Hip-Hop Posse Cuts

As the following posse cuts prove at every speaker-flexing turn, passing the mic is as much a hip-hop tradition as beats and bling. It's also a perfect way to produce banging tracks, whether you're going for a moody, melodramatic film noir feel (Wu-Tang Clan's "Protect Ya Neck"), a head-spinning reason to breakdance or pop bottles of bubbly (Afrika Bambaataa's "Zulu Nation Throwdown"; four-way LL Cool J, Method Man, Redman, DMX collab "4, 3, 2, 1"), or a "look me in the eye when I'm talking to you" guns-n-syllables battle straight out of a gangster movie ("I Shot Ya," "Reservoir Dogs," "It's All About the Benjamins"). The "big I am" becomes the "massive we are," in Next Steps.

Much like the dream collaborations of Coltrane and Davis, and classic rock's numerous, gloriously indulgent supergroups, hip-hop's long history of posse cuts has always blindsided listeners with formulas that work better than anything you'd pull off the periodic table. "Set It Off" keeps 'em bouncing and buzzing with Ice Cube and gangsta rap alums like MC Ren and Snoop Dogg; "4 Seasons" places LL Cool J and Ja Rule on the Method Man/Redman guest list, under the banner of a wobbly beat, producing a standout on 1999's Blackout!; and "Bia' Bia'" (Lil Jon & The Eastside Boyz) is as nasty and territorial as a poorly raised pit bull. Classified invites a bunch of esteemed guests to share his mic, in Deep Cuts.

Hip-hop has produced enough party-sparking posse cuts to fill an entire iPod, so you best believe that our Deep Cuts are still some of the genre's greatest. The gritty, grimy, siren-scored "Dead Disnee" brings to mind crumbled buildings and atom bombs; "Doin' Our Own Dang" is a gentle head-nodder from the Native Tongues clique; and "WW III," featuring Snoop and Jadakiss, is as fiery and frightening as the end-of-days war its title suggests. Nova Scotia's rap ambassador Classified pulls in Maestro Fresh Wes, Choclair, Moka Only and a whole lotta soul for "Quit While You're Ahead" from 2009's excellent Self Explanatory.

While rock 'n' roll singers and movie stars certainly have their fair share of entourages in tow, hip-hop's posse-cut approach is unparalleled in the way that it turns friends and hangers-on into perfect rhyme partners. The range of names on our playlist is astounding, hitting every corner of the map, from the screwed & chopped realms of the Dirty South to the G-funk-worshipping West Coast, and from the bangin' quarters Halifax Regional Municipality to the dim streets of New York at 2 a.m. Not to mention whatever spaceship Afrika Bambaataa and his Zulu Nation Crew stepped out of. Like the championship division of a sports league, this collab collection represents hip-hop at its very best.