Explore the best hip-hop concept albums of 2007 featuring standout releases with unique themes and narratives. Covering everything from personal stories and fictional worlds to cultural commentary and deeper explorations of society, these are the albums that stood out among the year's conceptual releases.
Below the Heavens is the story of Blu’s life to that point, his ruminations on his life and upbringing. He reflects upon being the product of a father who was a hip-hop fan, and a mother and pastor stepfather who forbade him from listening to secular music. Exile elaborates: “It’s kind of based on a whole philosophy Blu had. I remember him talking about the concept of being able to create your own Heaven based on your own ideas. The song is almost like telling the listener, “Why not believe that this is there for you, you know?” Like, “As long as you believe in your own ideas, it becomes reality.” You know, in a sense it’s young philosophy on his spirituality. It’s not like he was reading all of these different spiritual or philosophy books back then, you know?” “It wasn’t tainted at all, which I think is special and holds a lot of beauty to it. It was just very raw and transparent. Like who cares if the philosophy or concept of the album was inaccurate to anyone else. It just is what it is, and I think it’s golden stuff.”
The Undisputed Truth is a concept album loosely based around Ali’s divorce, his struggle to gain custody of his son, and how he overcame the odds to live a comfortable life that he can share with his family
Emergency Powers is a more “weed-forward” album by Super Chron Flight Brothers (billy woods and Priviledge), but it’s more than just weed rap. It incorporates samples of anti-marijuana propaganda as well as political speeches and other samples from tv and movies that reinforce the “criminal” aspect of selling, smuggling and trafficking weed. Other topics of focus are gentrification, the drug war, and terrorism.
None Shall Pass is kind of in short about growing up, and growing up being judged by your peers and contemporaries. It is about how when you are young you can get away with so much and dismiss it as “being young,” with Aesop Rock actually using the excuse: “I was young and dumb,” and it’s somewhat credible. With so many changes going on around me it seemed like I was more responsible for my actions than ever before. If I do something dumb, I can’t pawn it off on being young. I feel like at around 30 you can’t even pretend you’re a kid anymore; people look at you and pass judgment. It’s not even an unhealthy thing, it’s just natural. I do it. I look at my friends that are around my age and I have an opinion, I judge “them based on how they act.” With the music I tried to capture the feelings of a bunch of different time periods in one’s life, and tie it all up by saying you can do whatever you want, just know that the ultimate judge in life is your fellow man. This isn’t a religious judging. If you choose to believe in that, that’s fine, and it doesn’t negate what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way your peers view you. What type of person are you in the collective eye of those around you. Are you an asshole? Are you kind? What did it all lead to? Do you treat people with respect? Are you civil to strangers? All these things that I feel fall into what people judge others on, what I judge you on, what I am judged on. Are you being the person that you want to be or that you can be? That kind of stuff. The term “none shall pass” is like nobody will pass this point in their life without being judged. It is unavoidable-everyone gets a label.”
“The story behind the title Bayani is interesting. “Bayan,” as Baha’is know, in Arabic/Farsi translates to “speech” or “utterance,” and the Holy Book from The Bab carries this name as well. In Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, the origin of Geo’s heritage, “Bayan” means “the people” and it carries a certain political connotation to it as well. When woven together as Bayani, the title of our record, it becomes a nod to both of our heritages and translates to “voice of the people.” “The tracks on the album are also a collection of stories told from a grassroots level. I believe that I’ll always be inspired to make music from aesthetic level. The influence that world affairs and politics have on our music relates more to what we do with it; how we engage our listeners with the art we create. We want it to have content that inspires young minds to think critically.” – Blue Scholars
Razah’s Ladder is about climbing the Ladder to Heaven. In the Book of Genesis, Jacob fell asleep in a barren desert one night and dreamed of a ladder on which angels were ascending to and descending from heaven. Hell Razah appropriates the notion for himself and complicates the idea by asking, at the end of the track: “What exactly is this ladder? Who exactly is this ladder?” These questions set the tone.
With Dirty Acres, CinninLynguists shed light on their ancestral roots as Southern rappers, and also dive deeper into the “dirty” aspects like racism that run rampant in the south, racism as well as America’s political climate at the time.
I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead is El-P’s dedication to the city of New York, where, as a Brooklyn resident, he was born and raised. And like much of the music that El-P creates, it’s also about despair, misery, and desperation. It’s the ballad of a city still living with the PTSD that was inflicted upon it after September 11, 2001 All the songs deal with death or dying. One is told from the perspective of a plane crashing, in another song, he personified a prison ship guard who falls in love with an inmate he has to execute. He also touches on concepts that ultimately kill us, whether they be vices or ignorance. “This album is a response to five years of being on the precipice of World War 3; five more years of my city watching the city where I live getting its soul sucked out of it. It’s about fucking trudging through every day with the cloud of war over your head. You try not to think about, but every 10 minutes it pops into your head. You’re trying to trudge along through the world, just trying to live, and you keep clashing up against reality.” – Albumism
From the Corner to the Block is about, well, corners. Just as every corner is an intersection of two paths, the album is a constant meeting of two different styles of music.
Inspired the 2007 film of the same name, American Gangster details a young man looking into the game, looking into the perils and all the corruption and the things that he has to go through. But this is the only thing he knows. He has little faith and little hope because this is what he sees and drug dealing is his only way out. It’s essentially the ultimate hustler album as we see the rise of a kingpin and his eventual downfall.
Kanye’s graduated to bigger things, but was it worth the cost? The production has changed to reflect this theme, turning grandiose and anthemic. Ye knew fame was going to change him, and the album is a tug of war between how fame will inevitably change him and the way he wants it to change him.
Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool serves as an expansion of the character “The Cool” from the song of the same name on his first album. Taken from his debut album Food & Liquor, Lupe Fiasco spins a lyrical tale about a hustler who is shot to death but miraculously comes back to life. The story follows “Michael Young History” and his eventual downfall into street life and death. There are three prominent characters featured on the album, whom Fiasco refers to them as “three evil angels” to Pitchfork. Their story ties in thematically across several tracks. The Cool, formally known as Michael Young History [My-Cool Young History], is a young boy who is raised by the two supernatural entities The Streets (“a female embodiment of an urban area’s corrupt allure”) and The Game (“a male personification of a hustler’s damaging influences”). Gradually The Cool goes corrupt by the hands of his lover, The Streets, and starts drug dealing. At the very end, he dies.
N***y Tardust: Grippo King, philosopher, and artist. Downright to the marrow, he’s the arrow through the heartless. In the end, N***y Tardust realizes that his only enemy is himself and that he has to overcome the boundaries set before him in order to become liberated. Williams created the character as a direct, provocative nod to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, to dismantle the historical weight of “the N-word”. He envisioned re-contextualizing the slur into a symbol of pride and liberation, akin to “making origami out of a Klan poster.”
Shad’s sophomore release is a concept album whose title, The Old Prince, is a bit of an oxymoron. Princes aren’t meant to be old because they are supposed to become kings before they become old (looking at you, Prince Charles). Applied universally, the idea behind the album is that we all want to do great things and as times passes we become impatient and begin to wonder whether our time has passed. This is also a metaphor for achieving one’s full potential, and is referenced throughout the album. “We spend our lives searching like scavengers, finding a way Understanding that light is a sign of the day So we squint in the darkness in search of a glow And falter in trying, in trials we grow”
Travel at Your Own Pace is a concept album by Y Society (Insight & Damu The Fudgemunk). The album title served as a roadmap to completion of it’s 13 songs and in return, the finished product serves as a navigation aid to the listener maneuvering through life within themselves and absorbing the outside world. From adventures of fiscal responsibility and imaginative tales of time travel to deconstructing one’s obstructions and beyond, Insight’s rhymes confidently steer the listener on whatever path they have chosen for themselves. The goal of the album is to empower. From start to finish, the array of uplifting lyrics is somewhat like modern day proverbs, but not proverbial.
On The Return of the Magnificent, DJ Jazzy Jeff is going on a road trip with only the radio in his car, and this is what he hears. There are a few short skits that chronicle this “I got this rental car, and all it got is the radio, so you know I’ma hate that.” However, he’s surprised to hear some songs that are actually GOOD, which are the songs that appear on this album, and give him hope for the future of hip-hop.
In Esoteric vs. Japan: Pterodactyl Takes Tokyo! Esoteric is trapped in Japan during a nuclear explosion. Esoteric is a Pterodactyl who loses his beloved pet dog and therefore decides to destroy Japan. Esoteric emerges from the waters of Tokyo Bay, bringing chaos, crisis, and hysteria with him. Armed only with the sounds of 70’s and 80’s Japanese classics, Esoteric must strike against the uncompromising forces that aim to dismember him. 7L produces the entirety of the album and incorporates samples from Godzilla movies and other classic films.
Strange Passengers spins a tale of a love gone wrong, in the vein of Slick Rick; cheers you up with sly humor a la Ludacris; and rocks a raucous stage show to wrap the night like he was Blastmaster KRS-ONE himself. Then, along with the rest of us, Horton the Irrelevant & August the Creep will wake up hung-over the next day, exhausted from the experience. Such is the versatility of Horton & August, committed to making quality and unique music, and treating performances like an essential element to the composition of a complete artist that so many musicians in contemporary culture neglect.
Gran’dad’s Nerve Tonic is a concept album that is an ode to a drink that Baje One and DJ Snafu felt they needed but “couldn’t find anywhere on the shelves”: so they concocted their own: Gran’dad’s Nerve Tonic. Featuring a brew strange enough that even Cream could appreciate, the Brooklyn duo dishes out a wittily intoxicating concept album. Maintaining their unique mélange of dusty, lo-fi production, Junk Science cut and pastes together 14 concept driven tracks that revolve around the tonic mentioned in the title.
Gutterfly: The Original Soundtrack is an album that operates as a soundtrack to a non-existent blaxploitation film that chronicles the adventures of fearless “ghetto superheroes” in Razorblade City. Gutterfly is a journey through the mean streets of Razorblade City, a setting right out of a blaxploitation flick, where funk is king, is highlighted by smart, socially conscious rhymes, and adventurous production steeped in ’70s funk and soul.
The Scenic Route is about how in life, there exist people whose imaginations are so wildly vivid that they often confuse what reality is and what is, in fact, fantasy. This is the story of one of those people, the story of a man who dreams awake.
The Further Adventures of Lord Quas features Madlib’s alter-ego Quasimoto (whose voice is Madlib’s own voice sped-up). Quas is a funny character whose stories result in a very well-executed concept album mostly, but not entirely, about weed.
