thirty years on, it remains one of French music's most famous jaunts through Paname. A number of us in the editorial team have confessed that we bled this track back then, and while today the sound has certainly aged a little, because this rap no longer corresponds to our current standards or we certainly wouldn't listen to “Paris A le Blues” any more, Mad In Paris has shaped us all a little. In a more stealthy way, but in the same way as with Alliance Ethnik, we moved to these sounds that many called “groove” rather than hip-hop, a mix of urban music often blended from rap to funk. If “groove” is a catch-all term used by the media to cover all these influences, Mad In Paris belongs in the “rap” category. Because it was 1996 and we loved it.

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The War Report, the 1997 brilliantly militant debut from Capone-N-Noreaga, is the VMP Hip-Hop Record of the Month in December 2022. Celebrating the record's 25th anniversary, our edition is pressed on 2LP Yellow vinyl, with lacquers cut by Cicely Balston...

Originally released in 1997. Presented here for the first time on Limited Edition Double LP. Remastered for vinyl by The Stuntman at Suite Sound Labs.

Why you'll love it...
*400 Degreez* went over 5x Platinum. Cash Money was an Army (and Navy) and Juvenile became the first breakout star.

The 1998 album under Bossolo's Mr. Solo moniker out for the first time ever on CD!

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The beats on Capital Punishment, from RZA, Rockwilder, Domingo, and other A-list maestros, are grimy, radio- friendly, yet low-ley cutting-edge, affirming its status as an undisputed classic. Big Pun was as much a visionary — conceptualizing every song — as a consummate pro in the booth. Citing Picasso and Baby Jesus while purporting to “twist your temples into pretzels,” Pun made Minute Rice out of multi-syllables. There’s no way to describe Pun’s febrile liberties with the king’s English. He doesn’t really breathe; when he does, it’s a sharp gasp for air that almost mimics his Ginsu-like wordplay. Pun’s habit of sucking wind before spitting an ill verse mimics the effect of a lit grenade about to land and decimate entire sections of the population. If Pun’s dense rhymes invoke mixed metaphors, that’s likely because he’s an impossible amalgam of wanton wooer and lyrical hitman, an overweight lover with a murderous mouthpiece.

Why you'll love it...
The Love Movement is the unfairly overlooked Tribe record; their fifth–and at the time final–LP, released after the group broke up, and after almost a decade as the leading lights of Native Tongues. But because it came so close to the group’s dissolution, and because it’s concept album trappings of love as the leading light for human existence were far removed from The Shiny Suit era that was starting in earnest, it’s rarely been reconsidered in their oeuvre. No longer, we say: Ride in the immaculate auras presented on this album; hear the Tribe vibe and glide across lush beats and laid back bars. Our edition is the deluxe 25th anniversary edition, on exclusive “Cobweb” vinyl, remastered by Ryan Smith, and with a deluxe heavyweight tri-fold jacket.

Why you'll love it...
Uncontrolled Substance, the acclaimed 1999 solo debut from Wu-Tang Clan's Inspectah Deck, is the VMP Hip-Hop Record of the Month for January 2023. The first-ever reissue of the record, our edition is here on exclusive 2LP "Cop Car Blue" colored...

Why you'll love it...
First Born is as integral to Minnesota rap as any album from that scene, including work from superstars like Atmosphere. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the city’s sound at a time when it was still being created. In Abilities’ own words, “It really sounds like a Minnesota winter.” While being transported to sub-zero temperatures doesn’t sound particularly appealing as we slog through a quarantined winter, the familiar sounds of First Born are a soothing balm.

Why you'll love it...
From the moment Kamaal The Abstract begins, it’s evident that this is Tip at his most free and vulnerable, musically, up until that point. Most songs transform into (and end in) extended jams or have solos sprinkled throughout (or both). Jazz serves as the base, with Tip and his band using its colorful and intricate chord progressions to explore funk, rap, rock, R&B and soul — sometimes all on the same song. The album is an artistic statement that’s just as musically bold as it is conflicted, with a playful Tip at the center of it all, just trying to find freedom through music.

‘Lightweight Heavy’, Fat Jon’s third solo offering, is a concoction of “loping beats, dub bass lines, classical piano, breathy vocals and sparkling harmonies…” (bbc). From the gentle piano-led intro of ‘Talk to Me’ and threading through the album’s 14 dazzling tracks, Fat Jon’s subtle use of vocals and his bass-heavy beats take listeners on a heartfelt journey. “I lived in Japan while I made this record and produced the whole album there. Being able to make a project like this from beginning to end the way I had envisioned it was a dream come true,” Jon reflects. “I recorded and produced the whole album in my friend Nujabes’ studio. I told him about my concept for the album, and he said I could use his studio while I was there. We had similar studio setups so it was a very easy transition and fun experience.” We are very pleased to announce that ‘Lightweight Heavy’ is getting its first vinyl reissue via YHS Records, a vinyl-focused imprint of Detroit label Young Heavy Souls.

