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

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

Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly

Kendrick's 2015 jazz-funk masterpiece featuring live musicians including Thundercat and Kamasi Washington.

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

Guru – Jazzmatazz Vol. 1

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

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

Gang Starr – Daily Operation

Gang Starr's 1992 album featuring Premier's peak jazz sampling and Guru's composed street wisdom.

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

De La Soul – Buhloone Mindstate

De La Soul's 1993 album featuring actual jazz musician appearances and a more mature jazz-inflected sound.

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

The Roots – Things Fall Apart

The Roots' 1999 live-instrument hip-hop album incorporating jazz improvisation and social commentary.

11

Mos Def – Black on Both Sides

Yasiin Bey's 1999 debut featuring jazzy instrumentation and wide-ranging intellectual hip-hop.

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

Rapsody – Laila's Wisdom

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

14

Madvillain – Madvillainy

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