The first place to start to find some clean rap music is by checking out artists who don't feel the need to include expletives to spice up their game. Even Eminem, one of hip-hop's most controversial artists, knows that "Will Smith don't gotta cuss in his raps to sell records." Will Smith's 1990s jams on his debut solo album "Big Willie Style" are a good place to start when looking for something clean for your CD player. This album--which includes the theme song from the Smith film "Men in Black"; a cover of "Just the Two of Us," which focuses on Smith's family life; and the summer hits "Miami" and "Getting Jiggy Wit' It"--is perhaps one of the definitive clean hip-hop discs. Of course, Will Smith didn't stop with his debut. He has three other albums: "Willennium," most well known for the theme song to the mediocre film "Wild, Wild West"; 2002's "Born to Reign"; and 2005's "Lost and Found," all clean.
Will Smith is certainly not the only hip-hop artist able to hold back on the expletives and present a quality disc. Although LL Cool J has released several albums with explicit content, he makes the list for a couple of his more recent CDs. "10," his 10th album, released in 2002, and 2004's "The Definition." Both lose some of LL Cool J's earlier hardcore rap character, but fortunately for anyone looking for clean hip-hop, they stop dropping 'F' bombs as well.
As seen with the rise of Lil' Wayne and others in recent years, having a diminutive attached to your name doesn't necessarily mean your rap is clean. So perhaps it's fitting that, having shed the "Lil'" from his name in 2003, Bow Wow's most recent album, "New Jack City II" sports a parental advisory sticker. However, his several releases prior, before and after the name change, are about as innocent as you get in hip-hop. The one challenge to that statement may be another former "Lil,'" the artist currently known as Romeo. Having begun his career at the age of 11, it is not too surprising that this young rapper's body of work is still fairly clean. However, everyone will just have to wait and see if the tone of his future releases is a different story.