Food & Liquor (2006)

This long-awaited debut follows the Chicago rapper's career-making cameo on Kanye West's ''Touch the Sky,'' his sublime skateboarder single ''Kick, Push,'' multiple mixtapes, and leaked tracks. Food and Liquor is a messy, ambitious CD by a deeply thoughtful MC that's studded with brilliant turns — like ''Hurt Me Soul,'' which imagines hip-hop as ''All the world's ills/ Sittin' on chrome 24-inch wheels.'' Lesser excursions with the Neptunes, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, and Jay-Z still show a young man reaching for the sky, and touching it often enough.