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At least twice each year at Complex—once in June, and again in December—we huddle in a conference room and yell at each other about the year’s very best songs.
While the overall discussion of these mid-year and year-end rankings is contentious, rap’s so-called Song of the Year is, usually, pretty obvious. It’s whatever song has most blatantly dominated the radio playlists and radicalized the dance floor in a given year. It’s the song that you can’t escape and, in any case, wouldn’t want to. Like “In da Club” in 2003, for instance, when 50 Cent and G-Unit had a yearlong chokehold on the culture.
Since we’ve only been publishing online content since 2007, however, these debates only go back so far. Until now.
This year, we’ve debated the past all the way back to 1979, the year of hip-hop’s commercial birth, as we did for our Best Rapper Alive list. From the post-disco flex of the Sugarhill Gang, Soulsonic Force, and the Furious Five; through the big-bang, rock-rap explosion of Run-DMC and LL Cool J; and onward through a quarter century of continued evolution, regional rivalry, mass-market expansion, and post-Napster contraction—hip-hop’s core sounds, techniques, and audience have evolved with each passing year. Note that the best rap songs of 1979, 1989, 1999, and 2009 sound nearly nothing like one another.
Megastars, they rise and fall, but their biggest, genre-defining hits are (hopefully) timeless. Here we present the Best Rap Song, Every Year Since 1979. These diamonds are forever.
1979: Sugarhill Gang “Rapper's Delight”
Honorable Mentions: Kurtis Blow “Christmas Rappin'”
At some point in the late '90s and early '00s, once Southern rappers had overwhelmed New York's mafioso supremecy within hip-hop culture, it became fashionable for the rap vanguard to dismiss bounce, snap, trap, ringtone rap, etc. as overindulgent nonsense. Never mind the history and fact that Sugarhill Gang's “Rapper's Delight,” the original hip-hop banger, has more in common with 2 Chainz and Mannie Fresh than it does with Talib Kweli. Seriously, Wonder Mike is on here rapping about soggy macaroni, only to be outdone by Big Bank Hank rapping to Lois Lane about his “super sperm,” all over an extended disco flip. Sugarhill Gang preempted “I'm on One” by like 900 years. “What you hear is not a test” is among the most prescient historical warnings ever set to music. —Justin Charity
1980: Kurtis Blow “The Breaks”
Honorable Mentions: Treacherous Three f/ Spoonie Gee “New Rap Language”
Harlem-born Kurtis Walker, a.k.a. DJ Kool Kurt, got his big break when he signed a deal with Mercury Records in 1979. He soon put out this 12-inch single, and thankfully the first rap song ever to be released on a major label also happened to be dope. Few listeners outside Harlem or the Bronx understood that the song was inspired by and dedicated to B-Boys (and if you don't know that the b stands for “break,” as in “breakdancing,” just keep it moving). “I wanted to do a tribute song with many breaks so that the breakers could get down and do their thing,” Blow explained later. “When we danced during the breaks of a song, that was our time to go off—to do our best moves.” The lyrics break down other meanings of the word: “Brakes on a bus, brakes on a car, breaks to make you a superstar.” The song was also one of the first rap tunes to talk about the IRS, 35 years before Kendrick Lamar released “Wesley’s Theory.”
The rolling bass line on the track was played by Tom “T-Bone” Wolk, who was hired by Hall & Oates as a result of the song’s success. “The Breaks” became the first rap song in history (and only the second 12-inch single in history) to sell half a million copies and earn a certified gold plaque from the RIAA. “There was no real marketing for the song, no plan,” Kurtis Blow recalled. “We just wanted to make a kick-ass record, and that's exactly what we did. The clubs ate it up. You couldn't find a club in America during the summer of 1980 that would not play this song around 12, 1 o'clock in the morning.” But when he performed the tune on Soul Train, Don Cornelius was not feeling it. “It doesn't make sense to old guys like me,” said the show’s mackadocious host. “I don't understand why they love it so much.” Well, that’s the breaks. —Rob Kenner
1981: Afrika Bambaataa and the Jazzy Five “Jazzy Sensation (Bronx Version)”
Honorable Mentions: Treacherous Three “Feel the Heartbeat,” Funky Four Plus One “That's the Joint,” T-Ski Valley “Catch the Beat”
Kevin Donovan, a.k.a. Afrika Bambaataa, was just 24 years old by the time this record—the first release listing him as an artist—hit the streets of New York City on Tommy Boy Records. By the time he had already lived many lives, from record collector and DJ to member of the Black Spades street gang. After winning an essay contest that sent him on a trip to Africa, Bam formed the Universal Zulu Nation, giving youth from the Bronx a chance to channel their energy and creativity into more positive pursuits like DJing, rapping, an graffiti writing, as opposed to gang warfare. Legendary DJs Red Alert, Afrika Islam, and Jazzy Jay were all early Zulu Nation members.
Throwing block parties and park jams was the top priority, and making records was definitely a secondary pursuit. But when he connected with Tom Silverman, who founded the Tommy Boy label in 1981—an imprint that would go on to bring talents like De La Soul, Queen Latifah, and Naughty by Nature to the world—Bam decided to take a group of MCs from the South Bronx’s Soundview Houses into the studio. He challenged MCs Master Ice (“twice as nice”), Mr. Freeze (a.k.a. “Chucky Chuck”), Master Dee (“what it be?”), and AJ Les (“at your request”) along with DJ Jazzy Jay to make a record based on Gwen McRae’s club smash “Funky Sensation,” which had been released on Atlantic Records that same year. Renaming it in their DJ’s honor, they called the song “Jazzy Sensation.” Side A of the orange-labeled Tommy Boy 12” was the “Bronx Version” while the lackluster “Manhattan Version” on side B featured backing band the Kryptic Krew and Tina B singing the same hook as on Side A. Without Bam or the Jazzy Five it lacks the excitement and flavor that made the 9-minute-plus “Bronx Version” a classic. “All the ladies in the house—The ladies! The ladies!” That’s because their call-and-response lyrics were all stage show routines that they’d perfected in park jams and rec centers across the Bronx. Sadly the “kings of the body rock rap” never recorded together again—reportedly due to business disputes. But this immortal release ensures that their jazzy sensation will be felt for many years to come.
