Future - "Reasonable Doubt was not hot when it dropped"

[Still Benefited]

Illmatic isn't a classic because in an alternate reality it may not have been a classic. :prodigylol:

its the same argument yall have about RD...RD is a classic now so i guess it was a classic back then too,the right people just hadnt got to hear it yet

 

[Gravity]

i'm not a hater, but i was around when the album dropped. yes, numbers didn't determine if people fukked with you and illmatic, the infamous and a couple of other classic albums did similar numbers. but reasonable doubt was not one of those albums. jay-z was that breh in the foxy brown video and resonable doubt was on nobodies radar. it wasn't considered an underground classic, it was just one of many mafioso rap albums dropping at the time. i remember a source article covering the puff daddy and the family tour in 1997 calling jay, who was a support act, an "overrated technician" and his performance forgettable

i'm not hating on i like a lot of his records (including reasonable doubt) and think that the blueprint is one of the best albums ever recorded in rap. i'm just calling it as it is. jay blew up in '98 with hard knock life, before that, he was on nobodies list. but beginning with the promotion of the blueprint, jay started to rewrite history. there was a huge marketing campaign that culminated in his "retirement" and the black album, trying to make jay the greatest rapper ever and the king of ny. but the truth is, that his first album, while pretty good in retrospect, wasn't considered a classic until jay started saying that it was so often, that people began to repeat it. we can argue that it was slept on, but it was never a classic. the same is true for his own status in rap. jay was never the hottest rapper out, there was always somebody bigger than him. from his debut in 96 to his retirment in 2003 and the whole president carter shtick, tupac, nas, biggie, eminem, dmx, ja rule and 50 cent were all bigger then him. in every single year, somebody else was the hottest rapper. jay was the most consistent rapper, starting the trend to drop an album every year, releasing a couple if singles that did pretty well and going one or two times platinum with every album after vol. 2. but he was never the hottest rapper, he never outsold everybody else and he was never king of ny (at least at a time when that title still meant something). he had a nice consistent run from '98 until 2003 and somehow managed to inflate his own status by claiming that he was bigger than he actually was

Save the 1000 word essays. You are hating. It's one thin to say that this is howbuounosrsonalky felt, but to ignore people telling you that they felt differently in an attempt to project this bullshyt on everybody is another thing. Cats are telling you that the saw the greatness in the album from day one and you're trying to argue them down. Shut the fukk up and get over yourself.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Illmatic bettr than Doggystyle?do i even need to address that?Snoop didnt need to tell everybody how great Doggystyle was,Snoop unjustly aint get 5 mics and didnt need em.....he had top 3 most anticipated album of all time,REALLY made a impact in real time,was also the most anticipated EMCEE of all time NATIONALLY....You see these is real stats

stop it. there is a difference from critically acclaimed vs commercial success. Illmatic was critically acclaimed and influential from that POV/moving the culture forward on a positive level.

Artistic credibility
The content of Illmatic is also informed by notions of artistic authenticity.[27] The promotional press sheet that accompanied the album's release implied Nas’s refusal to conform to commercial trends, stating: “While it's sad that there's so much frontin' in the rap world today, this should only make us sit up and pay attention when a rapper comes along who's not about milking the latest trend and running off with the loot.”[20] At the time of the album's release, the hip hop community was embroiled in a debate about artistic authenticity and commercialism in popular music.[27] Rapper Common, describes in the preface to Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic the concerns that were felt by him and his contemporaries: “It was that serious for so many of us. We didn’t just grow up with hip hop; we grew up with hip-hop as hip-hop was also growing, and so that made for a very close and intimate relationship that was becoming more and more urgent – and we felt it. Our art was being challenged in many ways as the moneymen began to sink their teeth into us.”[22]

