This week, me and the team are chopping it up about 5 albums that help define you. During our last show about what albums were better, during the Voodoo vs. Brown Sugar convo I said I have 5 albums downstairs in my living room that define who I am and Voodoo was one of 'em. The homie Anonymous then posted that we should do a show about that...the 5 albums that define us and that's what we have on tap this week. Now don't get it twisted, these aren't your 5 favorite albums but 5 albums that may have helped you listen to music different or albums that just spoke to you. It was a real dope show to hear cats picks but I'm curious to know what other cat's picks are and why. Mine are as follows:

http://www.willmakebeatsforfood.com/2015/01/live-from-writers-bench-redefinition-5.html

Low End Theory because it was the first time I actually got into jazz. Even though my moms is a jazz musician and I grew up around. jam sessions, rehearsals and jazz heads I never looked at jazz as being "cool" until this album. And this is a great example that these don't have to be your favorite albums cause this isn't my favorite Tribe album.

Aquemini because this showed me that you could make "beautiful hip hop." Prior to this album everything had to be dirt, recorded at D&D or bust for me.

Voodoo because it was a musician's album and even though I'm not a "musician" growing up around my moms and her friends this album reminded me of those jam sessions they would have. This one of the first albums that as soon as I heard it I couldn't wait for my moms to hear it to see what she thought.

Lenny Kravitz's Mama Said because similar to Low End Theory this album opened my ears to more then just listening to hip hop and I always loved how this was an open love letter from Lenny to Lisa.

Slum's Fantastic Vol 2/Donuts because it's Dilla. I mean, I knew all about Dilla before Fantastic 2 but it was finally hearing all of the songs I'd heard in one complete package and Donuts because this dude was literally making beats on his death bed.

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Low End Theory - Just like you, this is the album that introduced me to jazz and made me realize that jazz was cool. Still my favorite Tribe album.

Do You Want More - Furthered my love of jazz, and this album is still one of the most creative and inventive rap albums I've ever heard.

Atliens - I have friends who I still give shit to because they hated on the south for years, even while I was singing the praises of Goodie Mob and Outkast. Best southern rap album ever made.

Voodoo - The best r&b/soul album of my generation imho, and I'm 34. I took the day off from my college classes to buy the album and just drive around listening to it for hours.

Radio/Raising Hell - I heard both albums at about the same time. I had never even heard of rap music before a friend played both for me.

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Music of My Mind - Displayed the importance of the album cover. Pops played this all the time when he was high. Had no clue what that smell was when I was younger but I grew to know what it was lol. The album cover caught my attention with the reflection shown in Stevie's shades. Anytime I hear any song from that album, that cover is vivid in my mind. As well as the image of my dad high sitting at the foot of his bed playing air chords.

Ask Rufus - Perfect road trip music. Ma dukes was a huge Chaka fan and I remember singing the "Hollywood" joint with her in the car. That's my favorite Chaka song. Not necessarily her best but my personal favorite due to those memories. I made a playlist for my daughter with that song included. She likes it too.

The Low End Theory - This album is the reason I love rap to begin with. I always liked rap but this album hit me in another way. From the moment "Excursions" comes on, I was in a trance all the way until "Scenario" ended. This will forever be my #1 rap album of all-time and ATCQ will always be #2 on my favorite rap groups list.

Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik - My hometown heroes. Kast gave me the trump card for anybody who tried to dis the south or say we couldn't spit down here. This isn't my favorite Kast album but it is the most important IMO. It made me proud of hip hop from Atlanta. Kast is the greatest.

Groove Theory - This was the first R&B album of my era that I enjoyed. I was all hip hop until I heard this album. The beats were on point and the vocals were sweet. I wasn't into the New Jack Swing sound and I dug Jodeci and Kells but they still had that rapper image. Amel was just the cute girl from next door with nice voice you wanted to get with. i'd imagine she was singing directly to me. My girlfriend at the time favored her a little.

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Falcons, Braves, Bulldogs and Hawks

Geto Boys, Poison Clan, UGK, Eightball & MJG, OutKast, Goodie Mob

prince "dirty mind" - BEEN warped by prince's music and my dad's porn stash.

cage "depart from me" - the new standard LP for rap music for me: be yourself, experiment, throw in all the bullshit in your life into your art, tell great stories.

jay-dee/j dilla "donuts" - cuz if someone can make beautiful music while holding onto life, i shouldn't have to fear death.

ka "grief pedigree" - dudes who hold down a full time career can still release awesome shit and get a following in this internet era...it's never too late!!!

d'angelo "black messiah" - there's no timetable if you deliver in the end.

