The 25 Best Hip-Hop Movie Soundtracks Of All Time

Image via Complex Original

Release date: July 9, 1991
Record label: Qwest/Warner Bros.

John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood is, hands down, the most important hood flick of all time. But what most cinephiles don't regularly acknowledge is the film's soundtrack, an oversight that one could attribute to the fact that its only chart-hitting single came from Tevin Campbell ("Just Ask Me To"). And, sorry fans of soft-baked R&B, but Tevin Campbell doesn't make anyone think of Ice Cube's Doughboy. Well, maybe in name, but certainly not in character.

Boyz N the Hood's roster of California rappers speaks directly to folks who grew up on N.W.A. more than Public Enemy or EPMD. Aside from movie co-star Ice Cube's "How to Survive in South Central," there's one-time baddest-female-in-the-game Yo-Yo's awesomely titled "Mama Don't Take No Mess" and Compton's Most Wanted's "Growin' Up in the Hood," both encapsulating early '90s West Coast hip-hop quite nicely.

Release date: April 21, 1998
Record label: Interscope

How's this for a mini review: The Bulworth soundtrack was good enough to almost forgive Warren Beatty for ridiculously dressing up in hip-hop gear and embarrassing white raps fans everywhere in the movie of the same name. The operative word, of course, being "almost."

Ignoring Beatty's silly performance here, let's instead focus on Bulworth the album's finely tuned gathering of dope MCs and producers. A massive crossover hit, Fugees alum Pras Michel's "Ghetto Superstar," featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mya, sold the soundtrack as something of a hip-pop undertaking, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Take the two records produced by RZA: his short action film blended with a horror movie score, "The Chase," and Cappadonna's creeping account of fleeing away from the fuzz, "Run."

Still not convinced? Peep the title of Ice Cube's collaboration with Mack 10: "Maniac in the Brainiac." There's also former Organized Noize affiliate Witchdoctor's moody chamber piece "Holiday/12 Scanner" and Eve's pre-Ruff Ryders explosion of feminine wrath, "Eve of Destruction."

Release date: February 8, 2003
Record label: Ruff Ryders/Def Jam

Ever wonder why DMX never took the Blade mantle from Wesley Snipes once the latter actor jumped the legal shark? Neither have we, and C-level action flicks like Cradle 2 the Grave are why. Always a far better rapper than a thespian, DMX saved his real talents for the film's aggressive, hard-edged soundtrack, rocking the single "X Gon' Give It to Ya" and dropping bodies alongside Eminem and Obie Trice on the audio horror flick "Go to Sleep."

Cradle 2 the Grave is also notable for its now-obscure tracks from currently beloved MCs Joe Budden ("Drop Drop") and Pusha T (on the Clipse offering "I'm Serious"). But nothing tops the title of the soundtrack's rowdy M.O.P./Capone-n-Noreaga collaboration: "Stompdashitoutu," which is about as perfect a title for an M.O.P. song as there could ever be.

Release date: May 9, 1995
Record label: 40 Acres and a Mule Musicworks/MCA

Don't let its hokey title fool you: Writer-director Rusty Cundieff's horror anthology Tales from the Hood is actually a solid entry into the genre omnibus pantheon. The gore effects are nicely gruesome, the stories cleverly tackle urban societal issues from a Tales from the Crypt-esque perspective, and, aside from spotty acting, the characters are mostly engaging. It's not Creepshow, mind you, but it's worth a look.

Smartly, Cundieff reached out to some of rap's hardest acts to piece together the film's slightly horrorcore soundtrack. The opening track, "Let Me at Them," is billed as a Wu-Tang Clan record, but that's misleading—it's actually an Inspectah Deck solo joint, and it's a beast. After that fittingly alarming opener, Tales from the Hood coaxes unpleasant winners from Spice 1 ("Born II Die"), Gravediggaz, sans RZA and Prince Paul ("From the Dark Side"), and Cali's not-Mobb-Deep duo Havoc & Prodeje ("The Hood Got Me Feelin' the Pain").

Release date: April 11, 1999
Record label: Razor Sharp/Epic/SME

When acclaimed independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch hired RZA to score his nuanced crime flick Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, he immediately earned the respect of Wu-Tang fans worldwide. But after the film's Wu-heavy soundtrack hit shelves, the Clan's faithful must have been ready to declare Jarmusch as the coolest director alive.

