Dave's Music Hall of Fame: Album Inductees (November 2023)

The Top 10 Classic (‘80s and ‘90s) Rap Albums Originally posted 11/22/2023. January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the twentieth group of album inductees. These are taken from are taken from the DMDB’s top rap albums of all time list. The focus of this set inductees is only on those albums from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Previous inductees to fit this category are MC Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em and Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. See the full list of album inductees here.

Beastie Boys Licensed to Ill (1986) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

The Beastie Boys were a white group from New York City who found success through Rick Rubin and his label, Def Jam. Licensed to Ill, with its samples from rock stalwarts like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, was the first rap album to top the Billboard charts, largely on the strength of the party vibe of the top 10 hit “You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party.” The Grammy Hall of Fame album has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Read more.

De La Soul 3 Feet High and Rising (1989) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

De La Soul offered a stark contrast to the violence and misogyny of gangsta rap with its art-meets-jazz approach to hip-hop. In his column “The Great Albums,” Jim DeRogatis called 3 Feet High and Rising “one of the most optimistic, life-affirming and wildly creative albums that hip-hop has ever produced.” NME named it the album of the year and it has been inducted into the National Recording Registry. Read more.

Dr. Dre The Chronic (1992) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

AllMusic.com’s Steve Huey called this “one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop albums of all time.” Dr. Dre helped write the book on West Coast hip-hop and gangsta rap as a member of N.W.A. and then as a solo artist. The Chronic not only introduced Dre as a solo act but launched him into fame as a producer and introduced the world to his protégé Snoop Dogg. The album has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry. Read more.

Lauryn Hill The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

Lauryn Hill first gained attention with the rap group the Fugees before launching a solo career that resulted in what Consequence.com called “one of the best solo female albums ever recorded.” The album went beyond hip-hop; Entertainment Weekly said it features “Aretha Franklin–caliber vocal,” “the funky grunt of vintage Stevie Wonder,” the “uptown soul of Roberta Flack,” and “the moral fervency of Bob Marley.” It sold over 15 million copies worldwide, won the Grammy for Album of the Year, and has been inducted into the National Recording Registry. Read more.

The Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die (1994) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

AllMusic.com’s Steve Huey called this “the album that reinvented East Coast rap for the gangsta age.” Author Robert Dimery said the album combined “in-you-faceness [that] is pure New York” with production “as sumptuous as anything Dr. Dre was cooking up in California.” Sadly, it was the only album released during Biggie’s lifetime as he was shot and killed in March 1997, a victim of the East Coast vs. West Coast hip-hop rivalry. Read more.

N.W.A. Straight Outta Compton (1989) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

In Time magazine, Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light assert that “virtually all gangsta rap remains a response to or an elaboration of this one album.” The album was criticized for glamorizing Black-on-Black crime, but the rap collective insisted they were just presenting an audio documentary of the life they knew in Compton. It has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and National Recording Registry. Read more.

Run-D.M.C. Raising Hell (1986) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

Time magazine’s Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light called this “rap’s first masterpiece.” Like the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill, also released in 1986, the album owed much of its success to a fusion of rap and rock with Rick Rubin as producer. Run-D.M.C.’s collaboration with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry for a cover of that group’s “Walk This Way” made for a groundbreaking commercial breakthrough for the fledgling genre. Raising Hell has been inducted into the National Recording Registry. Read more.

Tupac Shakur All Eyez on Me (1996) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

All Eyez on Me, rap’s first double-disc album of all new material, was 2pac’s first release after signing with Death Row, a gangsta rap label helmed by Suge Knight. Unlike some of his peers, 2pac “really did come from the background of bleak, inner-city violence he rapped about.” TB “Nobody was going to rep the West Coast harder.” CQ Sadly, it was the last album released in his lifetime. He was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996, a victim of the East Coast vs. West Coast feud. Read more.

Snoop Dogg Doggystyle (1993) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

Snoop was introduced to the world on Dr. Dre’s The Chronic but burst out on his own with Doggystyle, the fastest-selling debut album. AllMusic.com said it was a “de facto sequel to The Chronic…another round of P-Funk-inspired grooves and languid gangsta and ganja tales.” Wikipedia.org said the two albums transformed “the entire sound of West Coast rap by its development of what later became known as the ‘G-funk’ sound.” About.com said, “gangsta rap never sounded so sweet.” Read more.

Wu-Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993) Inducted November 2023 as “Top Classic Rap (‘80s and ‘90s) Albums.”

AllMusic.com’s Steve Huey called this “one of the most influential rap albums of the ‘90s… It laid the groundwork for the rebirth of New York hip-hop in the hardcore age, paving the way for everybody from Biggie and Jay-Z to Nas and Mobb Deep. Moreover, it introduced a colorful cast of hugely talented MCs, some of whom ranked among the best and most unique individual rappers of the decade.” Read more.