Happy 50th D’Angelo: https://chrisp.bandcamp.com/track/d-50

Self titled. This was an album my dad played a lot and has come to encapsulate the diversity of music in my childhood. This is where I come from.

Innervisions. If you don't like this album you don't know me at all. Bold but measured, it's a masterpiece yeah, but it was made this way because a genius like Stevie REALLY wanted you to listen. This defines me in the way your favorite ideal to which you strive defines you. Black is beautiful.

Eazy Duz it. The soundtrack of puberty. It was on from here on out.

Sign of the times. I'm a late bloomer also. Why do this album make me feel better during the sad and lonely nights? I wish I could tell you.

Illmatic. I was 20 then and it was a blessing. You had to be there, I suppose.

Taking shots in the dark/that's a bad call
Going straight for your head/ gotta saw it off

LOL...glad y'all did it. I wasn't expecting you to cover it so soon.

This was interesting and was definitely fun to go through the years and different albums and analyze how I connected to them. I know this is long, but if you read through, you'll see the story these albums take on.

It was VERY difficult to keep it to just 5. I'm going to cover 10 and will highlight which are my five.

In order of my experience with them...

1 The Main Ingredient - Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth (1994)
A respectable hip-hop album without a Parental Advisory when I'm 12 and my parents ain't having those in the house (to their knowledge)??? I was all over this album. It became my soundtrack. Since then, I've listened to this albums 100s, if not 1,000s of times. Analyzing every beat, rhyme, scratch, interlude. This album is also my introduction to production. When I started making beats, the sampling on here was something I studied. To this day, I play this album ALL the time and I never get tired of it.

2 ATLiens - Outkast (1996)*
I'm not sure if there is an album I played more as a kid than Southernplayalistic. All that did was set the expectations for ATLiens through the fucking roof. And to this day, I'm not sure if an album has ever surpassed my high expectations like this album did. My absolute favorite hip-hop album of all-time. Andre has been in my top 3 since this album. The organic, stripped down production was flawless. The concepts were fresh and original. The album cover began my love for album art work which then began my love for my college major of graphic design. Not everyone up north loved Outkast. They got their respect but they weren't loved on the level of Nas, Big, Wu or even Mobb Deep at this time. So I kind of felt like they were "my" group that I was associated with. The homie Torchbaras will tell you, I love this album so much, I've got a verse dedicated to it on our upcoming album! I had copped and listened to tons of albums by the time this dropped in August of 1996, but I never felt as connected to any of them as I did to this one.

3 Black On Both Sides - Mos Def (1999)
1997 and Life After Death brought a shift to hip-hop. The lines of commercialized rap was never drawn so definitively and we were picking sides. I wasn't fucking with the shiny suits. I wasn't fucking with No Limit or Cash Money. I wasn't fucking with anything Swizz Beatz. I damn near threw Hard Knock Life out of my car window. Strictly official shit was getting played by me. Moment of Truth, Soul Survivor, Jewelz, First Family 4 Life...you get the point. Black Star was a breath of fresh air in 1998. The underground movement was brewing and Mos and Kweli were in the forefront. When BOBS dropped, it blew me away. Outkast had pushed the envelope but they were always an outlier for me. When Mos came out of the underground with Umi Says, Ms Fat Booty, and Climb, it was the first time (for me) a straight New York Hip-Hop artist pushed that same envelope Outkast was pushing. It was continuing to add more musicality to the genre. At the same time he was rocking joints like Hip-Hop, Know That, and I still don't know if anyone has lyrically killed a Primo joint like Mathematics. Love, Got, New World Water, and Mr N*gg* were creative and unique in 1999. Mos just did a brilliant job of connecting all the dots with his solo album and showed me that you can sing Umi Says and Ms Fat Booty at the same time. He showed me that you could do a joint like Rock N Roll and then turn around a pay homage to Brooklyn by leading off with a quick cover of a white band's song. He bridged gaps and made me cross them when I was stubborn with my musical tastes.