Ghost Dog's soundtrack is best appreciated by those already initiated in the Killa Bee family tree. Its strongest records come from extended Wu-Tang affiliates like Sunz of Man ("Strange Eyes"), Superb ("The Man," featuring Masta Killa), and Royal Fam and La the Darkman ("Walk the Dogs").

Peppered with dialogue skits taken from Forest Whitaker's titular movie character, Ghost Dog's mid-range Wu-Tang blowout could've used some verses from A-list Clansmen like Ghostface, Raekwon, Method Man, or GZA. But, as the soundtrack stands, it's an effective display of the Wu's second-tier talent.

Release date: July 29, 1997
Record label: Loud

Only released on six screens, and to very little fanfare, in July 1997, the b-ball documentary Soul in the Hole was little more than a poor man's version of Hoop Dreams, chronicling a Brooklyn coach and his troubled group of talented playground ballers. If not for its jam-packed soundtrack, Soul in the Hole wouldn't have registered much beyond art-house critics' reviews. But, damn, is that soundtrack overflowing with rap royalty.

Assembled by the fine folks at the now-defunct Loud Records, the Soul in the Hole album included the lion's share of the label's best talent. Wu-Tang Clan, complete with Ol' Dirty Bastard, checked in with the nightmarishly dark "Diesel," Big Punisher proved his worth outside of the Terror Squad with "You Ain't a Killer," and The Dwellas—Loud's sadly overlooked underground duo—delivered what's arguably the soundtrack's hardest cut, "Main Aim."

Also featuring original songs by Common ("High Expectations"), Mobb Deep ("Rare Species," one of Havoc's sickest beats), and Xzibit ("Los Angeles Times"), Soul in the Hole plays more like a grade-A mixtape than anything that's related to a movie about basketball. Oddly enough, there's not one song about the sport to be heard. That's a good thing—the world didn't exactly need an update of Kurtis Blow's "Basketball" rapped by Jayo Felony.

Release date: April 11, 1995
Record label: Priority

Some movies are so cherished by fans that anything else related to them is easily overlooked. Such is the case with the Friday soundtrack, a solid collection of rugged party jams that's been pushed to the back of people's memories thanks to the movie itself being so damn hilarious.

The next time you throw a house party, throw this collection on and see how well it's stood the test of time. Dr. Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'," Tha Alkaholiks' "Coast II Coast," and Ice Cube's "Friday" should keep those party guests in good, uptempo spirits—if not, you can always pop in the Friday DVD. It works every time.

Release date: September 10, 1996
Record label: Big Beat/Atlantic

An early predecessor to the spoof film likes of Scary Movie and Meet the Spartans, the reasonably funny High School High starred Jon Lovitz as the white dude who steps into an urban high school and changes the lives of its most troubled students. Moviegoers weren't begging for a send-up of flicks like Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver, but considering that it spawned a 20-song soundtrack that was miraculously devoid of any crappy filler, no one with an ear for quality hip-hop complained.

The LP's best track was also its biggest single: "Wu-Wear: The Garment Renaissance," a four-minute commercial/record on which RZA, Method Man, and Cappadonna kill it so convincingly that, if revisited today, you may still find yourself looking for Wu Wallabees on eBay. Across the board, High School High is tailor-made for heads who prefer substance in their hip-hop. The Roots get gully on "The Good, the Bad, and the Desolate," New Jersey underground stalwarts the Artifacts get braggadocios on "The Ultimate," and legends Large Professor and Pete Rock join forces for the state-of-affairs cut "The Rap World."

Release date: September 12, 2000
Record label: Cash Money/Universal

Never one to be outdone, Cash Money Records head honcho Bryan "Baby" Williams (or, as fans today call him, Birdman) saw what fellow New Orleans entrepreneur Master P was doing with low-rent flicks like I'm Bout It and I Got the Hook Up and co-wrote and co-directed his own straight-to-the-street-corner movie, Baller Blockin'. Trying to be the hood's precursor to Judd Apatow, Baby created a pre-Pineapple Express veneer of action-comedy shenanigans, though its humor is best aided by some freshly rolled doobies and an affinity for inept filmmaking.

