50 Top British Rap Albums

So this is the new project for 2013. I bought this magazine when it came out, I probably checked the list (or the top of the list at least) to assess it's quality.

So 50 British Rap Albums. Britain has always had a bit of an odd relationship with it's rap past - a little bit of British Embarrassment really. Despite producing some world class and really interesting rap records, you'd be forgiven for thinking that, as a nation, we don't have any kind of history or that British Rap music starts with Roots Manuva and ends with The Streets. If I had my rant hat on, I would say that mainstream music media is currently awash with people with largely an indie background and that they generally have a snooty view of British Rap or Rap in general.

But this is Hip Hop Connection - a magazine that despite being fairly cheap in direction, was really well written and this top 50 is a gem - balanced between old and new, 90% of it unknown to me. The top 10 is an eye opener and, ashamedly, I would wager that the majority of people in the UK would be unable to name more than 2 of the records in the top 10. But this is not an attempt to address this wrong, but an attempt to improve my understanding of rap in the country of my birth. Plus, now I'm living in CA, it's going to be a project that is going to cost. With the Krautrock records, I will admit to getting digital copies of some of the records. This time, I will attempt to buy vinyl copies of each of the records here that I don't own.

So let's go. Britrap style.