Jay Z ranks albums from best to worst

Jay Z has hailed his debut record, Reasonable Doubt, as his crowning achievement.

The hip-hop superstar turned 44 years old on Wednesday (04Dec13) and to celebrate, he took a look back at his two decade career and revealed his favorite and least favorite records.

Jay Z posted a photo on his Life + Times blog, showing a stack of his 12 studio albums, with Reasonable Doubt at the top of the heap.

The 1996 record, which was independently released, peaked on the Billboard chart at number 23, and included hit singles including Ain't No N**ga and Can't Knock the Hustle.

The rapper's critically acclaimed album, The Blueprint, came in at number two, and what he called his "retirement record", The Black Album, followed at number three, with Jay captioning each of them as "classics".

The rapper's most recent release, Magna Carta... Holy Grail ranked at number six, and he defended 2009 album, The Blueprint 3, which received a number of negative reviews, writing, "Sorry critics, it's good."

Coming in at the bottom of the list was his 2006 comeback album, Kingdom Come, which he released three years after his supposed retirement.