Ten-album cycle roundups

At every ten albums reviewed in my hip-hop series, I do this little roundup in lieu of a serious ranking system, which is something I’m not too fond of. You can find them all in here, and the categories are as follows:

• Dio’s pick, represented by the swooning smiley: the single best and/or most significant album from this cycle. If you are going to listen to one record out of each ten, it should be this one.
• Dio’s heroes, represented by the grinning smiley: an album(s) that I liked and am glad to have discovered. sort of a runner-up category to Dio’s pick, I guess.
• Dio’s zeroes, represented by the grimacing smiley: the album(s) that I disliked the most. I’m not telling you to not listen to them, just be aware that I thought they were inferior to the rest.

Special shoutout to my friend Saut for helping me come up with the category names.

TEN-ALBUM-CYCLE ROUNDUP #1:

Dio’s pick: Eric B. & Rakim — Paid in Full (1987)

Dio’s hero: Stetsasonic — On Fire (1986)
Runner-up: MC Lyte — Lyte as a Rock (1988)

Dio’s zero: Run-D.M.C. — Raising Hell (1986)
Runner-up: Boogie Down Productions — Criminal Minded (1987)

TEN-ALBUM-CYCLE ROUNDUP #2:

Dio’s pick: De La Soul — 3 Feet High and Rising (1989)
REST IN POWER DAVE a.k.a. TRUGOY THE DOVE

Dio’s hero: EPMD — Unfinished Business (1989)
Runner-ups: Big Daddy Kane — Long Live the Kane (1988) and Ultramagnetic MCs — Critical Beatdown (1988)

Dio’s zero: Slick Rick — The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (1988)
Runner-up: The Beastie Boys — Paul’s Boutique (1989)

TEN-ALBUM-CYCLE ROUNDUP #3:

This was an outstanding cycle, with very above average albums and some markedly different regional/cultural hip-hop schools starting to rear their heads. The west coast showed us that it’s loud and proud and here to stay, with a whopping four great entries, while the east coast leans more and more into the jazzy, soulful side of the genre, which would eventually become one of its biggest and most solid trends; last but definitely not least, the roots of southern rap, the apple of my eye, are subtly but surely starting to get a firm footing in the garden of hip-hop. We’re also introducing a new award, the Coolest Cover Composition Champion. It is bestowed to the album with the cover art that pleases me the most, and, as everything else in this list, is completely arbitrary and depends exclusively on my most fortuitous whims.

Dio’s Pick: Paris — The Devil Made Me Do It (1990)

Dio’s Hero: Main Source — Breaking Atoms (1991)
Runner-up: Cypress Hill — Cypress Hill (1991)

Dio’s Zero: Jungle Brothers — Done By The Forces Of Nature (1989)

Coolest Cover Composition Champion: Cypress Hill — Cypress Hill (1991)

TEN-ALBUM-CYCLE ROUNDUP #4:

This cycle gave us some exceptionally high-quality records, as well as some not-so-good ones, and from here on out I think the amount of different regional and thematic variants we’re gonna be coming into contact with will be increasing exponentially, as well as our explorations into not-exactly-rap-but-rap-adjacent works. I am personally stoked to get into the era of hip-hop where the genre really exploded and people were going ham with it, and the next several cycles are all looking pretty good.

Dio’s Pick: Divine Styler — Spiral Walls Containing Autumns of Light (1992)

Of course this was gonna be numba one, would never even consider something different. Just an incredible, progressive, dense, futuristic album that barely even qualifies as rap at all and at the same time takes it to extreme directions never seen before. Absolute masterpiece is what this is.

Dio’s Hero: Organized Konfusion — Organized Konfusion (1991)
Runner-up: Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth — Mecca And The Soul Brother (1992)

OK easily takes the first honorable mention out of the sheer inventiveness and mindbending skill displayed on their rhymes, even though the production is somewhat simpler than some other stuff in this list. Runner-up was a little harder to decide but I eventually went with Mecca over the sheer skill and intensity present in it, though Death Certificate and Runaway Slave could have also easily made it instead.

Dio’s Zero: Black Sheep — A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing (1991)
Runner-up: Das EFX — Dead Serious (1992)

Gonna be honest, I almost gave the runner-up spot to Body Count’s self-titled, but I felt like, with all its glaring flaws, it was still more creative and interesting than Das EFX’s Dead Serious. Picking Black Sheep’s debut as this cycle’s worst, however, was definitely very easy, based on it simply being one of the most mediocre, boring and puerile rap albums I have heard in recent times.

Coolest Cover Composition Champion: Black Sheep — A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing (1991)

However, I will hand the proverbial it to them, and say that their cover art is, to me, the best looking out of the bunch — yes, even better than stone cold classic The Low End Theory. And that’s all I got to say.

TEN-ALBUM-CYCLE ROUNDUP #5:

Dio’s Pick: Eightball & MJG — Comin’ Out Hard (1993)

KMD came this close to making it to first place this time around, as did DP, but I eventually decided it would be too out of character for me to not pick our first ever Memphis rap album for this roundup — not that it doesn’t deserve it so due to raw quality alone, because it definitely does. Lots of very strong contestants though.

Dio’s Hero: KMD — Bl_ck B_st_rds (1993)
Runner-ups: Digable Planets — Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space (1993) and Dr. Dre — The Chronic (1992)

KMD’s well-rounded balance between production, technique and lyricism guaranteed them the first place in this category, but Digable Planets and Dr. Dre also came very close and deserve high praise. RATM could also get it but two runner-ups is more than enough, I’m afraid, and I’m sure my love for their self-titled debut is very well documented by now.

Dio’s Zero: Biz Markie — All Samples Cleared! (1993)

I must say I feel kind of bad awarding Biz the dishonorable Dio’s Zero, but it is what it is. Again, I really wish I could have checked out some of his earlier stuff instead.

Coolest Cover Composition Champion: KMD — Bl_ck B_st_rds (1993)

Even though it’s not something you should get stamped on a t-shirt or something, the design and style on KMD (not to speak of the fact that is was a big factor in Electra’s decision of dropping them from the label, which I find just great) just work so well to me that I had to give them the first place in this category, even though RATM and DP also came close.

TEN-ALBUM-CYCLE ROUNDUP #6:

Dio’s Pick: Salt ’N’ Pepa — Very Necessary (1993)

Very Necessary is one of the closest things to a perfect, flawless rap album I know of. Amazing beats, rapping and singing, plenty of variety and consistency, zero filler tracks, stratospheric levels of raw charisma and simply incredibly fun.

Dio’s Hero: GZA — Liquid Swords (1995)
Runner-up: Shabazz Palaces — Lese Majesty (2014)

Impeccable word architecture, beats and stories make GZA’s entry very close to an ideal rap record too. Black Moon made it this close to the runner-up position, as well as Young Thug and DJ Screw, but Shabazz Palaces’ synthy afrofuturistic menagerie ended up taking the spot.

Dio’s Zero: R.A. the Rugged Man — Legends Never Die (2013)
It was obvious that it was gonna be this one. Not just the worst album of this cycle, but the worst we’ve seen so far, and I don’t know if it’s ever getting topped. No further comments.

Coolest Cover Composition Champion: DJ Screw — Bigtyme Recordz, Vol. II: All Screwed Up (1995)
Palaces, Thugga and even Kendrick almost took it, but I’m just the biggest of suckers for Screw’s weird, eerie, surrealistically-rendered, MTG-esque spooky skulls floating in Lynchian dark abstract spaces.