Pages tagged “young jeezy”

By now you've probably heard about Kanye West's bizarro listening party this week for his upcoming LP 808s & Heartbreaks . More than 700 guests showed up for the L.A. exhibition curated by artist Vanessa Beecroft, not to mention the 40 nude women in faux-lambswool masks that lined the walls.

VH1 just announced the “100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs Ever!!!” and the list isn’t terrible. It’s actually pretty good. They have Public Enemy's “Fight The Power” in the right place (# 1), they identified the best Notorious B.I.G. song (“Juicy”) and, apart from the egregious inclusion of Coolio (at #38 with the horrendous “Gangsta’s Paradise”), they don’t have a lot of embarrassing inclusions.

But they did forget some amazing tracks.

Here, in 10 words or less, we make the case for the 10 best hip-hop songs VH1 forgot. They may not trump “Fight They Power,” but they’re all better than anything Coolio could ever dream of.

A self-inflicted recession

“It’s the recession / everybody broke” Young Jeezy proclaims on the title track of The Recession, an album about economic hardship that's light on self-righteousness yet ends up as impoverished as the subprime mortgage market.