9. Juve The GreatJuvenile

The Cash Money crew snapped me out of my “backpack” phase – because I was young and stupid, I was very much against popular rap music, and when [New Orleans hip hop label] Cash Money started coming out with all this stuff, I was like, ‘Nah, that’s not real hip hop’. As a hip hop fan, back then your identity was so connected to the kind of hip hop you listened to. Your social norms were created by it. But I was on the track team, and on the bus to meets, it was all Cash Money that was being played. And I couldn’t really hate on it: the music was good, it was exciting, it made you want to dance. And they could rap – that was the other part of it. These were good lyricists, and Juvenile was the least flashy of them, and the best writer, until Lil Wayne. I love the intro, Juvie rapping over jazzy Rhodes keyboard, and then ‘In My Life’ comes on and it’s full-on Manny Fresh boom-bap stuff. Manny Fresh is probably the greatest hip hop producer of all time. I don’t know another guy that made that many full albums for artists, and they’re all so musically diverse. He totally created a scene. This is a more mature Juvie album. The first couple Juvie albums… sometimes I don’t wanna deal with quite that much murder rap. This one’s got some good strip-club anthems and some uplifting, positive music on there.