Big Boi's first official solo album is a stunning reminder of the OutKast rapper's hall-of-fame skills: He's got an inimitably slick and speedy flow and a personality bigger and more forceful than anything his producers can throw at him, from Scott Storch's clobbering electro funk ("Shutterbugg") to Lil Jon's eerie crunk ("Hustle Blood"). Big Boi is, as ever, steeped in pimp mythology. ("Tailored alligators/Soufflé/Escalade," he raps in "You Ain't No DJ.") But in truth he's less pimp than craftsman, packing more style — and more substance — into his four-minute- long songs than other rappers deliver in an entire album.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.