Yeah, that's all they used to play on the radio when I was a kid. I remember seeing the video which had Tip's verse, but I was too young to notice that it was Tip.

I always hated how the Top 40 stations removed Q-Tip's verse, because rap was scary to white people or some other jackass reason (this practice was pretty common at the time…they would often remove Left Eye's verse from "Waterfalls" for instance).

Man, Common used to be so nasty on the mic! Wish he'd go back to that hunger, or at least find a way to balance his introspection with his youthful battle arrogance.

Okay, look, I'm a HUGE Prince fanatic, and yeah, you can definitely see that D'Angelo gets a lot of influence from the man, but calling it a "Prince rip-off" is absurdly reductionist.

Exactly, not to mention how rich and deep his albums are, requiring multiple listens to really latch onto what's going on. Voodoo is a subtle masterpiece, focusing almost solely on DEEEEEEP grooves and vamps, to the point where they become songs, but never go for obvious bombast or cacophony. Dude is a legit genius,…

Yeah, those who pejoratively write-off D'Angelo's "mumbling" have obviously never listened to There's A Riot Goin' On. Sly elevated ambiguous vocals to an art, and D is continuing that aesthetic.

Yeah, it's kinda funny that the original often gets swept under the rug for the remix when "Flava" gets talked about nowadays because I remember the original being HUGE when it dropped. But yeah, then the remix came and that was like….BOOOOOM!!!!! I don't think I heard the original on the radio or TV again after that.

I would LOVE if Premier explored his early-90's jazzy vibe more often these days. This track from a couple years ago is insanely dope: https://www.youtube.com/wat…

Premo still holds it down nicely. Some of his recent productions have a little more oomph than his mid-00's stuff, which was still very good if a bit predictable.

It's not terrible (and I'd argue that all the songs I mentioned are at least tolerable), but Puffy and Mase should've been cut.

Yeah, his early keyboard-shit is pretty uniformly AWFUL. Mind-numbingly simplistic and no body or grit. Just terrible all around.

Well, the mid-to-late 90's was the beginning of LL's serious artistic decline, but the guy COULD rap his ass off. See the "I Shot Ya" remix.

Yeah, Puff was back on whatever possessed him to do that "Dolly My Baby" verse, only this time in distorted adlib form.

"Banned From TV" is still a banger.

Screamin' Jay's "Put A Spell" has always sounded pretty weird and eerie on its own, but Premier just really brought out the dark and creepy factor with that beat.

Get rid of "Fuckin' You Tonight," "Mo Money Mo Problems," "Playa Hater," "Nasty Boy," and "Another," and you'd have a tighter album.

"Now if you mean an album that includes the stuff in original form"

Don't get me wrong, I love The LOX, but they've always had a tin-ear for beats (save for the occasional Premo banger). Their first post-Bad Boy album with Ruff Ryders is still ruined by those awful Swizz Beats tracks. Possibly worse than the lowest points of Money, Power, Respect.

I finally picked up a copy of Life After Death recently after not really digging most of it for YEARS, and you know what, that album has really grown on me. There's some total filler, but even some of the commercial/poppy shit works cause it's hard to front on B.I.G. ("I Love The Dough" is an obvious radio-ready jam,…

Like, seriously, there's enough prime non-album/unreleased material that B.I.G. made in his lifetime for a decent rarities compilation, but fucking Puff is too greedy for that. Time for some patchwork posthumous "albums" with all the latest new mainstream producers and rappers!