Blackout!

Meth was always formidable carrying entire tracks by himself, but something about the Shaolin/Brick City merger between Johnny Blaze and the decade-long reigning king of Jersey-based blunt-hoovering bravado just clicked. Ergo the kind of hip-hop superduo that bridges Cheech & Chong and Run the Jewels: the rapport’s immortal, two roughruggedandraw maniacs with V12s in their chests booming out the kind of rhymes that give verses the same charge as most rappers’ hooks. In the process, they make cannabis sound like a stimulant, and the heavy presence of Erick Sermon on the boards made choosing between this and EPMD’s excellent Out of Business a tricky proposal for cash-strapped ’99 record shoppers.