Categories
Hip-Hop Rap

Nas & AZ – The Album We Need

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It seems that Nas has had some sort of history with seemingly everyone in the world of hip-hop.

Categories
Hip-Hop Rap

Requiem for the Hip-Hop Soundtrack

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Let us all bow our heads and take a moment to remember the hip-hop soundtrack.

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Greatness Hip-Hop Nostalgia

The Other Great Rap Battle of 2001

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Everyone knows that an epic hip-hop battle that took place in late 2001, when Jay-Z and Nas brawled for the throne, but far too many people forget that another classic rap clash began that year as well.

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Flashback Friday Flop

Flashback Friday Flop: “Nastradamus”

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Welcome back to the latest edition of Flashback Friday Flop, a weekly feature in which I examine a hip-hop album from years ago that was considered a flop, either critically or commercially or both, when it was released and see if it has gotten better – or worse – over time. 

This week: Nas’s Nastradamus (1999)

1999 was a strange time for music, especially hip-hop. The genre was only a few years removed from the deaths of its two biggest stars; Jay-Z had become a superstar; and a slew of young cats had entered the game. At the same time, Napster exploded onto the scene and online piracy immediately turned the music industry upside down, forcing several major rap acts to change their albums on the fly.

The biggest victim of this was Nas, who, after the classic Illmatic and the highly successful It Was Written, had been preparing an epic concept double album titled I Am…The Autobiography for his third release. When much of that album leaked, Nas scrapped both the concept and the double album, recorded a few new songs, and released a single disc mishmash titled simply I Am… in May, 1999.

Categories
Music

1999: The Year Hip-Hop Sprang a Leak

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In 1999, as the world was prepping for Y2K, another, less heralded innovation in the world of computers was about to change the music business: “Napster launched in 1999, and over the next three years tens of millions of music fans eagerly (and by today’s standards, incredibly slowly) downloaded oft-mistagged, low-bitrate mp3 versions of new music to their hard drives, and shared what they’d ripped themselves with software like the WinAmp player.”

The industry would never be the same.

Categories
Hip-Hop Rap

“Detox” – The Lost Album

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 After two classics and sixteen years of rumors, Dr. Dre’s highly anticipated and long-awaited third album was released last summer.

Only it’s not Detox.

Categories
Hip-Hop Rankings

Ranking All 21 “Best Rap Album” Grammy Winners

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Much like the NBA, the Grammys have a complicated relationship with hip-hop. Decisions like Young MC’s “Bust a Move” winning over Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” have led many to believe that those who vote on the Grammys have no clue about real hip-hop.

Categories
Hip-Hop Nostalgia

Queensbridge to Shaolin: The Mobb Deep-Nas-Raekwon Connection

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“In the jungle, banging Nas, Mobb Deep, and Wu”

Since 1995, there has been a connection between Nas, Mobb Deep, and Raekwon.

Categories
Hip-Hop Medium Uncategorized

Nineteen Ninety-Sex: The Year of Rap’s Femme Fatales

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I used to be scared of the dick/Now I throw lips to the shit, handle it like a real bitch

Lil’ Kim was 22-years-old on November 12, 1996, when she uttered those lines, the first lyrics on her debut album, Hard Core. Just one week later, 18-year-old Foxy Brown released her own debut, Ill Na Na, and together the two Brooklyn College Academy alumni set the course for female emcees for the next two decades, changing the way women in hip-hop present themselves to the world — and how they are received by it.

From the cover photos to the lyrics to the album titles, almost nothing was left to the imagination, and with their lethal combination of sexy and street, they easily appealed to fans from both genders.

While Kim and Foxy may not have been the first female hip-hop artists to use their looks as their strongest weapon, they were certainly the most visible and, at least up until that point, the most successful.

Categories
Flashback Friday Flop

Flashback Friday Flop: “For All Seasons”

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Welcome back to the latest edition of Flashback Friday Flop, a weekly feature in which I examine a hip-hop album from years ago that was considered a flop, either critically or commercially or both, when it was released and see if it has gotten better – or worse – over time. 

This week: Nature’s For All Seasons (2000)

The first time many people heard of Nature was when he replaced Cormega as the fourth member of The Firm in 1997. While that project fell far short of expectations, it did debut atop the Billboard 200 and would eventually be certified platinum, exposing fans of Nas, AZ, and Foxy Brown, to this young spitter who performed admirably, even if he was unable to steal the show.