Unkut regular Professor Elemental emailed me a couple of weeks ago for my pick for the worst rap album of all time for a podcast he was due to appear on…in a couple of weeks…so this may be too little, too late to help him out but it was still a great question which I am yet to confidently answer.
There are so many factors to consider when make a monumental decision such as this…is it better to choose a dumb gimmick record, the worst effort from a no-talent hack or a truly atrocious effort from a once great rapper dude?
For my money, it has to be the latter. Nothing is more painful to watch than a formerly entertaining rapper play themselves as a result of trying to jump on a bandwagon, step way outside of their lane or just contradict everything they’ve ever done thus far. Here are a few examples that immediately spring to mind:
Doug E. Fresh – Bustin’ Out Doin’ What I Gotta Do
The World’s Greatest Entertainer tried to get that Hammer money before he became a practicing Scientologist.
Common – Universal Mind Control
Anyone for some Planet Rock lite? No? Yeah, me neither.
KRS-One – Spiritual Minded
Hearing the man who made ‘The Real Holy Place’ rap about being Born Again was too bitter a pill to swallow. So were the cheese-whiz beats.
Hammer – The Funky Headhunter
Watching Hammer perform his best Treach impersonation while shirtless is something that nobody ever wanted…although he later outdid himself by appearing in a video in nothing but a leopard skin pair of Speedos and copious amounts of Reef Oil made the former seem tasteful by comparison. Yeach!
Young MC – Brainstorm What’s The Flavor?
After charming the music world with his Dust Brothers-powered debut, Young MC followed-up by jocking the East Coast Stomp sound and pouring a bottle of water over himself, sans-shirt. This incident was horrendous enough for Ultramagnetic MC’s to voice their disgust in a Source interview, and who can blame them?
Run-DMC – Crown Royal
There is never any excuse for getting involved with Fred Durst on any level. Hold ya head Premier and Meth.
Cypress Hill – Rise Up
Cypress without Muggs is as bad as it sounds on paper.
LL Cool J – Authentic
The greatest rapper of all-time has also made some really shitty albums.
MC Shan – Play It Again, Shan
Shan without Marley was a really, really bad idea.
Eminem – Encore
Nothing like playing yourself and attacking a rubber hand puppet and then later trying to make up for it by making a whole song where you rap like said hand puppet.
That should be enough to get you started…let the shit-slinging begin!
The Shan record is (as far as i can remember, and judging from the very few tracks available online) not really bad at all. The rest of these are totally on point though.
A fine list – can’t quibble with any of it. Any discussion has to include Bobcat’s Cat Got Ya Tongue in there though.
One caveat on the Shan. It is indeed a shit album, but the remix of ‘Time for us to defend ourselves’ is Extra P ‘It’s a boy remix’ levels of greatness.
Lyrically, Group Home has to be up there for worst album. Craig Mack’s first album was a dud. Afro’s was pretty poor. Bobcat’s album was quite wack. Kane’s fourth album wasn’t great.
Kid Frost and Boo-ya-Tribe’s albums weren’t great either. Greatest Misses by Public Enemy was mostly a dud. The Dre Aftermath album was meh x meh.
onyx triggernomotry was sad.
das efx how we do too.
craig mack operation get down
was straight ass.
big puns yeah baby was original
like its title.
too many to name.
The easy/obvious answer would be: anything by Insane Clown Posse; All Nu Metal; anything released by No Limit records; any child rapper or any celebrity rapper (e.g. Jaden Smith’s 2017 CD)….
The first titles that sprung to mind when I read this:
-Snoop Doggy Dogg “The Doggfather”/”Da game is to be sold, not to be told”
-Ice Cube (everything after “The Predator”)
-All of Guru’s side projects and post Gang Starr releases.
Common “Electric Circus”
-Public Enemy “Revolverlution”/”Rebirth of a nation” (That CD written/produced by Paris)
-Paris “Unleashed”
-Wu Tang Clan “The W”
Method Man “T2: Judgment day”
-Anything by KRS ONE post “The Sneak Attack”
-The Rza “Bobby digital in stereo”
-Pretty much any rap concert album.