4. Voodoo - D'Angelo (2000)*
It would be wrong to name Voodoo and not recognize Things Fall Apart and Like Water For Chocolate. This was around the time I was graduating High School and the more I was starting the make beats, the more I started getting into music other than Hip-Hop. So this more musical hip-hop with live instrumentation was right up my alley. Voodoo however, was the one album that really opened me up to other genres. I wasn't rocking with the modern R&B at the time. That shit was hollow. D' had a very unique way of making his music sound cool for us to rock with. You could rock with D' as hip-hop head and not be a sucka. Thing about it was that the album was extremely meticulously arranged. Some cuts like Devil's Pie and The Line could've been on any hip-hop album. But then they were along side Send It On and The Root which were just beautiful compositions. Let's not even get started on Africa. And the Feel Like Making Love cover! Damn...this album gave my generation a legit classic piece of art. I think that's why so many of us connect with it. Who knows, maybe without this album my eyes may have never been opened to Stevie, Sly, and Sade in the same way they are now. I knew who those old school artists were. But at that point in my life, that's who they were...old school artists and I was interest on modern shit. Voodoo made me start listening to music differently and got me exploring older music and other genres like never before.

5 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (2002)*
I believe most people start exploring more music in college. You're away from your comfort zone, you're meeting new people, and you're constantly learning as you're exposed to new things. It's not a coincidence that every college kid ends up having either a Beatles, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, or Jimi Hendrix poster in their room. I definitely went through that stage and it wasn't just for a few years. I started growing away from hip-hop. The more commercial it got, the more I didn't listen. I wasn't big into the underground scene at this point either. I was just onto new music. As I kept making beats and digging, I kept being opened up to new music. Rock, Jazz, Punk, Soul, Classical, and I loved a lot of it. When Wilco dropped this album, it was similar to how I felt about Voodoo. I latched onto it like it was a classic for my generation. I know people had Nevermind and OK Computer but I wasn't rocking with those when they dropped. So I felt more connected to YHF like I did with both Voodoo and ATLiens. The thing I love about this album is that it gets better as it goes. Not many albums do that. It has all the right ingredients; great opener, incredibly beautiful centerpiece in Jesus, Etc, subtle political lyrics, great compositions, interesting sound effects yet not overdone just to do them. This album is literally perfect to me. I would kill a man to resurrect Jeff Buckley just so he could cover this entire album with the Soulaquarians. Shit...think about that!

6 Sea Change - Beck (2002)
To this day, I have yet to hear an album so flawlessly recorded. The sound of this album is amazing to me. Talk about a beautiful break up album. And is there a more beautiful cold ass song than Lost Cause? That shit is incredible. This and Wilco came out the same year and they just dropped when I was in that zone. I was going through a break-up and never will I be one of those people who say "this music helped me get through a rough time" because that's weird as fuck to me. But it did connect with me and I just understood it a lot easier. Never was a huge Beck fan. Always liked some of his work but then there was stuff I didn't like. he was always all over the place which is what makes him great. But Sea Change is just his opus. I'll put up there against any break-up album. There's nothing I love more than folk tunes with acoustics and slide guitar and they are ALL over this joint...LOL

7 Greatest Hits - Neil Young (2004)*
It just got real! I'm by no means a greatest hits person, but this shit right here! This opened me up to my favorite artist of all-time. I heard The Beatles everything and was a Lennon fanatic. I had all of Jimi's albums. I was swimming in Zeppelin albums. I gave Bob Dylan a go. But when I copped this greatest hits package and was put on to Neil, my mind was blown. A 3-note guitar solo for 9 minutes? Southern Man? Heart of Gold? This shit had me hunting down every album Neil ever released on CD. There is something extremely honest about his music. More so than everyone I named above. Simple yet effective and completely original. And to think, Tell Me Why, Lotta Love, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Out On The Weekend, Alabama, Unknown Legend, From Hank To Hendrix, Walk On, See The Sky About To Rain, On The Beach, Ambulance Blues, It's A Dream, Powderfinger, Good To See You, Tonight's The Night, and Cortez The Killer AREN'T EVEN ON HERE!

8 Welcome To Jamrock - Damian Marley (2005)
There seems to be a pattern here. Like I said about Voodoo and Yankee, this album just struck me as a modern classic. Something my generation could be proud of. I had all of Bob Marley at this time and some Peter Tosh but I wasn't heavy into reggae and definitely wasn't rocking the Dancehall stuff. Don't get me wrong though, at a party or in the club I'm on it all day, but not for my own listening pleasure in my car or home. So when Damian dropped this title track that matched the vibe of modern reggae with the urgency of past reggae's message I was all over it. There just something real dope about this album. I'm big on being able to play my albums front to back and this album is no exception. It also opened me up other modern reggae artists like Nasio, Melchizadeck, Sizzla and others. Not to mention it featured 2 of my top 3 MCs! What's not to love about this album?

