Classics Discussion: Notorious B.I.G., Digable Planets & Mos Def

[Inspect Her Deck]

Ok so some of y'all will be familiar with a project I'm deciding to run. I made this thread: The Official 'Classic Album' Discussion Thread, trying to reach a conclusion as to what defines a classic album. After much discussion, I am running with this definition personally, so take it as you will when you consider your classic albums. But this definition in particular was most agreed upon.

Classic: 1. An album considered by consensus of the core hip hop community to be of the highest quality (doesn't have to be perfect or flawless, just an album that the consensus deems the shyt).
2. Assuming that condition 1 is met, is this an album that has stood the test of time amongst the core hip hop community? Is that an album still held in high regard, still referenced at least ten years after its release? By a consensus of the hip hop community?

Props to @mobbinfms for the definition and also for his help generally in helping me with ideas to create these threads.

So I'll be going through one artist per day, and I will list out all their discography or close to all of it until the year 2005, as we decided that an album needs at least 10 years of existence before it can be called a classic or not.

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To help bring even more attention to these threads, I'm gonna create a hashtag (again props to mobbinfms for the idea) and I urge you guys to click on the tag and click on the option to watch the tag.

Here it is: #coliclassics

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Today we got a bunch of artists to take advantage of their limited discographies pre-2005: Biggie Smalls, Digable Planets and Mos Def.

Get voting!

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

#coliclassics

voted for Ready to Die and BOBS

 

[mobbinfms]

Ready and Life After
Black on Both Sides

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Ready and Life After
Black on Both Sides

what you think about the Digable Planets albums?

I feel Blowout Comb has more than enough quality but not much past that...

 

[mobbinfms]

@Inspect Her Deck aint got no love for Life After Death?

 

[mobbinfms]

what you think about the Digable Planets albums?

I feel Blowout Comb has more than enough quality but not much past that...

Never heard a Digable Planets album

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Never heard a Digable Planets album

you smell that breh?

that's the smell of the oven calling for you to put a casserole in and listen to Blowout Comb...



Also yeah man I'm very anti double albums because there is a compromise with quality with regards to filler, so LAD didn't pass the first test to be deemed a classic. Neither did AEOM for me. Wu Forever is different because it is GOAT.

 

[mobbinfms]

you smell that breh?

that's the smell of the oven calling for you to put a casserole in and listen to Blowout Comb...



Also yeah man I'm very anti double albums because there is a compromise with quality with regards to filler, so LAD didn't pass the first test to be deemed a classic. Neither did AEOM for me. Wu Forever is different because it is GOAT.

I am cooking dinner tomorrow night
LAD > WTF
It's the GOAT double album to me. What do you think is filler?

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

I am cooking dinner tomorrow night
LAD > WTF
It's the GOAT double album to me. What do you think is filler?

fukking You Tonight
I Love the Dough (kinda, love Jay)
Another
Nasty Boy
The World is Filled (kinda, less than the rest)

anyway more so than that, the other tracks aren't standout, at least not all. There's a lot of album tracks just there to serve their purpose imo. Very few tracks blew me away like that.

 

[kingofnyc]

 

[IAmListenin']

Biggie
Ready to Die, yes. In my opinion, there are no double-disc classics in hip-hop, so no to Life After Death. All double-disc hip-hop albums should have been condensed to one disc. (Speakerboxx/The Love Below was a case of two members of a duo making their own separate albums and packaging them together.)

Digable Planets
Blowout Comb's in my Top 50 favorites, but I don't know that it's a "classic." And it came out in '94, one of the two GOAT years. That's a tough year with all the albums that were released that year.

Mos Def
Black on Both Sides is also in my Top 50. Rawkus was big at the time, and this and Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star were big in college, so I'll say yes.

 

[phatphuck]

rtd and bobs

the first two digable planets were sick but so were a lot of albums around that time. these are 4, 4.5 albums imo

 

[DeuceCypherUno]

Blowout Comb is a classic and a half. So is BOBS and RTD

 

[Wiirdo]

Should have listed The Ecstatic instead of the New Danger.

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Should have listed The Ecstatic instead of the New Danger.

no albums after 2005