—Rob Kenner
1982: Grandmaster Flash “The Message”
Honorable Mentions: Afrika Bambaataa “Planet Rock,” Cold Crush Brothers “Weekend,” Busy Bee Starski “Making Cash Money”
The year of MTV’s ascendancy, the year when the U.S. pop charts were ruled by Flock of Seagulls and Toni Basil until Michael dropped Thriller, was also the year that hip-hop evolved from throw-your-hands-in-the-air escapism to what Chuck D would eventually describe as “the black CNN.” One record made that happen: “The Message.” How big of a turning point was this record? When Sugar Hill Records' in-house musician Ed “Duke Botee” Fletcher brought a demo of the song to label boss Sylvia Robinson, and she asked Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to record it, they refused. “We would laugh at it,” Flash admitted later. “The subject matter wasn't happy. It wasn't no party shit.”
In fact, Flash had almost nothing to do with the record, and only one member of the Furious Five—Melle Mel—delivered the raps. Ed Fletcher, who wrote most of the song and created the background music, inspired by electro funk tracks like Zapp’s “More Bounce to the Ounce” and Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.” Fletcher wrote all but one verse of the song, a harsh reflection of the realities of life in the Bronx during the Reagan era. Lines like “don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge/I’m trying not to lose my head”—and the unhinged laugh that followed—set a whole different tone for rap, putting the MC and his troubled psyche at the forefront, and casting him as a real person living in an all-too-real world rather than some kind of super-fly superhero. Grim to the last, the last verse tells the tale of a stick-up kid who gets locked up and ends up an “undercover fag” whose cold body is found swinging in a jail cell. The closing skit—in which police lock up the Furious Five—is the time Cowboy, Kidd Creole, Scorpio, and Rahiem appear on the record. —RK
1983: Run-DMC “Sucker MCs”
Honorable Mentions: Grandmaster Melle Mel “White Lines,” Run-DMC “It's Like That”
If any one track buried Sugar Hill Records-style rap once and for all, it was “Sucker MCs,” the B-side of Run-DMC’s first single, “It’s Like That.” Produced by Russell Simmons and Larry Smith and based off the Orange Krush “Action” drumbeat fed through an Oberheim DMX drum machine, “Sucker MCs” was a stark blast aimed at unnamed rivals, rap’s first real dis record—“You’re a five-dollar boy, I’m a million-dollar man/You’s a sucker MC and you’re my fan.” Run reeled off the first three verses, leaving DMC less than a minute to deliver his, which was equal parts biographical (“I’m light-skinned, I live in Queens/And I love eatin’ chicken and collard greens”) and braggadocious (“All my rhymes are sweet delight/So here’s another for you to bite”). Modern hip-hop? It started right here. —Russ Bengtson
1984: T La Rock “It's Yours”
Honorable Mentions: Cold Crush Brothers “Fresh, Wild, Fly, and Bold,” Whodini “Five Minutes of Funk,” LL Cool J “I Need a Beat”
When Rick Rubin was still a student at NYU he produced a record called “It’s Yours” with T La Rock on the mic and an elaborate array of scratches by Zulu Nation affiliate DJ Jazzy Jay. The first rap single with a Def Jam logo on it was officially released on the New York indie label Party Time Records. “It’s Yours” was hard enough to catch the attention of Simmons’, who asked Jazzy Jay to introduce him to the kid who made the record. When they finally did meet, Simmons couldn’t believe Rubin was white, but that didn’t stop them from forging a partnership that would build Def Jam into a label that would change popular culture forever.
Recorded at a tiny studio in Queens, the record sounded like nothing else on wax, recapturing the booming bass and turntable tricks heretofore heard only at live jams. The crowd response sections were performed by a handful of studio hangers-on, including Ad Roc of the Beastie Boys, twisted from sipping too much Brass Monkey.
Rubin would have preferred to make his first rap record with Special K of the Treacherous Three, but K was under contract to Sugar Hill Records, so he suggested that his older brother T La Rock could deliver a rap that they’d written together. And what a rap it was. Specially dedicated to discriminating listeners, or more specifically “Commentating, illustrating, description-giving, adjective-expert, analyzing, surmising, musical-myth-seeking people of the universe” the song was theirs. Its lyrics were jam packed with polysyllabic vocabulary throughout, because those listeners would expect nothing less. “There was not one other record nothing like ‘It’s Yours’ out at that time,” La Rock proudly recalled years later. “People had to step-up their rhymes—even with the scratching, DJs had to step up their game.” Rubin’s reckless abuse of the Roland 808 would inspire the subgenre known as bass music. All in all, not a bad way to start a legendary label. —RK
1985: Slick Rick “La Di Da Di”
Honorable Mentions: LL Cool J “Rock the Bells,” Run-DMC “King of Rock,” Schoolly D “P.S.K. 'What Does It Mean?'”
Easily the most-sampled rap record in the history of hip-hop, this one-take B-side boomshot was slapped on the flip-side to Doug E. Fresh’s largely forgotten Reality Records 12” “The Show.” Snoop straight-up covered the song on his solo debut, Biggie interpolated the “Ricky Ricky Ricky can’t you see…” line into the hook for “Hypnotize,” and the number of tracks that have repurposed the opening ejaculation (“Hit it!”) is beyond calculation.
