Whether it’s an artist who has already made a name for themselves on other songs or hip hop projects, or a rapper who is introducing themselves to a widespread audience, a debut album has a singular significance. Throughout the years of hip hop, there have been many debuts that have not only announced the arrival of a major talent, but shifted the movement of the genre. First albums in many musical genres represent not only a strong statement of intent by the artist (or artists, if it’s a band/group/duo) but often have a marked ambition that makes for an exciting listen.

I like to think of debut albums as an artist coming into a party that’s already happening and cutting in on the conversations happening because they feel as though they have something to contribute that could keep the convo going, turn a few heads, or even inspire a hush in the buzz of the room.

So today we’re looking for debut albums that have had a profound effect on hip hop and rapping! There is a lot of pressure for rap artists to represent the culture and go as hard as they can right out of the gate, and it means that there are many, many, definitive hip hop albums that are also debut albums.

When this album was first out, I remember being kind of intrigued by the idea of some white boys rapping, and I thought ‘Fight for your right to party’ was kind of awesome for Some White Boys Rapping, but I didn’t really realize (and of course it’s easier to put things in context with the luxury of hindsight) just what and how they were adding to hip hop culture. And so now I’m putting this album forth as something that challenged the very idea of what this culture could be, and who it was for. I think that’s an incredible thing to do on your first full length work!

Now, we’ve had 3-ish weeks of posting about our favorite artists, songs, beats, DJs, etc, and it’s not going to be possible (or fair!) to try to come up with entirely new entries at this point. And our goal today is slightly different, if I may experiment a bit- we’re trying to think about not just our favorites (although of course that’s a factor, and it’s fine!) but about works that contributed to our understanding of hip hop as a genre, as a culture, and as an art form. So even if the album you want to put forward today has songs or beats or w/e that you’ve already posted about, that’s ok! Just try to find a different song from the album, since we’re thinking about albums as a whole rather than just a single.

I found looking through a couple of ‘Top Hip-Hop debut’ albums to be helpful in jogging my memory or helping me narrow my choices as I read the snippets about these albums, scrolling through. And of course, I learned some things! So it was a win-win. Feel free to use your own Google technique, but here are a couple of lists I looked through. Don’t feel like you’re being disingenuous or w/e by picking something from these lists that you may not necessarily be familiar with! Again, we’re not here to be experts, we’re here to pick up on new stuff or get deeper into something we may have only heard in passing, not to try to impress folks with our picks!

From Beats, Rhymes, and Lists: https://beats-rhymes-lists.com/lists/top-100-best-rap-debut-albums-of-all-time/

From Complex: https://www.complex.com/music/a/complex/the-50-greatest-debut-albums-in-hip-hop-history

You don’t have to even pick your objective ‘best’ album or rank anything or any of that-just find something you’re into and bring it out. 🙂

In order to keep the thread from borking, please limit yourself to one YouTube/media link (putting the ‘challenge’ in the ’30 day challenge’ ). If someone ‘beats you to it’ and posts a song you would’ve posted, reply under their post saying why you like this song/why it was your pick as well, etc. Let’s not give Disqus a reason to make the thread hard to navigate for those of us listening to the songs! If you want to mention some others, of course that’s fine!