I was a daily reader of Grantland, therefore I now read The Ringer and look forward to articles by Shea Serrano. I utilize the library, so I’m still waiting to read Basketball (and Other Things) and his first book The Rap Year Book.

The latter is a discussion to determine the best rap song each from from 1979 to 2014 and I’m eagerly anticipating the mental debates I’ll have with an author that’s not in the room. The same could be said for a Twitter thread he started yesterday with simply – Is Kendrick Lamar a Top 5 rapper of all time?

This is a constant and ever-evolving conversation, whether you’re in a barber shop, online or just listening to any rapper declare they are the greatest. Chris Rock based his 2014 film around the topic as seen in here:

But while coming up with a top 5 list is challenging, I would rather determine which rapper had the best debut album. The easy answer is Illmatic by Nas, mostly because it’s possibly the greatest hip-hop album ever. But if there was a tournament-style bracket, which albums would it need to beat to claim the title?

Well, I’m glad you asked. But first, I must set some ground rules:

The album must be their first time the artist (or artists) truly released an album. If they were part of a group, like the Wu-Tang Clan, then all the solo projects afterward don’t count. So that eliminates Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and Ghostface Killah’s Ironman, although that wouldn’t have made my list. This also eliminates The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill since she was with The Fugees. And while The Score would be a tough out, unfortunately that was their second album. Blunted On Reality with ‘Nappy Heads’ and ‘Vocab’ is the debut of Pras, Wyclef and Ms. Hill.

These are my favorites. As a former college radio music director (#wtbu4life), I feel I’m qualified to do this. Yes, I completely understand that my credentials are no better than anyone else’s, but it’s my blog so there!

Um….that’s basically it. I had a small list to start with, then used Complex’s article about the subject to get a few more and I’ve come up with 17. So this will require a play-in match up before the field is rounded down to an even number, but here’s the list in no particular order and I’m going to break this into brackets, because grouping is always fun!

Groups – This would include Black Sheep and Eric B. & Rakim, but since both ‘groups’ were really just one MC, I’m moving them out.

• Smif N Wessun – Dah Shinin’
• Outkast – Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik
• Run-D.M.C. – Run-D.M.C.
• Black Star – Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star
• Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The 36 Chambers

Outside NYC – There are a lot of great rappers that hail from beyond the birthplace of the genre. Most of them, however, are not on this list. I was never a big enough Scarface fan; Lil Wayne is great, but releases under Cash Money with the Hot Boys would eliminate him and while Doggystyle is a classic, Snoop was all over The Chronic and Straight Outta Compton, the album not the movie, eliminates both Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. Therefore this bracket is:

• Eminem – The Slim Shady LP
• Lupe Fiasco – Food & Liquor
• Kanye West – The College Dropout
• Redman – Whut? Thee Album

The Borough of Queens – KRS-One famously dropped ‘South Bronx’ in response to MC Shan’s ‘The Bridge’, clearly stating in the lyrics that Shan felt rap started in Queens. If you watch The Get Down on Netflix (or at least the first season like me), then you will believe rap started uptown; the fancy way New Yorkers refer to parts north of Central Park that includes Harlem (the northern part of the borough of Manhattan) and the Bronx…said the person born and raised in New Jersey. But as far as great debut albums, Queens represents lovely with three participants.

• Nas – Illmatic
• 50 Cent – Get Rich or Die Tryin’
• Black Sheep – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

The Rest of New York City – Brooklyn actually have five entrants in this tournament, but Smif-N-Wessun (Brownsville), Mos Def (Bushwick) and Talib Kweli (Park Slope) are in the Groups bracket, leaving Jay-Z (Bedford-Stuyvesant) and Biggie Smalls (Clinton Hill) to represent the borough affectionately called ‘The Planet’ by Yaslin Bey.

• DMX – It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot
• Big Pun – Capital Punishment
• Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full
• Jay-Z – Reasonable Doubt
• Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to Die

To quote Andy Dufresne, if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. Use the comments and polls for the top seed in each bracket and tell me which album I’m forgetting and which one doesn’t belong. This is a safe place and there are no wrong answers…except if you try to tell me why Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid m.A.A.d city belongs on this list. I would tell you that between Overly Dedicated and Section 80, he was already out. But I would have loved to discuss further the reason for this post and that’s the truth.