It's also wise to watch Baller Blockin' with its Cash Money-centric soundtrack playing in the background. The album's finest moment is, of course, the single "Project Bitch," that romantic ballad dedicated to "hoodrat chicks" anchored by Lil Wayne and Juvenile. Generously, Baby and his partner/brother, Ronald "Slim" Williams, opened Baller Blockin' up to outside rappers, too, a move that blessed them with jams like UGK's "Family Affair" and Nas and Bravehearts' "What You Gonna Do."

Release date: November 3, 1998
Record label: Def Jam

Music video director turned feature filmmaker Hype Williams' big-screen debut Belly showed just how many gangster movie clichés could fit into one rapper-starring vanity project. While never boring, the finished product is a fascinating misfire, notable for Nas' wooden acting, DMX's unhinged charisma, and some striking cinematography.

Thankfully, the Def Jam Records team didn't share Williams' inefficiencies when creating Belly's original soundtrack. Rather, they went for broke, combining dynamite posse cuts (i.e., "Grand Finale," with DMX, Method Man, Nas, and Ja Rule) with heaters from the Wu-Tang ("Windpipe," featuring RZA, Ghostface Killah, and Ol' Dirty Bastard) and Roc-A-Fella ("Crew Love," with Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, and Memphis Bleek) camps.

Hell, even the R&B joints hit hard, namely D'Angelo's DJ Premier-produced "Devil's Pie" and Mya's "Movin' Out," strengthened by verses from Raekwon and Noreaga.

Release date: January 14, 1997
Record label: Priority

The great thing about rap documentaries back in the day: Even if the movies themselves weren't four-star affairs, the chances of their accompanying original soundtracks being of four-star quality were always high.

Case in point: Rhyme & Reason, an otherwise nondescript look at the hip-hop industry's inner workings that inspired an impressive gang of MCs to issue fresh cuts of the strongest quality. 8Ball & MJG stuck closest to the movie's themes with "Reason for Rhyme," while Mack 10 and Tha Dogg Pound combined for the left-coast anthem "Nothin' But the Cavi Hit." Touching all parts of the country, Rhyme and Reason headed to New Orleans for Master P's "Is There a Heaven 4 a Gangsta?" and shot up north for RZA's pre-Bobby Digital in Stereo solo single "Tragedy."

The soundtrack's toughest offering married highly respected lyricists from both the east and west coasts: One-upping each other with vicious punch lines over ghostly horns and boom-bap percussion, Ras Kass, Heltah Skeltah, and Canibus decimated the Rhyme & Reason knockout "Uni-4-Orm."

Release date: October 15, 1994
Record label: Death Row/Interscope

What's Snoop Dogg's best acting performance to date? No, it's not Soul Plane, though he does deserve some credit for leaving that cinematic debacle unscathed. In our eyes, Snoop's crowning achievement as a thespian comes in the 1994 short film Murder Was the Case, the 18-minute account of his death and resurrection directed by Dr. Dre and Fab 5 Freddy with a surprisingly haunting aesthetic.

Of course, our fond memories of Murder Was the Case may have been swayed by the kick-ass soundtrack, which showcased the Death Row Records' roster at the label's still-a-Dr-Dre-thing zenith. In addition to Snoop's ubiquitous title track, Ice Cube and Dre's vicious "Natural Born Killaz" and Tha Dogg Pound's "What Would U Do" kept radio stations and Yo! MTV Raps on blast in the fall of '94.

Our favorite track? One-hit wonder Sam Sneed's "U Better Recognize," a Death Row classic that's on par with the Lady of Rage's "Afro Puffs."

Release date: May 13, 1997
Record label: No Limit/Priority

Before No Limit's onslaught of Pen & Pixel album covers that flooded record stores throughout the late '90s and early 2000s, there was I'm Bout It, the Southern rap game-changing classic that took damn near all the attention away from its poorly made, shoestring budgeted movie of the same name.

At the time, No Limit leader Master P was a hot commodity in his local New Orleans region, having released five independent solo records. With I'm Bout It, Percy Miller's movement officially broke into the mainstream's consciousness, introducing rap dudes and dudettes from all cities to names like Silkk the Shocker, C-Murder, Mr. Serv-On, Mia X, and Fiend.

