10 Perfect Rap Songs For Rock Music Fans

Remember back when the Black Album was released and we thought we were going to lose Jay Z for good? For all of the music that he has released since then, this record still feels like Hova having an axe to grind, still hungry as hell and wanting to prove that he was one of the greatest to ever touch a mic. And when Rick Rubin entered the studio, it was time to go back to the old school version of hip hop.

Riding on a rock and roll sample, this is the kind of abrasive production that works great for Hova's work, making his time being a hustler feel more lived in at this point. For all of the samples though, this is a song that works just as well without any of the bells and whistles. If you had put Jay in the room with just a drummer and backbeat and used this song, it wouldn't lose any of its power. Since this was the turn of the '00s, 99 Problems practically takes something old and new from the hip hop world.

Here we have a guy that has his finger on the pulse of what's still going on in the world, while also hopping on a track that could have been used by RUN-DMC back in the day. That's what you get when you put a legend like Rick Rubin behind the board. This man wrote the handbook on how to make golden age hip hop, and the key was to make songs that hit you over the head.