9 Donuts - J Dilla (2006)*
As a lyric-head, I was never into instrumental hip-hop albums. I had a few but I just never listened to them. Even Petestrumentals (which I love now) I just never went to throw on. if it wasn't a beat I was writing to, I wasn't just playing that. But Donuts was different. I still wasn't even heavy on hip-hop again at this point. This (along with Game Theory) was a turning point. Donuts showed me that hip-hop could be anything. This album wasn't just a beat tape, this was a full on composition from start to finish. Short but sweet instrumentals equipped with time changes, sirens blaring, vocal clips. it was a work of art really. I can remember showing it to a co-worker who was a punk rock fan and only liked hip-hop as far as PE. When he heard this he flipped out. It was just fresh. And how can the fact that Dilla made this in the hospital, clinging onto life not add something to it? This brought me back full circle to hip-hop right here. And who better than Dilla to do it. He reminded me of the art form I fell in love with listening to The Main Ingredient.

10 Never Better - P.O.S. (2009)
When I checked out on hip-hop back around 2001 or so, I was just tired of the over-commercialized genre. There was an underground market but between moving onto other music and the outlets not being what they are today, I wasn't wasting my time digging for new hip-hop that was going to fit my tastes. I was just rocking with the classics and then exploring other genres. After Donuts brought my love back to the genre, I started appreciating it all over again. However, I was still very much a traditionalist with my taste. As a huge Outkast fan, I was all for progression but it needed to stay rooted in hip-hop. So anything too far out there that came off as being different for the sake of being different, I wasn't rocking with. But when I went to a local record shop one day and saw the cover of Never Better, I said "I'm blind copping this shit right here." I had heard his name thrown around but never heard a single song. Boy am I glad I copped that album. This shit was so fucking raw! I was NEVER a fan of rap/rock because it always came off as corny to me. But this was what I thought it should sound like. It was just enough hip-hop and just enough rock. Slight flavor of singing on some hooks. And POS is spitting his ass off on these tracks. Then there are the all out hip-hop bangers Goodbye and Low Light Low Life to even it it out. This album change my opinion on opening hip-hop up. It continued to expand what I thought it could be. Without this album doing that I may still not be open to some of my current favorites like Aesop Rock and El-P.

And to recap my 5;

1 ATLiens
2 Voodoo
3 Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
4 Neil Young's Greatest Hits
5 Donuts

I'm going to pull out BOBS and Never Better now...

makes me want to purchase and listen to it stat. As much as I respected Dilla and his music, it was the Johnny Come Lately praise that turned me off.

I'm kinda weird in that way. There are certain artists that I learned of through this site that I felt were my own Or that they were only for OKPers to enjoy. When the WORLD caught on to them, I turned my nose up and stepped away. Call me selfish! Call me crazy! Call me whatever! It's just who I am and how I'm wired.

Anyway, thanks! I am more interested in hearing that piece of work than I ever have been.

It's not fair to fault the artist for how they are received all the time. As long as the artist is still releasing quality music and not allowing his reception to effect his/her output then you should never stop listening because people got on board late.

I loved Dilla's work in the 90s but really didn't know who he was. So I was like "yo, whoever produced Get A Hold is nice!" I was more like "I love that joint by Tribe."

But when LWFC and Vol 2 dropped I was placing him up there with the best.

And I don't love all of his work like some people. But Donuts was just a different beast to me.

Ad you're checking it out!

Salute for the respect you gave ATLiens. Most northerners don't give Kast that respect. Welcome to Jamrock got plenty of spins from me and bros. As did Stephen Marley's album a few years later.

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Falcons, Braves, Bulldogs and Hawks

Geto Boys, Poison Clan, UGK, Eightball & MJG, OutKast, Goodie Mob

Yeah that album is dope.

Traffic Jam is that shit!

That's the one!

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Falcons, Braves, Bulldogs and Hawks

Geto Boys, Poison Clan, UGK, Eightball & MJG, OutKast, Goodie Mob

1. BDP-Criminal Minded-the album that got me interested in rap due to its dancehall influence, vegetarianism and, KRS' voice.

2. Bob & the Wailer- Rastaman Vibration(Johnny Was, War and Rat Race)just sum up the direction of Nesta.

3. D's Voodoo just made me appreciate R&B truly for the first time; in my lifetime. Devil's pie!

4. Hugh Ramopolo Masakela-Hope, the prodigal son returned home to South Africa, musically victorious but the scars of apartheid and global addiction to minerals(diamond/diamond) on "Stimela" brings tears to my eyes every time.

