Per my extensive work in hip-hop research and history, there have been several excellent runs of albums by artists and groups throughout the last 40 years. Surely, this will shock you. Great people doing great things consistently is rarely seen at any level, and it’s also rare in music.
A few weeks ago upon the release of Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., I wondered how many artists had pulled off the feat that Kendrick had just completed: three straight A-level albums. The list is, as you’d expect, pretty short.
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I was informed by my friend James that I left out Lil Wayne’s three-album run of Tha Carter I to Tha Carter III. Upon further review, I do not agree with this suggestion, but respect it. I would rate Wayne’s three album run respectively: Carter I a B, Carter II an A-, Carter III either a B+ or A-. That’s still a good and solid run, just not that spectacular. My views are my own et cetera.
Regardless of that, it gave me this question: which artist possesses the greatest three-album run in hip-hop history? It’s the music equivalent of the Lakers winning three in a row or when UCLA won a bajillion titles in the 1970s. Those were really fun, great runs that you had to be a major hater to not enjoy. (Happy hip-hop history to all, even the haters and losers!) Historically, music has had several of its own, and while high variance can work very well (Young Thug is probably the best current example of this), it also leads to high inconsistency.
The rules are as follows:
- The artist must release three albums in a row that I, personally, have rated at an A-minus (~8/10) or higher.
- That’s the only rule.
After further research, I’ve got a few more artists to add to the pile: The Roots, MF Doom*, Ice-T, M.I.A. We’re removing from the pile of consideration A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and Danny Brown. The cases against each:
- Tribe: I hate to be That Guy but The Low End Theory is barely a B+; it scrapes itself up on the efforts of some of the beats but Phife in particular isn’t very good on this album. Sorry 😦
- De La: The DLS issue is that they released their debut and Buhloone Mind State as #1 and #3 of a series and both are masterpieces, but #2 – De La Soul Is Dead – is one of the most overrated hip-hop albums to have been released. It came close, but it’s a B+ too.
- Danny Brown: Before coming through again with Atrocity Exhibition, I was a bit let down with Old – not enough going for it in much of any way, though still good-ish. It’s a B.
That gives us the following pool of 13 artists or groups to choose from:
- Beastie Boys
- Chance the Rapper
- Ghostface Killah
- Ice-T
- Kanye West
- Kendrick Lamar
- MF Doom*
- M.I.A.
- Missy Elliott
- OutKast
- Pete Rock
- Public Enemy
- The Roots
Four major issues I found when creating this:
- Tons of artists released two great albums in a row or two out of three or two out of four. The numbers significantly decreased to these 13 when I looked for those who’d done it three straight times out. It’s like baseball, kind of: in 2016, there were 318 occurrences of a player hitting two home runs in one game. Three or more home runs in one game? Just 19. That level of consistency and explosion is extremely rare.
- About MF Doom: yes, he’s released tons of works under other names. But under the MF Doom project, which he’s pretty easily best known for, he has three A-level albums released, technically, in a row. It’s over a ten-year span, but it does exist.
- Pete Rock’s a producer, not a rapper. Doesn’t matter – he’s a hip-hop artist, so he counts.
- A pair of artists had multiple three-album runs of excellence. I’ve selected the better run.
My statistics-based research backed with scientific methods and other methodology has led me to find what I believe to be the best three-album run ever. Let’s count down first – they’re slotted into four groups.
The Consistently Very Goods
13. The Roots
Game Theory (2006, A-), Rising Down (2008, A-), How I Got Over (2010, A-)
12. MF Doom
Operation: Doomsday (1999, A-), Mm…Food (2004, A-), Born Like This (2009, A-)
11. Ice-T
Power (1988, A-), The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech (1989, A-), O.G. Original Gangster (1991, A-)
10. Missy Elliott
Miss E…So Addictive (2001, A-), Under Construction (2002, A-), This Is Not a Test! (2003, A-)
If you’re super nerdy about basketball and sport like me, consider this the Gordon Hayward range of players who don’t have many off nights but aren’t always spectacular – they’re just always very good. And that’s fine! Teams kill for reliable players who bring 23/6/4 to the table every night. All four of these are like that for me: none of their albums are able to hit the A level for me, which represents a great album and a peak in that artist’s career. They’re consistent, but they can’t break out of very good into great. The two albums that come closest are from the artists ranked towards the bottom, actually: The Roots’ Rising Down (as David Amidon said, their loudest and angriest record, and maybe their best) and Ice-T’s O.G. Original Gangster, a classic that’s unfortunately about 20-25 minutes too long. But that’s okay – I enjoy listening to all 12 of these, some more than others, and all four had runs worthy of your respect and money. Kind of like Utah this year – they were never going to beat or even steal a game from Golden State but they’re still fun and worth your time.