Release date: May 12, 1998
Record label: Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam

Taking cues from Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (1988), Jay-Z orchestrated the 60-minute musical film Streets is Watching as a way to connect several of his music videos—taken from his albums Reasonable Doubt, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, and the movie's eponymous soundtrack—into one semi-cohesive story. It's more a collector's item for fans than an actual work of cinema, but who's going to complain about its filmmaking merits when Streets is Watching also gave us one of Roc-A-Fella Records' best releases?

The disc allowed Jay-Z and Damon Dash the chance to showcase some of the label's lesser-known acts, like Christión and Diamonds in the Rough, yet, expectedly, its bigger draws are the album's greatest contributors. Hov himself scores with the Memphis Bleek-aided single "It's Alright," as well as "Only a Customer" and the posse cut closer "Celebration," co-starring Memphis Bleek and Sauce Money. Streets is Watching truly pulverizes, however, with "Murdergram," the sinister Ty Fyffe-produced three-headed lyrical death blow from Jay, DMX, and Ja Rule.

Release date: November 8, 2005
Record label: G-Unit/Interscope

Unsurprisingly, 50 Cent used the soundtrack for his biopic Get Rich or Die Tryin' to promote his newly expanded G-Unit lineup back in the fall of 2005. It's not like anyone actually thought he'd let non-Guerrilla artists eat off the strength of his big movie, right? We'd hope not.

And who could blame him? Get Rich or Die Tryin' debuted when the G-Unit squad was at its strongest, and the film's soundtrack embodies that crew-issued muscle. Being that the Unit's frontman raps on 12 of the album's 16 tracks (as well as on both of its two bonus cuts), Get Rich or Die Tryin' is essentially another 50 Cent album, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Some of 50's best singles are included here, like "Hustler's Ambition" and "Window Shopper," and he's a focal point on collaborations like "You Already Know" (with Lloyd Banks and Young Buck) and "I Don't Know Officer" (with Prodigy, Ma$e, Lloyd Banks, and forgotten Game replacement Spider Loc).

Release date: April 20, 1993
Record label: MCA

Back in the 1990s, Ed Lover and Dr. Dre (the shorter, pudgier one) were hip-hop culture fixtures, thanks to their fun chemistry together hosting the groundbreaking Yo! MTV Raps. It was only natural that the fellas get their own low-budget movie, and that it be a silly comedy that featured cameos from rappers like KRS-One, Ice-T, Kris Kross, Busta Rhymes, and the House of Pain fellas.

And appropriately, Who's the Man? came equipped with a formidable, original soundtrack. Right out the gate, the LP establishes its classic status with "Party and Bullshit," the first-ever official, on-an-album solo recording from a promising young Brooklyn MC known as Biggie Smalls (later the Notorious B.I.G.). Elsewhere, Pete Rock & CL Smooth calmed things down with the funky "What's Next on the Menu?," while House of Pain nearly stole the show with the gritty title track.

Release date: May 26, 1993
Record label: Jive

It's only right that Menace II Society, the much darker South Central-set answer to John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, was matched with a soundtrack seeped in hardcore West Coast hip-hop. Looking back on the album's tracklist, it's a venerable role call for the Golden State's most under-appreciated gangster MCs.

Naturally, MC Eiht, one of the movie's co-stars, is represented, with the emotive and powerful hit single "Streiht Up Menace," and his counterpart Spice 1 gets cold-blooded on the straight-faced gun ode "Nigga Gots No Heart." Also present are Ant Banks, Cold 187um, Kokane, and Da Lench Mob—if those names don't make you feel nostalgic, you've clearly never owned a Raiders cap.

Release date: April 23, 1996
Record label: Elektra

As far as the movie itself, the sports drama Sunset Park was a lower-tier piece of white savior hokum, with Rhea Perlman playing a Jewish schoolteacher tasked with coaching an inner city Brooklyn high school basketball squad. Which, of course, has thugs with hearts of gold as its players. The only reason why anyone still remembers the film, in fact, is because of its successful soundtrack, one that reached as high as No. 4 on the Billboard 200.

A mixture of hardcore rap and edgy R&B, Sunset Park's musical companion set includes the best of both styles. On the rap front, you've got a couple of underrated yet all-time great tracks from Ghostface Killah ("Motherless Child") and Mobb Deep ("Back at You"), an obscure 2Pac joint ("High 'Til I Die"), and an atypically rowdy record from Queen Latifah (the Easy Mo Bee-produced "Elements I'm Among").

