Meth had won a Grammy for his collaboration with Mary J. Masked ninjas lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting listeners with RZA’s trunk rattling sirens, GZA’s razor sharp lyrics, Deck’s battle rhymes and Rae’s gun-toting thug-brag.īut with their 2nd group album a lot had changed. When their debut album first came out, it was uncompromising and shrouded in mystery. Despite the gritty street violence Nas wrote about, there was always this childhood innocence a glimmer of hope that there would be better days. State of Mind’) and reflections on ghetto desperation were always tinged with a touch of optimism. But none of these album covers have managed to convey that budding poet vibe more successfully than Illmatic.With his childhood photo superimposed over New York City as the album cover Nas went on to craft some of the most enlightening poetry hip hop has even seen.įrantic chase tales through the apartment hallways (‘N.Y. One of the most widely imitated album covers, you can see Illmatic’s artwork influence on Biggie’s Ready to Die, Bow Wow’s Wanted and most recently Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III. Rae’s also dressed in some sort of gown – “ Rick Ruler robe on with rings, walking to the throne, fronting like I know I’m the king.” The Don of Mafioso rap was back, bow down! The two of them looked less aggressive, more comfortable and more content. Rae and Ghost are posing in the same way but instead of the fiery red on the original, it was a purple haze, harking back to The Purple Tape mystique. Well, the result was simple yet brilliantly effective. I was thinking to myself, what could it possibly look like? How’s Rae going to let people know this is the sequel to his ’95 masterpiece. I was actually anticipating this album cover just as much as I was the music. It was simple but a cover like that said more about the music than anything could have.Ħ.

The album cover showed a smiling Common with his trademark cap on, bathed in a warm yellow. Unlike the ambitious nature of Like Water for Chocolate, this album was short and sweet. Stripped down to warm, lush soul samples, boom bap breakbeats and corner-style rhymes, Common achieved balance between poignant poetry and harden street braggadocio. That’s what his 6th studio album was all about. I’ve never seen a more appropriate album name and album cover as Be. It was super classy, very sophisticated and a hell of a lot more subtle than posing next to expensive cars, although way more effective. Sitting on the edge of a stage smoking a cigar dressed in an all-black suit sunglasses on a microphone, ashtray and cigar cutter by his side, it meant one thing – Jay-Z was all about his music and business. It was The Blueprint’s cool, blue-tinged artwork that finally captured Jay-Z at the top of his swagger. Awesome stuff!Īside from Reasonable Doubt I didn’t find Jay-Z’s earlier album artworks (as well as music) that appealing. The artwork was vivid, it was violent and to top it all off, the signature W was transformed to match a G for GZA. Rumour has it GZA wanted the dead characters to be shown as Tommy Boy record executives but the label thought it would be a little too much.

A manifestation of GZA’s obsession with chess, the cover shows what appears to Wu-Tang warriors taking part in a massacre on a chessboard. When I first glimpsed Wu-Massacre’s album cover and saw the absolute chaos rendered in manga-styled graphics it reminded me of Wu-Tang’s earlier artworks specifically GZA’s Liquid Swords. Nice! Like the hot funk and soul samples Pete Rock used to liven up his beats, the album cover was smouldering. A scantily dressed female with large hoop earrings, a cheeky little tattoo on her chest and the icing on the cake – she’s licking her lips. Man, this had to be one of the sexiest album covers I’d ever seen.

Needless to say, the album rocks! But the one thing that drew my attention before the music was the album cover. Pete Rock’s 1998 solo debut boasted emcees like Kurupt, Big Pun, Wu-Tang members, Common, Kool G Rap, Prodigy, O.C., Heavy D, Sticky Fingaz and lots more, rapping over Pete Rock beats. & Rakim to the envy rousing Midnight Marauders artwork to the endlessly imitated Illmatic portrait, we count down the top 10 best hip-hop album covers of all time.

Gza liquid swords full album stream