Guthrie Ramsay Jr. argues that Nas “set a benchmark for rappers in an artistic field consumed by constantly shifting notions of 'realness', authenticity, and artistic credibility."[30] Sohail Daulatzai writes: "Though Illmatic was highly anticipated release, far from under the radar, Nas's taking it back to 'the dungeons of rap' was…a kind of exorcism or purging ('where fake nikkas don’t make it back') that was at the very least trying to claim a different aesthetic of resistance and rebellion that was all too aware of hip-hop's newfound mainstream potential."[27]



Lyricism
During the time of its release, Illmatic brought a renewed focus on lyricism to hip hop—hearkening back to the heyday of Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, and Rakim.[5][14] Music journalist Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times wrote of Illmatic, stating that Nas "perfected a dense, rat-a-tat rhyme style that built upon the legacy of 1980s pioneers like Rakim and Big Daddy Kane."[88] In his book To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic, William Jelani Cobb writes of Nas' impact on lyricism and the comparisons to eminent rapper Rakim at the time:

Nas, the poetic sage of the Queensbridge projects, was hailed as the second coming of Rakim—as if the first had reached his expiration date. [...] Nas never became 'the next Rakim,' nor did he really have to. Illmatic stood on its own terms. The sublime lyricism of the CD, combined with the fact that it was delivered into the crucible of the boiling East-West conflict, quickly solidified [his] reputation as the premier writer of his time.[111]

Despite its initial low sales, the album had a profound impact on the hip hop underground circuit, and marked a major stylistic change in hip hop music by introducing a new standard of lyricism.[38] Before the album's release, hip-hop lyricism was mostly defined by two popular forms. One was characterized by a fast-paced ragga-flow accompanied with a whimsical, often nonsensical lyrical delivery, and had been popularized by the Brooklyn-based groups Das EFX and The Fu-Schnickens.[112] The other was characterized by a slurred "lazy drawl" that sacrificed lyrical complexity for clarity and rhythmic cadence, and was exemplified by West Coast hip hop emcees including Snoop Doggy Dogg and Warren G.[113] However, Nas' content, verbal pace, and intricate internal rhyme patterns inspired several rappers to modify their lyrical abilities.[5][14] Music critic Rob Marriott notes, "[R]appers like Mobb Deep, Tragedy Khadafi, Nature, Cormega, Noreaga, Capone, Raekwon, Ghostface, and even the Windy City wordsmith Common seemed to find new inspiration in Nas' self awareness, internal rhyme schemes, and mastery of street detail."[51] Marriott also describes the impact of Illmatic's "poetic approach" on Jay-Z, writing: "The Brooklyn MC switched his style up from his fast-talking Jaz-O days enough to produce Reasonable Doubt, an album marked by Nas-like introspection..."[51]

Many rappers have taken note of Illmatic's influence on their lyricism. Ghostface Killah recounted, “When I used to listen to Nas back in the days, it was like, ‘Oh shyt! He murdered that.’ That forced me to get my pen game up ... The whole Illmatic album forced you to go ahead and do shyt ... It was inspiration." [114] Detroit rapper Elzhi states, "[A]round the time Nas did Illmatic, it made me wanna step my game up ... He's one of the reasons I did go off into storytelling because his pictures were so vivid. When he displayed his rhyme schemes and his word play and his songs, it made me wanna create visual pictures as well."[115] Casey Veggies also recounts the impact Nas' lyricism had on his own work as an underground rapper in the 2000s: “I [got into] Illmatic when I was 14, 15. I didn’t get onto to it till late, but when I did, that's probably the only thing I listened to for six months to a year ... After I got heavy on Illmatic, I put out Sleeping In Class (2010). That's when I really tried to sharpen my skills and get better.”[116]

Hip-Hop poetry




According to author and poet Kevin Coval, Nas “raise[d] the bar for MCs” by advancing his lyricism “from punch lines and hot lines to whole thought pictures manifest in rhyme form.” Together with Paul Beatty’s seminal collection of poems, Joker Joker Deuce (1994) Coval cites the release of Illmatic as a "generational moment" that marked the development of hip hop poetry.[26] Just as hip-hop poetics were being written and published for the first time on paper, Nas provided a sonic production that definitively captured "the poetic response" to hip hop music.[26] “It is from this point on,” he writes, “that style, technique and craft merge with collage/pastiche, braggadocio, stark portrait-painting from the margins, frenetic, fun and funny wordplay, and the rupture of linear storytelling schemes. These become tropes in a burgeoning school of American letters that's moving toward an aesthetics of hip-hop poetics."[26]