Those are some of the worst rap albums I own/have heard. There’s loadsa utterly generic and instantly forgettable rap but I’ve forgotten about most of them. There’s also countless CDR/soundcloud albums that are unlistenable on both an artistic/skills and technical/production level.
Kool Keith has put out some of the best and worst albums in hip hop history.
i didn’t liked the MC Shan Album when it came out back in the days but when i listen to it today it’s way better then i had in mind. def not one of the worst Albums ever.
I agree that Kool Keith later Stuff includes some of the worst albums in hip hop lol.
still not a good Album by MC Shan lol
i guess it’s ok just to look for the “time for us to defend ourselves” Maxi
The worst rap album I’ve ever heard is Poet T Posse: “I’m A Thrett”! As far as just butt ass beats n rhymes.
Only ever returned two lps in my life –
Rza – bobby digital
Method man – T2 judgement day
Rae’s – immobilarity, ultra – big time, and all the common lps mentioned particularly – electric circus were instantly forgettable and played only once
Here’s what the good Professor went with for his selection: https://soundcloud.com/user-132731264/ep-55-professor-elemental-worlds-worst-hip-hop-album
What about The M-Pire Shrikez Back by OGC?
Immobilarity is pretty bad as well, as was Scouts Honor…By Way Of Blood by Rampage.
Young Black Teenagers 1st album was extremely terrible. Same with Snoop’s Doggfather. Play It Again Shan wasn’t 100% unlistenable but the stakes were higher since his previous LP is a slept on masterpiece
Lol @ the “anything released by No Limit records” try actually listening to Mystikal, Fiend, Mac etc you’ll find some gold
Canibus & Bronze Nazareth “Time flies, life dies, phoenix rise.”
The sophomore effort from Divine Styler is EASILY the worst album ever, period
^ ‘Spiral Walls Containing Autumns Of Light’… it needs to be heard to be believed!
‘Loud Rocks’ compilation turning great songs into I don’t know what.
Plus majority of concept albums once and done I can’t feel like going back to listen to one song without having to listen to the whole album.
I forgot to mention that as far as albums which I most regret buying go, Arabian Prince’s ‘Brother Arab’ and the Blackstarr LP, both of which I was able to offload onto some other suckers.
2nd place goes to ‘Heavy’ by Swollen Members. It was Executive Produced by Britney Spears!
Funcrusher Plus? ;)
To be honest, I wish I’d checked with you lot before I went ahead- I got so many suggestions off mates in Facebook that I was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of terrible shite and tried to cover too much ground. I picked an album from each era and yes, they were shit, but I think I should have stuck to the rap I actually knew about. (Im not really qualified to discuss lil yachty on account of being an old man.)
My choices were:
– Vanilla Ice- the extreme
– Young MC – return of the one hit wonder (1 mic in the source and thoroughly deserved)
– Nas -nastradamus
-soldja boy- crank that
– Lil Yacthy- cant remember what it was called but fuck me it was painful
Overall winner was Vanilla Ice – for heralding the gentrification of mainstream hip hop, making it harder for white boys to rap and for having an interesting enough back story to epitomise the worst of the record industry.
Still though, next I’ll come to unkut first and get the lowdown.
Link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-132731264/ep-55-professor-elemental-worlds-worst-hip-hop-album
Eric Bs solo LP was one of the biggest piles of shite to hit the record store, also Had the misfortune to pick up the Boy White – Do we connect LP..a pound wasted.
@3BM Does Divine Styler’s “Spiral walls smell my cheese” (or whatever it’s called) even qualify as a rap album? I’ve got the CD and have never made it to the end of all that afrofuturist/performance-art noise.
@Dino Fair question, re:style. But it is Divine Styler, who’s ’89 sleeper classic with Bilal Bashir, being expertly crafted hip-hop and all… Those beats. That voice, with the vocab.
Got to include that Ultra comeback album. Critical Beatdown, for me, remains the single greatest rap LP ever produced so it pains even more that the Best Kept Secret was fucking absymal in every respect, not one redeeming feature :(
Ed Lover & Doctor Dre — Back up off Me!
