The 14 Most Controversial Rap Album Covers Ever

From 2 Live Crew’s weird day at the beach to Nicki Minaj’s powersquat, these classic hip-hop sleeves are as nasty as they wanna be.

Hip-hop boasts a long and storied legacy of provocative imagery adorning its beats and rhymes. Sure, there’s been way too many covers of MCs posing with exotic luxury cars, thong-clad beauties and stacks of cash over the years, but some images that utilized those tropes have still become immortal. The album covers assembled here feature bodacious body parts, violent fantasies, and politically-charged artwork that garnered buzz and in some cases, were yanked from record store shelves (remember those?). In the spirit of Maxim’s risqué rock covers, here’s a collection of hip-hop’s most sensational sleeves.

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