Best of the decade: 41-50

50.

Band: Wale
Album: The Mixtape About Nothing

In making the list, I said I wasn't going to put any mixtapes on this list -- Lil Wayne would've been a bigger presence, for sure -- but I just couldn't put a list of great music of the 2000s without this record. Living here in DC, Wale is a big fucking deal. He's really talented and is a huge part of the DC hip-hop scene, whatever that is. He calls himself Wale Ovechkin, echoing the city's one great athlete.

Best of the decade: 51-60

60.

Band: Outkast
Album: The Love Below/Speakerboxx

OK, complete honesty here: I don't love Outkast. More and more I think they fit my Kanye West/Lil Wayne theory of white journalists liking hip hop: it's graded on a certain curve. The dudes in OutKast are, essentially, hipsters (not unlike Common, see below) and journalists fancy them more than, say, Jay-Z. Jay, by the way, is infinitely more talented.

Best of the decade: 61-70

70.

Band: Tara Jane O'Neil
Album: Peregrine

I admit I'm too much of a slave to my own tastes. TJO is an early musical crush of mine and I saw her touring this record in college. The "City in the North"/"City in the South" diad is beautiful and TJO's voice sounds as delicate and pretty as it ever has on this record.

Best of the decade: 71-80

The series continues after the jump.

Best of the decade: 81-90

90.

Band: Nelly
Album: Country Grammar

There's something invariably important about the music that soundtracks our existence. In writing up this list, I knew I had to put Country Grammar on here somewhere; I'm not even close to OK as to the placement of this record here at 90.