US Hip Hop Vinyl 584 Items

Promo.

Deluxe Edition celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the second The Roots album. Comes with a 24-page booklet. Must have!

My Life is the second studio album by Mary J. Blige, released on 29th November, 1994 by Uptown Records. Unlike her debut, What’s the 411? (1992), Blige co-wrote fourteen of the album’s tracks, making it her most introspective and personal album at the time. Similar to her debut album, My Life features vast production from Sean “Puffy” Combs for his newly founded label, Bad Boy Entertainment, which was at the time backed by Arista Records.

Considered to be her breakthrough album, My Life became Mary J. Blige’s second album to reach the top ten on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking at number seven, and debuting at number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for eight weeks. In 1996, the album was nominated for Best R&B Album at the 38th Grammy Awards, while in December of the same year, the album was certified triple platinum by the RIAA, for shipments of three million copies in the United States. It also won the 1995 Billboard Music Award for Top R&B Album.

The 1990s was a rich vein of classic hip-hop, especially on the East Coast, which rendered some of the greatest works from the likes of Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Mobb Deep, and many others. Frequently lost in the genre's New York-centric history was Boston's burgeoning hip-hop scene during the 1990s, spearheaded by working class Roxbury native Edward Anderson, best known by his stage name Ed O.G Over the course of his career, which has spanned nearly 30 years, Ed O.G has maintained an admirably strong cult following, and has gone on to work with contemporaries like RZA, KRS-One, Masta Ace, Pete Rock, and Common, while touring the world over, and producing numerous solo and collaborative albums. Ed O.G.'s illustrious career debuted in 1991, with the release of what is arguably his best known album, Life Of A Kid In The Ghetto, a collaboration with his crew, billed as Da Bulldogs (which was actually an acronym for “Black United Leaders Living Directly on Grooving Sounds”), though Ed O.G was clearly the main event. An underrated classic in its own right, Life Of A Kid In The Ghetto runs a gamut of sounds ranging from the introspective conscious hip-hop of "Be A Father To Your Child", to the whimsical boasts of "I'm Different", to deeply political fare like the Ace & Quan and Def Jef-featuring "Speak Upon It", plastered across a backdrop of Joe Mansfield-produced sample-heavy soundscapes, which snatched clips from deep cuts of James Brown, Roy Ayers, and The Delfonics, to name just a few. It also managed to generate Billboardcharting singles out of tracks like "Bug-A-Boo", "Be A Father To Your Child", and "I Got To Have It", which would become Ed O.G's signature track, and sample fodder for 2Pac, De La Soul, and DJ Premier. Get On Down now presents Life Of A Kid In The Ghetto, an unheralded rarity of renaissance hip-hop, reissued on vinyl for the first time since 1991. The audio has been remastered from its original tapes, so every bit and piece of Ed O.G's masterpiece is crisp and clear on wax. An uncovered gem of 90s rap well worth a re-listen or first-time discovery, and a sterling representation of Boston hip-hop.

Limited double vinyl LP pressing. Tha Last Meal is the fifth studio album by rapper Snoop Dogg. It was released on December 19, 2000. It was his third and final studio album released on No Limit Records and his first album on his newly founded label Doggystyle Records in the United States. The album was produced mostly by Master P and Dr. Dre along with Timbaland and Soopafly. The album included the singles "Snoop Dogg (What's My Name Pt. 2)","Hennesey n Buddah" featuring Kokane,"Lay Low" featuring Nate Dogg,"Loosen' Control" and "Wrong Idea" featuring Bad Azz. Tha Last Meal debuted at #9 on the US Billboard 200. The album topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums for four consecutive weeks.

On the West Coast, gangsta rap held sway in hip-hop as the 21st century began. The alternative and conscious rap music of the early-to-mid-90s had all but faded into the underground. The scene was set for a comeback, perhaps as a backlash to the perceived violence and misogyny of
gangsta rap's content. Leading the resurgence of alternative hip-hop were groups like Jurassic 5, and recent
signees to Capitol Records; a West coast trio that had been building steam underground since the early 90s called Dilated Peoples.

Anticipation was high for the release of the debut album from Evidence, Rakaa, and DJ Babu. (Of the influential turntablist collective Beat Junkies.) When The Platform arrived in May of 2000 it was met with critical and underground acclaim, as well as affording Dilated Peoples their first Billboard chartings. It featured a back-to-basics sound with a heavy debt to the old-school hip-hop ethos, the kind of sound that harkened back to the early days of legends like De La Soul & A Tribe Called Quest. Hits like
""No Retreat"" and ""The Platform"" were bolstered by Evidence & Rakaa's subtle, abstract wit, and swift, adroit wordplay, while DJ Babu provided production chops and dextrous scratches. On The Platform the trio were joined by the likes of B-Real, Tha Alkoholiks, Everlast, Planet
Asia, and many more providing guest vocals, while boasting guest production from The Alchemist & Kut Masta Kurt, among others.

