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Milestones

Milestones: Brown Sugar by D’Angelo
Armed with a Marvin Gaye-like honeyed croon and the streetwise swagger of a rapper, the young D’Angelo channeled the spirit of 1970s soul through a…
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Javon Bailey
Milestones: Fantastic, Vol. 2 by Slum Village
Fantastic, Vol. 2 has lived a double life, passing from hand to hand as a beloved underground tape, while simultaneously serving as a touchstone whose…
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Harry Brown
Milestones: The Heat Is On by The Isley Brothers
If the Heat is indeed on, it remains a steady burn—one that has warmed five decades and shows no sign of dimming.
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Imani Raven
Milestones: Be by Common
By the final fade-out—children chanting aspirations, Lonnie Lynn offering quiet wisdom—Be has traced a circle: ancestry to futurity, despair to…
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Phil
Milestones: The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem
Eminem forged a body of work that is once a standard and an ethical Rorschach—impossible to separate from the harms it dramatizes, impossible to ignore…
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Murffey Zavier
Milestones: Lucy Pearl by Lucy Pearl
Lucy Pearl sounded like three friends testing whether their individual histories could coexist within one groove, and for fifty-five minutes, proving…
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Imani Raven
Milestones: Adventures In Paradise by Minnie Riperton
The lion on the cover, tamed yet potent, is the perfect emblem: Riperton had no interest in declawing emotion—only in showing that ferocity and…
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Tai Lawson
Milestones: Diana by Diana Ross
Diana endures not merely because its singles remain DJ staples, but because the record captures an artist in perpetual motion.
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Tabia N. Mullings
Milestones: The Infamous by Mobb Deep
Ready for the spearhead of hardcore hip-hop from the East Coast? If not, move along; there’s nothing here for you to see. If so, take cover. Mobb Deep…
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Harry Brown
Milestones: The Emancipation of Mimi by Mariah Carey
With The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah Carey staged an exultant comeback after being counted out, capturing the spirit of mid-2000s R&B and revitalizing…
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Jamila W.
1
Milestones: Like Water for Chocolate by Common
Common’s LWFC is a masterpiece. It nods to the Afrocentric lineage of its influences—Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat presence, Roy Ayers’ jazz-soul fusion, and the…
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Murffey Zavier
Milestones: Me Against the World by 2Pac
2Pac went all out on ‘Me Against the World’ to steer away from the orthodoxy he had tried to establish in his early years.
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Randy
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