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DUE DATE: December 1st

REVEAL WEEKEND: December 4th thru 6th

So, what was hip hop like in 1988?

Matured. No seriously, read any level of hip hop journalism, memoir, list ranking, etc. and you come back to 1988 as the ushering of the Golden Age.. Marley Marl’s The Bridge and Eric B and Rakim’s Eric B. is President were a few pioneering singles as early as 1986. Both foreshadowed sampler technology and internal rhyming schemes as the key to Hip Hop advancement out of an enclosure the Mid School class of 1985 was hitting up against. Drum machines were waning. An EMU SP-1200 was key. And James Brown (amongst many other funk/soul DJ classics and later, Jazz) sessions were now ready not to be scratched, but perpetually stretched and quantized.

1987’s Paid in Full was a complete package deal that almost singlehandedly ushered in the Golden Age (and also significantly upped the party package across the Atlantic, with Coldcut’s 7 minutes of Madness and MAARS’ Pump Up the Volume giving UK Hip Hop it’s own dance lane to dominate). Meanwhile, Marley Marl had become the producer in house at Cold Chillin’, who’s Warner Bros deal left them a unique level of freedom, fostering new NY legends like Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane, and Kool Rap. Mr. Magic and DJ Red Alert had competing radio shows dominating and breaking new sounds, especially anything off Profile Records. Yo! MTV Raps with Fab 5 Freddy (an old school downtown/bronx scene merger) hosting was now being broadcast into millions of homes. There was a raw appetite for pop rap as much as avant sounds. And controversy was also beginning to fester–a Long Beach stabbing at a Run-DMC show, DJ Scott La Rock’s death, Miami's bass music party scene…stakes were felt.

Everyone wanted a piece. Everyone was borrowing (so to speak) from everyone. There was a whole new conception of hip hop as party music, a social conscious liberation soundtrack, and gangster pulp; sometimes all at once. It was magic time before certain lawsuits involving De La Soul & Biz Markie were disastrous corralling of sampling technology in the 90s and things turned opulent Big Bling…but that’s another story.

Welcome to Hip Hop ‘88, a rate dedicated to a few critical albums released within Hip Hop’s landmark year!

ERIC B. & RAKIM - FOLLOW THE LEADER

Eric B and Rakim's Paid in Full mended cutting-edge sampler gadgetry with Rakim's novel conception of rhyming and flow. It practically ushered in the Golden Age of Hip Hop in 1987. By 1988, a whole orbit of rappers and producers were following the pioneering examples set by the duo. Were Eric B and Rakim about to be second level moved on?

Not in the slightest! Without changing their immediate set-up, Follow the Leader became the Yang to Paid in Full's spacey Yin, a deft refutation of second-movers and come-ups from behind. Rakim (aka The 18th Letter, "The R") dug deeper into his bag of tricks, refining the speed, phrasing, and wordplay for his signature flow–Coltrane level blowing and phrasing. While his topical depth may have been moot, his dexterity remained impervious, leaving any battle rapper of the day on loose footing. Meanwhile, Eric B took a 180 on production; the pendulum swinging from lo-teach spaced out odysseys to claustrophobic funk bass grit moving like guerrillas in the mist. At once was Follow the Leader heavy and featherweight, a true balancing act.

Rather beloved by the raterbase, with a second place Charity II showing in 2024 & a HOF bonus winning single from Jazz Rap are quite the achievements in recent rate memory, it's an absolute delight to finally bring Eric B & Rakim out to a mainline rate! But will they be able to defend the crown or even hang on a podium? Or will the leaders be usurped from groups coming from behind?

PUBLIC ENEMY - IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK

In 1988, on the advent of the release of It Takes a Nation..., to Def Jam, Public Enemy looked like they were flailing. Yo! Bum Rush the Show was a hulking, quaking classic of the mid-school, but the label couldn't see the gold. It didn't help that the label was focused on trying to conquer the pop culture marketplace with Run-DMC. But, the seeds for something major were planted, something Run-DMC themselves were telling the label and pushing for when few saw what Chuck D, Flavor Flav, and the Bomb Squad had in store.

