Old heads, is it true Reasonable Doubt...

[Frida Giezman]

I remember ain't no nikka being a pretty big song back then (I'm guessing summer of 95?)

I remember being in the wiz with a friend of mine and him picking up the reasonable doubt cd and him pointing at Jay and telling me this is that nikka

I thought Jay was corny back then so I never gave him a chance or listened to much of his shyt

it wasn't until vol 3 that I got into Jay which is ironic because many people consider that one of his worst albums

After that I went back and gave reasonable doubt and vol 1 proper listens and been a big fan ever since

That song he had with biggie on reasonable doubt was big too I remember hearing that a lot

I guess people were up on him but he wasn't getting the respect that wu, nas and biggie had yet

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

How much Mall you heard?

not alot, tbh.

Reasonable Doubt didn't go Gold in 3 months...

Also, that's irrelevant comparing the sales of Illmatic and Reasonable Doubt is pointless the sales climates were completely different and Nas had no mainstream singles or stimulus package type features like Jay had.

the sales climates werent that much different.

plus nas had alot more hype.

the difference between jay & nas' debuts is that jay had a hit record.

I'm not even a Jay fan, but those who weren't hip-hop heads in '96 have to realize this point. Reasonable Doubt not being regarded at that time as some game-changing instant classic have to realize that it had less to do with Jay and RD, and more to do with the number of dope ass albums and music that were floating around.

The entire year was dope, but the second half of '96 was insane. There was literally an album dropping every week that you could cop and not be disappointed with. Not to mention dope singles still getting play for months.

Most of the burn in my area at this time was Nas, Mobb Deep, and Wu.

yea, the game was NOT wide-open at all on the east coast.

if biggie & nas debuted in '96, they wouldnt have started out with the same status.

His videos were all over rap city. He had a song on the Nutty Prof 2 soundtrack. You had to be a casual fan to not know who he was.

the funny thing is, even the casual fans knew who jay-z was because he had a big radio hit.

if you didnt know of jay-z in '96, then you werent even a casual fan. at best, you were a casual lurker.

 

[DANJ!]

This thread kinda exposes a lot, lol...

Cause if you were really a hip-hop (hate to use this but it applies) 'head' then, and not just someone who listened to the radio... you knew who Jay-Z was. Even if he wasn't your cup of tea, you knew he did have that status with people other than you. Like Wacky said, if you believe Jay was a nobody in '96 because he wasn't doin' Tupac/Fugees/Nas/BTNH numbers... then hell, I guess everybody was a nobody. And by extension, I suppose that means Nas was a nobody in '94 when he wasn't sellin' like Snoop, and Pac was a nobody in '91 when he wasn't doin' NWA/Cube numbers... of course none of this is true, because if you were really into hip-hop at the time, you didn't really care about shyt like that... unless you were a listener who only cared about who was popular.

 

[Cloud McFly]

This thread kinda exposes a lot, lol...

Cause if you were really a hip-hop (hate to use this but it applies) 'head' then, and not just someone who listened to the radio... you knew who Jay-Z was. Even if he wasn't your cup of tea, you knew he did have that status with people other than you. Like Wacky said, if you believe Jay was a nobody in '96 because he wasn't doin' Tupac/Fugees/Nas/BTNH numbers... then hell, I guess everybody was a nobody. And by extension, I suppose that means Nas was a nobody in '94 when he wasn't sellin' like Snoop, and Pac was a nobody in '91 when he wasn't doin' NWA/Cube numbers... of course none of this is true, because if you were really into hip-hop at the time, you didn't really care about shyt like that... unless you were a listener who only cared about who was popular.

dap + rep

 

[IllmaticDelta]

@Stack Money

 

[TripleAgent]

Back in the mid 90s, you had classics and near classics coming out every week at times. RD was just another good album, but nothing mindblowing or grabbing media attention. Without Ain't No nikka, he may have never popped period.

