Houston's history is dotted with albums that, fairly or un, have been swept aside. We'll examine them here. Have an album that you think nobody knows about but should? Email [email protected].

Lil' Flip

The Leprechaun (Sucka Free Records, 2000)

Ah, Flipperace. Most people don't remember this, but prior to the explosion of Houston rap onto the national landscape in 2005, Flip was out there pioneering for the H. With "I Can Do That," "Game Over" and "The Way We Ball," he almost single handedly legitimized the baby-crack-rap genre early in the decade.

Given the way that things have turned out for him, it's weird to say now, but there was actually a point in history when Flip was the most important rapper from Houston. This is the album that put all of that in place.

Y'allmustaforgotability: 82 Percent

Read what Y'allmustaforgotability means.

Best Verse on the Album: The first verse from "I Can Do That," but more on the strength of the structure of the song than anything else. The first time you heard it you said, "Holy shit, this song is going to be huge. I'm going to hear it everywhere for the next month. This'll be great." It was like the feeling you got when you heard "Sunshine," except the opposite.

Third Best Song on the Album: "Gotta Be Me," feat. Cresia

For two reasons, mostly.

First, relative to creating a Houston sound and feel, Cresia crushes this chorus. It's very good. She's like a female Big Moe here. We searched all over the Internet - typed her name into Google, whatever - to find more music from her but couldn't find any. We did, however, find a recipe for a lovely Italian cheese bread.

Second, we're a sucker for when rappers inevitably do the track on their album where they slow it down and try to sound meaningful or insightful. It's endearing, like when a kid tries to use a word like "succulent" in a conversation and almost gets it right. (i.e. How was your dinner, son? "It was good. I think I'll succulent it again tonight when I get hungry.")

Most Embarrassing Admission on the Album: "My favorite movie is CB4." We could run down the plot of CB4 if you like, or we could just tell you that one of the main characters in it is a guy named Stab Master Arson and cameos are made by Ice T, Shaq, Eazy-Z and Flavor Flav. That should give you pretty good insight into how good that movie is.

Obscure Fact(s) That You Can Pawn Off As Your Own To Make Yourself Sound Smart:

• People will mistakenly credit "I Can Do That" as belonging to Undaground Legend, Flip's first major studio album, and that's not entirely incorrect. There was a remix of it on there that featured Juvenile and Skip, but it actually first showed up here.
• This is the worst album cover in the history of Houston hip-hop. It's not even close. Remember how you felt watching Big Moe's "Purple Stuff" video*? You were sitting there thinking, How could anyone possibly have thought that this was a good idea? I can't believe his hangers-on pumped him up into doing this. This is worse than It's like that, but worse.

*Incidentally, "Purple Stuff," one of the worst videos from a Houston rapper, is on Purple World, which is easily Big Moe's best album cover.