5. Peter Tosh-Equal Right( "I don't want no peace
I need equal rights and justice")

5B. Coltrane-A Love Supreme!

Damaged - Black Flag

showed me there could be some "music" that connects with raw intensity in a twisted extreme way.


The Inner Mounting Flame - The Mahavishnu Orchestra

Showed me there could be some complex extreme music that could go in different directions.


There's a riot goin' on - Sly and the Family Stone

Showed me there could be warped music with lot's style and playfulness.


Band of Gypsys - Jimi Hendrix

Showed me that funk and rock could be grounded and twisted


Wolf songs for lambs - Jonathan Fire*Eater

Showed me rock music could be twisted and immediate and touch on various angles with a lot of style.

Outkast/ATLiens - Being a native Southern dude meant nothing to me until I heard this album. I left Louisiana in '90 and moved to NJ where I was in closer proximity to all that I was interested in as a fan of hip-hop. Sure Geto Boys, as well as Gregory D & Mannie Fresh, were out on a regional level at that point but there was nothing that made me proud or interested in what was coming out of the South at that time. Not even a few of my fellow alumni - MC Thick (RIP, Big Stu), Tim Smooth, and Bust Down - from the West Bank of New Orleans. In my mind, I was a serious head that was on some strictly East Coast shit at the time with a sprinkling of a few select artists from the West Coast as well. All that said, I heard this album in '96 and immediately reclaimed my roots as a Southern boy. There has never been, besides Aquemini, an album that flowed from those parts that rivaled, if not topped, what I had grown to love as a transplanted East Coast cat. These dudes were spittin'! The production was grand!

ATCQ/The Low End Theory - 1991! This album was, as many of you have mentioned, what made me believe that jazz was cool for my generation. It kickstarted my musical interests in an era that my dad attempted to hip me to when I was a few years younger. I called and asked him to ship me his Coltrane albums. He did! I have used this album to teach my sons and my daughter about the beauty in the art form; about the limitless possibilities in music; about the limitless possibilities of hip hop; and also given them a snapshot into who I was before I decided to become their dad.

D'Angelo/Voodoo - Man! This was almost the climax of my musical experience. This was the album that forced me to look and feel music differently. I'd put headphones on, pour myself some drinks, and just zone the fugg out. This was that satisfied the jazz and hip hop musings that I'd grown from . It was a perfect amalgam of the music that had influenced my life to that point. My dad introduced me to funk, rock, reggae, and jazz (pre-70s). My mom would play R&B all day. My uncles were the post-70s jazz lovers. All of those influences werepresent in this album. It reminds me of my youth and my maturation into a full grown man. To this day, I zone out when I listen to it.

The Time/The Time - 1981! I got this for cassette Christmas. It was one of the first cassettes or albums of music that was my own. My collection began! I'd heard of Prince but had no idea, until years later on this site, that he was as involved with this album as he was. In any event, I'd never heard or appreciated rock or someone spazzing out on a guitar as I did until this album. as a matter of fact, I'd never heard music where the lead couldn't sing worth a damn but the music was just so damned good. It gave me a completely different perspective on what my white classmates were talking about when they talked about rock-n-roll. I'd gone from an all Black Catholic school in one city to a very integrated public school in another. I could relate now to their discussions on guitars and drums. This was truly my introduction to music and it gave me an awareness on how different influences can be melded into one. before this, everything was the music of my parents. This is when I could close my bedroom door and just listen to my own little library.


Drake/So Far Gone - I've already mentioned what I've done to educate my kids on the music of my culture. I'd begun to lose hope in the future growth of the music until my oldest sone turned me on to Drake, Cudi, and some of the other cats he'd started listening to. This mixtape gave me something to look forward to from a generation of new artists. At the time this dropped, there was not much innovative or new sounding material that really inspired me to dig and search. The same old artists, from the 90s, were still holding on and dropping music for the masses. In any event, this made me feel like I'd taught my son well and that I'd played some role in his choices in listening to quality material.

Low End Theory for all the reasons that were already mentioned.

Stankonia because I was never really a huge Outkast fan before this but I've been singing their praises ever since.

Strictly Business because between the funk in the samples and Erick's lisp I had NEVER heard anything like this. My favorite group ever BTW.

The Miseducation of Laury Hill because as crazy as it sounds those interludes in the classroom made me want to become a teacher.

Off The Wall because this album is the soundtrack to my childhood. No matter who's house we went to in my family, EVERYBODY was playing this for yrs and yrs to come.

Dope topic too...