A QUESTION FOR THE OLD HEADS.....DID ILLMATIC REALLY HAVE AS MUCH OF AN IMPACT AS PEOPLE SAY.....

[How Sway?]

.......OR is it just propaganda from the "real hip hop" crowd?.

B/c peep this, it took illmatic 2 YEARS to go gold and 7 YEARS to go platinum. And this was back when nikkas were actually BUYING CD's.

So with that being said, are young folk like me who were not old enough to remember when it dropped, being told false information?

Perhaps it did well on the east coast but not everywhere else?

OR could it be that nikkas got the bootleg on cassette and thats the reason why it took it almost a decade to go platinum?

 

[West Coast Avenger]

you have to understand that album dropped in 1994........there were alot of good ass hip hop albums that dropped that year.......Illmatic gained attention because of Nas's lyricism and the production........it wasnt until the masses finally got a hold of the album that it truly had an impact.........people would always write great reviews for the album but it was a different time and news did not travel as fast as it does today.......that's why it took so long for people to hop on board......

 

[Poitier]

"Name a nikka that I ain't influenced"

 

[razassin]

Nas changed the game with that album... Real lyricist knew they had to up they pen game in order to catch up to nas...

I can only think of two emcees who made lyrics in the rap game evolve

Rakim n Nas

 

[mr.africa]

let me quote jay z for you:
'........I had the Illmatic, on bootleg
The shyt was so ahead, thought we was all dead......'

here is dream hampton on how pac felt about illmatic:
'Hampton credits Illmatic with providing a common artistic ground for rappers on the West Coast and East Coast rap scenes. In the 2009 essay "Born Alone, Die Alone," she recounts the album's impact on West Coast artist, Tupac Shakur. While working as a journalist for The Source in 1994, Hampton covered three court cases involving Tupac. Around this time, she received an advance-copy of Illmatic and immediately dubbed a cassette version for Tupac, who became "an instant convert" of the album. The next day, she writes, Tupac "arrived in his assigned courtroom blasting Illmatic so loudly that the bailiff yelled at him to turn it off before the judge took his seat on the bench.'

we all know that biggie won the best lyricist award around that time and even he, in his acceptance speech, acknowledged that maybe nas shoulda gotten that award.

mc serch claimed that he once discovered a garage with 60 000 bootleg illmatics.
how many albums you know of that are still selling 7 years after being released. not many . speaks of its quality!

make of it what you want, but the album definitely had an impact. countless artist of that time and time's there-after have heaped all kinds of praise on the album!!!!

....name a rapper that I ain't influenced....' might be one of the truest lines that came outta that jay/nas beef!!!!!!!!

 

[bigbadbossup2012]

No it did not. It probably wasnt in the top 10 of albums people were checking for that year.

 

[Big Skilly Films]

when illmatic dropped 2 people got shot on my block...

 

[How Sway?]

you have to understand that album dropped in 1994........there were alot of good ass hip hop albums that dropped that year.......Illmatic gained attention because of Nas's lyricism and the production........it wasnt until the masses finally got a hold of the album that it truly had an impact.........people would always write great reviews for the album but it was a different time and news did not travel as fast as it does today.......that's why it took so long for people to hop on board......

so basically what youre trying to say was that it was just a slow process rather than just a bunch of nikkas jumping on some fly by night bandwagon. I can understand that, but 7 years to go platinum is still a long time though???

 

[W.I.Z.E.]

It definitely did. It got 5 mics in the Source (which was the hip hop bible of the time). Pretty much any cat you knew that had an inkling of love for hip hop loved that album. It was also a crazy pivotal time in Hip hop. NWA was doing crazy isht on the West Coast, the South was starting to gain love. Wu-Tang had just come out, Biggie was getting love.

Hip hop had just left the "golden era" and this was seen as a true bastion of that era and a beacon of hope that perhaps a second golden era was upon us.

 

[jmspro]

Well, I admit I didn't get on Nas until If I Ruled The World single but I remember a few cats down here in GA mentioning Illmatic when it dropped. I think that says a lot.

 

[the cac mamba]

Yes of course you dumb nigguh childplease: :ahh

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

I want to curse you out for gauging impact by sales...

But you were probably born in 1995 and don't know any better...

94 was a great year for hip hop... but things were already underway before Illmatic dropped.

 

[How Sway?]

Well, I admit I didn't get on Nas until If I Ruled The World single but I remember a few cats down here in GA mentioning Illmatic when it dropped. I think that says a lot.

im pretty sure it was big on the east coast

...........but everywhere else???

 

[Poitier]

im pretty sure it was big on the east coast

...........but everywhere else???

It's no coincidence that people started referencing Illmatic rhymes in their raps

or that people started sharpening their flows

 

[NvrCMyNut]

it made new york rappers step their vocab up for about 2 years that's about it.