Pink Range Rovers, outrageous appearances on The O'Reilly Factor, refashioned Ramones logos, and verbal sparring with Jay-Z, Nas, 50 Cent, and Ma$e. In Dipset parlance, their movement was more than music. But beyond the absurdities and laughs the charismatic Harlem collective provided, there were countless great songs—dense, multisyllabic verses that turned brashness and obscenity into memorable art over butchered soul loops punctuated by cymbal crashes and ad-libs ("Ballin'!").
With Black Friday serving as the day that the Diplomats will do their first show together since reuniting, it seems like as good a time as ever to take a retrospective look at a New York City rap clique that was first compared to Wu-Tang Clan—and then became an entity all its own. With an emphasis on joints created by the original four members (Cam'ron, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, and Freekey Zeekey), we offer the authoritative Complex list of The 50 Greatest Dipset Songs. You mad?
Written by Ben Detrick (@bdetrick)