Exodus (1995)
This entire list is subjective but if there’s an lp more susceptible to the vagaries of personal taste than any other, it has to be the second NPG solo album. At an impressionable age, the leylines of my fondness for Prince and my obsession with George Clinton merged, resulting in the Exodus album blowing my tiny little mind. Has the history of music culminated here? Does anything more need to be recorded? It’s hard to tear away from my initial, jaw-dropped, smitten devotion and impossible to retain a cold, critical ear. So I’ll just say Return of the Bump Squad is better than all of y’all cerebral ballads and I have nothing to back it up except the song itself. Let my placing it mid-list be my one concession to the hilarious concept of impartiality. A fig leaf of respectability. My p-funk-loving id has placed it much higher.