Since its 2000 release this influential record, which heralded the return of alternative hip-hop, has never seen
a vinyl reissue. With that, Get On Down-always on top of giving the greatest hip-hop albums their due-is proud to present this re-release of The Platform. The rhymes are still fresh, the production is still pristine, and the album is now back on vinyl for the first time in 17 years.

First published in 2003, King Geedorah’s »Take Me To Your Leader« became an instant classic amongst fans. King Geedorah, named after the three-headed gold dragons from the Godzilla movies, is MF Doom's alias what he uses as part of the supergroup »Monsta Island Czars«. The album includes features by Jet Jaguar (MF Grimm) and some other »MIC« members.

Dead Prez may have been slightly ahead of their time during their golden years, but that is definitely meant as a compliment. Sermonizing Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and the benefits of a healthy and just lifestyle during the height of the Bad Boy / Roc-A-Fella era of nihilistic excess in the late ‘90s, they also signed to a major label (Loud /
Columbia) despite leaning much more towards the burgeoning indie aesthetics of the day. But this was a good thing – using major label muscle to wake up righteous hip-hop fans who might have fallen asleep at the wheel.

The group itself – consisting of MCs stic.man and M-1, who produced or co-produced most of the duo’s music – was formed in Tallahassee, Florida in the
early 1990s (M-1 originally hailed from Brooklyn). By later that decade, the duo had started making significant waves, having their music heard on the soundtracks to “Soul In The Hole” and “Slam,” as well as appearing on albums by Big Pun and The Beatnuts.

By 1998, they released their first official single, the serious, stark “Police State,” on Loud, appropriately brought to the label by Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian.

After building a solid rep over the next two years with fiery live performances, in 2000 they unleashed their debut album, Let’s Get Free. The album was a welcome return to provocative and often radically political rhetoric that hearkened back to hip-hop forebears including The Coup, Public Enemy and KRS-One (as well as poetic descendants like the Last Poets and Watts Prophets).

Let’s Get Free was critically acclaimed and benefited from multiple singles, including the infectious, thick analog drive of “Hip-Hop” (which became the de facto theme song for “Chappelle’s Show”); “It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop,” with a remix co-produced by a young Kanye West; “Mind Sex” (with Abiodun Oyewole of the
Last Poets); and the poignant “I’m An African.”

But the singles weren’t the only worthy songs, as just about every cut here has deeper meaning than most full albums by their early 2000s peers. Highlights:
the thought-provoking, anti-drug album opener “Wolves”; “We Want Freedom” (co-produced by frequent collaborator Hedrush); “They Schools” and “Propaganda”
(co-produced by Lord Jamar, one of five songs he assisted on).

All in all, this is one of the more underrated and possibly Top 5 fully-realized political hip-hop albums of all time. If you don’t agree with the previous sentence, give Let’s Get Free another listen… you might be surprised at how well it has held up over the years."

probably his best work to date, produced by Dr.Dre ... shrooom!

Pressed ON A-side/b-side RED AND Silver Vinyl Packaged IN A Gatefold Jacket With Lyrics AND OBI Limited TO 1,000 Numbered Copies Leaders Of The New School began recording their debut album late in 1989 under the watchful eye of Chuck D and the Bomb Squad. The result was their masterful 1991 release A Future Without A Past. The group's members, Charlie Brown, Dinco D, Cut Monitor Milo & Busta Rhymes complement one another, mixing classic Cold Crush Brothers style routines with a New School edge. Leaders Of The New School made an impact that had them living up to their name. Often slept on, A Future Without A Past stands as a trail-blazing release due to its mix of jazz samples with fun and creative storytelling on top of pounding Hip Hop drums. The first thing that grabs you while listening to A Future Without A Past is the unique delivery of the three rappers (Dinco D, Charlie Brown, and Busta Rhymes) in lyrical content and flow. Stand-out tracks such as "Transformers", "Sound of the Zeekers", "International Zone Coaster", "Sobb Story" and the lead single "Case of the P.T.A." all display the multi-talents of each MC and how they bounced off each other's style. "Feminine Fatt" and "My Ding A Ling" showed the group's more playful edge, while "Show Me A Hero" and "Teachers Don't Teach Us Nonsense" had the group trading rhymes in their rapid-fire deliveries. With a sound so fresh and new, the production on the album by the Bomb Squad's Eric "Vietnam" Sadler, the SD50s, and members of L.O.N.S. rivaled what Public Enemy started and the Native Tongues finished. Often underappreciated, A Future Without A Past is 90s rap at its best.