 

[Young/Nacho\Drawz]

it took years and years of marketing and pr to make that album into the mythical classic that it's now considered. the same effort was put into jay-z himself to turn him into the goat. no one gave a damn about that album in '96 and i was on the east coast when it dropped. matter of fact i still got some old hot97 audio on tape and jay wasn't a factor at all in anyway even in ny. from a overall hip hop perspective he had one or two nice joints for the radio but back then damn near every artist who was out did. if you had a deal, chances are you had one or two hot joints playing on the box/radio and mind you this was a time when you had mad majors and indies both putting out mad music. nothing about RD or Jay signified anything special. if anyone tells you otherwise they are lying to you! i'm not hating either but i can see how in this internet age people can think certain ways that aren't true.

 

[Unknown Poster]

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

Yep. Wasn't even.the best of that year.

 

[DANJ!]

you can't be this dumb..i gave you the song and you still act like you dont' hear it

''i'm a bad boy killa,jay z die too'' 2:38 mark

like i said no one outside new york knew who the camel was until Pac said his name

By the time that album came out, Jay had a gold-certified album and single, and Pac was gone.

 

[Cheech&Chong]

I was an instant fan of Jay the first time I heard him, ain't no nikka was that shyt. So I picked up Reasonable Doubt just cause of that. All my friends made fun of me for it. We all loved death row but anytime one of us would introduce some new artist to the group they would get clowned or we'd all jump on board. Jay Z (at the very beginning) was clowned.

 

[HoLLaBaCK]

Was is out the box classic...No. Some shyt you hear right out the gate you can feel it's a special album. RD wasn't like that at least not for me...but that's due to me being 15 when it's dropped, I still hadn't developed my ear for rhymes and it's complexities. It was one of those album where EVERY TIME I heard it I caught something else.

However don't let its lack of sales fool u...or maybe even his lack of presence across the country. Here in NY it was getting spins.

The fact that it wasn't classic right out the gate is a good thing to me. How many albums are called classics and don't hold up thru the years. RD sounds just as fresh now as it did then.

 

[Frida Giezman]

Can't knock the hustle was a pretty big song too back then

 

[Piffery]

This thread is built one a false narrative.
No one ever argues to the contrary of Resistance Doubt or Jay being "popular" at the time, Jay has never claimed to the otherwise, the closest things are individual people being ignorant of it, so whenever it comes up you have hordes of fools rushing in to say "Jay wasn't shyt at the time", "Reasonable Doubt was just another good album at the time", or talk about "Jay stans and Jay trying to rewrite history", when they're the ones bringing it up, and when they're the ones making comments in any direction.

It's specifically a conscious and subconscious technique to delegitimize Jay off of a totally ridiculous and exaggerated point.

"HOLY shyt JAY WASNT THE MOST POPULAR ARTIST IN THE WORLD WHEN HIS FIRST ALBUM DROPPED?!?!? HES REWRITING HISTORY BY BEING POPULAR LATER!!!!!"

 

[hex]

This thread is built one a false narrative.
No one ever argues to the contrary of Resistance Doubt or Jay being "popular" at the time, Jay has never claimed to the otherwise, the closest things are individual people being ignorant of it, so whenever it comes up you have hordes of fools rushing in to say "Jay wasn't shyt at the time", "Reasonable Doubt was just another good album at the time", or talk about "Jay stans and Jay trying to rewrite history", when they're the ones bringing it up, and when they're the ones making comments in any direction.

It's specifically a conscious and subconscious technique to delegitimize Jay off of a totally ridiculous and exaggerated point.

"HOLY shyt JAY WASNT THE MOST POPULAR ARTIST IN THE WORLD WHEN HIS FIRST ALBUM DROPPED?!?!? HES REWRITING HISTORY BY BEING POPULAR LATER!!!!!"

This is 100% false. You got people in that other thread claiming not only was "RD" one of the most influential albums of the 90's, it popularized the mafia sub-genre of rap.

So yeah....it's a bit disingenuous to claim this is solely about "delegitimizing" Jay while ignoring people flat out lying about how the album was received.

Fred.

 

[Doctor Wily]

I never cared much for the album when it came out.

Besides Dj clue had all of the hottest tracks off that album on his mixtapes anyway