Chains & Whips
Clipse's first album in 16 years centers on a Kendrick Lamar verse the duo's own label allegedly tried to kill — and the song survives the fight around it as the sharpest thing either rapper has put on record in years.
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Hip Hop
Denial Is a River
Doechii stages a full therapy session as a rap verse — funny, self-incriminating, and technically dazzling in the same breath — on the standout from her Grammy-winning Alligator Bites Never Heal.
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Greatest of All Time!Fight the Power
Throwback Thursday, 1989: a production crew that stopped treating a sample as one instrument and started stacking a dozen at once until none of them were recognizable alone.
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Greatest of All Time!Juicy
Throwback Thursday, 1994: every rags-to-riches rap song promises the same arc. This is the one that stuck, and the reason is nouns.
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Noid
Tyler, the Creator turns a 1977 Zambian rock sample and a genuine fear of his own fans into Chromakopia's most sonically aggressive statement, and its most nakedly anxious one.
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Greatest of All Time!Walk This Way
Run-D.M.C. covered a fading rock band's decade-old album cut in 1986 and accidentally revived both careers at once -- 40 years later, it's still the template for hip-hop/rock crossover.
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