Is there a better salesman working in hip-hop today than Rick Ross? Yes, the Miami MC raps a bunch about moving drugs, but he's best at selling himself: It takes Don Draper-level skills to package a former corrections officer as a former cocaine kingpin and actually pull it off. On this mixtape — too uneven to match the gruff grandeur of 2010's Teflon Don, but featuring some thunderous production by Lex Luger and Boi-1da — Ross brags with such actorly gusto you don't really notice (or care) how little sense he makes: "I'm smokin' dope! I'm on my cellphone!" he roars on "9 Piece." That shouldn't sound impressive, but with Ross pitching it, it does.

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“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.