Wyclef — The Ecleftic: 2 Sides II of a Book
i got a disco rick and the doggs cassette that is straight shite…that K9 possee tape was pretty shitty too and my heroes whodini had a wack ass comeback album
Ultra -Big Time is dope!
@hotbox, I’d rather listen to Ghetto D than anything on, let’s say, Anticon ;)
GOAT wackest album, and wackest crew ever =Velore and Double O
Bobby Digital in Stereo? Word? Smh
Spiritual Minded= WORST BEATS EVER!!!! Krs went from dissing christianity to become a full fledge bible thumper. HORRIBLE ALBUM!
“-Pretty much any rap concert album.”
@Dino
I remember BDP – “Live Hardcore Worldwide” being pretty ill, and (although not technically a concert) Jay-Z = “Unplugged” being acceptable.
@Robbie – Young MC’s “Whats the Flava” that you link and refer too was not on the Brainstorm album?
Also, personally I like the joint, so did Afrika Islam as he featured it in his Zulu Beats mix on the Westwood show (one of my all time favourite tapes)
All y’all tripping, by far the worst album in the history of rap was “The College Boyz”…I dare anybody to top that shit!!!
Are you getting Young MC’s Brainstorm confused with his album What’s The Flavor? I mean, both are probably booty, but Flavor was the one where he got a few beats from Ali Shaheed and tried to grasp at some cred.
@drewhuge – That Shan remix was a very early production credit for PF Cuttin if I remember correctly.
Also, I’m probably the only one who likes Craig Mack’s Project: Funk Da World. It’s so weird and strange, but has some dusted, pounding beats. If you want real worst album of all-time, his follow-up, Operation: Get Down, is straight R&B garbage on a level that makes Kane’s Prince Of Darkness look like Cuban Linx.
@Jem – Yeah, that Eric B. solo album has to be heard to be believed, especially those last few remaining people who still swear he produced those Eric B. & Rakim albums.
Here’s a few:
Redhead Kingpin-Album w/ No Name; Common-Electric Circus; Big Daddy Kane-Prince of Darkness;
Kid n Play-Face the Nation
@Paul H: You’re right, just fixed that.
@Paul H, good words to a few points, co-sign
The Pharcyde’s “Plain Rap” and Aceyalone/RJD2’s “Magnificent City” are two awfully uninspired and unremarkable albums. They’re the sort of CDs that make one wonder “Why did they bother?”
RE: Redhead Kingpin -The album w/no name
-cant speak on the whole lp, however…..dont sleep on “the song with no name” DOPE!
Eric B’s solo 1995 album. Also the most amazingly rubbish cover art in Rap[ history… Also the crappiest album to ever feature the great honorable Freddie Foxxx.
Ice T VI. Turrible. Just turrible.
@Big Purp, I either can’t remember or didn’t even make it to that verse. I’m assuming he was rhyming and not ghost Director of Cover Art?
The last Das Efx album was particularly bad. Came out in 2003, they were toast at that point.
MOP Presents the Marxmen was another horrible effort. Made me write them off for good.
That’s because that “Time For Us to Defend Ourselves” is P.F.Cuttin (Blahzay-Blahzay, 5 Deadly Venoms of Brooklyn, Sean P’s producer) first production credit.
I’m A hip-hop Junkie but those two We Papa girls albums almost made me turn to country music
Migos – Culture II
Doggfather stinks big time!!
Yaggfu Front another bomb!!
Immobilarity, Flatlinerz?
How anybody can’t see Drake as wack is unbelievable!!!! Total gash!!
K-9 Posse!!!!! :) :)
La’Quan’s Now is the B Turn! Worse album I’ve ever purchased. I still feel like an idiot for that one.
@big braveheart – I like that Yaggfu Front album. Some of it may sound gimmicky, but the beats are on-point and the MC’s are all solid. Can’t front on “Left Field,” “Busted Loop,” or “Slappin’ Suckas Silly.”
@DRL Rockwell – What compelled you to pick it up?
I love Big Time
Album With No Name is dope.