Perhaps the LP's most memorable song, however, is Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s "We Don't Need It," a raunchy call-and-response that feels quite out of place attached to a movie about inspiring hope in underprivileged teens. Something tells us that Rhea Perlman's character wouldn't condone the hook, which, amongst other profanities, has chicks declaring: "If you ain't lickin' no butts, we don't want it—we don't want it!" Or maybe she would? Yikes!

Release date: December 31, 1991
Record label: MCA

Since Tupac Shakur is one of the stars of Juice, you'd think that the soundtrack would feature at least one original song from the legendary rapper, but, alas, he's not included. His only contribution to the Juice legacy is the exceptional performance he gives in the movie, playing Harlem resident Bishop, an aspiring gangster whose desire to make a name for himself in the streets leads to numerous tragedies.

2Pac's absence is, fortunately, not a gaping hole on the Juice soundtrack, being that the 14-track hip-hop powerhouse has more than enough audible greatness as it is. Plus, Shakur co-starred in the video for Naughty By Nature's soundtrack opener "Uptown Anthem," which, in the minds of many rap heads, eclipses NBN's more popular recordings, like "O.P.P." and "Hip-Hop Hooray." Equally top-notch is Eric B. & Rakim's ferocious "Juice (Know the Ledge)," a blistering assault of Rakim's lyrical wordplay and a dizzying beat marked by frantic vocal samples and urgent instrumentation.

Stretching far outside of the New Jersey/New York metropolitan area, Juice also finds Too Short dropping pimp jewels on "So You Want to Be a Gangster" and Cypress Hill cutting right to the violent chase on "Shoot 'Em Up." Again, there's no 2Pac, but it's all good.

Release dates: Vol. 1, March 28, 1995; Vol. 2, April 11, 1995
Record label: Tommy Boy

In the annals of hood flicks, New Jersey Drive is rarely, if ever, placed alongside the almighty trinity of Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society, and Juice. Given a fresh look today, the film—produced by Spike Lee—holds up as a raw, unflinching look at the car-jacking subculture that struck fear in Garden State residents throughout the '90s. Even if cinema's history books never award New Jersey Drive its proper respect, the filmmakers can always take comfort in the fact that their movie has a much better soundtrack than those aforementioned classics.

An epic collection of a who's who in 1990s hip-hop, the two-disc New Jersey Drive OST—released on two separate days, a la Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill flicks—made it simple for discerning fans to pick and choose. For the softer crowd, Volume 1 mixed in R&B, with Total's timeless "Can't You See" (featuring the Notorious B.I.G.) standing out amidst smooth rap tracks like Outkast's exceptional "Benz or Beamer" and Ill Al Skratch's (damn, remember them?) "Don't Shut Down on a Player."

The second volume, though, is where the real heat existed. At its best, the straight rap edition of New Jersey Drive captured the furious anger of kids pushing against authority, from Jeru the Damaja's strong anti-cop banger "Invasion" to the conceptual, in-the-mind-of-a-dirty-officer highlight "You Won't Go Far," a tag-team from O.C. and Organized Konfusion.

Release date: August 15, 1995
Record label: Def Jam

Fun fact: The Show, a 1995 documentary about the hip-hop game, was directed by Brian Robbins, the same hack who's driven Eddie Murphy's career into the ground with unfunny shit-shows like Norbit, Meet Dave, and A Thousand Words. He should've stuck to docs.

Especially if Robbins had anything to do with The Show's sprawling Def Jam soundtrack, a 27-track triumph that balanced full-length, original songs with voiceover skits from the film itself. The Show's big hit was Method Man and Redman's "How High," the smokers' anthem that launched their fruitful, collaborative endeavors together. Covering all spectrums of hip-hop, the album ventured to Cali for "Sowhatusayin,'" a gangsta rap tour-de-force featuring Jayo Felony, MC Eiht, Spice 1, and South Central Cartel.

There's also a stop in Cleveland to catch up with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony ("Everyday Thang") before heading back to the West Coast for Warren G's proteges The Dove Shack to contribute the regional favorite "Summertime in the LBC."