The All-Rap Third Team
9. OutKast
Aquemini (1998, A), Stankonia (2000, A-), Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003, A-)
8. Pete Rock
Mecca and the Soul Brother (1992, A), The Main Ingredient (1994, A-), Soul Survivor (1998, A-)
7. Chance the Rapper
Acid Rap (2013, A-), Surf (2015, A+), Coloring Book (2016, A-)
Here come the complaints about OutKast: where’s ATLiens? Why is the way too long double album here? Are you serious with giving Stankonia the same grade as it? In response: the production on ATLiens really hampers it, and I hate to say that as someone who once loved it, but the cover’s still really cool; have you heard the hits from those albums lately?; yes. A friend of mine once said Aquemini represents the greatest step up in production and quality of an album since Public Enemy’s debut to It Takes a Nation… I’d disagree with going that far, but I do think the step up is a lot larger than people realize – there’s almost no wasted time on Aquemini, and I’ve strongly considered an A+ on it from time to time. Tough call.
Pete Rock is a producer, yes. But he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer in our Hip-Hop Hall of Fame: the All Souled Out EP is one of the five greatest EPs ever released by anyone, Mecca and the Soul Brother is a phenomenal debut album, The Main Ingredient progresses forward even though CL Smooth starts to slow on the mic, and 1998’s Soul Survivor gives a million guest spots to basically every respected rapper at the time. It’s a really fun one.
Chance is an interesting case: he hasn’t made anything resembling a bad release yet, and I seem to be the only one who thinks he’ll never top 2015’s Surf with his buddies in the Social Experiment. The list of artists who have dropped four A-level albums in a row is basically nonexistent – to my knowledge, it’s just the Beastie Boys and questionably Kanye. That would be a very fun post to write, and I have the same question for a current rapper in the next category of if he can achieve those heights.
League Pass Lover’s MVP Candidates
6. Kendrick Lamar
good kid, M.A.A.D. city (2012, A-), To Pimp a Butterfly (2015, A), DAMN. (2017, A)
5. M.I.A.
Arular (2005, A), Kala (2007, A+), MAYA (2010, A-)
4. Beastie Boys
Licensed to Ill (1986, A), Paul’s Boutique (1989, A+), Check Your Head (1992, A-)
3. Ghostface Killah
Ironman (1996, A), Supreme Clientele (2000, A+), Bulletproof Wallets (2001, A-)
For these artists to rank this low on any list feels weird given their history, but that’s just how it goes. All four of these are phenomenal, wonderful artists who should have 90% of their released be owned by you, the reader. All four came in pretty close to each other, too – they beat out the All-Hip-Hop Third Team by a fair margin by having better albums. I’d prefer not to do them as a group, though – they each have strong cases for being higher that I had to consider.
Kendrick Lamar is four albums in, if you count Section.80, and none of them have been less than good. That’s remarkable in and of itself. But the last two have been great, and one of those (To Pimp a Butterfly) is pretty likely to be remembered as a hip-hop classic, by virtue of a combination of ambition and quality rarely seen in music, let alone in this genre. DAMN., in any other era, would be destined to be a bit underrated – an album focused fully on breaking the mainstream from within that relies heavily on unconventional sound ideas and a rapper whose wordplay is a tough nut to crack. But I’m feeling that it may actually benefit from the 2017 hype machine and be properly rated as Great.
M.I.A., depending on who you ask, isn’t a rapper. But I don’t think that’s my fight to score. Her music is classified as hip-hop by a large quotient of the internet so we’ll roll with it. Anyway, have y’all heard “Paper Planes” or “Galang” or “Bird Flu” or “XXXO” or “Steppin Up” or “Born Free” or “Bucky Done Gun” lately? Goodness, she’s good. There was a legitimate time in the late 2000s when she was the best musician on earth. She’s since slowed down and ‘retired’, and Kanye got better. But what a run it was: listening to those three albums in a row is like running from the cops on GTA when you’re at five stars.
