Gucci Mane, 'Writing on da Wall' (So Icey)
After emerging in 2005 with the novelty hit “Icy” (and then feuding with the song’s cowriter, Young Jeezy), Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane has become one of the South’s most prolific and beloved MCs, known for outrageously boastful rhymes that constantly flip from sublime to surreal to silly.
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Raekwon, 'Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II' (EMI)
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…, Raekwon’s classic 1995 solo debut, was an impressionistic tour through the thrilling highs, the solemn lows, the violent comedy, and the simmering boredom making up the life of a New York City drug dealer. Rae was hungry and at the height of his powers, riding some of the RZA’s hardest-knocking, most progressive production.
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Method Man & Redman, 'Blackout 2' (Def Jam)
Officially reuniting their musical partnership after a decade, Meth Red pick up where they stopped puffing. With few exceptions (the Houston-themed, “City Lights,” featuring Bun B), Blackout 2 sounds ripped from a time capsule buried in 1999.
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Cam'ron, 'Crime Pays' (Asylum)
In 2006, Cameron "Cam'ron" Giles released the artistically underwhelming Killa Season to little commercial notice, then fell out with running buddy Jim Jones, abandoned a beef with 50 Cent, and slid off the hip-hop grid.
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Ron Browz, 'Etherboy' (Universal Motown)
This New York–based producer/singer/rapper, who was responsible for Nas' classic 2001 dis track "Ether," is like a hip-hop/R&B Andrew W.K. Take all the immediate feel- good stuff, forget the rest.
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Jim Jones, 'Pray IV Reign' (Columbia)
Whether spitting some of Lauren Conrad's broken language while airing out an ex-homey in the oddly touching "Frienemies" or extolling the healing properties of women's nether regions on "Medicine," New York hustler Jim Jones is, despite his own best efforts, effortlessly charming.