Three years before his earthshaking Def Jam debut album, 20-year-old Slick Rick was going by the name MC Ricky D. Gliding along effortlessly atop Doug’s devastating human beatbox (they must have had to wring the spit out of his foam mic cover), Rick the Ruler spins a tale chock-full of brand names and blustering brilliance. Everybody knows Ricky’s storytelling skills are second to none, but what makes this record so ill is the eccentric intonation employed by the gold-toothed, eye-patch-rocking rap genius. Check the intro where he boasts, “You’re about to witness something you've never witnessed befooooor-ruh”…or the way he flips into falsetto on the oft-sampled line “we rock the mic right.” He had a funny feeling all those party people in the house were sick of all these crab rappers, and boy was he right. When Rick said, “There is no competition ’cause we are the best” he wasn’t lying. —RK
1986: BDP “South Bronx”
Honorable Mentions: Beastie Boys “Paul Revere,” Run-DMC “Peter Piper,” Biz Markie “Make the Music With Your Mouth Biz”
As dope as the beat to Run-DMC’s “Peter Piper” may be, that “Little Bo Peep” shit is dead. There’s no fronting on Rick Rubin’s trippy reverse-snares on “Paul Revere,” but “Here’s a little story”…“a little horsey”—seriously? Marley Marl’s drums on “Make the Music With Your Mouth Biz”? Hard as hell. But every other record—especially anything made in Queens—was rendered irrelevant as soon as Ced Gee and Scott La Rock unleashed the debut single from Boogie Down Productions, a B-Boy Records 12” single called “South Bronx.”
And so, “due to the fact that no one else out there knew what time it was,” KRS One did in fact attack, and in doing so set off an epic musical conflict known as “The Bridge Wars.” The beat sounded like an Uzi spraying up your block, and the lyrics were a lyrical drive-by shooting. “You got dropped off MCA ’cause the rhymes you wrote was wack.” (Ouch!) MC Shan’s major label debut, (“Feed the World,”)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edw_rot0RfM] did in fact turn into a one-and-done scenario. The truth hurts, especially when it’s being rubbed in your face on the hottest diss record in the streets.
It was not an unprovoked attack. MC Shan forced BDP’s hand with a song called “The Bridge,” which may or may not have asserted that hip-hop “got its start out in Queensbridge.” Whatever the case, KRS begged to differ: “If you pop that junk up in the Bronx you might not live.”
Crossfading between Blastmaster and teacher mode, KRS wove a lengthy hip-hop history lesson into the song’s second verse, shouting out DJs Coke La Rock, Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash—as well as B-Boy posses like the Nine Lives Crew, the Cypress Crew, and Rock Steady—evoking memories of jams in Cedar Park and Bronx River powered by electricity jacked from lamp posts. Before long KRS brought it back to the battle: “As odd as it looked, as wild as it seemed/I didn’t hear a peep from a place called Queens.”
KRS was always more than a rapper—right from the start he was a renegade teacher and scholar, a satirist, polemicist and most of all, a Blastmaster. As such, his lyrics were tools of war, which he kept sharpened to a lethal edge. “South Bronx” was the most lethal diss record in hip-hop up to that point, setting off not a battle but an interborough war, paving the way for joints like “The Bridge Is Over” and all that followed, from “Bitch in Yoo” to “Hit Em Up” to “Who Shot Ya,” from “Ether” to “The Takeover.” But you know what they say: the first cut is the deepest. —RK
1987: Public Enemy “Rebel Without a Pause”
Honorable Mentions: Eric. B & Rakim “Paid in Full (Coldcut Remix),” Audio Two “Top Billin',” EPMD “It's My Thing”
All respect due to Yo! Bum Rush the Show, but Public Enemy didn’t really become PUBLIC ENEMY until It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. And Nation of Millions started with “Rebel Without a Pause,” the first track recorded and the debut single. The sound was urgent, kicked off by a Soul Children sample, driven by a squealing sax loop from the J.B.s and punctuated by Terminator X’s “Transformers Scratch.” And of course there were Chuck D’s relentless verses along with Flavor Flav’s excitable exclamations, much clearer and stronger than they ever were on Yo! Bum Rush the Show. “Simple and plain, give me the lane/I’ll throw it down your throat like Barkley,” Chuck D declaimed in the last verse. Lyrics? More like prophecy. No one was doing anything like this in 1987. Hell, hardly anyone is now. —RB
1988: Big Daddy Kane “Ain't No Half Stepping”
Honorable Mentions: Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock “It Takes Two,” EPMD “You Gots to Chill,” Eazy-E “Boyz-n-the-Hood (Remix)”
Boasting memorable albums by Public Enemy, Slick Rick, Eric B. & Rakim, EPMD, Boogie Down Productions, the Jungle Brothers, MC Lyte, Rob Base and DJ EZ-Rock, Biz Markie, and many more, the year 1988 was arguably one of hip-hop’s greatest. Picking one track as the best of that remarkable year is a challenging task, but only one MC stepped into that legendary year ready to “set it straight.”
Before Jay Z and Biggie Smalls, Big Daddy Kane was Brooklyn’s Finest. The Bedford-Stuyvesant native, born Antonio Hardy, was more than just an influence on both of these future microphone controllers. Kane’s DJ, Mr. Cee, recorded Biggie’s first demo, which brought him to the attention of Puff Daddy. And during the early 1990s, Jay Z and Positive K toured with Kane.
Calm and smooth even while spitting the hardest-hitting bars, Kane demolished this nice mellow beat, which Marley Marl built around a sample of Heatwave’s song of the same name. Kane uses it as a playground as he devastates the competition with punchlines like “Pick a BC date ’cause you’re history!”