At that, giving the strutting, funky grooves the chance to really stretch out on your system.
Back in 1992, Southern hip-hop was still proving to the world that it could sustain a fan base that was chiefly raised on rap from New York and LA. The Geto Boys and 2 Live Crew had made strong cases by the earliest ‘90s, and Pimp C and Bun B were ready to make their own. Most of the trunk-bumping bass comes from drum programs and basic sampling on these tunes – in later years they would build their sound into something even fuller and deeper. Self-produced with additional work from Houston locals Bernie Bismark and Shetoro Henderson, the tracks here are minimal, slow and menacing, which matched their lyrical approach quite nicely.

You can hear the beginnings of the group’s true greatness in these early lyrical workouts – several taken from the regional cassette-only EP The Southern Way that got them signed to Jive – with tales of street hustles, relationships and self-reliance in a world stacked against them. They may have been done early-on, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t crucial to UGK’s legacy – cases in point being the three singles: “Something
Good”; a charismatic update to Bill Withers’ “Use Me Up”; and “Pocket Full Of Stones” (the latter featured on the Menace II Society soundtrack). Beyond the singles, deeper cuts like “I’m So Bad,” “Feels Like I’m The One Who’s Doin’ Dope” and “Cramping My Style” made it clear to the world that this crew had the attitude and charisma to make even bigger waves in the years to come.

Back in 2003, during an incredible period of growth and reinvention for legendary artist MF DOOM, he introduced us to one of his numerous alter egos, Viktor Vaughn. As the story goes, Viktor Vaughn was an interdimensional time-traveling MC from an alternate realm whereHip-Hop was banned. He'd been exploring time and space lookingfor new dimensions to sharpen his MC skills, which eventually led him to 90s era NYC, where he found himself stranded due to a mechanical mishap with his time machine. He began hitting open mics and small venues, battling other MCs and picking up a few side-hustles in order to raise enough funds to repair his time machine and get back to his travels.Vaudeville Villain is a concept album like no other, where MF DOOM re-envisions himself as a younger, hungrier, more brazen persona, in order to explore subjects new and old from a different point of view.Of course, developing a second self from a more technologicallyadvanced universe, he wanted to take a new approach to the production too. Viktor Vaughn fittingly raps over next-school beats that move freely in spaces between Electronica and Hip Hop, all courtesy of Sound-Ink producers King Honey, Heat Sensor and Max Bill, with the exception of one track produced by RJD2. Featuring all original lyrics by DOOM, with a few notable guest appearances from M.Sayyid (Anti-Pop Consortium), Lord Sear, Apani B Fly MC, LouisLogic, and more, Vaudeville Villain is one of the more uniquelycreative entries in the MF DOOM universe.

Classic black LP! While Edan's critically acclaimed debut, 'Primitive Plus', was a celebration of hip-hop's golden age and a true throwback, his sophomore album, 'Beauty And The Beat', is a vast musical collage that contains many different influences; hip-hop, rock, pop, dusty breaks, hazy loops, luxurious off-kilter samples and curveball tempo changes that are all crafted into one cohesive piece of art. In 2015, FACT placed it at number 30 on the "100 Best Indie Hip-Hop Records of All Time" list. In 2013 NME placed it at number 392 on the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. // "A Psychedelic gem. It's like 'The Grey Album' in technicolour" - Vice // "This is a record that exults in the joy of musical creation. It should prove impossible not to love" - The Times // "Perhaps one of the greatest US hip-hop album you'll hear" - DJ // NME 8/10 // Pitchfork 8.8/10 // MOJO **** // Uncut **** // Stylus A- // HipHopDX 4.5/5 // Entertainment Weekly A- //

Repressed / prod.by J Dilla / mixed by DJ Pete Rock / feat. Black Thought (The Roots), DOOM, M.O.P. and others / 25 track collection of unreleased Dilla beats and productions mixed and arranged by Soul Brother #1, DJ Pete Rock!

