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

[Anti-Anime]

at Pac blasting that shyt in court after first hearing it the day before. Real nikka shyt.

 

[Teko]

I love Nas, but he benefits from incredible double standards on the Coli (and sohh before that). The excuses kill me, why would bootlegging be a factor for him and not the other artists in the same Era?

I wont even touch on albums from the west like doggystyle or regulate...g funk era who's impact blew illmatic's out of the water. Lets just take a look at Rappers from the tri state area that released an album in that same time period (1993-1996).

Wu tang, 36 chambers went gold in 4 months in March 1994 (from Nov 1993)
Biggie, Ready to die took 2 months to go gold in Nov 1994 (from Sept 1994)
Redman, Dare iz a darkside went gold in under two months in Jan 1995 (from Nov 1994)
ODB, Return to the 36 chambers went gold in 3 months in June 1995 (from March 1995)
Mob deep, The infamous went gold in 2 months in June 1995 (from April 1995)
Raekwon, OB4CL went gold in 2 months in October 1995 (from August 1995)
Jay Z, Reasonable doubt went Gold in 3 months in Sept 1996 (from June 1996)
Mob deep, Hell on earth went gold in 5 months in April 1997 (from November 1996)
IWW, by Nas himself, released in Sept 1996 went gold under a month

Now we have Illmatic, going gold in 21 months in Jan 1996 (from April 1994)! But no, its because it was bootlegged, otherwise would have gone platinum in a month

Even if you exclude Ready to die which you could say had a lot of promotion, the point still stands. The most hilarious one is Jay-Z's RD, who I must have seen about 20 threads (from sohh and on here) about its revisionism in terms of its impact, I wonder what that makes Illmatic that took almost 2 years to go gold.

This. Even worse, RD was on an independent label and independent distributor vs. Illmatic that was on Columbia with Sony Urban- The GOAT music distributor and marketing team with extremely deep pockets. Anyway, its still a good album but overrating it is Sohh/ Coli's favourite pastime. I suppose it gets all the fake stans useless brownie points. Personally, Nas is super nice but i have never met anyone who is into Nas as people on this forum: They might occasionally buy his albums, but are they as enamored as the soldiers on here? Nope.

 

[Wacky D]

@Bugsmoran

I get the feeling that we're in agreement but we just don't like each others wording?

I don't know.

 

[Bugsmoran]

yes, but there were other groups that were coppin illmatic & enta da stage as well. that's the difference between them & mos def.

nas & black moon had the streets in a frenzy. the only streets that was behind mos def were what was left of the dying breed of black backpackers.

I agree when Mos Def came out his fans was "the dying breed of black backers"

But u gotta remember when illmatic dropped backpackers were black...so Nas and Mos Def did have the same fanbase.... Nas didn't start reaching the other groups you're talkin bout until his second album came out

A good description of a backpacker in the early 90's was that n1gga sitting on the bus or the train rocking timb boots, camouflage pants, a backpack, always had sum headphones on bumping music like Nas. Boot camp click. Keith Murray. Artifacts..... illmatic had a big impact on that group of people when it first dropped but it took a minute for other groups to appreciate it

Now the average backpacker is a dude that looks like Mac Miller

 

[BrothaZay]

My family on the west coast to this day still dont know what illmatic is...and they old heads, so no

Doggystyle>>>>>>>>

 

[Wacky D]

I agree when Mos Def came out his fans was "the dying breed of black backers"

But u gotta remember when illmatic dropped backpackers were black...so Nas and Mos Def did have the same fanbase.... Nas didn't start reaching the other groups you're talkin bout until his second album came out

A good description of a backpacker in the early 90's was that n1gga sitting on the bus or the train rocking timb boots, camouflage pants, a backpack, always had sum headphones on bumping music like Nas. Boot camp click. Keith Murray. Artifacts.

Now the average backpacker is a dude that looks like Mac Miller

good point.

backpackers accounted for a good portion of the streets back then.

we're in agreement on that.

im just saying that being a backpack favorite in '94 had a longer reach than it did in '99.

 

[mobbinfms]

It had a big impact where it mattered. The culture back then isn't how it is now, it was more driven by 'hip hop heads' anyways, thats why you had the likes of Wu Tang at the forefront of rap. It didn't have GRODT impact in terms of sales, but in terms of its influence to other NY rappers(in 94/95), it certainly had a bigger one.

Nothing more needs to be said. Stop trying to compare back then to nowadays.