Many of the poetic tropes found in Illmatic have also become terms and phrases within hip-hop lexicon.[51] "'The World Is Yours,' Nas' reference to the blimp in Scarface," writes Rob Marriott, "has remained a trope hip-hop has taken to heart ... Even the word "Illmatic" itself [...] became synonymous with anything surprisingly excellent, street-born and/or out of left field."[51] In 2013, music writer Jeff Weiss commented on the extensive vernacular usage of Illmatic, writing: "The phrases and images are so deeply rooted in rap consciousness to have become cliché. Over the last 19 years, a million secret handshakes and scratched hooks have been executed to lines from Illmatic."[20]

Hip-Hop debates


Illmatic has also helped to shape the attitudes and perceptions of hip hop fans, who cherish it as a music template that defines the genre's conventions. As music critic Jeff Weiss writes, “Illmatic is the gold standard that boom-bap connoisseurs refer to in the same way that Baby Boomers talk about Highway 61 Revisited. The evidence they point to when they want to say: this is how good it can be.”[20] New York Times columnist Jon Caramanica also credits the album with inadvertently spawning hip hop's counterculture. "Illmatic" he writes, "mobilized a national network of dissidents craving something true to the streets but eager to distance themselves from what was beginning to be perceived as a scourge – gangster rap." According to Caramanica, Nas' debut was received by these fans as a "rebuke" towards trends that were beginning to shape mainstream rap: "the pop crossover, the exuberant production values, [and] the splintering of rap into blithe and concerned wings."[27]

'

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Doggystyle is classic too and did better commercially but to many it represented the wrongs of Gangsta Rap and the dumbing down of lyricism

Hip-hop music
Doggystyle is seen by many hip hop pundits as a "classic" and an "essential" album.[42] It is credited with defining West Coast hip hop; shifting the emphasis to more melodious, synth-driven, and funk-induced beats. About.com stated during the period the album was released, "Gangsta rap never sounded so sweet." The album is credited for further establishment of the slurred "lazy drawl" that sacrificed lyrical complexity for clarity and rhythmic cadence on Doggystyle and The Chronic.[1][2] The album is considered as one of the first G-funk albums the style of which many rappers duplicated in later years.[1]

Hip-hop culture
It has been suggested by some writers and publications that Doggystyle has considerably affected African-American culture. Some publications have held the rap genre responsible for social problems such as sexual violence and sexism, which has been blamed on Snoop Dogg and other rappers for calling their controversial lyrics "keeping it real."[58] The problems of sexual violence and sexism are attributed to lyrics degrading women such as "bytches" and "ho's," which some believe have influenced black males.[17][59] Snoop Dogg and other hip hop artists, including N.W.A, especially Eazy-E, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube (due to their success) and Tupac Shakur, have been held accountable for developing the gangsta rap form; a genre which articulated the rage of the urban underclass and its sense of intense oppression and defiant rebellion,[17] which has been attained through the ability to communicate free of censorship, and has allowed hip hop culture to become a dominant style and ethos throughout the world.[17] Mariah Carey sampled the song "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" in her 1999 album Rainbow for the remix of Heartbreaker which featured Missy Elliott and Da Brat.

