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
Raising Hell cover

Raising Hell

Run–D.M.C.
Da Lama Ao Caos cover

Da Lama Ao Caos

Chico Science, Nação Zumbi
The W cover

The W

Wu-Tang Clan
The Message cover

The Message

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five
The Craft cover

The Craft

Blackalicious