Fat Joe

Both as a marquee name in his own right, a heavyweight collab-attractor and as the lynchpin member of Terror Squad (rollin' up a storm at the top of our list with 2004 summer club hit "Lean Back"), Fat Joe looms as large as his moniker suggests over 21st-century hip-hop. The spring-loaded beats of "We Thuggin'" teed-up a guest slot for R. Kelly in 2001 and — on the same star-dusted album, Jealous Ones Still Envy (J.O.S.E.) — Joe rides smooth-as-warm-cognac grooves on the Irv Gotti-produced "What's Luv?" alongside Ja Rule and Ashanti. A taste of summer 2010's The Darkside Vol. 1 arrived with lead-off single "(Ha Ha) Slow Down," featuring Young Jeezy.

Fat Joe's posse grows, along with his reputation, in Next Steps.

The success of Fat Joe's sophomore album Jealous One's Envy (1995) earned the corpulent budding rap leviathan a slot on the remix of LL Cool J's "I Shot Ya," which opens up this hefty batch of Next Steps and sits well alongside the shufflin' breakbeat of "Firewater," a mid-'90s collaboration with Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon. Fast forward a decade and we find "My FoFo," the diss/riposte track prompted by 50 Cent's "Piggy Bank," while 2007's "We Takin' Over" places Terror Squad's DJ Khaled at the head of an illustrious posse featuring our main man and guests Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Birdman/Baby, and Lil Wayne. It's all about size . . . and strength in numbers.

Bronx-born, of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, Joseph Cartagena has made a virtue — and an industry — of his plus-size tailor requirements and big-man street rep. The word "heavy" truly characterized his arrival in the rap arena, when he styled himself as Fat Joe da Gangsta and kept it hardcore on his Diamond D-produced 1993 debut album, Represent: check out "Flow Joe." The future pop-crossover collaborator (with the likes of J-Lo and Ashanti) was impossible to discern at that early stage, but as the millennium came and went, Fat Joe mastered the art of mixing the light with the dark. Dig around these Essentials and you'll find a stellar line-up of associates (Nelly, Eminem, Diddy, Lil Wayne to name but four), a gold-plated array of producers (Scott Storch, the Hitmen, Irv Gotti), and all the hallmarks of a modern-day hip-hop survivor.