erker
All Star
Hell no.
Is Reasonable Doubt a better album than Ready To Die?
- Thread starter I love Latina women
- Start date
blankstairz
Superstar
Ain’t no is a classic record
Nah it's wack
The thing about the Ain't no n*gga record is that Foxy Brown's verse was what a lot of people focused on back then. It overshadowed Jay.
Aside from all those albums that overshadowed RD and Jay in 1996, was the phenomenon of Foxy Brown. She was everywhere, guest features, etc. And in demand. Which was funny, because Jay was behind the scenes writing for her. Smoothe Da Hustler wrote her verse for Ain't no n*gga though.
murksiderock
Superstar
It is, and cats are assuming that means we think it's not a classic. Not what I mean---->what I do mean, is people have the tendency to put Ready To Die in Top 10 records type shyt, its grossly overrated from that perspective...
Reasonable Doubt can be argued to be better than all of these except maybe The Score, I can see a debate for ATLiens, but Reasonable Dount for sure better than the other two...
Lol NOOOOO...
Reasonable Doubt was so relatable from a street perspective, from a large scale drug trafficker viewpoint. Ready To Die sounds like most of the other rap of it's time, it spoke of street realities but I can't feel the vibe of a real dealer spinning that shyt...
RD is a dealer's playbook and from any aesthetic is way grittier and more relatable as a street record...
I'll most def cosign this!
bigbadbossup2012
Biggest baddest boss
You're high. The score (despite a great singles run) is possibly the weakest album on that list.
AEOM, is easily the best
blankstairz
Superstar
Agree to disagree, breh.
All Eyes and It was written were better.
Lyrically, It was written is just on another level.
The Score? The singles are what drove that album. Was bigger than life, but the album as a whole wasn't as strong as the momentum of the singles and everybody loving Lauryn Hill.
Guess you can make the case for Atliens, although Elevators was
I preferred the Southernplayalistic album myself.
RTD is like a teenager trying to find his way in life. RD is a late 20 yr old dropping gems u won't get till u increase ur tax bracket and travel the world. I guarantee a lot of y'all missed a bunch of Jay's lines cuz a bunch of them were references to the culture at the time or subjects that most people can't relate to.
Biggie on the other hand was more raw, simplistic and right to the point. A 10 yr old can catch and relate. No offense it's just different. Same way Rakim with spitting mathematics that ppl didn't catch.
Biggie on the other hand was more raw, simplistic and right to the point. A 10 yr old can catch and relate. No offense it's just different. Same way Rakim with spitting mathematics that ppl didn't catch.
blankstairz
Superstar
Jay was 26-27 in 1996 and co-owned an independent record company (Roc-a-fella).
Biggie was 21-22 in 1994 and a signed artist.
The difference in years, experience, and perspective would explain it.
bigbadbossup2012
Biggest baddest boss
RTD is like a nikka taking over the Rap Game and bringing his region back to prominence.
RD IS like a dude saying oh let me kinda be like biggie kinda be like nas so i can get on too. (RD still better than ILLMATIC though)
murksiderock
Superstar
Agree to disagree, breh.
All Eyes and It was written were better.
Lyrically, It was written is just on another level.
The Score? The singles are what drove that album. Was bigger than life, but the album as a whole wasn't as strong as the momentum of the singles and everybody loving Lauryn Hill.
Guess you can make the case for Atliens, although Elevators was
I preferred the Southernplayalistic album myself.
I can agree to disagree, fellas!
Tupac has one album that can compete with Reasonable Doubt/any of Hov's best, and it ain't All Eyez On Me. That's not even the best Tupac record...
I've always considered It Was Written overrated. Nas Is Coming, Watch Dem nikkas, there was really some trash records on that album. I have no clue how people even debate it as Nas' best...
bigbadbossup2012
Biggest baddest boss
All eyez on me possesses more dope songs than any non greatest hits rap album.
AEom has non singles like ambition as i ridah that were popping more than any single off of RD.
IT CLEARLY WAS THE ALBUM of 1996 and not due to revisionist history
And say wut u want about Puff, but he really took Big to that next level. You literally saw it during the first album if you look at One more chance OG compared with the remix version. And then that influence went through the entire hip hop culture going to classy from ashy.
blankstairz
Superstar
Yep.
Puffy is a visionary.
Puff saw the big (no pun) picture. He knew what Biggie could become.
Biggie preferred the rugged joints, while Puff made sure to include the commercially viable records.
Biggie wanted to drop Machine Gun funk as the lead single for RTD. Puff said it was gonna be Juicy.
Then Puff wanted to drop Big Poppa as the next single. He kept Biggie had with the b-sides like unbelievable and who shot ya.
Same with the One more chance remixes you mentioned.
Very few artists,if any, could pull off doing gutter and commercial records effortlessly without losing themselves and credibility. Puff saw it in Biggie that he could do it.
Puff knew he could make history with Biggie. And they did it.
JerseyFinest!
All Star
Jay Z rhymes were just more layered in 96 than Nas, Big, & Pac. No hyberbole. No cap. No BS. No whatever. I was still catching shyt decades later with Hov album. In 96 or hell even 2002 I didn’t know wtf a fiscal year was or meant. Tbh I still don’t truly know lol. Hov was speaking a different language. To the point a a poster on the Coli didn’t understand the word tedious. This was like 15 years after it’s release. Homey thought the word was a acronym. TDS (The Dough Syndrome)
Man I know someone remember that
It’s no shade to Nas Big & Pac, but after a few months of listens I pretty much caught every thing
Word!
I think NAS is the GOAT lyricist
But Reasonable Doubt is the most Lyrical album of all time imo. I was catching lines in songs I heard over 1,000 times probably, 10 yrs after hearing them initially.
DoomzdayzV
Banned
easily the best post in this thread....thats a legit jewell. music is like food....yall consume low vibration shyt like an album where the artist commits suicide at the end, then u will likely stay on that frequency
Edit: Ill even make a ammendment to this thread to reiterate that point. Nostalgia doesnt mean shyt. Whichever of these 2 albums u liked more back in this era...recognize that yall are grown now, and understand which type of record yall are better off digesting as grown folk
Last edited: