Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ’Em by MC Hammer

Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em, MC Hammer's third studio album, dropped on Capitol in February 1990 and went on to rewrite the rules of what a rap record could sell. Felton Pilate and James Earley produced, recorded and mixed it on a budget of roughly $10,000, cutting it between May 1988 and November 1989 in a converted tour bus, which makes the polish all the more remarkable.

The Oakland rapper built it for the dance floor: new jack swing beats, big hooks and party chants, with "U Can't Touch This" as the unstoppable centerpiece and "Pray" close behind. Critics shrugged; everybody else bought it. It sat at number one on the Billboard 200 for 21 weeks, the first time a solo rapper had ruled the pop albums chart, became the first hip-hop album certified diamond in the US and has sold more than 18 million copies. It also became the first hip-hop record nominated for the Grammy for Album of the Year, and the world tour that followed ran to 144 dates.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.