Release date: September 14, 1993
Record label: Epic

Call it the awesome culmination of Public Enemy's and Anthrax's efforts in recording the seminal 1987 rap/rock single "Bring the Noise." A full album's worth of that kind of fusion, the soundtrack to the Emilio Estevez/Cuba Gooding, Jr. thriller Judgment Night bypassed the usual all-MC approach and took 11 creative risks, pairing up respected hip-hop acts with equally acclaimed rock groups.

The results, while not all wholly successful, make for a truly one-of-a-kind listening experience. For those looking to bang their heads, the title track, a Biohazard/Onyx collaboration, is appropriately thrashing, while "I Love You Mary Jane," from Sonic Youth and Cypress Hill, slows things down a bit to give new-age hippies something to enjoy. Other interesting team-ups include Pearl Jam and, for a second time, Cypress Hill ("Real Thing"), Dinosaur Jr. and Del the Funkee Homosapien ("Missing Link"), and Teenage Fanclub with De La Soul ("Fallin'").

Release date: December 6, 1994
Record label: Priority

Video game historians will forever look back upon the 1994 big-screen adaptation of Street Fighter as a laughable attempt to cinematize the arcade and home console favorite. Blame it on Jean-Claude Van Damme's strained performance as Guile, or the late Raul Julia's over-acting in the villainous role of M. Bison. Don't, however, project any disappointment toward Kylie Minogue's work as Cammy—intense sexiness always outweighs bad thespian abilities in our book.

Street Fighter should be looked back upon as a total creative washout, but there's just one problem: Its soundtrack is too damn excellent. Perhaps aware that the movie itself sucked (though probably not), the people involved with assembling the film's original music pulled no punches, corralling the likes of Nas ("One on One"), LL Cool J ("Life as…"), and The Pharcyde ("Pandemonium") to contribute first-rate songs that only the most ardent of die-hard fans show love to 18 years later. It's amazing how many Nas loyalists still haven't heard "One on One."

Release date: March 22, 1994
Record label: Death Row/Interscope

Unlike the Juice soundtrack, which supported a Tupac Shakur movie without any new 2Pac songs, Death Row Records' Above the Rim blessed the inner city basketball drama with two joints from the movie's hard-rhyming star. Let the history books show that Pac's emotionally devastating "Pain" and his Thug Life posse cut "Pour Out a Little Liquor" represent his earliest, pre-deal recordings for the Death Row family, a nice bit of trivia for Cali hip-hop aficionados.

Above the Rim wasn't all about 2Pac, though. Who can forget the Lady of Rage's radio killer "Afro Puffs"? Or, even more unavoidably, Warren G. and the late Nate Dogg's Billboard-topping "Regulate"? Using those big singles (as well as R&B trio SWV's "Anything") to lure listeners in, the Death Row massive surrounded Above the Rim's more accessible records with two strong album cuts from Tha Dogg Pound, the Snoop Dogg-assisted "Big Pimpin'" and "Dogg Pound 4 Life."

Release date: October 29, 2002
Record label: Shady/Interscope

Ever the perfectionist, Eminem put as much work into the 8 Mile soundtrack as he did into his eye-opening, superb performance in the fictionalized, quasi-biopic. Appearing on four of the LP's 15 tracks (three of which are solo), the film's lyrically proficient star treated the soundtrack as a two-fold enterprise: One, it's an exhibition of some of his own sickest examples of verbal acrobatics (the towering single "Lose Yourself"; the breathless and mesmerizing "Rabbit Run"), and, two, it's a one-stop shop for Em's favorite rap game peers to flex their vocal muscles.

On the Shady Records end, 50 Cent's breakthrough single "Wanksta" pairs well with the Queens heavyweight's similarly memorable album cut "Places to Go." Outside of Shady, Nas serves up the ego-massaging "U Wanna Be Me," and Jay-Z, along with Freeway, rocks over an Eminem-produced instrumental on "8 Miles and Runnin'." More of Em's personal heroes show up on the smoldering Gang Starr gem "Battle" and Rakim's don't-forget-the-name call to arms "R.A.K.I.M."

Hearing those rap legends show and prove helps to alleviate the ear strain felt from listening to 8 Mile co-star Taryn Manning's (as Boomkat) "Wasting My Time." It's the "Braveheart Party" to this soundtrack's Stillmatic.