Top 10 #GreatestHipHopSongs Of All Time

Top 10 #GreatestHipHopSongs Of All Time

October 9, 2019 | By Yaw Amoako Updates24gh

Hip-hop is a dominant cultural force, driving conversations about music, literature, and entertainment forward.

In no doubt, Hip-hop is pop culture now. The genre’s dominance of radio waves, streaming numbers, and billboard charts is undeniable, not to mention its influence on everything from avant-garde electronica to the DNA of mainstream pop music from artists.

The results are dominated by the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of hip-hop between the mid-80s and mid-90s

Heres our list of top 10 Hip-hop songs of all time.

Dear Mama, 2Pac

“You are appreciated…” Tupac Shakur’s Dear Mama is as much a homage to his own mother as it is to issues still plaguing the black community today. The song is nuanced and complex in contrast to its sampled Sadie by The Spinners, a bluesy ode to an angelic depiction of the artist’s mother. Touching on poverty, addiction, single motherhood and the effects of incarceration on a family, Dear Mama’s most famous line – “even as a crack fiend mama, you always was a black queen mama” – is a sobering reminder of love’s ability to rise above life’s hardships, no matter how great. Allyson Toy, Critic...

N.Y. State of Mind, Nas

New York City public housing represented progression when it was introduced in 1936; it eventually symbolised the urban chaos and ruin gripping the city by the century’s end. It was bedlam, but it was home to young boys like Nasir Jones, who could see the broken crack vials and murder from his window. This struggle is in his DNA, yet he starts off N.Y. State of Mind muttering that he doesn’t know how to start what would be the opening song of his opus, Illmatic. In a flash of genius, Nas begins on a cue, sprinting through gunfire, crime film fantasies, and braggadocio – each scene as vivid as the next. It’s a dense, almost overflowing performance, but its most iconic line – “I never sleep, ’cause sleep is the cousin of death” – is one of the most concise and complete take-ups on New Yorker survivalism ever recorded. Brian Josephs, critic...

Passin’ Me By, The Pharcyde

At a time when the hardcore sounds of Death Row Records dominated LA’s rap scene, The Pharcyde released a song about still being haunted by their failed childhood crushes. A melancholic head-nodder, Passin’ Me By stirs with animated flows from the group’s four pun-conscious lyricists atop a mellowed-out beat that samples Quincy Jones’ Summer In The City. The playful vividness The Pharcyde grants to ordinarily mundane details of unrequited love holds its weight against the spectacle of the period’s gangsta rap – offering another expression of valid black manhood in hip-hop culture.

The song’s climax comes at its fourth and final verse, which group member, Fatlip, decorates with now-iconic quotable like “there she goes again the dopest Ethiopian” and “my dear, my dear, my dear, you do not know me but I know you very well”. Yet it’s the visceral utterance of his final “Damn!” – his response to the returned delivery of a letter to his love interest – that captures the all-too-familiar sense of longing at the song’s core. Damola Durosomo, OkayAfrica...

93 ’Til Infinity, Souls of Mischief

“Sometimes it gets a little hectic out there,” Tajai, of “the mighty Souls Of Mischief crew,” announced in the opening seconds of the song. “Out there” was Oakland, Calfornia. And, yes, Oakland in 1993 was very hectic – the previous year being the most violent in the city’s history. It’s with this backdrop that Souls Of Mischief – consisting of Opio, A-Plus, Tajai, and Phesto – crafted one of rap music’s greatest songs centred around escapism. A warm jam about chasing skins, smoking blunts and just chilling. Even after all these years, the best thing about the song is how communal and unworried all the elements are: from the unpredictable nature of the verses to the serene video, in which the crew took a day trip to Yosemite National Park – truly hip-hop first and last. Dimas Sanfiorenzo, OkayPlayer...

