Murder Was the Case Soundtrack (Death Row, 1994) by various

I remember I bought this album on my 8th grade East Coast trip in the summer of 2001.  Blink-182 had released a new LP too (props to them as well), and while many of my classmates purchased that, I rushed to the rap section and found this older release.  "Murder Was the Case" is one of Snoop's best songs ever, and the remix does it justice.  The biggest deal of the release though is "Natural Born Killaz"- a great reunion of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre.  Other noteworthy tracks are Nate Dogg's "One More Day" and Jodeci's "Come Up to My Room."  I remember on the last night of the trip, I listened to the album non-stop and burned through an entire set of batteries on my portable CD player.  Good times.

Diary of a Mad Band (Uptown, 1993) by Jodeci

This album definitely showed a change in image and approach from their debut.  On their debut, Jodeci was simply romancing women.  On this go round though, they were just trying to get them in to bed.  "Feenin" is a prime example.  And "Cry For You (the album's first single), in my opinion, is the best song on the album.  DOAMB was one of the first albums where people were singing over rap beats, and one of the few albums that ever did it well.  I am a bigger fan of K-Ci and Jojo's "All My Life", but at the time, I think Jodeci's sexually-charged material delivered in a slightly more rugged fashion was a good counter-balance to Boyz II Men, who basically said the same things at time, but in a more pop-friendly way.  In other words, Jodeci talked about having sex and Boyz II Men talked about making love.