Nas: Alex Tehrani/CPi

Nas

To that rarefied club of rappers with double-disc albums (Wu-Tang Clan, 2Pac, the Notorious B.I.G., etc.), add Queens hip-hop legend Nas, whose eighth album is a massive 20 tracks. The set is one of his strongest, featuring the kind of existential hip-hop poetry and cold-blooded gangster vérité that made him rap's rookie of the year back in 1994.