1. De La Soul - 3 ft High
2. Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow
3. K-os - Atlantis
4. The Roots - Things Fall Apart
5. Common - Like Water for Chocolate
6. Outkast - Aquemini
7. The Coup - Pick A Bigger Weapon
8. Erykah Badu - Baduizm
9. De La Soul - Buhloone Mindstate
10. Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle
11. Mos Def - Black on Both Sides
12. De La Soul - De La Soul is Dead
13. A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels
14. Slum Village - Fantastic Vol 2
15. Dr. Dre - The Chronic
16. K-os - Joyful Rebellion
17. Common - Resurrection
18. 2 Pac - Me Against the World
19. Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground
20. DJ Quik - Safe + Sound
21. One Be Lo - Sonogram
22. Eazy-E - Eazy-Duz-It
23. Elzhi - Elmatic
24. Blu - Ground & Water
25. Royce Da 5'9 - Book of Ryan

Definitely missing some classics that I would not argue are not better than anything on my list but I wanted to stay true to MY favorites. It was hard to not name every Badu and De La Soul album. I wanted to include a Cypress album but I'm not sure I like any one of their albums more than the 25 I have listed. A combination of their first 3 albums would definitely be on here. Bone is also not represented, felt like Creepin on Ah Come Up is definitely a favorite of mine but didn't include it since it is definitely an EP. I'd say Ground & Water might be short and could be considered an EP but it sounds like a full fledged album to me. ATCQ is similar to Cypress, a combination of MM and LET would be top 10 for me but each individual album isn't.

I'm sure some of these would not be on here if I am asked to name my favorite albums in a year without referencing this list. I would say I'm sure about 15-20 of them.

Yes, I go back to Elmatic more than Illmatic. No disrespect to the original.