Has “Where the party at?” ever had a more singular response than it has during the age of social distancing? At first the answer was, for basically everyone, “nowhere”. But thanks to the ingenuity of Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, the party’s now at the beatmakers’ instantly legendary Verzuz live-stream events. The song-for-song face-offs between rap and R&B luminaries have exploded in popularity, with Verzuz claiming that Erykah Badu and Jill Scott’s battle received a whopping billion impressions. Following that unprecedented celebration of neo-soul comes a hip-hop matchup for the books: Nelly and Ludacris, two of the most commercially successful MCs of all time, both of whom will go down in their cities’ (St. Louis and Atlanta, respectively) musical halls of fame. Both delivered their official debut albums in 2000, and both made their names rapping largely about—and for—the regions they came from. Though he was speaking only for himself at the time, Nelly, in 2004’s "Another One”, sums up the everlasting appeal of both MCs: “I made it tight to be country/They thought country was bummy/Until country start makin’ money,” he raps. The money came for sure, but for their trouble we got raucous hit songs that largely defined rap in the early 2000s. Dig deep into the catalogues of two of hip-hop’s most beloved party-starters with this Nelly and Ludacris Cheat Sheet playlist, curated by Apple Music host Lowkey.