For those of you that are on facebook, you may have already seen this question circulating, but I thought I would post it on here and see what you think. The question is, if you were stranded on an island, which 5 albums would you have with you? Given my past blogs, it may not be hard to guess or be surprising what I would pick, but here are my choices.

 

  
 

1. Without a doubt, I have to have Illmatic. In my eyes, the greatest hip hop album ever. Nas really did put you in the New York state of mind and brought you into his world. It was hip hop at its purest. Nothing was forced on there in order to gain sales. It was simply a young kid speaking about what he knew. He hasn't made an album like it since, but it's almost unfair to compare any of his other work to that. Every time I listen to it, I wish there were more songs to come, but it had the exact number of tracks it was supposed to. I gotta take it with me.





2. Of course Pac has to be somewhere in here. You can't really go wrong with Me Against the World or All Eyez On Me, but I gotta go with the first. I absolutely love "It Ain't Easy" and "Lord Knows." He touches on so many issues in this album and he does an great job of bringing them all together. You could definitely argue that this is his best album, so I gotta bring it on the trip lol.





3. I know that if most people had to take an Outkast album with them, they would take Aquemini with them, and I can't really blame them at all. However, I am a huge fan of their first album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. One of my favoirte, if not my favorite Outkast song is "Deep," which appears on this album and I usually enjoy people's first albums because it shows them in their rawest form. I really don't think you can go wrong with any Kast album, but I'm gonna roll with this one on the island.





4. Once again, if you're going to go with Ice Cube, any of his first three albums you can't go wrong with. However, for me it has to be out of either Death Certificate or The Predator. I think I'm going to go with The Predator, though because fresh off the L.A. riots, Cube came re-energized with great material. I thought the production was phenomenal on the album as well and Ice Cube matched the beats just right. And of course, both of his "Gangsta's Fairytales" were not just great songs, but hilarious, so having the second one on this album is a definite plus. Regardless of which album, though, I just have to have a Cube album.






5. You had to imagine that it was coming. Reasonable Doubt, Jay's greatest work (some might argue Blueprint, but I don't think it can touch this). He helped usher in the new era of rapper's with his persona (or for those that are still fixated with it, swagger) and his "money before all" mentality. Just like Nas, he did an excellent job of bringing listeners into his world and thought process that seemed so effortless. This definitely has to come with me.


There are some honorable mentions that I have to mention. I know that people are probably going crazy because I don't have B.I.G. anywhere on here, but honestly if I was stranded, I would need a well rounded collectioin of albums with me. As you can see, I have albums from the West, East, and one from the South. I would probably end up sneaking that album with me though, lol. Another one I would probably have to sneak woud be Paid In Full (or Follow the Leader) by Eric B. & Rakim. Rakim really created the true art of rhyming (what I mean by this is he was the first notable MC that was known for the flow and timing of his rhymes).

There are also a few others that I would love to take with me, but here is my list. What do you think of it? What's your list? Let me know by commenting or email at straightouttahiphop@gmail.com.


Peace.