Why you'll love it...
There are decades of history and genres infused into CeeLo’s brain. And he just unleashed it all for his debut. CeeLo was 26 when he recorded the bulk of his first record, but he was grizzled. CeeLo Green and His Perfect Imperfections is overflowing with ideas and genres, from hip-hop to funk to soul to jazz and even country. From his Goodie Mob days, the central theme of CeeLo’s music has been liberation, whether it was from the trap or from the oppressive hold of commercialization in hip-hop. On his debut, he is focused on liberation from any kind of creative confinement.

Why you'll love it...
‘’In spite of systemic challenges, there is some glory in Nappy Roots’ humble lot—at least, as they depict it. Anthems like ‘’Country Boyz,'' the down and dirty ‘’Slums,'' and ‘’Kentucky Mud'' show a kind of refreshing solidarity with people who might not have ever heard themselves in hip-hop before. That was the Nappy movement, as its creators saw it: finding the joy and beauty, where one could, in an unfair system instead of trying to cover it up. Taking qualities and status perceived as undesirable—''nappiness,'' rural living, being part of the working poor—and finding within them a sense of community and appeal without masking all the things that make them so awful.

As a new recession hit and the U.S. slid into yet another war, ‘’Po’ Folks'' reached #21 on the Hot 100; their message of humble resilience rang out everywhere. A new dimension of hip-hop had cut into the mainstream, one that was neither preachy nor apocalyptic but simply made in solidarity. As Deville put it, by way of explaining the album’s title, it’s ‘’the refreshment, the soul food—the shit that’s going to stick to you.''''

Why you'll love it...
Wu-Tang Clan’s Masta Killa, who had been tinkering with his first solo record since the ’90s, unabashedly embraced the sounds of Wu on his debut. In the early 2000s, New York City-based gangsta rap took RZA’s style to almost cartoonish, exaggerated heights. In a way, No Said Date is a response to that: taking those shiny commercialized elements down to a more grounded level. RZA served as executive producer and more than half of the songs were produced by him or those under the Wu-Tang family tree: Allah Mathematics and True Master.

And while some of the classic ’90s Wu debuts were often epics with these great cinematic themes, No Said Date is an intimate, often lowkey tribute to Masta Killa’s childhood growing up in Brooklyn in the ’70s and ’80s — with the majority of verses centered around park jams, young love, school days and catching wreck.

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Saul Williams' 2004 self-titled, sophomore album is making its vinyl debut exclusively at VMP. Featuring additional talent from System of a Down's Serj Tankian, Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha and Isaiah Owens, and the massive song "List of Demands (Reparations)," Saul Williams laid the groundwork for how artists could approach the eclectic fusion of spoken word and electro-rap.
The first-ever vinyl release of Saul Williams' Saul Williams is pressed on Galaxy Blue vinyl at Precision Record Pressing (PRP). The 1LP will arrive in a single, direct-to-board jacket.

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VOL № RH042 — February 2021
The Further Adventures of Lord Quas
Quasimoto
Start your membership with this record - VMP members receive access to exclusive Record of the Month titles like this one.

Why you'll love it...
When the Beat Konducta and his trusty alter ego link up for the sequel, another southern California blunt cruise ensues. The Adventures Of Lord Quas consists of a slow ride through the deepest corners of the crate, leaving no genre unearthed until it claims space in the haze of one’s imagination. It’s business as unusual: Madlib funnels his most twisted impulses and comedic sensibilities into a sonic slacker flck complete with good dope, bottom-shelf liquor, and a penchant for gazing mouth agape into the great unknown. But he knows Lord Quas like a good needle on wax, and they casually strut through the loops, much ado about frontin’. (Not like fake shit ain’t a big deal, but it ain’t a big enough deal.) This record captures Madlib and his id at their most frantic, indulgent, and often confusing; they trade neatness for chaos, continuity for collage in a barrage of the finest sounds this side of the B-side. It’s hip-hop that takes every visible risk, often striking gold and proving how in control the Loop Digga truly is. Don’t hit it too hard, your other selves might pay you a visit.

Why you'll love it...
Available for the first time since originally released in 2006 via Stones Throw, Dudley Perkins & Madlib are pleased for the reissue of their sophomore collaborative LP, Expressions (2012 A.U.), their acclaimed follow-up to their 2003 debut effort, A Lil’ Light. And albeit the former can be accused of being excessively avant-garde, it’s Expressions where both Perkins and the Beat Konducta find a more fluid symmetry.
In everything from his collaborations with MF Doom and the late Jay Dee to his more recent pairing with Freddie Gibbs, Madlib is easily one of hip-hop's golden revolutionaries. At times his production has been accused of being sparse, but that's not the case with Expressions. This time around, Madlib's production is hitting all the funky corners with layered grooves that evoke the attitudes and emotions of A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory.
Limited to 500 copies, the VMP exclusive version of Dudley Perkins Expressions (2012 A.U.) is pressed on Opaque Olive Green vinyl at Precision Record Pressing (PRP). The 1LP will arrive in a single, direct-to-board, foil-stamped and numbered jacket.