A master of syncopated speed rap, Kane got his start in ’84, writing rhymes for his friend Biz Markie and eventually working with the Juice Crew to release his 1987 single, “Raw,” on Cold Chillin’ Records. His 1988 album, Long Live the Kane, included this smash single. The tall, dapper. dark-skinned MC was sometimes known as Count Macula, but the name King Asiatic Nobody’s Equal was a better fit because Kane could rap circles around rival MCs, leaving them to answer the question “What you on, Hobbs, dope or dog food?” —RK
1989: Public Enemy “Fight the Power”
Honorable Mentions: N.W.A “Fuck the Police,” De La Soul “Me Myself & I,” EPMD “So Wat Cha Sayin”
Public Enemy put out some of the most socially conscious raps of the genre during a period when the crack era was ravaging low-income areas, in particular their backyard of NYC. But PE’s seminal hit, “Fight the Power,” is not only their magnum opus, and hip-hop’s calling card for 1989, it’s quite possibly the most symbolic song of the entire culture.
Commissioned by Spike Lee for his film Do the Right Thing, Chuck D and the crew came up with the perfect antiestablishment anthem. Containing nearly 20 samples interwoven by the Bomb Squad, the instrumental captures the essences of black music with elements of soul, R&B, rap, jazz, and reggae. It’s all there. Not to mention the epic video, which was an awe-inspiring mini-Million Man March through the streets of New York.
PE's bass player, Brian Hardgroove, summed up the song’s poignant message saying, “Law enforcement is necessary. As a species we haven’t evolved past needing that. 'Fight the Power' is not about fighting authority—it’s not that at all. It’s about fighting abuse of power.” Twenty-six years after its release and we’re still fighting. —C. Vernon Coleman II
1990: LL Cool J “Mama Said Knock You Out”
Honorable Mentions: Public Enemy “Welcome to the Terrordome,” A Tribe Called Quest “Bonita Applebum,” Digital Underground “Humpty Dance”
Before Drake, there was LL Cool J, the unquestionably gully but nonetheless accessible pretty boy who helped migrate hip-hop to the mainstream of American pop. He gave us rap's first major R&B crossover record in 1987. And then, in 1990, a year after Walking With a Panther flopped within critical consensus, LL Cool J gave us hip-hop's first certified comeback album, Mama Said Knock You Out, with an eponymous lead single that, even 25 years later, is among the loudest and most proudly confrontational records that rap has ever produced. Producer Marley Marl did the Indian dance to bring Todd's reign back. —JC
1991: Black Sheep “The Choice Is Yours”
Honorable Mentions: Cypress Hill “How I Could Just Kill a Man,” Geto Boys “Mind Playing Tricks on Me,” Naughty by Nature “Uptown Anthem”
In the year of Cypress Hill and Geto Boys and the Low End Theory, Native Tongues affiliates Dres and Mista Lawnge hired a stand-up bass player to lay down heavy jazz beats while Black Sheep went riding “Engine engine number nine, on the New York Transit Line….” That nine-second break alone has made this track one of the most often played in every DJ’s crate.
Playing off the duality of the group’s name—“Who’s a black sheep? What’s a black sheep?”—the song’s lyrics presented life as a series of crucial decisions, a premise so powerful that it even works as a Kia commercial starring hamsters instead of rappers. No wonder the video for this song became a staple of MTV rap programming and the tune remains the most enduring moment of Black Sheep’s above-average debut album, A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. While Tribe was more abstract poetic, Black Sheep constructed a banger on this one.
Dres raps with just enough intensity cut with a too-cool-for-school sense of humor:
“Can I hear a hey? (Hey)
Can I get a yo? (Yo)
You got a hat? (Huh)
It’s for the hoes, (Oh)”
Above all, he displays a higher-than-requisite level of energy and skills on the mic, even as he inevitably leads listeners to the obvious conclusion: that THIS is where it’s AT, and definitely not THAT. —RK
1992: Dr. Dre f/ Snoop Dogg “Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang”
Honorable Mentions: A Tribe Called Quest “Scenario,” Ice Cube “It Was a Good Day,” Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth “T.R.O.Y.”
There might not be another song that exemplifies the early ‘90s California rap wave more than Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s classic decade-defining duet “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang,” the first single off Dre’s critically acclaimed debut, The Chronic.
The former N.W.A member and the rail-thin, shy-eyed newcomer struck gold when they linked up earlier that year on the track “Deep Cover,” but no song in the nine-deuce got barbecues popping and ’64 Impala’s hopping like “’G’ Thang.” Borrowing a melodic bass guitar riff from Leon Haywood's funky “I Want'a Do Something Freaky to You,” Dre helped usher in an entire sub-genre of rap, laying the blueprint for what would become G Funk.
The song is a perfect marriage of Snoop Dogg’s meandering rhyme pattern and Dre’s brusque bars. It’s a track so good even its low moments (“If I slip, then I’m slipping”) sound like total greatness. The video isn’t that bad either. Volleyball scene, FTW, baabeh! —CVC
1993: Snoop Dogg “Gin and Juice”
Honorable Mentions: Wu-Tang Clan “C.R.E.A.M.,” 2Pac “I Get Around,” The Pharcyde “Passing Me By”
The West Coast ran 1992 and 1993. Dr. Dre followed up his masterful Chronic solo debut with Snoop's Doggystyle. “Gin & Juice” is “Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang 2.0,” but still a welcome edition to their canon and an expansion of their sound. Snoop hasn't looked back since this dropped in January of '93. The beat is house party-ready, Snoop's signature delivery is quotable, and the hook is infectious. All of those factors make it an all-time classic. —Angel Diaz
1994: The Notorious B.I.G. “Juicy”
Honorable Mentions: Nas “It Ain't Hard to Tell,” Warren G “Regulate,” Common “Used to Love H.E.R.”
