1st Infantry

Short of a home-assembled playlist, this is the closest you’ll get to a pure distillation of Alc’s place in mainstream hip-hop through the first half of the ’00s. While Dilated Peoples have their own place of honor (“For the Record,” which makes hostile gospel from a pre-McVie Christine Perfect) and Devin the Dude’s song-rap is a welcome bongrip of ’70s other-man loverman scandal (“Where Can We Go”), Alchemist’s first headliner showcase is real top-tier goon hours. Super-crisp drums and twitchy soul micro-chops on cuts like Prodigy/The Game feature “Dead Bodies” and the giallo 808 frostbite of Mobb Deep showcase “It’s a Craze” display an already impressive range gleaned from his ’99 breakthrough through the ensuing five years.