feelosofer
#ninergang
He's right, it was very hot in the tri-state but not so much outside of it.
Future - "Reasonable Doubt was not hot when it dropped"
- Thread starter FreshAIG
- Start date
Techniec
Drugs and Kalashnikovs
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 oni 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
TRUTH
One last dose of something for yall to think about.
Yall dont find it weird that so many people who heard It Was Written first think its better than Illmatic,seems like some of you were just lucky enough to be around for the brainwashing in real time as it was happening....It was Written didnt get all the hype,and critically acclaim Illmatic did,yet theres a whole generation of people who like it better than Illmatic who missed that first wave of brainwashing
We dont ned to keep arguing because time usually tells the truth,weve been seeing a increasing ammount of nikkas finally get brave enough to admit It Was Written is better than Illmatic....its actually funny that the reverse has happend to Jayz...folks who were introduced to him by his more populary commercial album....have bucked the system and said RD is his best album
.
Who knows maybe brainwashing is wearing off in one case,and just settling in in the other....guess well just have to wait and see
.
Front end brainwashing vs backend brainwashing....let me not say brainwashing,more like the power of suggestion in both cases.
Yall dont find it weird that so many people who heard It Was Written first think its better than Illmatic,seems like some of you were just lucky enough to be around for the brainwashing in real time as it was happening....It was Written didnt get all the hype,and critically acclaim Illmatic did,yet theres a whole generation of people who like it better than Illmatic who missed that first wave of brainwashing
We dont ned to keep arguing because time usually tells the truth,weve been seeing a increasing ammount of nikkas finally get brave enough to admit It Was Written is better than Illmatic....its actually funny that the reverse has happend to Jayz...folks who were introduced to him by his more populary commercial album....have bucked the system and said RD is his best album
.Who knows maybe brainwashing is wearing off in one case,and just settling in in the other....guess well just have to wait and see
.Front end brainwashing vs backend brainwashing....let me not say brainwashing,more like the power of suggestion in both cases.
philmonroe
Superstar
After you said you was in Atl back then no more needed to be said.
UserNameless
Veteran
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
I'm not trying to argue with the main point of this thread, it's common knowledge that RD wasn't too "hot" at the time of it's release. However most of your post is just not true. I have posted this before and I never tire of copying and pasting it because it's just absolute proof:
Bullshyt is what you and some others are writing here. RD was highly respected and considered a classic long before even Jay was saying it:
Think about what it took to make it on this list back in January of 1998, way before Jay blew up with Vol 2 and had any real power or pull in the game. How many 1000's of Hip Hop albums were out by 98? RD earned a spot on this list on the publication that many considered the Hip Hop Bible in that era. Yall are the ones trying to revise history, but its respect is well documented, there's no arguing with this proof.
With respect to the whole "hottest rapper out" part, while it's true that all those names were bigger then Jay at some point, it's not really fair to name any artist who had an album out before Jay in my opinion. As for the others, remember that even while they were at their hottest, they still opened concerts for Jay in their prime. That goes for DMX and 50 Cent, but even Lil Wayne and Eminem took a backseat to Jay at points. They all obviously would today as well, that's what's really important.
it was written is a good album but back in '96 it was a shock, people just expected something completely different, because for the time it was as comercial as it got. compared to what came after it, it isn't though and bad boy changed what was accaptable in ny rap in '97. sonically, there was a change towards a more polished sound that was introduced in '96 and took over in '97. illmatic is an early 90's record, when the sound of hiphop was gritty, meanwhile it was written was basically the blueprint for every major label street rap album that came out between '96 and 2005. that is why, looking back, it was written isn't the sell out album it appeared to be when it was released, and why it is more in line with the sound that later generations got used to compared to illmatic.One last dose of something for yall to think about.
Yall dont find it weird that so many people who heard It Was Written first think its better than Illmatic,seems like some of you were just lucky enough to be around for the brainwashing in real time as it was happening....It was Written didnt get all the hype,and critically acclaim Illmatic did,yet theres a whole generation of people who like it better than Illmatic who missed that first wave of brainwashing
We dont ned to keep arguing because time usually tells the truth,weve been seeing a increasing ammount of nikkas finally get brave enough to admit It Was Written is better than Illmatic....its actually funny that the reverse has happend to Jayz...folks who were introduced to him by his more populary commercial album....have bucked the system and said RD is his best album
Who knows maybe brainwashing is wearing off in one case,and just settling in in the other....guess well just have to wait and see
Front end brainwashing vs backend brainwashing....let me not say brainwashing,more like the power of suggestion in both cases.
One last dose of something for yall to think about.
