1) are heavily represented on We Are the South their songs take up seven out of the 15 tracks.

At just one disc, omissions from We Are the South that will displease longtime fans are inevitable, but the song selection here seems to have been reasonably thought out and I doubt many will protest inclusions of individual songs that did make it.ĨBall and MJG’s two best albums (1995’s On Top of the Worldand 1999’s In Our Lifetime, Vol. It appears Ball and G had nothing to do with the compilation but it doesn’t matter because it’s one of the greatest and most warranted “best of” collections available in all of hip-hop. We Are the South: Greatest Hits is the first project to come from the joint venture between Koch Records and the newly formed Suave House II. With a lot of their best work either out of print or scattered throughout solo-albums and obscure compilations, a greatest hits album feels not only like a logical move, but one necessary to expose one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop groups to new audiences. While contemporaries like UGK ( Riding Dirty), Goodie Mob ( Soul Food), and OutKast (pick one) have crafted albums that were great enough for them to transcend region and earn recognition amongst all-time hip-hop greats, the discography of 8Ball and MJG plays out like a bunch of really good songs with a lot of filler and a couple near-great albums.īy the time these guys got national, mainstream exposure by joining Diddy’s Bad Boy Records in 2002 - an opportunistic move during the Southern rap explosion - their pop concessions made them appear, to those unacquainted with them, to be simply a product of a popular yet sure-to-fade trend. This might be due to the fact that the two have spent most of their career recording for the independent Suave House Records - an influential yet financially troubled label - but one could also argue that the real reason is the absence of a definitive classic album in their catalog. While hardly anyone familiar with their music would dispute their status as legends, the acclaim for this Memphis duo has failed to grow out of anything larger than a cult-following.

In the pantheon of Southern hip-hop legends, 8Ball and MJG have remained somewhat of an anomaly.

Eightball and mjg songs list