Best rap record of 1994? C’mon son. “Juicy” is the best rap record of all time. Even in the year of Nas’ Illmatic, arguably the best rap album ever made, it's impossible to deny the supremacy of the Notorious B.I.G.’s lead-off single for Bad Boy, recorded just days after his sudden marriage to Faith Evans. Go ahead—play it back-to-back with “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” or Warren G’s “Regulate,” the other potential contender for top honors in ’94. Nope. Not even close. Within 18 seconds, before the beat even drops, Biggie says, “It’s all good, baby BAY-beh” and snatches the crown.
This song has it all: struggle, success, packin’ gats, poppin’ bottles (and cassette tapes), paying respect to legendary hip-hop artists, DJs, and magazines, throwback fashions, throwback video games, sardines for dinner, interviews by the pool, and most of all, the aspirational beating heart of hip-hop, that unquenchable belief that every single rap fan on the planet—even a fat black crack dealer with a lazy eye (a self-described “born sinner, the opposite of a winner”)—can reach for the stars. And through it all, Sean Combs murmuring subliminal ad-libs, laughing while he counts his bankroll.
That Mtume loop (which Puffy jacked from Pete Rock, according to legend) might not be as hard as Primo’s “Unbelievable” beat on the flip side of the Bad Boy promo 12”, but Biggie’s slow flow’s remarkable, and every time Total sings “don’t let ’em hold you down” Poppa serves up another untouchable quotable: “Birthdays was the worst days, now we sip champagne when we thirstay,” “teachers who told me I’d never amount to nothin’,” “Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood.” And even
though we know how Christopher Wallace’s rags-to-riches tragedy ends, every time the DJ drops this euphoric jam, it’s still all good. —RK
1995: Mobb Deep “Shook Ones Part II”
Honorable Mentions: Method Man f/ Mary J. Blige “I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By,” the Notorious B.I.G. “Who Shot Ya,” Luniz “I Got 5 on It”
Lowkey the greatest beat ever constructed on arguably the greatest rap album of all time, “Shook Ones Part II” is one of the few street tracks to cross over to the mainstream. It resonates today just as it did when it was released as a counter-attack toward the Jiggy Rap Era that was beginning to thwart hip-hop's humble beginnings. Havoc has the eerie ability to flip known samples in ways other producers can't. The bass knocks a little harder, the drums hit you like a ton of bricks, the layers more subtle like the faint sound of bones breaking that could be heard at different points in the song. “Shook Ones Part II” is a street record and a party record. You might get shot, you might get stabbed, but you will have a good time. —AD
1996: 2Pac “California Love”
Honorable Mentions: OutKast “Elevators,” the Fugees “Ready or Not,” Bone Thugs-n-Harmony “Tha Crossroads”
A certain plurality of a generation of rap fan will insist that 1996 was the greatest, most awesomely prolific year in hip-hop history. It's a claim that's tough to disprove. Death Row released “California Love” in the last couple days of 1995 as the lead single to 2Pac's All Eyez on Me, which dropped in February 1996, at the height of 2Pac's musical powers and in the final year of his life. While there are a dozen-plus “very best” 2Pac songs, “California Love” is his essential anthem, the shorthand by which a couple generations raised on either coast or in between will recognize Tupac Shakur as the Henny-soaked rebel felled by hip-hop's earliest national tragedy. —JC
1997: Puff Daddy “It's All About the Benjamins (Remix)”
Honorable Mentions: Busta Rhymes “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See,” the Notorious B.I.G. “Hypnotize,” Ma$e “Feel So Good”
All right, so Puffy was wrong. Bad Boy did stop. But back in 1997 it did seem as if the label that brought us the Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, the L.O.X., and Mase was unfuckwithable. Things were going so well that the label head dropped his own album. Usually that would be a recipe for disaster, but Puffy managed to cook up some marvelous shit with his Hitmen production crew and bevy of razor-sharp MCs. One of the best—if not the best—examples was “All About the Benjamins.” Originally released on a DJ Clue mixtape with just Puff and the L.O.X., the song we all came to love is actually the remix. Stacked with Bad Boy’s all-stars and Lil Kim, the D-Dot-produced cut showcased the best Puff Daddy and the Family had to offer: mean sample flips, memorable verses that blended the jiggy highlife with treacherous street lore, and one of the best (and last) Biggie appearances ever. With Biggie dead and the L.O.X. eyeing the exit, Bad Boy would never be the same after this song. But for a brief moment, it showed a label at the height of its powers, one that, as Puff said, “didn’t know how to stop.” —Damien Scott
1998: DMX “Ruff Ryders Anthem”
Honorable Mentions: Jay Z “Hard Knock Life,” Lauryn Hill “Doo Wop (That Thing),” Juvenile “Back That Azz Up”
There are many songs on It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot that could serve as the official anthem of the label founded by brothers Darrin “Dee” Dean and Joaquin “Waah” Dean. “Get at Me Dog,” the album’s first single and artist manifesto, produced by Dame Grease and P. Killer Trackz, would work perfectly. But the one that got the official stamp of approval was the track produced by Dee and Wah’s 16-year-old nephew, Swizz Beatz. It didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the album’s production—i.e. it didn’t sound as if it could score an ’80s horror movie set in Yonkers. But it had an irresistible bounce and a chorus perfectly suited for screaming at the top of your lungs while gone off too much Henny. It was also simple, accessible. DMX’s flow syncopated in a way that is both in the pocket and as singable as a nursery rhyme, and in 1998, when X was the biggest rap star on the planet, everyone sang along. Sounds like the perfect candidate for an anthem. —DS
1999: Dr. Dre “Still D.R.E.”
