In honor of today being 4/20—every smoker's favorite day of the year—SOTC has compiled the 25 Best Rap Songs relating to weed. Though some may be more about bud than others, all are guaranteed to make your high all the more enjoyable. Be forewarned, though... this list doesn't have any happy hippy weed music—this is straight thugged-out entertainment. Locate your lighters.

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Since the days of Wild Style and Krush Groove, rappers have put their music on hold and delved into the film world. A bunch of these efforts were pretty bad—remember Ice-T in Leprechaun in the Hood—while others were so bad they were good. Cam crying in Killa Season or KRS fleeing the scene without a word in Who's The Man? had some unintentional comedy, as did DMX trying to explain to Nas what our purpose on earth is ("Shorty can't eat no books!") in Belly. And then there were the ones that were actually straight-up good.

The 18 films that follow didn't get much in the way of Oscar recognition, but if cinema is meant to entertain, well, they do that and then some.

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Thanks to Voice pal Mr. Eddie Huang, we came across the above clip of some Jeopardy! contestants who have apparently never seen the video for "Killa Cam." When supplied with the answer "Rapper Cam'ron had a pink one of these alliterative super-SUV's, but sold it as it got too much attention," the three hopefuls stared blankly at Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, who looked a little disappointed that no one knew how to reply to his query. (Trebek: Closet Diplomats fan? Or just irritated that nobody figured out the only SUV out there with an alliterative name is the Range Rover?) While this isn't the best "Unexpected Cam'ron appearance on national television" moment, it's definitely going to make it into the top five. A clip from the video featuring the pink Range after the jump.

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The Diplomats & Vado
Best Buy Theater
Friday, September 30

Better than: Waiting for the next big NYC hip-hop collective to appear.

"It ain't over! Fuck y'all talkin' about?" Cam'ron emphatically declared at one point during Friday night's celebration of the Diplomats' debut Diplomatic Immunity. He was right. The Diplomats—Cam, Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and Freekey Zekey—have managed to reign as one of NYC's definitive hip-hop groups, despite in-fighting and a relatively limited body of work.

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Hot 97 Summer Jam
New Meadowlands Stadium
Sunday, June 5

Better than: Sitting at home and moping like 50 Cent.

Rick Ross closed out Summer Jam.

Just so there's no revisionist history here, let's remember how incredible that statement is. Three years ago, Ross was the punching bag of hip-hop, the laughingstock of the streets. After recording countless verses that fetishized Tony Montana fantasies, someone pinched him—Ross' cartoonish thought bubble vanished into thin air, and he was rudely snapped back to reality. He wasn't a druglord superhero; he was William Roberts, a grown man playing dress-up, a former correctional officer who wanted to be a rapper so badly that he rewrote his personal history. Two years ago, he wasn't being played on New York radio.

And here, onstage at Giants Stadium, was Rick Ross—his chest puffed out, his black-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt open wide but still somehow stretching tight—cheered on by fifty thousand strong. They welcomed his street anthem, "B.M.F.," chanting a chorus and cadence that, in various incarnations, has blasted out of car windows on 125th ever since it came out last summer: "I think I'm Big Meech, Larry Hoover." Rick Ross can make up a lot of things, but even he couldn't make this up.

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This next joint is getting lit for a tradition in hip-hop long since passed--not Iceberg sweaters, but album skits. There've been so many awful ones that the handful of good ones weren't enough to keep them from going to hell in a backpack. But a few were incredibly vivid--and funny. Of course, it helped if the rapper performing them sounded cool saying pretty much anything, a la Ghostface Killah ("It feel hot at night..."). Or they were performed by Dave Chappelle, who Talib Kweli brought on board to imitate Nelson Mandela.

As you read on, you'll realize that three out of the 10 skits collected here are Wu-Tang related. To anyone tempted to complain about that, I say: Fuck off. I'm from the Wally era.

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Here's what's on the table with Gunz N' Butta, the new mixtape from Cam'ron and Vado: Cam'ron, six years removed from his last best shot at stardom, smirking and plucking the lowest hanging lyrical fruit available. His latest protégé, a scrawny, slightly bummy-looking dude with an unfortunate fondness for denim suits, barking himself hoarse. (His name, by the way, is apparently an acronym for "Violence and Drugs Only"-an admirably principled stand.) And beats by Araabmusik, a Harlem producer whose signature technique involves making his MPC explode over and over again until things resemble a Michael Bay movie. It doesn't get much deeper than that, so at this point, you've probably decided whether to back slowly away or rejoice like it's Rap Nerd Christmas.

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Ay! All photos by Jesse Serwer

The Diplomats
Hammerstein Ballroom
Friday, November 27

Better Than: Byrd Gang, Skull Gang, Purple City, U.N., Dipset West

It seems a little silly, really, this Dipset revival. When times grew lean for the Cam'ron-led crew a few years back, the support staff--from Jones on down--convinced themselves that they didn't need the brains of the operation anymore. This turned out not to be true, of course, and it took Cam'ron getting back with the old gang--right as he was enjoying a rebirth of sorts with new ally Vado--to make people care again. "Salute," the first and, thus far, only track issued by the newly reconstituted crew, is noisy, fresh and kind of undeniable. New York rap doesn't have much else going for it these days, so what the heck.

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Posse cuts are like friendlier versions of the WWE's Royal Rumble -- a platform designed to showcase all of the stars in the game, both up-and-coming and certified. Think back to the Main Source's 1991 "Live At The Barbecue," featuring Akinyele, Joe Fatal, and the debut of a rapper named Nas, or Big Pun's "Banned From TV" remix, featuring the murderer's row of N.O.R.E., Nature, Cam'ron, Jadakiss, and Styles P. More recently, there's been 2008's "Swagger Like Us"--T.I., Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and M.I.A.--or last year's "Forever," featuring Drake, Kanye West, Eminem, and Lil Wayne.

This year in particular, the posse cut seems to be in vogue. Kanye West has been the most visible artist to use the posse cut approach recently, stacking the majority of his G.O.O.D. Friday freebies with numerous MCs and singers. West also recently announced "All Of The Lights", the third single from his upcoming album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, will feature 11 artists (including Elton John!). But it's not just West calling all MCs to the booth. For whatever reason, great rappers have been teaming up a lot lately, and the result has been a hip-hop fan's wet dream. Every week, there's either some new remix or original song with numerous MCs trying to lay down the verse fans will talk about long after the song is playing. Here are ten of 2010's best posse cuts so far, complete with a verdict on who won each one:

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Axe Music

Well, it wasn't that secret: here is a clip of Tip talking about the show, out in the Hamptons. But the location was closely guarded, more or less, revealed late yesterday by Axe, the fragrance company at whose promotional behest this concert was staged. Unlike Kayne's super late night, staunchly elitist affair at the Box late last week, this one was for the people, sorta: if you pressed all the right Twitter and Facebook buttons you could get in, if you got there in time. Also, T.I. played for two hours and did 30 songs, which is kind of unheard of, but it's been a while, so can you blame him? Cam'ron, Swizz Beatz, and about a million other people came through. There are already photos of the show everywhere, of course:

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