Why you'll love it...
There was no other rapper like Lupe Fiasco making this much of a splash in the mainstream in 2006. Here was this bookish kid from the ’hood who could rap circles around Jay-Z and had the gall to pose with trinkets — a Wee Ninja doll, a Nintendo DS, a copy of the Quran, a copy of his first Fahrenheit 1/15 mixtape, a toy robot — on the cover for his debut. He may have been an anachronism in his time, but looking back, it’s easy to see how he laid the groundwork for other high-minded emcees with crossover potential.

There’s moments of brilliance packed into every Lupe Fiasco album, but the equilibrium of Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor has been difficult for him to recreate. To this day, it remains the most potent and well-balanced of Lupe’s work, a case of the corner boy and the scholar living in an otherworldly talented rapper’s brain working in perfect harmony.

Why you'll love it...
By 2007, Aesop Rock was a decade into a career that had firmly established him as one of rap’s unreplicable auteurs, an artist who could be bitten only insofar as he could be understood. And still, when he sat down to write hisfifth full-length album, None Shall Pass, relics of his earliest work kept popping back up: the sorrow and salvation that can each be found in rigid structures, the horror of the ordinary, the tyranny of routine. Over a series of beats constructed in near-total by himself and Blockhead (El-P furnishes one track and co-produces another; Aes’ friend Rob Sonic handles the digital-gothic “Dark Heart News”), None Shall Pass argues for Aes as the chief correspondent of an American decline so smooth that it often felt comfortable.

Why you'll love it...
Released in December 2007, The Big Doe Rehab was a technical commercial success at the time, but it endures spiritually as an essential title in [Ghostface Killah's] own expansive, 13-album discography, let alone his larger body of work with other artists. While every Wu member’s solo project inevitably serves as a stage for the Clan, with The Big Doe Rehab, the spotlight never leaves Ghostface Killah in the dark, even with so many other big-name players entering and exiting — a level of artistry that could only be achieved by one of hip-hop’s top dart spitters.

Why you'll love it...
Centered on the different paths people choose in life or how they survive their different struggles, Atmosphere’s When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold is a very heavy series of short stories that share the voice of one author and the timbre of one composer. Lyrically and sonically, it’s clear that the words and rhythms were built together, instead of some Frankenstein piecemeal fashion like many other rap songs.

For those reasons, the tracks fit near-seamlessly together. But they also stand alone as episodes worthy of solo dissection.

No matter how you consume them, some of the songs will undoubtedly bite back, making you angry for or at the characters, their circumstances and the substances that push and pull them in different directions. And that emotion is the telltale sign of this album’s impact on those who hear it.

Originally released September 29, 2009, Skyzoo’s first official full-length LP “The Salvation” is celebrating its 15th Anniversary this fall, via Duck Down Records. The Brooklyn-raised emcee first came to prominence on various Mix CD releases at the peak of hip hop’s blog era, but the album firmly established him as a major talent to be reckoned with, reminding hip hop fans that the hip hop music can still be true to life and heartfelt. An all-star roster of producers contributed beats to the project, including Just Blaze, 9th Wonder, Nottz, Illmind, Black Milk, and Needlz. The 15th Anniversary vinyl will be pressed on a limited edition Navy Blue and White marbled vinyl, matching the colors of the most famous fitted cap from New York.

Why you'll love it...
Album of the Year, Black Milk's fourth studio album, was produced almost entirely by himself with assistance from Will Sessions and originally released in 2010.

Limited to 1000 copies, the VMP exclusive version of Black Milk's Album of the Year is pressed on Gold Nugget vinyl at GZ Vinyl. The 2LPs will arrive in a widespine, direct-to-board, foil-stamped and numbered jacket.

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This is Open Mike Eagle’s debut studio LP, Unapologetic Art Rap, which is being released for the first time ever on vinyl. Pressed on transparent blue vinyl, the album has a brand new cover as well.

Why you'll love it...
While fighting through label limbo and placing his budding film career on freeze, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton spent a couple years readying the artillery for his solo close-up. Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty is both a testament to the maturation of Big Boi and a tribute to his late father; underneath, it’s a speakeasy at breakneck speed, sittin’ on 32s. Where many other formidable MCs would be eaten alive, Big Boi shapeshifts across every mood and landscape with his trademark tenacity. He’s an effortless showboat who can portray sleaze with ease, but he’s a true class act who’s got nothing left to prove, yet will never let it show. Flanked by his known co-conspirators and many more, Big Boi blesses the senses the way only an East Point playboy can; it’s an intergenerational time warp, and another funky ride in HD. The final product is a natural progression of his Organized Noize lineage, sent across dimensions to return with an assemblage of time-tested potent Black grooves, then pressure-cooked in the kitchen of thefinest booty club in Georgia.