Honorable Mentions: Jay Z “Big Pimpin,” Mobb Deep “Quiet Storm,” the Roots “You Got Me”
Seven years after his solo debut, it was Dre Day once again. After the respective flops of Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath and The Album by the Firm (both eventually went platinum), a lot of people thought the good doctor was no more, that his magic touch had waned. That couldn't be further from the truth as he proved with 2001's lead single. Accompanied by his protege and right hand man, Dre and Snoop gave rap another West Coast classic. The strings can only be compared to angels playing the harp, Snoop's chorus is one of the best ever, and Dre spit some of the best ghost-written bars of his life. In '95 plus four pennies, it was “Still D.R.E.” —AD
2000: Jay Z “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)”
Honorable Mentions: Eminem “Stan,” OutKast “Ms. Jackson,” MOP “Ante Up”
It’s more than fair to say the sweet spot of Jay Z’s career fell between the years of 1999 and 2001. During that time, Jay Z was not yet the best rapper alive, nor was he the best-selling. He had one classic under his belt and had released his then-best-selling project, Vol 2… Hard Knock Life. He was quite obviously on the come-up, but still deeply entrenched in the lifestyle that he rapped about. He was the people’s champ. With two top 20 hits under his belt, he was poised to do better. And he did.
Jay’s fifth album, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, was his attempt at playing star-maker. The album was created as a showcase for all the signees Roc-A-Fella had made up until then. Beanie Sigel and Freeway came through with standout performances, while newcomers Just Blaze and Kanye West proved their mettle. However, it was a relatively new production duo from Virginia who stole the show. The Neptunes, only a few years removed from the success of N.O.R.E.’s “Super Thug,” blessed Jay with what would become his biggest hit up until that point. The subdued space bounce laid the foundation for Jay to go off about how he “pimps by blood, not relation.” Though milder than his previous smash hit, “Big Pimpin,” “Give It 2 Me” not only showed that Jay had the midas touch when it came to minting club bangers, but that he was serious when he said, “I will not lose.” —DS
2001: Jadakiss “We Gonna Make It”
Honorable Mentions: Jay Z “U Don't Know,” Missy Elliott “Get Ur Freak On,” G-Dep f/ Diddy and Black Rob “Let's Get It”
Jay Z passed on this beat, and we are grateful. No other duo could've done what Kiss and Styles did to this beat. This might the best karaoke record of all time. When that beat drops and those violins kick in and Jada proclaims, “Fuck the frail shit, 'cause when my coke come in they gotta use the scale that they weigh the whales with,” everybody in the building loses their goddamn minds. This might be the best rap song of every year ever. Only a handful of songs on this list warrant the same reaction. A feeling of euphoria comes over you as you rap bar for bar with your best friends at a party. There is nothing like it. Nobody goes back and forth like Montega Jada and Pinero. —AD
2002: Eminem “Lose Yourself”
Honorable Mentions: 50 Cent “Wanksta,” Clipse “Grindin,” Cam'ron “Oh Boy!”
Eminem's biggest, career-defining hit is a soundtrack single that topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 weeks straight. And for all the bipartisan consternation that dogged Eminem's major label debut via “My Name Is” and the Slim Shady LP in 1999, “Lose Yourself” is a remarkably, universally empowering record; you could imagine Hillary Clinton, for instance, blasting it at the tour stops of her presidential campaign. “Lose Yourself” is invincible poprap from an artist who (at that point) was otherwise associated with a marginalized city and its grimy cyphers, and hip-hop's underground in general. The Clipse's “Gridin” was a fresh and enchanting beat, and “Oh Boy!” is catchy, for sure. But “Lose Yourself” was a motherfucking miracle. —JC
2003: 50 Cent “In da Club”
Honorable Mentions: Lil Jon and Eastside Boyz f/ Ying Yang Twinz “Get Low,” Freeway “What We Do…,” 50 Cent “What Up Gangsta”
Back in 2002, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson was a rising artist with tons of talent, a backstory to die for and a bubbling buzz. The only thing he was missing was a sure-fire mainstream hit. It didn’t take long after the ball dropped in ’03 for the G-Unit general to obtain just that in the form of the paramount hit single, “In da Club.”
The first song Fif and Dre ever recorded together upon being brought together by Eminem, “In da Club” catches Dre at his finest since stepping outside of the G-Funk lane, combining an infectious guitar loop with boisterous synths. 50 flexes his song-writing muscle with the perfect mix of grime and grandeur, incorporating an irresistible chorus that finds its way into your memory banks and parks itself, never to be towed.
The song would go on to go double platinum and kick start one of the biggest runs of the 2000s turning 50 Cent into a household name. The video, well, ehhh. Let’s not let that diminish the enormity of Curtis’ tour de force. —CVC
2004: Mike Jones f/ Slim Thug and Paul Wall “Still Tippin”
Honorable Mentions: Terror Squad f/ Fat Joe and Remy Ma “Lean Back,” Snoop Dogg f/ Pharrell “Drop It Like It's Hot,” Crime Mob “Knuck If You Buck”
I dare anyone to find a couplet more 2004, more Texas, than this from Slim Thug’s lead verse on “Still Tippin’”: “Oh, Gucci shades up on my braids when I Escalade/When I'm riding Sprewells sliding like a escapade.” It’s not just hip-hop materialism, but hip-hop materialism of a distinct sort—as Houston as Thugga’s gold grillz and tipped fitted or the “four fours, wrapped in four Vogues” from the hypnotic hook.
