T.I.'s first album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 98 in October 2001, and within months Arista had released him from his contract. Five years later, Lloyd Banks' second album opened at No. 3 with 143,000 copies sold, lost the top spot to a Rod Stewart covers record and has been remembered as a disappointment ever since.

The back half of the month belongs to three bigger records. John Legend's Once Again turns 20 on Oct 24 and Ghostface Killah's Ironman turns 30 on Oct 29. Michael Jackson's Invincible, the last studio album he released in his lifetime, turns 25 on Oct 30.

Big Crown Records, the New York soul label Leon Michels and Danny Akalepse started in 2016, also turns ten, and its Big Crown Day on Oct 24 brings a previously unreleased 7-inch. NxWorries' Yes Lawd! reaches ten on Oct 21.

T.I., I'm Serious at 25 (Oct 9)

I'm Serious debuted on October 9, 2001, through Arista (which had absorbed T.I.'s 1999 label, LaFace). The album featured production from DJ Toomp on the intro and "Dope Boyz," Lil Jon, Jazze Pha, and The Neptunes, who anchored the title track with a hook by dancehall icon Beenie Man.

The album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 98 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart at No. 27. T.I. asked Arista for a joint venture or a release from his deal, and the label chose the release. I'm Serious remains his only album for the company.

He formed Grand Hustle with his business partner Jason Geter, released mixtapes with DJ Drama and signed with Atlantic. Trap Muzik opened there at No. 4 in 2003 with 109,000 copies, with Toomp as executive producer. In March 2006, King sold 522,000 copies in its first week, the biggest debut of that year at the time it landed.

Kill The King, released June 26 through Grand Hustle and EMPIRE, is the album he has said will be his last, and its credits run straight back to the debut. Pharrell Williams produced the lead single "Let 'Em Know," which ended a six-year absence from the Hot 100, reached the Top 40 and went gold. Toomp produced "How It Went."

T.I. explained the title by going back to 2001. "Ever since my first album, I've put the title of 'King of the South' on me, and to make yourself the king is to make you a target," he said during the rollout. "And in chess, the object is to kill the king."

The farewell opened with 22,000 equivalent album units, entering the Billboard 200 at No. 30 and the R&B/hip-hop albums chart at No. 10, his 13th top-ten entry on that chart. "Why now? I've gotten everything I prayed for from the game," he told People. Twenty-five years after the debut that cost him his first deal, the last album came out on the company he founded after Arista let him go.

Lloyd Banks, Rotten Apple at 20 (Oct 10)

Lloyd Banks came into 2006 with a platinum debut behind him. The Hunger for More had opened at No. 1 in June 2004 with 433,000 copies behind "On Fire." The following March, 50 Cent's The Massacre moved 1.14 million copies in its first week.

After an unmastered leak derailed his first sophomore effort, The Big Withdrawal, Banks scrapped the project and recorded Rotten Apple from scratch. Flipping New York’s signature nickname, the album was crafted to convey life in South Jamaica, Queens. As Banks later shared on the Rap Radar podcast: "My advance for my second album was like a million dollars."

The album’s high budget was evident in its credits. Havoc produced the title track (featuring 50 Cent and Prodigy), Eminem helmed "Hands Up" and "NY NY," and 9th Wonder produced "One Night Stand." High-profile features rounded out the project, with Rakim on "You Know the Deal," Scarface and 8Ball on "Iceman," and Musiq Soulchild on "Addicted."

Rotten Apple arrived on Oct 10, 2006, and sold 143,000 copies in its first week, good for No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on both the R&B/hip-hop and rap albums charts. Rod Stewart's rock covers set took No. 1 that week. Banks sold 49,000 in week two and slid to No. 15, and after five weeks his total stood at 250,000.

The album has never been certified in the United States, though it went gold in Canada. Five weeks after it landed, The Game, whom 50 Cent had pushed out of G-Unit in 2005, opened Doctor's Advocate at No. 1 with 358,000 copies.

Twenty years on, the slump label measures Rotten Apple against a platinum debut and a million-selling crew album. The record itself opened in the top three with a Rakim verse and an Eminem-produced single. Banks kept working on his own terms. Since 2021 he has released the Course of the Inevitable albums independently through Money By Any Means and EMPIRE, with Benny the Butcher, Freddie Gibbs, Conway the Machine, Jadakiss and Styles P on them. He put out A.O.N. 3: Despite My Mistakes on his 43rd birthday last year.

John Legend, Once Again at 20 (Oct 24)

John Legend released his second album through GOOD Music, Sony Urban and Columbia on Oct 24, 2006. Eight months earlier, Get Lifted had won him Grammys for Best New Artist, Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Album. He executive produced it with Kanye West and co-produced most of it himself.

The credits split the album between rooms. will.i.am produced "Save Room," "Each Day Gets Better," "Slow Dance" and "Coming Home," and West produced "Heaven" and "Another Again." Raphael Saadiq produced "Show Me," which Estelle helped write, and Sa-Ra built "Maxine" with Steve Bruner, the bassist now known as Thundercat. Craig Street produced "Again" and "Where Did My Baby Go," two ballads carried by Legend's piano and live drums.

Once Again sold 231,000 copies in its first week and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, behind the Hannah Montana soundtrack and My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade. It topped the R&B/hip-hop albums chart. It sold another 115,000 the following week, and the RIAA certified it platinum on Dec 5, 2006, six weeks after release.

Two weeks earlier, Rotten Apple had opened in the same No. 3 slot with 143,000 copies. Legend's album went on to win the Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance with the Kanye West production "Heaven," and "Save Room" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

Ghostface Killah, Ironman at 30 (Oct 29)

Ironman came out on Oct 29, 1996, through RZA's Razor Sharp imprint and Epic Street, making Ghostface Killah the fifth Wu-Tang Clan member to release a solo album. RZA produced all but one track, and the record carried two more names on its cover: Raekwon, who appears on 12 of its 17 songs, and Cappadonna, who appears on five.