The Beastie Boys were another group similar to Kendrick in a strange way – they blew up rap from the inside and forced haters to recognize their strengths (sampling techniques that many would steal, rap harmonies, etc.) even if they didn’t agree with what was happening. They’re perhaps the most fun group to ever exist, and certainly the one that makes you feel the coolest. Anyway, they released three albums over the course of six years that each were very different from the other and still pulled off nearly every style and sample they tried. All young rap fans and hopeful hip-hop heads should go straight to the Beastie Boys for a learning process; the first five albums are worth buying at your local used record store. Trust me, they’ll have copies on copies of all of them and it’s worth the $6.50 each or whatever.
Ghostface is, bar none (sorry!), the greatest capital-R Rapper to ever live. IMO, JMO, TIFWIW, SMDFTB. In all seriousness, no one has matched visceral power, humor, storytelling, wordplay, and musicianship like Ghost. For some reason, fans of Wu-Tang Clan typically go to Genius/GZA’s Liquid Swords first once they listen to the immortal 36 Chambers, but they should be going to Ironman. No member of the Clan could match Ghost on the mic, and considering Ghost had RZA and many others in his corner for production, no one could match him on the music, either. The biggest shame for Ghost is that we can’t include 2006’s outstanding Fishscale in this, because he released multiple albums in between the incredible Supreme Clientele and that. Ghost would have a reasonable complaint here, because he might have the best top three albums in hip-hop history. But that’s for another post.
LeBron vs. Michael
2. Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010, A+), Yeezus (2013, A), The Life of Pablo (2016, A)
1. Public Enemy
It Takes a Nation… (1988, A+), Fear of a Black Planet (1990, A), Apocalypse 91… (1991, A)
This one took several days to decide on. Taken together, these two cases are nearly even: I have the exact same grades and success curve for each, and I’m trying to leave cultural importance and all the subjective stuff out. Strictly talking about the music and its words, Public Enemy came out very slightly ahead. Here’s why:
- While both worked in visceral power and anger, PE’s is slightly more effective.
There’s no direct comparison to Yeezus in hip-hop history: it is the darkest, angriest album released in this genre by a musician who operated as a top five Most Important Person at the time of release. It offers you exactly two sonic colors: black and red. It offers a listening experience unlike any other. And yet…Public Enemy probably comes out on top here. I hate to bring the actual history component into it, but News Channel 5 wasn’t running reports in 2013 about the dangers of listening to Kanye West quite like they were in 1988 when It Takes a Nation came out. That album terrified white people more than a FOX News report on a Black Lives Matter rally, except for my mom – shoutout Mom – who went to a Public Enemy show in Nashville where people died. That happened! Regardless of that, PE’s visceral anger will last forever as a sort of calling card to disaffected youths tired of being told what they can and cannot do by a class of elites they’re supposed to respect because of Experience of whatever.
2. In order: MBDTF > It Takes a Nation > Fear of a Black Planet > Yeezus > Apocalypse 91 > Pablo.
Together, that comes out to a ranking of 10 total spots versus 11. It really was that close, but Public Enemy has two of the three best albums here and not the least outstanding one. Pablo is great and I hate that backlash had to happen for it, but that’s the hype machine stupidity at work. Regardless, it has the most fat by a significant margin of any of these albums: you can safely take a solid 15 minutes off without missing much of anything. (“Highlights”, “Facts”, “Fade”, “Saint Pablo”.) It’s also pretty obviously the most sheepishly dumb album of the six: Kanye goes from talking about bleached butts to Instagram trash talk to No Seriously, I Am a God, You Are Not, Go Home Peasant. And even with all that it’s incredible because the music is as great as anything he’s ever pushed out.
3. PE is likely the greatest rap group to ever exist.
I don’t think they’ll ever get topped. That three-album run is the hip-hop equivalent of something like Beggars Banquet to Exile on Main St. I’ve got nothing else to say, I’m out.
The writer of this rambling article with dumb opinions can be found on Twitter dot com at @gyrateplus.
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