Old heads, is it true Reasonable Doubt...

[Screwface Exchange]

RD was just another another good album that year and revisionist history by camel.

It was a dope debut and one of the best of 96, but there were MANY albums that cats were checking for over or in addition to RD.

IWW
AAOM
Makaveli
Beats Rhymes and Life
Atliens
The Coming
The Score
Hell on Earth
Ironman
Muddy Waters

Came in here to say the same thing, hip hop jus had wayyy too many acts out then. you could bump only brand new hip hop all day and not even listen to half of da top tracks. Jus think on top of dem krazy classic albums mentioned above, we got:

Busta's 1 st solo album The coming
De la soul Stakes are high
Illedeph High The roots, krazy.
Rass kass soul on ice
MOP still in they prime
lost boyz legal drug money all still alive
Blahzay blahzay had dat radio buzz
and west coast even had da new westside connection album bow down.

So how a jay z back in then.....

 

[Big Mel]

Reasonable Doubt was better than all those albums and has way more memorable songs.

 

[Pinyapplesuckas]

people who say "reasonable doubt" wasn't poppin are people who were casual rap listeners at the time.

they were either:
a.) kids who were still on some kid chit.
b.) from the burbs
c.) commercial fans who base everything on industry/commercial accolades and propaganda.
d.) all of the above

thats what Jay Z and his fans do

 

[MINT]

it was considered as decent at best

 

[seemorecizzy]

From what i remember, pretty much everyone thought it was dope but NO one was calling it a classic
Cant no one tell me that jay didnt influence the public into making it a classic
Hov always been good at that shyt

 

[Taadow]

The only thing I knew about Jay-Z in '96 was that Pac said his name before "Bomb 1st". Had no idea who he was.

Then I saw him in the "I'll Be" video on the hook, and figured he was another exec trying to put his artist on.

Didn't know he was rappin' until "Money Ain't A Thang"...learned about Reasonable Doubt after that.

 

[bouncy]

Not a lot of people were checking for it. Like another poster said, there was just so much quality music out that year that RD didn't really stand out. Jay hadn't become a well known artist yet so most people who were checking for it were the people who were "in the know".

How can you say a lot of peole weren't checking for jay when the album went gold in 2-3 months after it was released?. What you may mean is certain people in certain places weren't but, in the north.east.jay was the man. How do you think he got Hype williams to shoot his second video, and funk flex to have the streets.playing his shyt everywhere that summer. I remember that summer clearly. Jay, nas, and biggie had nyc on lock.

 

[mr.africa]

A GREAT ALBUM THAT GOT OVERLOOKED BECAUSE TOO MUCH HEAT WAS DROPPING LEFT AND RIGHT!!!!
ONLY A FEW PEOPLE WERE CHECKING FOR JAY AT THE TIME!
TRUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[mr.africa]

reasonable doubt got more love than IWW.

NOPE!!!!

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

How can you say a lot of peole weren't checking for jay when the album went gold in 2-3 months after it was released?. What you may mean is certain people in certain places weren't but, in the north.east.jay was the man. How do you think he got Hype williams to shoot his second video, and funk flex to have the streets.playing his shyt everywhere that summer. I remember that summer clearly. Jay, nas, and biggie had nyc on lock.

dude, a bunch of one hit wonders had Hype doing videos, he wasn't a mystic

 

[mr.africa]

From what i remember, pretty much everyone thought it was dope but NO one was calling it a classic
Cant no one tell me that jay didnt influence the public into making it a classic
Hov always been good at that shyt

YEP

 

[Techniec]

So it was a great album that not a lot of people knew about basically? But when Jay blew up after Vol. 2 people went back to it and started biggin it up more?

No, when Jay started bragging about it then people went back and checked it out

basically jay started this media campaign where he kept calling it a classic

also, all of his stans, having grown up adoring his generic substandard music, finally listend to RD and realized it was such a dope album, they figured "hey if we can consider all of his other shyt classic, well then this HAS to be a classic"

 

[mr.africa]

Gotta admit that was a smart move by Jay. At the time he put himself on the same level as nas by saying it was a classic. He was so popular that the people just ran with it.

TRUTH!!!

 

[Big Mel]

The elephant in the room is IWW. now THAT is a revisionist "classic" if there ever was one. Not only was NO ONE, stans included, calling it classic---but it was even called wack.


#truisms

 

[bouncy]

dude, a bunch of one hit wonders had Hype doing videos, he wasn't a mystic

Those artist were signed to major labels. Jay was independent and hype was the man by then. Yeah, jay wasn't just a regular rapper coming out the gate. He had everything lined up right and used it correctly. We know this because he has never sold less then gold and that was his FIRST album. Jay understands how to play the game. Give him his props and stop hating because he is mainstream now. Hip Hop needs to stop hating on artists once they get big.