Paradise Don’t Come Cheap cover

Paradise Don’t Come Cheap

Released

One of the heaviest hip-hop albums ever made, the second and final statement from this New York duo (and producer Scotty Hard) sounds like Westbound-era Funkadelic laid over slow-and-low beats hard enough to crack the sidewalk. Rappers Nosaj and Sebastian are hoarse and out of breath, shouting their lines in an old-school style like Run-DMC crossed with thick-necked hardcore punk. Samples sound warped, like they’re being played underwater or like the tape is coming unspooled as you listen, which gives many of the tracks a woozy, head-spinning quality that suits the lyrics’ imagery of alienation, disorientation, and doom (“Gonna ride a charger into Armageddon/When I get there, Satan gonna be there waitin’”).

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Ultraviolet cover

Ultraviolet

Kid Sister
Run-D.M.C. cover

Run-D.M.C.

Run–D.M.C.
Aethiopes cover

Aethiopes

billy woods
Follow the Leader cover

Follow the Leader

Eric B. & Rakim
The Craft cover

The Craft

Blackalicious
The Hybrid cover

The Hybrid

Danny Brown
Rhino XXL cover

Rhino XXL

Infinity Knives, Brian Ennals
Jazz Codes cover

Jazz Codes

Moor Mother