Inspect Her Deck
Skins of all colours come together as brothers
As a person who lived in Saudi as an expat, I gotta@ some of the Hip Hop heads there as its like suburb kids in the states. You get a few folks who are up on stuff but its nothing compared to London or Canada or Japan or Europe internationally speaking. They love their pac, Wayne, 50 and Em though which is all you need to know (Although shout out to Big Hass over in Jeddah for running a underground Hip Hop radio show)
You cant deny 2002 was when Nas really had one of his best years ever. Yes Stillmatic is 2001 but lets be real it really had buzz going well into 2002, he had reinvigorated commercial profile (He was all over R&B radio with Brandy, Jagged Edge, Miss Dynamite and Jennifer Lopez), headed into the late summer with Lost Tapes and rounded out the year with God Son and THAT SINGLE, Made You Look was a refreshing boom bap hit in an era of Neptunes. One Mic and Made You Look were also probably the best Rap videos that year (and had commercial recongtion on MTV with One Mic being nominated for Best rap video and overall video of the year and Made You Look somehow making it to TRL number 1). Add to the drama of the Inc rumours and that infamous summerjam night and dude was the most buzzed about artist on the streets
That 12 month run of Stillmatic-Lost Tapes-God Son and emerging out of the Jay beef was kind of Nas second renaissance. He probably gained a whole new generation of fans off that run and solidfed his greatness as a legit top 5-10 all timer. Lowkey kinda brought concious rapping back to the mainstream a little too.
Scarface probably had the bonafide best album that year (though you can argue God Son/Lost Tapes, True Meaning ,and Lord Willin and I would dare Quality as classic joints that year too) and Eminem and Nelly were the big commercial cats and of course Styles and 50 ran the streets but overall as a Hip Hop dude who grabbed attention and headlines, made dope albums, had dope singles and was on the radio heavy gotta salute Nas there.
My Top dogs that year
Nas
Eminem
Scarface
50 Cent
Jay-Z (a wack album but still strong material and those Blueprint 1 outtakes that flodded the mixtapes Spring 02)
Clipse
Talib Kweli
Styles P
AZ
Honorable Mentions: Cormega, Nore, Beans and Free for State Prop the album, Snoop, Cam'ron, Nelly, Pastor Troy, Black Twang (had to show some UK international love), Ludacris, Busta (Both riding off a late 01 wave), Black Thought (Phernology), Ja Rule, LL Cool J
Excellent post once again breh I enjoy reading these.
I don't deny Stillmatic's impact running over into 2002 but my point was just for the thread-sake and the way we been going about the calendar year stuff.
Like for these threads you'd use the singles success of Biggie in 1995 for Ready to Die to fuel his argument for MVP in 1994 rather than vice-versa, so the same applies for Stillmatic and Nas in 2001.
But you are right in any case. And Nas is top 3 for me this year. Face beats him off the strength of The Fix, where ironically a top 2 track on the album is the one featuring Nas. Eminem was just on another planet this year though. Should be winning, but...The Coli.
and yeah I'm Middle Eastern so you spot on about Saudi Arabia and you probably speak on behalf of neighbouring countries too. Wayne is huge so were all those that dominated the radio. You had some real heads there too (the Mobb Deep/Redman kinda fans) but few and far between.