Gucci Mane - The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted (2010)

 Review: Gucci Mane - The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted (2010, 1017 Brick Squad/Warner Bros./Asylum)

Five days before releasing The Appeal, Gucci Mane teamed up with DJ Holiday for a fifth straight hype mixtape whose title - Buy My Album - voices a request surprisingly reasonable for the bizarre rapper. The man's been working hard since his July release from prison, especially considering The Appeal's stunning contents, which often match his mixtape gems and frequently surpass them - the now-iconic title track doesn't even make the cut in favor of bombastic Jewelery Selection sleeper "Trap Talk." As the recent mixtapes foreshadowed, Gucci's never sounded so good lyrically, casually firing off bombs like "Ferrari with the yellow forgiatos, Gucci tripping / I hit the button in my Scaglietti and get missing" alongside tremendous productions from pricey hit makers the likes of Swizz Beatz and The Neptunes. On the opener alone Gucci hilariously imitates Scarface with enough stuffy freshness to invalidate Jay-Z's American Gangster attempt, towers over Bun B's always-golden guest spot, and effortlessly raps

"I got 60 racks laying on the floor in magic city / Like Samuel L. Jackson, I think it's time for killing / I touched his wife titty and the nigga start tripping / That ain't proper etiquette to see the bitch stripping / AR-15 whipped his ass into pieces / Don't get it twisted, think it's all about the pieces / And all about the bracelets / I'm still fighting cases / 10 thousand for the glasses, diamonds in their faces"

with a potent combination of spine-chilling conviction and his trademark nasal mumble. Perhaps The Appeal's most interesting facet is this total rejection of Gucci's unlikely pop-crossover appeal, despite its equally unlikely guest spots (namely, Wyclef Jean); the album instead leans heavily on Gucci's unique gangster charisma, with come-up crime raps more convincing than any  contemporary's and vivid backing tracks crafted for dirty-money Escalades by traditional collaborators Zaytoven and Drumma Boy. But Georgia's Most Wanted is far from one-sided; at times brilliant, dark, hilarious or frighting (and not unusually all at once), Gucci Mane's long-awaited third (thirtieth?) effort is every bit the masterpiece he promised us.






Bump this: Little Friend, Gucci Time, Haterade

Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle (1993) and Eminem - The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Review: Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle (1993, Death Row/Interscope/Atlantic)

All Doggystyle has to offer is another couple pounds of Chronic - essentially promising to please just about anybody. From the bassy, rumbling intro to the ominous, lurking closer, the album treads the same path its G-Funk blueprint did, with a minute departure from the latter's Parliament influence and a little more sample variety: the 13-track, Dre-engineered classic includes a Slick Rick cover, remodels murder rap, further popularizes Death Row's growing roster and of course lets Snoop Doggy Dogg drool delicious charisma everywhere. Perhaps unfortunately, Snoop never gets lonely over Dre's wonderfully whiny beats, and the producer's raps are entirely replaced with lackluster labelmate guest spots; The Lady of Rage even gets the LP's first verse. It doesn't sound like a debut, and it shouldn't - Doggystyle is a warranted extension of Snoop & Dre's limited rap sheet, turning The Chronic into a double-CD party album and hip-hop into a synthy mess of catchy excellence.

Bump this: Gin and Juice, Ain't No Fun, Doggy Dogg World

Review: Eminem - The Slim Shady LP (1999, Aftermath/Interscope/Web)

Historically Dr. Dre's second Doggystyle, The Slim Shady LP is just as good and at least as important, formally introducing the millennium's most monumental lyricist and continuing 2001 with another set of juicy, bass-boasting sonic prescriptions. By the album's release hip-hop was everywhere from clubs to cars to suburbs, but nobody ever gave white kids a serious shout out - for the first time the genre nods to their disenfranchised in the form of someone they can easily relate to. And he couldn't be more engaging; Eminem's controversial debut sounds as fresh and original a decade later as the rapper see-saws between paranoid loser Marshall Mathers and psychotic sociopath Slim Shady, dropping the most shocking rapped material since '91's Efil4zaggin. Between drowning his wife on the haunting "'97 Bonnie & Clyde," hilariously playing a crazed shoulder devil on the ingenious "Guilty Conscience" and shooting up playgrounds on the lowrider-friendly "I'm Shady," Marshall reminds us of his baby daughter and gives us a peek into his lonely, loveless life - Dre should probably get this guy an actual doctor. With Mel-Man and the Bass brothers helping the beat behemoth engineer his best set of tracks since '93 and Eminem enlisting a whole new generation of hip-hop fans with his irresistible insanity, The Slim Shady LP remains as culturally crucial as endlessly entertaining.

Bump this: My Name Is, '97 Bonnie & Clyde, Just Don't Give a Fuck