The South is "dumb" yet Goodie Mob prophesied the current era we are living in to the most minute detail on "Cell Therapy" almost exactly 25 years ago.
I'm not from the South. I'm from Cali but been living in the East Coast a long time and I am actually old enough to remember the 90's. No one outside of NYC was checking for Gnause in 94'. The record sales for Illmatic speak volumes. And back in the 90's outside of NY, you had to go to the record store and buy a real copy. Illmatic was NY centric as hell of course no one outside of NY was really fukking with it in the era where Cali rap dominated. The only reason Biggie blew up is because of the heavy sonic and stylistic West Coast influence on Ready to Die. "Big Poppa" was some Bay Area player shyt and "Juicy" was a G-Funk track by definition. Even Puffy admitted he wanted to make an East Coast version of the Chronic with Ready to Die.
People always looked at Nas as a good rapper in the 90's but no one was saying he was the greatest. Especially not when Pac and Big were alive.
Nobody was saying Gnause was goat until after "Ether" dropped in 2001. That's when Illmatic finally went Plat damn near a decade after it came out. Because after Pac and Biggie had died, that left a lot less competition for Gnause and Jay. Pac went at Gnause and Jay throats. Pac made Gnause cry with his disses.
And if we are being honest, there were classics dropping every week in the early to mid 90's mainstream and underground. Gnause music was no better or worse than any of his contemporaries at the time. Just because that pancake face Korean bytch Miss Info gave Illmatic 5 Mics back in 94' while being a music critic at the Source doesn't mean anything. If anything, Gnause style is heavily indebted to those who came before him (i.e. Kool G Rap, Rakim, Gang Starr).
nikka Nas was one of the biggest rappers while Pac and Biggie was still alive and honestly speak for yourself. No one was calling ANY of these nikkas the GOAT while they was alive so fukk is u sayin? Yea a bunch of shyt was dropping and nikkas was just appreciating it. But all this greatest shyt ain’t happen until after Pac and Biggie died. There’s a reason Jay had that line back in 97. nikkas definitely did look at Nas as one of the best in the game. Pac did and so did Biggie.
