What is the best jazz-rap album of all time?

Where hip-hop meets jazz improvisation and live instrumentation — vote for the best album that blends these two iconic American art forms.

1. 1
   A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory

   ATCQ's 1991 landmark that wove jazz bass lines into hip-hop beats, the blueprint for all jazz-rap to follow.
2. 2
   Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly

   Kendrick's 2015 jazz-funk masterpiece featuring live musicians including Thundercat and Kamasi Washington.
3. 3
   Digable Planets – Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space)

   Digable Planets' 1993 debut that embodied cool jazz aesthetics with conscious hip-hop rhymes.
4. 4
   Guru – Jazzmatazz Vol. 1

   Gang Starr's Guru collaborating with live jazz musicians in 1993 to create the definitive jazz-rap fusion statement.
5. 5
   Gang Starr – Step in the Arena

   Gang Starr's 1991 second album that refined DJ Premier's jazz-sampling production into an influential template.
6. 6
   Gang Starr – Daily Operation

   Gang Starr's 1992 album featuring Premier's peak jazz sampling and Guru's composed street wisdom.
7. 7
   Pete Rock & CL Smooth – Mecca and the Soul Brother

   Pete Rock and CL Smooth's 1992 debut that melded soulful jazz samples with smooth introspective rhymes.
8. 8
   De La Soul – Buhloone Mindstate

   De La Soul's 1993 album featuring actual jazz musician appearances and a more mature jazz-inflected sound.
9. 9
   Us3 – Hand on the Torch

   Us3's 1993 debut that sampled directly from Blue Note Records' jazz catalog to create mainstream jazz-rap crossover hits.
10. 10
    The Roots – Things Fall Apart

    The Roots' 1999 live-instrument hip-hop album incorporating jazz improvisation and social commentary.
11. 11
    Mos Def – Black on Both Sides

    Yasiin Bey's 1999 debut featuring jazzy instrumentation and wide-ranging intellectual hip-hop.
12. 12
    Common – One Day It'll All Make Sense

    Common's 1997 album featuring collaborations with Erykah Badu and a jazz-soul approach to hip-hop.
13. 13
    Rapsody – Laila's Wisdom

    Rapsody's 2017 Grammy-nominated album laced with jazz instrumentals and sharp feminist lyrical craft.
14. 14
    Madvillain – Madvillainy

    MF DOOM and Madlib's 2004 abstract masterpiece drawing on jazz, soul, and underground hip-hop.