C.R.E.A.M., Wu-Tang Clan

What I personally love about C.R.E.A.M is not its instantly recognisable hook, but its undeniably ‘New Yawk’ boom-bap beat. That particular production style was a staple of ’90s hip-hop, and when paired with the track’s delicate piano, it creates a union unlike any other. Thanks to this combination of soft and spicy sonic elements and storytelling from the Wu's perspective, C.R.E.A.M. is a song that's thought-provoking, bone-chilling, and 100% real – and what’s hip-hop without a little authenticity by way of the city that started it all? The song's credo is still strikingly relevant nearly three decades later. J’na Jefferson, Writer...

Nuthin' But A ‘G’ Thang, Dr Dre

Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang was Dylan going electric with a snake-charmer synthesiser, a Leon Haywood sample, and a ’64 Impala. It was Dorothy storming into Oz, the black-and-white blandness becoming blindingly technicolour; Toto transformed into a vicious dog with a melodic bark. There was only before and after the lead single from 1992's The Chronic. This was the anthem that established a platonic ideal for West Coast gangsta rap. If NWA kicked down the front door, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg snuck into the living room and threw a house party that lasted until 6am. The G-Funk era starts here, with a soundtrack as a funky as a batch of collard greens. Classics would follow, but this was where perfection was first perfected. Jeff Weiss, Passion of the Weiss...

The Message, Grandmaster Flash

A Year Zero for hip-hop, heralding a seismic change in music that continues to be felt to this day. The Message showed there was much more to rap than good-time block party vibes and impressive turntable skills. Its downbeat sound and pessimistic mood were not popular at the time, even with the band by some accounts. But its scathing depiction of inner-city despair and the struggle within – punctuated with a cri-de-coeur of a chorus – showed how hip-hop could be used as a powerful instrument for social commentary, and it elevated the MC to a starring role in its cause. Simon Frantz, BBC Music...

Shook Ones (Part II), Mobb Deep

Despite posthumous reverence for Prodigy, Mobb Deep's importance often gets lost in conversations about hip-hop greatness. But Shook Ones (Part II), from their 1995 classic album The Infamous, can never be taken from them. Over an iconic sample that sounded like it could have been in The Exorcist, P and Havoc, both at the end of their teenage years, dropped rhymes that were just as menacing. “Ain’t no such thing as halfway crooks” – so whether it's stabbing your brain with your nose bone or letting off gunshots that made you levitate, Mobb Deep’s grim, graphic violence illustrated survival tactics in their home of Queensbridge, NY. The song was featured in Eminem’s film 8 Mile, and has been sampled or quoted by dozens of rappers in the years since. William E. Ketchum III, Vibe...

Fight the Power, Public Enemy

It’s the song that encapsulated the crux of a culture. Black America was in motion and a rap group helped define that transitive period between America’s Civil Rights movement and hip-hop’s massive takeover. Before rap music and hip-hop culture became the lingua franca of oppressed and marginalised groups across the globe, Public Enemy spoke for the streets of New York and amplified the voices of a silenced people nationwide. It was protest music for a new era, confronting the constraints of a gilded era on the cusp of progress, but in the throes of conflict. Attached to the pivotal Spike Lee film, Do The Right Thing, the song earned the group a Grammy nomination and went on to make the Recording Industry Association of America’s Songs of the Century list. But Fight the Power didn’t transcend rap; it integrated the genre into the fabric of America’s cultural canon. The summer of 1989 never saw it coming, and the nation’s never been the same since. Ivie Ani, critic...

Juicy, Notorious B.I.G.

“It was all a dream...” The Notorious B.I.G. announced his arrival with Juicy and gave hip-hop its eternal anthem. Over a delicious sample of Mtume’s Juicy Fruit, the track is a portrait of a young, black man caught in the everyday struggle. With vivid imagery and vulnerability, he exudes braggadocio and heart. “Born sinner, the opposite of a winner/Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner?” But Juicy has a happy ending. “Damn right, I like the life I live/’Cause I went from negative to positive/And it's all...good.” That infinite optimism – going from broke to be paid, nobody to legend – still propels rap and keeps us dreaming. Sowmya Krishnamurthy, Critic...