“Still Tippin’” actually originally dated back to 2002, when it featured Chamillionaire, but after the former had a falling out with Mike Jones, a recut version with a then-unknown Paul Wall hit in 2004, put Swishahouse on the map and ended up being everyone’s ringtone for at least a couple of weeks. Wall’s verse, which introduced “got the Internet goin’ nuts” to the vernacular (which itself was later sampled to drive a Wall single) ended things perfectly. “Still Tippin’” rolled slow, dragged and dripped, shone like neon trunks, and was (and still is) impossible to listen to just once. Who is Mike Jones? For a while everybody knew the answer to that. —RB
2005: Three 6 Mafia “Stay Fly”
Honorable Mentions: The Game f/ 50 Cent “Hate It or Love It,” Kanye West “Gold Digger,” Young Jeezy “Soul Survivor”
2005 was, in a sense, the end of New York. After Jay Z and 50 Cent had spent years assimilating Down South influence into their music, those influences subsumed their influence and, eventually, displaced them altogether. It took until year 14 of Three 6 Mafia's awesome run—after “Slob on My Knob,” after “Sippin on Some Syrup”—for the princes of Memphis to chalk a national (rather than regional) consensus pick for Banger of the Year. All on the strength of a Hypnotize Camp posse cut and an uptempo swagger that simply outran the rest of the culture. If only 50 Cent hadn't ceded so many excellent beats to Game and Buck, he might could've kept pace for a year or two longer. —JC
2006: T.I. “What You Know”
Honorable Mentions: Rick Ross “Hustlin',” Jim Jones “Ballin',” Rich Boy “Throw Some Ds”
We all know the story of how Pharrell called T.I. the “Jay Z of the South,” and, through a steady barrage of hit records and savvy business moves, for a while it seemed as if the the designation would prove true. But in 2006, a better comparison would have been Will Smith of the South; or Fresh Prince of the Trap. That year, Tip managed to notch the no. 1 album, song, and movie in the nation—a feat Hov’s never been able to match. The success of T.I.’s fourth album, King, was helped along greatly by the momentum of his previous two projects, which included the seminal album Urban Legend.
It was the album’s first single, however, that whipped everyone into a frenzy. Backed by DJ Toomp’s interpolation of Roberta Flack’s “Gone Away,” the regal sound was the perfect superhero music for a guy who seemed unstoppable and larger than life. After dealing with multiple court cases, here was a song so grandiose, but so seeped in the lore of an artist whose previous magnum opus was Trap Muzik—a perfect reminder that even though Tip was swinging for the fences and hoped to go pop, he would, for better or worse, never change. —DS
2007: Kanye West “Can't Tell Me Nothing”
Honorable Mentions: UGK f/ Outkast “International Player's Anthem (I Choose You),” 50 Cent “I Get Money,” DJ Khaled “We Takin Over”
The lead single of Kanye's third album, Graduation, is arguably his greatest song to date, with pop cultural penetration so deep that the song became the promo anthem of omnipresent bro-comedy blockbuster The Hangover two years later. As for 2007, you'll recall that this was the year when Kanye, the college dropout, thrashed 50 Cent, the gangsta troll, once and for all by album sales metrics that 50 Cent had convinced everyone were worth obsessing over to begin with. “Can't Tell Me Nothing” was but the strongest of Graduation's five singles, which all dominated radio and the last gasps of TV music video rotation. In consolation, 50's “I Get Money” was one hell of an epilogue to G-Unit's super-lucrative run. —JC
2008: Lil Wayne “A Milli”
Honorable Mentions: Young Jeezy f/ Kanye West “Put On,” Kid Cudi “Day n Nite,” Shawty Lo “Dey Know”
After several stop-starts, leaks and pushbacks, the first legit single Lil Wayne gave us for the heralded Carter III was…“Lollipop.” Your mileage on that song may vary, but we can all agree it's not the most reassuring first listen from an album set to be Weezy's coronation. Then came “A Milli,” which, along with its predecessor, might be the most quintessential example of a mainstream and street single bundle. I first heard this song in the setting Bangladesh probably envisioned for it when he produced it: blaring from pristine car speakers at window shattering volume.
This beat is hip-hop, and it's the perfect soundscape for Wayne to tell you exactly why motherfuckers are pre-crowning him the Best Rapper Alive. Nearly four minutes of tightly-phrased non-sequiturs and refreshing references (shoutout Orville Redenbacher), which, admittedly, play better on the leaked mixtape version than the re-recorded studio final, but that's besides the point. Mixtape Weezy showed up for an album single and even Gwen Stefani couldn't doubt it. The mainstream ate it up. The song of the summer in 2008 had nary an invasive ear-worming hook or radio calculated play. Royalty level achieved. —Frazier Tharpe
2009: Jay Electronica “Exhibit C”
Honorable Mentions: Drake “Best I Ever Had,” Gucci Mane “Lemonade,” Drake “Forever”
Jay Electronica has become a punchline because his official debut album, Act II: Patents of Nobility, has been delayed so long even ardent Electronica fans have lost hope it’ll ever come out. But it’s important to remember why, even six years later, rap fans would still be quick to click a download link to Act II if it ever crosses their timeline: Jay Electronica made “Exhibit C.” Even if he didn’t have a great career, he made more than a great song that everyone and their mother would soon freestyle over. Much like how Jeremy Lin never became an all star but we all remember Linsanity, “Exhibit C” was a moment when an electric rapper spit with a luminous intensity that couldn’t be ignored.
The song was first played by the song’s producer, Just Blaze, live on Sirius Radio in November 2009 and created such a stir it was eventually released as a single on iTunes. That year was mostly one of rebuilding for hip-hop, defined by a slew of excellent mixtapes from rising artists who would soon become stars (Drake, J. Cole, Nicki Minaj, just to name a few). But none of them ever crafted a lyrical masterpiece quite like this. The song is autobiographical, with Jay recalling how he was once homeless and spiritually lost but eventually discovered the true meaning of his name thanks to the transformative power of hip-hop music. At that moment, the future for Jay Elec and hip-hop in general seemed brighter than ever. But as Just Blaze said in the outro, it was indeed “The last chapter of a new beginning.” —Insanul Ahmed
2010: Rick Ross “B.M.F.”