Yall dont find it weird that so many people who heard It Was Written first think its better than Illmatic,seems like some of you were just lucky enough to be around for the brainwashing in real time as it was happening....It was Written didnt get all the hype,and critically acclaim Illmatic did,yet theres a whole generation of people who like it better than Illmatic who missed that first wave of brainwashing
We dont ned to keep arguing because time usually tells the truth,weve been seeing a increasing ammount of nikkas finally get brave enough to admit It Was Written is better than Illmatic....its actually funny that the reverse has happend to Jayz...folks who were introduced to him by his more populary commercial album....have bucked the system and said RD is his best album
Who knows maybe brainwashing is wearing off in one case,and just settling in in the other....guess well just have to wait and see
Front end brainwashing vs backend brainwashing....let me not say brainwashing,more like the power of suggestion in both cases.
Im one of those Nas fans who liked It Was Written more. shyt I liked Nastradamus too.
But ppl have a way of rewriting history. Illmatic became the classic so now thats what the young ones know. shyt I was hella suprised by the reaction to what Future said about RD, I was around the time RD dropped and nikkas definitely was overshadowed by all the other music that was droppin at the time. Ima east Coast cat and It used to be all about Biggie, Nas and Pac and Jay hype came later
Inspect Her Deck
Skins of all colours come together as brothers
It definitley wasnt as commercial as they come at the time,it was just commercial based on what people expected from Nas.....people who never heard Nas before It Was Written(majority of people) didnt see a problem with it....illmatic spoke to the choir of nikkas who love all things boom bap
nikkas need to understand how many people dont love boom bap like that,and most if brave enough to admit it will acknowledge they thought It Was Written is better,more nikkas coming out the closet every year to admit this..nikkas was so brainwashed they was scared for years they would lose "hiphop cred" by saying such a thing
....anybody who had this opinion for at least 15 years or more can probaly cosign they was one of the few willing to say outloud It Was Written was better,but more come out now that it looks more safe....but most go along wih Illmatic as THE classic as told like sheep out of respect,and becuz thats the narrative...i dont disrespect it either,i just like to hold it in its proper place and context like it should be
This.
Reasonable Doubt was Indie rap status in 96. He didn't come to fame until "Hard Knock Life" in fall of 1998. this is a fact.
Pac dissed Chino XL too so what kind of logic is this? He was dissing literally anybody regardless of popularity or impact.
Fred.
This ain't about your opinion. It's about an overwhelming amount of people saying shyt was one way and you're arguing it was another way. That's it. It has nothing to do with me personally. If I came in a thread talking about "Doe Or Die" was the hot on a certain level because everyone I know had it....and a thread full of people from all over the U.S. told me "nah, shyt wasn't hot like that from any angle"....at some point I'm gonna have to reassess my view of reality. It don't mean I'm gonna suddenly think the album is wack....it means maybe how I received the album wasn't in line with reality at the time. That's it.
And I'm not comparing them. History compared them because they came out around the same time. None of these albums exist in a bubble, and Jay received very little attention due to who else was out at the time.
Fred.
Last edited:
It's true. Jay-Z got national attention due to the popularity of Foxy Brown. She was the 1996 blow out star that year... and when "Aint' No nikka" came out on the Nutty Professor soundtrack... nobody outside of NYC ever really heard of Jay-Z and it was Foxy's verse (which he wrote, of course) that people rocked with because she was the more visible star. During that year he was under Biggie's shadow... and even after Biggie died he was still under that shadow which Puffy capitalized.... So, both 1996 & 1997 he couldn't blow up... he even FOLLOWED that shiny suit era formula on his 2nd album and all of that.... it was up until HARD KNOCK LIFE when he finally was able to blow and step out and be THAT DUDE in hip hop... and that's when Priority RE-RELEASED "Reasonable Doubt" to capitalize and got people who slept on it in '96 to check it out and it was then was viewed as a classic.
But out of those TWO YEARS... the biggest names in hip hop between '96 & '97 were: Biggie, 'Pac, Fugees, Nas, Busta, Missy, Foxy, Puffy, Lil Kim, Ma$e, Snoop, and Master P. Jay-z wasn't on that level yet. It took him LEAVING Priority and joining Def Jam alongside DMX and Ja Rule to blow....which you do have to give most of the credit to Irv Gotti. That's why it wasn't any coincidence that all of them blew up roughly the same time in '98.
But out of those TWO YEARS... the biggest names in hip hop between '96 & '97 were: Biggie, 'Pac, Fugees, Nas, Busta, Missy, Foxy, Puffy, Lil Kim, Ma$e, Snoop, and Master P. Jay-z wasn't on that level yet. It took him LEAVING Priority and joining Def Jam alongside DMX and Ja Rule to blow....which you do have to give most of the credit to Irv Gotti. That's why it wasn't any coincidence that all of them blew up roughly the same time in '98.