DJ Quik is a giant of West Coast hip-hop. With his fourth album Rhythm-Al-Ism he created his masterpiece, a perfect hip-hop album. As Quik explains, “the name Rhythm-Al-Ism alone tells you what I was doing. I was mixing up rhythms. I was meshing R&B with hip-hop and jazz. And a little bit of comedy”. It’s absolutely sensational and as with a lot of mid-90s albums those original vinyl copies are now rare so here’s the Be With re-issue. A preternaturally gifted producer/rapper, DJ Quik has produced scores of LA gangsta rap classics. He’s released platinum and gold records of his own, as well as helped craft them for the likes of Tupac, Snoop Dogg, and Dr Dre. Quik has always been quirkier and more interesting than his gangsta rap peers, both musically and lyrically. An old-school funk producer at heart, he’s also incredibly nice on the mic. His raps often deal in boasts, jokes and good times but also cover his beefs, his trials and his trauma. Partying and pain, all mixed up. DJing and producing hype beat tapes from age 14, Quik’s tracks blended the languid funk and rubbery synths of Zapp and George Clinton with a gangsta aesthetic, creating a more danceable foil to Compton’s more typical nihilistic hedonism. Ultimately, his records sound custom engineered to drift out over sun-soaked barb

2021 double vinyl re-issue, 140g vinyl, includes “Pure Thought” bonus track from the original CD version, original picture sleeve and printed inner sleeves based on the original one. Innercity Griots, the second album from Freestyle Fellowship, is perhaps *the* essential West Coast left-field rap album of the early ’90s. Released in 1993 on 4th & Broadway, it’s a towering, progressive hip-hop masterpiece that expanded rap’s boundaries through lyrical elevation and production innovation. Their talent was ahead of everybody else by light years. This is pure b-boy jazz. The original single vinyl LP is now hideously scarce, and of course the sound suffers from not being officially released as a double. This Be With re-issue fixes both problems, and for completeness also includes “Pure Thought” from the CD version of the album. This incredible display of imaginative hip-hop sounds better than ever. Freestyle Fellowship were some of the earliest technically dazzling rappers to come out of California. Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E., Aceyalone and Self Jupiter - along with DJ Kiilu - forged their famed lyrical dexterity in the ultra-competitive crucible of the Good Life Cafe. Founded in Leimert Park, South Central LA in December 1989, this earthy health-food store and cafe was where the city’s finest microphone fiends would gather to showcase their freestyle skills at the Thursday night open-mic.

Dope reissue - for the first time on 180g double vinyl!

Step in the Arena is the second studio album by hip hop duo Gang Starr, printed as a 1990 release and commercially released on January 15, 1991. The album received critical acclaim and was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. The Source magazine stated: “Step in the Arena stands alone on a musical level, yet it also remains true to hip-hop’s underground heritage.” In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source’s 100 Best Hip Hop Albums.

18 tracks feat. Promoe of Looptroop, Pacewon, Slug of Atmosphere & Blueprint, The Last Emperor, ...

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm is, quite simply, one of the finest albums in hip-hop. It's easy to argue that a Tribe Called Quest reached their zenith on this, their debut album: though they went on to produce another world-class disc (The Low End Theory) and broadened their palates and their consciousness, never again were they quite this naturally free and easy. Q-Tip and Phife's delivery is deceptively simple, flowing like wine and tasting like candy, and Jairobi adds some contrast. The music, so self-assured that it never raises it's voice to make a spectacle, follows suit. Four albums later, on their last tour, songs from Paths of Rhythm still were at the top of the set list. - Randy Silver.

Cypress Hill was the first Latino American hip hop recording group to have platinum and multi-platinum albums, selling over 18 million albums worldwide.

They are considered to be among the main progenitors of West Coast Rap and Hip Hop in the early 90s, being critically acclaimed for their first four albums.

The band has also been important for the advocacy of medical and recreational use of cannabis in the United States.

Los Grandes Éxitos en Español is a greatest-hits album in Spanish by Cypress Hill. It was certified Platinum by the RIAA.

With exception of the last track, which was previously unreleased, together with "Latin Lingo," and "Tres Equis" which appeared on Cypress Hill, the album features old songs with new Spanish lyrics.

The album that started the whole Wu-dynasty. The clan is in effect and everybody can sing along!

180 gram pressing in gatefold sleeve!

Damaged cover.

Reggie Gibson, aka Saafir, is a producer, actor and underground Oakland California legend known for his abstract form of emceeing. Saafir made his recording debut on Digital Underground’s The Body-Hat Syndrome in 1993, followed by an appearance on Casual’s Fear Itself in 1994, which led to his solo release Boxcar Sessions. The production was handled by Jay-Z, J Groove and Big Nose, with Sleuth and Saafir serving as executive producers. It features guest appearances from Big Nose, King Saan, Poke Martian and Rashinel.