"MF Doom and Madlib might not have invented underground rap, but they damn well perfected it". Pitchfork ranked the album at number 13 in their list of the top 100 albums of 2000–2004, commenting, "While Madlib's special power played tricks on your ears – a sample you were sure was the sound of cars rolling by on the street might sound like the hiss of a record on a different day ("Rainbows") – MF Doom unfurled his clever lyrics like a roll of sod on earth... and the album curved in on itself like a two-way mirror."Pitchfork also ranked Madvillainy as the 25th best album of the 2000s, describing it as "a preternaturally perfect pairing of like-minded talents" who "have each been responsible for tons of great, grimy underground hip-hop". Tiny Mix Tapes considered the album the fourth best of the 2000s. Rhapsody ranked the album 1st on its "Hip-Hop's Best Albums of the Decade" list. PopMatters positioned it at number 49 on their list of the 100 best albums of the 2000s and praised MF Doom, who "free-associates culture high and low, from Hemingway to Robh Ruppel, across tongue-tied internal rhymes", and Madlib's "fusion breaks, psych soul, and Steve Reich", and called the album "the best chemistry of either’s career, and one of the best of hip-hop, period". In 2016 Q listed Madvillainy among the albums that didn't appear in their list of the best albums of last 30 years, stating that "underground hip-hop's cracked geniuses, Madlib and MF Doom, unite on a labyrinth of weed-stained vignettes that combine invention and accessibility". Spin ranked it number 123 on their list of the 300 best albums of the past 30 years (1985–2014), calling it "a genius cross-pollination of seemingly divergent styles". The magazine also positioned the album at number eight on the list of the 50 best hip hop debut albums since Reasonable Doubt. Stylus Magazine ranked the album number 13 on their list of the top 50 albums of 2000–2005, praising Madlib's production, based on "an endless supply of funk, soul, and jazz samples", and stating that the album was "displaying the future of hip-hop". Legacy and influence Madvillainy influenced a generation of artists. Among some of them are rappers Joey Badass, the late Capital STEEZ, Bishop Nehru, Tyler, The Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, Kirk Knight, producer and rapper Flying Lotus, producer and DJ Cashmere Cat, neo soul