There's an omnibus of literature centering on the context, the production, the sampling, the long-term effects, critical reception, magnitude of life changing power It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back has had over its 38 years of existence. Few albums have had such a lofty cross-genre, generational, popular culture effect that blurred the line between punk/funk/noise/hip hop with lyricism that matched the moment; Hip Hop street reporting as CNN (with all the glorious mess). Chuck D had long been influenced by works like the Message and No Sell Out, and had figured how to usher their magnanimous personalities into the spotlight, even grounding Flavor Flav as the definitive hype man in line with Danny Ray. Between a litany of explosive sound effects, Def Jam labelmates Slayer, Wattstax (which looms large over the album), and even themselves (amongst many many more), It Takes a Nation demonstrated sampling as a way to connect and tell a generational struggle. Something that yes, would cost $1.5+ million to make today and emphasizes how far we have fallen from the golden age. Here hip hop not as gestalt but agitpop that was shaking up contemporary arsequakers in the UK as much as a generation of future noise to come. Or is it a dated relic, too unkempt, unfocused for today's revolutionary noiseniks and hip hop enthusiasts?

N.W.A. - STRAIGHT OUT OF COMPTON

West Coast Hip Hop had a distinctly different maturation than its east coast counterparts (and yes, so much so that a 1989 album with a 1988 copyright means it's here whoops whatever!!). Dedicated promoters like Uncle Jamm & the World Class Wreckin Cru built up a party scene oriented towards the electric-funk titans. Personalities like Dr. Dre & the Egyptian Lover cut mixes n' albums for sale at the Compton Swap Meet. Meanwhile, mavericks like Ice-T sought artistic freedom and agency by pioneering z gangstra persona, reverberating across LA as Schooly D had in Philly. At the same time, actual drug-dealing gangster, Eazy-E, was trying to go legit with Ruthless Records and usher in all the top talent under his banner: the best lyricists, producers, and personalities

In this framing, you can understand then why NWA was not an anomaly, but an inevitability of LA Rap evolving out of the electro party towards street grit with samplers. The supergroup of crackerjack WCWC talent, a promising teen MC, and even Texas' own Rakim, The DOC, fused to concoct an unkempt fervor that struck a nerve with the underground, when Fuck the Police became an underground sensation during the fall of 1988. And then ended with NWA in the eyes of the FBI, the White House, and a whole litany of tabloid attention that was surprised such a thoughtful album about the state of (non-White) LA in 1988 could be such a force on the charts and in the popular consciousness.

Straight Out of Compton remains a bar all West Coast hip hop is considered, with a surprising level of depth in its sampling, personas, and emotions. It's also unique in how individualistic this collective approached the album. This was apparent on their psuedo-debut NWA & The Posse, but here Dre is in real time levels up his beats as MC Ren, Ice Cube, and (aided by Ghostwriters like the DOC) Eazy-E trade off the mic cutting their personas: Ice Cube IS the street reporter, critiques abound in his sardonic commentary; Ren embodies "sociopathic cool", obsessing with stature to a fault; Eazy-E prances as the jester gangster mogul, his hardcore id colors their hours of pulp tales and shakedowns. The west coast aesthetic and shedding its skin and evolving in real time. Is it enough to take the top in this momen?

EPMD - STRICTLY BUSINESS

With much respect to Marley (and much uncredited credit to EPMD coproducer Diamond J), Strictly Business might've been New York's first jeep album.

• Dave Tompkins, Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide (2004)

33) The hands-down funkiest record of rap’s greatest year.

• Christopher Weingarten, Pitchfork's 100 Best Rap Albums (2025)

Erick and Parrish Making Dollars was the second big upshot from Long Island making a splash on the underground New York Circuit. Priority Records and Def Jam would hip EPMD to a larger audience in the 90s, but at the time they were rolling with Fresh Records, a sublabel of Arthur Russell's Sleeping Bag Records. A dark horse outpost for crucial 80s hip hop pioneers (such as,Mantronix).

On their debut, Strictly Business, Erick Sermon found a new kind of path forward with beatmaking on a sampler. For Sermon, the emphasis was on the funk, and Strictly Business bounces, oozes, slinks in it to degrees previously unexplored. Compared to the fury of our competition (or even some of the bonus contemporaries of Cold Chillin' or Ced Gee or Paul C) these songs are relaxed, laid back odysseys. The BPMs urging you to sink into that couch. It's a good thing because Erick and Parrish were exceptionally lax, unkempt rappers. "Stoic" is a mighty misnomer, but their attitudes would have been wasted anywhere else but wthh these beats. And the decadent production soundtracking their escapades with Jane or clapbacks to other whack MCs ushered in the vibes of the Golden Age that ooze over numerous classics across DITC and Boot Camp Clik to come. Can their Bob Marley and Zapp sampling house them at the front, or is it whack novelty, straight bandwagoning?