RZA built it from soul records and film dialogue, much of it from the 1970s. "Iron Maiden" opens on Al Green's "Gotta Find a New World" and a scene from The Education of Sonny Carson, and "Daytona 500" runs on Bob James' "Nautilus." The Delfonics and Force MDs sing on the back half. The vocals sound different from earlier Wu records because a flood destroyed the basement studio where RZA kept a separate preamp and compressor for each member. Ironman was cut on other equipment.

The single that reached furthest beyond the crew was "All That I Got Is You," a song about Ghostface's mother and the poverty he grew up in, sung with Mary J. Blige over the Jackson 5's "Maybe Tomorrow."

Ironman sold 156,000 copies in its first week, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the R&B/hip-hop albums chart, and went platinum. Thirty years later, it remains the best seller of his solo career. Its sample of Michael Jackson's "The Lady in My Life" on "Daytona 500" points straight at the next anniversary on the calendar.

Michael Jackson, Invincible at 25 (Oct 30)

Invincible was Michael Jackson's first album of new material since HIStory in 1995, and it took four years to make. Sessions started in October 1997, the last song, "You Are My Life," was recorded eight weeks before the Oct 30, 2001, release, and the reported cost came to close to $30 million.

Rodney Jerkins produced six tracks at Criteria Studios in Miami, including "Unbreakable," "You Rock My World" and "Threatened." "So I would find myself at like junkyards, and we'd be out hitting stuff, to create our sound," Jerkins told Vibe in 2009. Teddy Riley produced four songs, Babyface produced "You Are My Life," and the Notorious B.I.G. verse on "Unbreakable" was lifted from his appearance on Shaquille O'Neal's "You Can't Stop the Reign."

The album's most durable R&B record was "Butterflies," written by Floetry's Marsha Ambrosius with Andre Harris, the Philadelphia producer who made it with Jackson. Ambrosius sang background on it. Released only to radio, it reached No. 14 on the Hot 100 and held No. 2 on the R&B/hip-hop songs chart for five weeks. Five years later, Ambrosius sang on "Life," a bonus track on Rotten Apple.

Invincible sold 366,272 copies in its first week and replaced DMX's The Great Depression at No. 1. A week later it fell to No. 3 with 202,000 behind Britney Spears, and it was certified double platinum in January 2002. "You Rock My World," also a radio-only release in the U.S., peaked at No. 10.

The promotional push behind Invincible quickly stalled. After learning during recording sessions that Sony would hold his master recordings longer than expected, Jackson decided to part ways with the label, leading Sony to scale back the campaign. By July 2002, Jackson had publicly attacked Sony Music chief Tommy Mottola. Coincidentally, Mariah Carey’s 25th anniversary edition of Glitter, another fall 2001 release, arrived on the same date.

Big Crown Records at 10 (Big Crown Day, Oct 24)

Leon Michels and Danny Akalepse met at Truth & Soul, the retro-soul label Michels co-founded with Jeff Silverman in 2004, where Akalepse worked as label manager. Truth & Soul dissolved in July 2016 and sold its catalog to The Orchard, and the two men started Big Crown soon after, bringing Lee Fields and several other artists with them.

Michels had been inside New York's soul revival since high school. He toured with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and El Michels Affair's Sounding Out The City became the first Truth & Soul release in 2005. His band later backed Wu-Tang Clan members on tour, and he co-produced Aloe Blacc's Good Things before working on records for The Carters and Clairo.

Big Crown's first official 45 was a version of GZA's "4th Chamber." One of its first albums was Queen Alone by Lady Wray, who had a 1998 hit as Nicole Wray with "Make It Hot" on Missy Elliott's label. "I don't just listen to old-school soul, so I don't just want to put out old-school soul," Michels told Bandcamp Daily in the label's second year.

The roster since has run from Hamburg's Bacao Rhythm and Steel Band to the Finnish soul singer Bobby Oroza. In 2023 the label put out Glorious Game, which paired Black Thought with El Michels Affair, a band that has recorded live versions of Wu-Tang songs.

Big Crown Day lands on Saturday, Oct 24, at participating record stores. The release slate includes a 40-plus-page Wax Poetics magazine built from the label's photo archive and interviews with both owners. It comes with a 7-inch that pairs El Michels Affair's "Oh Medaase!" featuring Ahemaa Nwomkro with Dave Guy's "Here Tomorrow, Gone Today."

Stores will also carry a 70-minute cassette on which the Japanese 45 DJ Koco, also known as Shimokita, mixes the label's 7-inch catalog, with cover art by J Bonner. The double LP BCR10: Ten Years of Big Crown goes on sale that day, a week before its worldwide release. It collects tracks from Lady Wray, Lee Fields and The Expressions, El Michels Affair, Dave Guy, Bobby Oroza and Liam Bailey, with liner notes by the journalist and DJ Jeff Mao.

Also turning ten: NxWorries, Yes Lawd! (Oct 21)

Anderson .Paak and the producer Knxwledge released Yes Lawd! through Stones Throw on Oct 21, 2016, a week after it streamed early on Apple Music. Knxwledge produced all 19 tracks, which absorbed the earlier "Suede" and "Link Up" singles, and the album reached No. 59 on the Billboard 200. That summer .Paak sang on Mac Miller's "Dang!" and this June he turned up again on T.I.'s Kill The King.

The run starts Friday with T.I., reaches Legend and Big Crown Day on Saturday, Oct 24, and closes Oct 30 with Jackson and Carey.