Naughty by Nature
'19-Naughty-III': While the album as a whole is not exactly considered a classic, there's no question that the New Jersey group's lead single from the record, "Hip Hop Hooray," earns instant recognition anytime it is played. It's certainly not as clever as "O.P.P.," the single that put Naughty by Nature on the map, but in terms of a rap-music ear-worm, it's tough to top "Hip Hop Hooray."
Onyx
'Bacda***up': Again, not a classic record taken as a whole, but the lead single, "Slam!" will still get people hyped up to this day. Two members of the group, Sticky Fingaz and Fredro Starr, went on to establish acting careers, with both appearing in Spike Lee's 1995 drama "Clockers," and Sticky making a recurring guest appearance as Los Angeles gangbanger Kern Little on F/X's award-winning cop drama "The Shield."
Cypress Hill
'Black Sunday': Cypress Hill's 1991 self-titled debut album earned the L.A. group some fame on the national stage, but "Insane in the Brain," the lead single from their sophomore effort, catapulted the nasal rapping of B-Real and the dusty beats of DJ Muggs into the mainstream. Since then, the group has dipped its toes into gangsta-rap and even added some heavy-metal guitar distortion to the mix from time to time. But any hip-hop fan immediately knows what's coming when group member Sen Dog asks, "Who you tryin' to mess with, ese? Don't you know I'm loco?"
Wu-Tang Clan
'Enter the 36 Chambers': This is the record that spawned an entire cottage industry. Robert "RZA" Diggs, who produced the baroque beats on the album and used kung-fu movie dialogue snippets as interludes, signed a unique deal that allowed the nine individual members of the group the freedom to negotiate their own solo record deals. The result was an avalanche of Wu-Tang releases over the course of the next decade and a permanent place in hip-hop history. Group member Method Man has gone on to a very successful acting career, appearing in HBO's "The Wire," the comedy film "How High" and numerous television shows.
Snoop Doggy Dogg
'Doggystyle': Before he dropped the "Doggy" and before he briefly became a Rastafarian, Calvin Broadus was a kid from Long Beach, Calif., who did some guest spots on his pal Dr. Dre's debut album. That was a little record called "The Chronic," which was released in December 1992 and stayed on top long enough to finish in the No. 6 spot on Billboard's Top 200 Albums of 1993. The pair followed that up with Snoop's solo debut, "Doggystyle," which was released in late '93 and ended up topping "The Chronic," taking the No. 3 spot on Billboard's Top 200 Albums of 1994. It was produced entirely by Dr. Dre, who would go on to discover Eminem and, alongside Interscope label head Jimmy Iovine, would found Beats Electronics and create the Beats by Dre headphones. Beats was purchased for more than $3 billion by Apple in 2014. The sale would make Dre the wealthiest man in hip-hop, although claims that he was "hip-hop's first billionaire" fell short by $100 million or so.
The more things change ...
Twenty-five years ago, hip-hop music began in earnest the steady climb to its current position among the top genres of popular music.
Plenty of hip-hop singles had gained popularity by the early 1990s. But it was the names that first started topping the charts in 1993 that would go on to become pop icons, cultural touchstones and, in one case, the most wealthy man in hip-hop.
Seeing as it's the 25th anniversary, here's a few of the landmark recordings released in 1993.
For a complete list of notable hip-hop records released in 1993, check
Wikipedia's listing
, which also includes plenty of recognizable one-hit-wonder singles.