It is the most prestigious fraternity, the stankiest aristocracy, the eliteists of the elite, the goat, farm, the apex mountain of hip-hop.

They're the best of the best. They're the Nobel Peace Prize winners of rap.

They're the albums that got four and a half mic reviews in the source. Not five mics,

four and a half mics is cooler. Don't tell me if you don't know what the source is. The source,

one of the first, one of the most respected and or feared rap music magazines ever born, born in

1988. In Harvard, it was the CNN,Z pitchfork, Reddit, N Plus One,

and watch what happens live of 90s hip-hop.

In particular, the source review section quite famously utilizes the fabled five mic scale,

not five stars. We're dealing with emcees here.

Five mics. Let me run down the five mic scale for Not five stars. We're dealing with emcees here. Five mics. Let me run down the five mic scale

for you as printed, as elucidated in the pages of the source. One mic, totally whack. Two mics. Needs

work. Two point five mics. Average. That's true. Three mics. Good. comma, worth checking out.

Three point five mics. Dope. Four mics. Slammin. M-Dash.

Definite satisfaction. 4.5 mics. Superior. Five mics. A hip-hop classic.

Fifteen albums. Received a perfect five-mic rating in the source.

Upon original release, the pitch-for- 10 of its time. The first five mic

album was People's Instinctive Travels in the Paths of Rhythm by a tribe called Quest in 1990.

The last was My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West, which feels like it came out 200 years

ago. This is a famous list. What do we got? We got Nas twice. We got Illmatic and

Stillmatic. Eh, we got tribe twice, actually, the low-end theory as well. Jay-Z's the blueprint,

Biggie's life after death, Brand Nubians, one for all. De La Sol is dead. We got a few relative

surprises from Bun B, Lil Kim, and Scarface, etc. This is the canon. This is the fodder for

...