 

[emoney]

I concur with Taadow

IWW shot Nas to prominence

The record with Lauryn Hill "If I Ruled The World" is one of his biggest to date.

 

[MR. Conclusion]

To the OP: you gotta understand when this album dropped, a lot of rappers were automatically forced to step their pen game up. On the freestyle radio shows where aspiring rappers would call in to spit over the phone, MADD HEADZ WAS SOUNDING LIKE NAS. I always look at rap as before/after that album dropped.

And as for you sales point? It's not a bad question, one thing I can think of is this is another reason why this was the best period in rap music. So much was poppin that even when an album like this drop, there's just too much other dope shyt to ignore.

Think of your favorite/classic albums of the last year. Now imagine albums on that level dropping at least TWICE a month. There was just too much dopeness to be focused on any one MC.

 

[Art Barr]

no, it did not...there was a lot of good to great music coming out then...people listened to it, but it didn't have this impact people trying to make it seem like it did...also, the source giving it 5 mics helped amplify this supposed impact.....if you wanna know, the chronic had a bigger impact

Only nikka, downplaying illmatic is some gooflame toy ass nikkaz.


Art Barr

 

[diggy]

no...noone at school was really fukkin with it heavily but when It was written dropped tho, street dreams was all over radios at the park

it certain wasnt a chronic or doggy stlye in terms of impact

 

[beaniemac]

illmatic definitely changed the game. first off, the lyricism was ridiculous as we know. then 2nd, nas was one of the first if not the first rapper to make an album with an assortment of producers instead of just 1 or 2 producers like most other rappers did back then. so it had a unique sound just off that alone.

 

[mobbinfms]

Yes, go look up Resurrection by Twista in 94 and see how far ahead he was than naS in 94...

@essdot literally nobody was checkin for illmatic outside of a 3 block radius in NY. That is why is took 7 years to go plat, even with heavy propaganda from EC based magazines. shyt just wasnt poppin AT ALL. You came to the logical conclusion in your OP. There was literally nothing advanced about it if you listen to other rappers of the time, and they sold MUCH better. Look at LL at that time, Naughty By Nature, Pac, Cube, Redman, the nikkaz that @bigbadbossup2012 listed.... even Kris Kross had a bigger influence considering they birthed Da Brat who was also bigger than naS at that time.

It's funny that Twista's Ressurection actually did only resonate within Chicago.

 

[beaniemac]

in meant something to the east maybe. It was meh to the rest of the world. Yes the east coast bias mag THE SOURCE pumped it up and probably helped it alot. Southernpalyalistic... funkadafied READY TO DIE the diary THUGLIFE regulate...the g-funk era
Tical It Takes a Thief
On the Outside Looking In We Come Strapped N Gatz We Truss AmeriKKKa's Nightmare all were poppin more

that's

back in the 90's we actually had an all rap radio station out here. and they stayed playing and breaking records. that's where I first heard of nas. this was way before illmatic came out. they stayed playing ain't hard to tell and halftime. just off those two records alone, I knew I was fukking with his album when it dropped and I was a fan ever since. I knew mad nikkas that was bumping illmatic when that joint dropped.

 

[nieman]

absolute nonsense. we asked my big bro to get it cause we liked it aint hard to tell. THAT ALBUM WAS NOT HOT in any hood i went to ,at school, on the bus etc. Never heard mf's rolling past bumpin it never heard it being played out someone's home. It's faux popularity was forced by the unjustified 5 mics it was given by the source,while great bonafide classic couldnt get 5 mics like doggystyle MATW the chronic. As i named in an earlier post,those albums were hotter than illmatic. In the real world 2pacalypse now impacted people harder than illmatic and THAT album isnt even considered popular.

I said it would depend on how you defined impact. The World is Yours was in HEAVY rotation and a favorite of everyone in Philly. So was Memory Lane, One Love, Life's a B!tch. He wasn't spittin grimier than BCC, Wu, Biggie, but it was more poetic, more descriptive. I said everyone was captivated by him, not everyone bought the album. I also said people heard the album second-third-hand dubs, not personally. There was something that made you pay attention, and it was seemingly different from Biggie, 2pac, Tical...As with most, One Love, The World is Yours and Life's a bytch are some of my favorite tracks from that year, and most memorable.

Let's say this. In '94 did you know who Nas was? Yup. Was the album known? Yup Were people quoting tracks? Yup Did it make you pay attention to Nas? Yes. By that it had an impact.