I’ve always taken pride in contributing to hip-hop as much as I can. With my gear, vernacular, being a success story while keeping hip-hop as a primary facet of that success instead of a sidenote, and to documenting the culture and music that contributed to my life so much.

But these past two weeks, I’ve bought more music than I have in a long time. Between buying clean versions of joints for my radio show and copping a few things just because, I can honestly say that I’ve bought a shitload of tunes recently.

-I repurchased Ghostface Killah’s Fishscale, one of my favorite LPs of the past five years. And I bought it from an independent record store, right after selling them a few CDs that I wasn’t using. Shout out to Flat, Black & Circular.
-On Fat Beats’ site, I copped the digital download of Black Milk’s "Sound The Alarm Remix" 12". Clean versions, dirty versions, and instrumentals of the remix feat. Guilty Simpson and Royce Da 5′9", "Shut It Down," and "Home of the Greats."
-iTunes ate a nigga up. Clean versions of Black Milk’s original "Sound the Alarm," and three songs from Pharaohe Monch’s Desire album, music videos for Kanye’s "Flashing Lights" and Jay’s "Roc Boys," and clean versions of songs for our Timbaland vs. DJ Premier show yesterday since I didn’t have time to edit certain songs on my own. Shout-out to Meka Soul on putting me on to Snoop’s "The One and Only."[1]

Buying music just made me think of how crazy times have changed from when I first started. I remember buying 50 Cent’s Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ as a high schooler was an experience: me and my mans skipped school to cop our reserved copies (word!) up at Sam Goody (word!!!), got in the car to hear the first few songs, and both faked sick so we could skip school to listen to the rest of it. But a few months ago, I decided that I wanted to familiarize myself with Stevie Wonder’s catalog: so I downloaded about eight of his albums on a whim, and still haven’t gotten the chance to listen to em yet. The pros and cons are obvious - CD & linear notes vs. space-efficient mp3s, guaranteed high-quality audio vs. searching or self-encoding, pride of supporting vs. investing money into a show where they’re really see the money.

But I can’t front, something felt good about putting money into it. Even if I could use that cash now.

With that said, here’s several albums from early ‘08 that deserve your bread; if you don’t already know how/where to cop, drop down and get ya Google on. Not only are there store-bought albums this isn’t listing, but this also excludes free downloads from cats like Clipse, G-Unit, Rhymefest and others.

Erykah Badu, New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War (Feb. 26)
Though production from Madlib, Sa-Ra, ?uestlove and others give some of New Amerykah more of a hip-hop feel than her past efforts, lyrical density, her unmistakable voice and overall eccentricity show that Erykah’s just as soulful as she was five years ago.

Pete Rock, NY’s Finest (Feb. 26)
Avoiding all the "New York is dead" statements and what not, tracks like "We Roll," "The PJ’s," and "Bring Y’all Back" show that Soul Brotha #1’s Petestrumentals bang just as hard as they always have, dusty samples and banging bass still intact. If he’d only stop rapping though, damn.

Guilty Simpson, Ode To The Ghetto (Mar. 25)
This isn’t just me reppin’ for my state, either. Combining Guilty’s imposing voice, vicious flow and lyrical calisthenics with my vote for the best-produced album of early ‘08 (with beats by Black Milk, Madlib, Oh No, Mr. Porter and DJ Babu, you can’t lose), this is getting repeated spins.

Fat Ray & Black Milk, The Set Up (Mar. 4)
Keeping it in the Mitten, the homie Black Milk minimizes the soul samples and goes with hard-nosed, drum-heavy backdrops for BR Gunna cohort Fat Ray to spit his equally tough bars. I wished it was longer before (pause) but I figure it’s fine the way it is.

eMC, The Show (on iTunes Feb. 26, in stores Mar. 25)
The group of Wordsworth, Masta Ace, Punchline and Stricklin’ combine like Voltron to deliver an album that reminds me of what hip-hop was all about - dope beats, dope rhymes, well-executed concepts, and top-to-bottom dopeness. Shout out to Words.

Nicolay & Kay of the Foundation, Time:Line
The production half of Foreign Exchange steps his game up, and the incredibly talented Houston emcee team up for one of the most complete, cohesive albums I’ve heard in a while. Nicolay, you need to hook me up with the dimepieces you have on your album covers. I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, back to bumpin’ this shit on the new Skull Candy joints, courtesy of my mentor @ MSU.

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[1] Me and dude got our Jay & Nas on and re-squashed the beef this past week. Follow the Leader(s) cr Eric B & Rakim

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