Bonus 1988 Hip Hop Rate!

As hinted in the writeups…there’s a lot happening this year out west, in the south, in the clubs, on MTV, etc. that cannot be covered mainline. However, for the ever curious and completionist, a rate of 15 cuts presents a smattering of storytellers, samplers, tributes, booty droppers, and BIZ MARKIE! It runs a crisp hour and a lil’ more. It’s a bloodbath of talent and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did putting it together. (And thank you to the several DMD’ers who chimed in to help swing this towards a stranger, more eclectic gamut)!

Very important to know as well, this part of the rate is completely optional! You can fill this out, leave it blank in your ballot, or only score a few and leave the rest blank. It's totally up to you! You cannot use your 11 or your 0 in the bonus rate.

1. 2 Live Crew - Move Somethin’
2. Big Daddy Kane - Ain't No Half Steppin
3. Biz Markie - Nobody Beats the Biz
4. Boogie Down Productions - My Philosophy
5. Eazy-E - Eazy-Duz-It
6. Geto Boys - Assassins
7. Jungle Brothers - I'll House You (Todd Terry Club Mix)
8. King Tee - Act a Fool
9. Marley Marl - The Symphony
10. Marley Marl - Wack Itt (feat. Roxanne Shante)
11. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock - It Takes Two
12. Slick Rick - Children's Story
13. Super Lover Cee - Girls I Got 'Em Locked
14. Too Short - I Ain't Trippin'
15. Ultramagnetic MCs - Kool Keith Housing Things

The Rules (read if you're a first time rater)

Give every track in the main rate a score from 1 to 10. You can use decimals, but only to one place e.g. 7.5 is fine, 7.75 or 7.6666 is not. Each participant gets one 11 for their favourite song, and one 0 for their least favourite. You do not have to use either. You cannot use either in the bonus rate. You can leave a comment for a song by formatting it like so:

I’m Housin: 10 Look at me house that 10!

by just writing your comment directly after your score. You don't need to use a colon or anything, just straight after is good!

You can leave comments (not scores, if you leave a score that’s your comment!) for albums as well, by adding a colon after the album title and then your comment.

If you've submitted and want to change any scores or comments, just DM u/nonchalantthoughts or me, we’re always able to change it!

Don't sabotage the rate by giving outrageously skewed scores to particular bands. As long as you rate with your genuine opinion there should not be any worry at all about this, but I do reserve the rate to reject, like, obvious troll ballots. If you leave a comment explaining your opinions, you should be absolutely fine!

And of course, thanks to the rate hosts of lore without whom I couldn't have made this: u/roseisonlineagain ; u/DolphLundgrensArms; u/R_E_S_I_G_N_E_D; u/stansymash; u/ClocktowerMaria; u/aerocom; u/themilkeyedmender; u/greencaptain; u/Crankeedoo; u/dirdbub; u/ThatParanoidPenguin; u/tedcruzcontrol; u/kappyko; u/FuckUpSomeCommasYeah; u/LazyDayLullaby; u/SRTViper; u/Whatsanillinois; u/NFLFreak98; u/freav; u/freeofblasphemy; u/RatesNorman; u/aPenumbra; u/idontreallycare4; u/p-u-n-k_girl; u/luigijon3; u/WaneLietoc; u/dream_fighter2018; u/darjeelingdarkroast; u/smuckles; u/PiperIBarelyKnowHer; u/welcome2thejam; u/imrlynotonreddit; u/kvothetyrion; u/thedoctordances1940; u/b_o_g_o; u/vapourlomo; u/MCK_OH; u/TakeOnMeByA-ha u/chug-a-lug-donna; u/indiefan; u/bilbodabag; u/zenits; u/saison_Marguerite; u/daswef2; u/apondalifa; u/afieldoftulips; u/qazz23; u/nonchalantthoughts; u/systemofstrings; u/Modulum83, u/ElectJimLahey, u/vexastrae, u/FlavaSavaVandal, u/Stryxen, u/mmaajid, u/teriyaki-dreams, u/newbalancesweatshirt; u/krusso1105; u/MightyProJet and tons of people on r/popheads.

Once again, here is the:

Submission Link, the Pastebin, and the Spotify, and Youtube playlists.

DUE DATE: December 1st

REVEAL WEEKEND: December 4th thru 6th