The writers of Enculturation, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, have noted that Snoop Dogg and other rappers only condemn violence when it is directed against them, otherwise "they celebrate it, internalize it, and embrace it as an ethos and means of self expression," which some believe has an effect on the black-on-black crime.[17] The release of music videos from Doggystyle and The Chronic has enabled the artists to add visual illustrations to their lyrics, which generally involve Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg driving around South Central, Los Angeles in a lowrider (a vehicle with lowered suspension). This imagery of the "gangsta lifestyle" is thought to have influenced young black males into trying to live the same lifestyle and it is also noted by T. Denean, writer of Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women, that the videos highlight the representation of class, race and Black masculinity within contemporary urban America.[60]

 

[Ronnie Lott]

He's right

 

[Master Teacher]

people are dumb, when he says hot he means popular

nobody knew about the album when he came out on priority records, when it was released on def jam later that's when people started to notice

He didn't mean people thought the album was wack back then

 

[Still Benefited]

stop it. there is a difference from critically acclaimed vs commercial success. Illmatic was critically acclaimed and influential from that POV/moving the culture forward on a positive level.

fukk a critic,the source staff and Miss Infos opinions are greater than that of the collective people who decided doggystyle was a classic in real time

Illmatic was more critic friendly and considered "pure",they wasnt ready for the harsh realities,and for west coast nikkas to break the mold.

if nas was so influential why did he have to switch his style up to go commercial on his followup,if he supposedly purged the wickedness from hiphop....he couldnt even manage to do that locally,and had to follow behind nikkas like wutang,and biggie who was a Snoop stan too btw,got Dr Dre on his album.

Thats not impact,he didnt change shyt if he was the one who had to change to be heard in the emd....,Eminem has a impact on other lyricist too....streets dont give a shyt about Eminem like that,even though Slim Shady LP did have more of a impact with nikkas than Illmatic did nationally

and lyrically it was more impressive

 

[T.H.E. Goat]

Mid south?

I was talking about Kentucky since it has both Midwest and Southern influences

 

[lutha]

nobody knew who Jay was in 96 resonable doubt was not an underground hit, it was an Album that nobody cared about. that doesn't mean it was bad, but there is no need to try and rewrite history

not trying to rewrite shyt, just stated my opinion about my experience with the album when it dropped...is that saying people thought he'd go on to be one of the best ever, that it was a classic, was the best album that year, etc.?...no, but when it dropped, it was hot, unlike what future said....

it had 'aint no nikka', 'dead pres', and 'can i live' everywhere before it dropped...and then he dropped 'knock the hustle' and 'brooklyn's finest' when it came out......but let yall tell it: no one has heard of those songs and they werent getting play when they came out.....lol if yall say so...

 

[mobbinfms]

second coming of what?

Rakim?

Lyrics. Elite Rhyming.

 

[Still Benefited]

Doggystyle is classic too and did better commercially but to many it represented the wrongs of Gangsta Rap and the dumbing down of lyricism

Now you see why listening to critics is stupid,and usually only gives you a bias pov....they said west coast hiphop in general was dumbing down...even though nikkas wasnt tryna rap like east coast nikkas out the gate...snoop aint dumb down shyt,just ignorant nikkas spewing nonsense.....west coast had plenty of lyricist at the time.

 

[mobbinfms]

pete rock and cl smooth influenced a lot of albums that came after them, especially production wise. for a time, almost every producer bit pete rock.

Putting all of that to the side...the album was just a bigger deal in real time. NY in 92 was Red, Diamond D and Pete and CL. Those were the elite albums.

 

[lutha]

Yep. To claim that he was irrelevant or say nobody knew about him is stupid.

i didnt even mention 'knock the hustle' and 'brooklyn's finest' dropping when the album came out.....but yea, no one heard of those songs, they werent getting play, people werent talking about whether biggie was dissing pac, none of that...lol at these cats....

 

[lutha]

People like who?

people that had access to the album....

 

[mobbinfms]

Im talking about Plies The Real Testament

Pimp of The Year is clearly greater in every capacity

Over the original EPMD record?

Illmatic bettr than Doggystyle?do i even need to address that?Snoop didnt need to tell everybody how great Doggystyle was,Snoop unjustly aint get 5 mics and didnt need em.....he had top 3 most anticipated album of all time,REALLY made a impact in real time,was also the most anticipated EMCEE of all time NATIONALLY....You see these is real stats

Yet, Illmatic is the better album.