Honorable Mentions: Waka Flocka Flame “Hard in da Paint,” Kanye West f/ Rick Ross, Jay Z, Nicki Minaj, Bon Iver “Monster,” Lil B “Wonton Soup”
Rick Ross is known, amongst other things, for his keen ear. Over the course of his eight-year career, Ross has always managed to pick beats that perfectly suit his husky track luxe style. But in the summer of 2010, he picked up a life-changing track from a then little known Virginia producer named Lex Luger and created audio gold with the rambunctious single, “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast)” featuring Styles P.
Originally appearing on Rozay’s Albert Anastasia EP, the MMG head quickly recognized the song’s potential to get 2010 popping and pushed it as a single for his Teflon Don album. The song was brash, unapologetic, and contained drug dealer innuendo that made it seem larger than life. Not to mention, an instrumental so dense that it constantly sounds like it’s about to rumble out of the speakers and take on a physical form.
The song promptly became the year’s anthem for stock boys and dope boys alike. Ross has followed up with a number of hits, but “B.M.F.” might still be his single greatest triumph to date. —CVC
2011: Jay Z and Kanye West “N****s in Paris”
Honorable Mentions: Meek Mill f/ Rick Ross “Ima Boss,” DJ Khaled f/ Drake, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne “I'm on One,” Tyler, the Creator “Yonkers”
It’s strange and clueless that so many critics pretend that Jay Z has spent the entirety of his post-Black Album run pissing away the prestige of Reasonable Doubt, Vol. 3, The Blueprint, etc., when “Niggas In Paris “ is his biggest, baddest, and most essential pop record since “I Just Wanna Love U” dropped in 2000. To date, the speedy, toy-sized hydraulics of “Paris” are the crowning loop of producer Hit-Boy’s prolific career. “Paris” was also the keenest prediction of Kanye’s cruelest, demonic extremes, in which he was permanently gone off that Henny and so embolden as to defile the United Kingdom’s royal newlyweds, Prince William and Kate Middleton, with the suggestion of polygamy or, at the very least, a threesome.
In the broader sense, MMG and YMCMB ran luxury car dealership rap(tm) in 2011, for sure, but the improbable brilliance of Watch The Throne and unstoppable resonance of “Paris,” “Otis,” and “Who Gon Stop Me” across all stereos had Drake and Wayne tucking whatever dreams of a similar duets album indefinitely. —JC
2012: G.O.O.D. Music “Mercy”
Honorable Mentions: Chief Keef “I Don't Like,” Rick Ross f/ Drake and French Montana “Stay Schemin',” Kendrick Lamar f/ MC Eiht “m.A.A.d. city”
No one actually thought a guy afflicted with creative-ADD the way Kanye has it would actually keep his word when he declared a forthcoming group album from his G.O.O.D. Music crew. Fam had just delivered on a joint album with freaking Jay Z; who would expect, or even blame him, if he defaulted on this promise to follow that within a year? Then after cruel and unusual teases and blog rumors, “Mercy” dropped. Your mileage may vary as to whether Cruel Summer the album delivered. But the lead single? Hot damn. The Big Sean, Please-Respect-Me press tour basically started here. 2 Chainz made his grand introduction to popular culture (both overshadowing an atypically tight but less showy Pusha T verse). And that beat—goodness gracious, Kanye, via the regrettably since M.I.A. Lifted, proved he could keep up with the sound of the times and then eclipse it. The hook references Lamborghinis, but the sounds—advanced trap, as it were—suggest G.O.O.D. is on interstellar travel. All throughout the specter of Yeezus looms, ad-libbing here and there before ramping the music up to Final Boss level then serving the Artist Formerly Known As Tity Boi one hell of an alley-oop. You can front like swerving didn't dictate summer 2012, but you'd just be lying. —Frazier Tharpe
2013: Kanye West “New Slaves”
Honorable Mentions: Drake “Started From the Bottom,” Trinidad Jame$ “All Gold Everything,” A$AP Ferg “Shabba”
Three straight years in which a Kanye single ran the table, in stiff competition with Drake and Nicki. Where MBDTF had previously posited Kanye at a maximalist extreme, “New Slaves” and most of Yeezus presented Kanye West as a genius stripped down to a potent, rotted core. “New Slaves” is Kanye's definitive “political record,” a confident and conclusive outburst from the guy who made “All Falls Down” nine years earlier. More importantly, Kanye recharged hip-hop's knack for provocation and social critique, debuting “New Slaves” on the stubbornly white, middle class institution that is Saturday Night Live, of all venues. Kanye remixed Chief Keef's “I Don't Like” in 2012 and then thrived by that song's titular premise through 2013, and to this day. —JC
2014: Drake “0-100”
Honorable Mentions: Rich Gang “Lifestyle,” Bobby Shmurda “Hot Nigga,” T.I. f/ Young Thug “About the Money”
Admittedly, 2014 was a lean year for major label rap, especially in terms of album releases. While rookie rappers seized the year, for the most part, with breakout singles and viral hits, Drake ran the table just on the strength of the OVO SoundCloud—home to the year's biggest rap single, “0-100.” At the end of last year, we wrote that “0-100” was the moment when Drake's overdrive started to seem like cruise control, and yes, that's a compliment; like “Started From the Bottom” before it, “0-100” is careful origin-storytelling that's so cool and self-sure that it sounds effortless. In 2014, there were more interesting stories and overall projects—the rise and fall of GS9, the rise and fall of Rich Gang, the sustained ecstasy of Migos, and the return of Run the Jewels — but “0-100” shot straight to the gist of what it means for a record of any genre to be the year's definitive hit: unmatched energy, quotability, and a certain irresistible quality that means even the song's biggest haters know all the words. See also: “Fancy.” —JC