The Greatest 14 Months in the History of Hip-Hop
If 1988 to 1994 is considered the Golden Era, then this is the Climax of that time
I have to say that in no way, shape, or form am I discounting 1988–1990 (we’ll discuss why we don’t take that into 1991 like most critics do another time).
The albums released in 88 — Nation, 3 Feet, To the East, and One For All — influenced and shaped me into the man I would become.
Nor am I taking away from the greatness of 1992. I mean, come on, EPMD’s best, Business Never Personal, Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s Mecca and the Soul Brother, and my all-time, top ten pick Diamond D’s Stunts, Blunts, & Hip-Hop, all of them came out in 1992.
But if we compare that or any era with the time period beginning in September of 1993 and roughly ending in November of the next year, pound for pound, album for album those 14 months have to be the greatest in Hip-Hop history; a time that saw veteran groups and solo artist release some of their best work and the assured debut albums of not one, not two, but seven (7)acts.
That’s absolutely unprecedented and unmatched. So let’s take a walk back in time when rap videos, magazines, and record stores were gods, a time where you learned about the track listing, producers, etc., the day of release — let’s travel back to the summer of 1993.
I certainly hope that I’m not the only champion for the Chyskillz produced Onyx debut Bacdafucup and the significance of it’s content and sound which we talked about here. We also talked about how Onyx spawned a baldhead craze here with the backdrop being Freaknik 93 where bald Black men from throughout the US converged on Atlanta.
If, per chance, you don’t know what Freaknik was Complex and Atlanta Magazine both did great jobs of informing those who weren’t fortunate enough to experience the event. Freaknik is our starting point because as we said, Black men came from throughout the US and their soundtrack was Onyx.
The album was released in March of 93 and by May we had played it out which is when it’s antithesis, Masta Ace’s Slaughtahouse was released (we talked more about that album here).
I spent the summer in Columbia, Maryland at my Uncle Roger’s working for him with my cousins, Roger and Graylon, rolling around, shaking the trunk and windows with the extreme bass of Slaughtahouse.
We played that album so much and so often that it didn’t make it to July. We had to spend the rest of the summer listening to a non-stop cycle of SWV’s “Right Here,” Jade’s “Don’t Walk Away,” Tupac’s “I Get Around,” Lordz of the Underground’s “Chief Rocker,” Silk’s “Lose Control” (that jawn had some serious 808)…and maybe one or two other songs…but that was the 92Q rotation.
I didn’t get another Hip-Hop album to whet my appetite until August.
It’s not that there weren’t tons of albums coming out. There were. But most albums, Like Illegal’s The Untold Truth or Rumplestilskinz’s What is a Rumpletilskin? only had a few songs that I liked.
Isma’il Latif put me on to Trends of Culture’s Trendz and that took me into the school year. Sadly, Trendz falls into the category of albums that were released between 93–95 that fell through the cracks, not so much in that time period but in the annals of Hip-Hop lore. You’ll rarely hear someone cite Trendz as one of their favorite albums but if you throw on “Off and On” or “Valley of the Skinz,” you’ll get an immediate, “Oh yeahhhh, I forgot about them.”
What I appreciated about Trendz of Culture was the way Grapevine & Nasty’s voices complimented each other, their unique flows, and the tight production of their tracks. Trendz might not be a classic…but it’s certainly memorable.
(mind you, Eightball & MGJ’s Comin’ Out Hard came out in August of 93 also, which really could be the 8th debut album…but I wasn’t really checking for them then)
We had heard of Souls of Mischief via our heavily circulated Stretch Armstrong cassettes so when we saw them in the October issue of the Vibe (the one with the Dan Winters, Wesley Snipes cover) we knew that the album release was eminent.
Like I said, this is the time period when magazines were god (which was discussed in greater detail here). And what Vibe was good at was hiring authors, in this case, Joan Morgan, to write in-depth articles about artists that made you feel more connected with them and their music. De La Soul was covered by Scott Poulson-Bryant in the same issue so we knew we were in for a treat that September.
Some people were shocked that Souls were from the Left Coast, the Yay Area in particular, a place normally associated with pimpin’ and Too Short. But Souls wasn’t talking pimp shit and they’re music had the same jazz-laden, bass heavy boom bap that was en vogue on the East.
It was a sound that was indicative of the whole Hieroglyphics crew (though I never got into Casual or Del). They weren’t rapping about drugs, murder, or women. They were just spitting. And that would have been all I listened to…but another classic came out that day.
Boogie Down Productions had been out for six years by 1993, which like dog years, is 40 to 50 years in rap.
BDP in my estimation was only KRS and while everyone knew he could flow, aside from Criminal Minded and By All Means Necessary, the subsequent releases were less substantial…in my opinion.
Not to mention, KRS didn’t get much press leading into September so it was a pleasant surprise to see Return of the Boom Bap…which was mostly produced by DJ Premier, who, contrary to revisionist history, was a big deal to us then as he is to us now. I mean, c’mon — “Dwyk” came out the summer of 92 and everyone was on that, and we can’t forget the GangStarr albums that we all loved…but anyways…
He’s still “the Teacher” and the lesson he gives in “Outta Here” should be required listening for every new artists who enters into the industry. KRS shows how as long as there’s been rap, the rappers career has been short-lived.
(Although it must be said, what one defines as “Outta Here” has new meaning now. When is someone officially “out?”)
Songs like “Black Cop” and “Sound of the Police” will continue to be timeless so long as cops use Black folks as their human shooting range.
And KRS brought flows upon flows on this album. It was Kris at his best, and I would go out on a limb and say that Return of the Boom Bap is The Teacher’s Opus.
In the next month, the whole feel of rap would change. The beats became darker, murkier. The look of the rapper (on the East Coast) would be baggier, the army surplus store became the new mall.
Cypress Hill, Naughty by Nature, and Onyx were the sign of what would be hardcore. It no longer met hard beats and the metaphorical body count has not subsided since (nor has the literal one).
Let’s be clear. What we’re talking about is New York rap. By 1993, other cities (like Memphis’ 8Ball & MJG that we mentioned above) were finding their own voice. LA rap fans, for example, were well-versed in the so-called hardcore music — what they did was labeled gangster music.
That said, people weren’t killing metaphorical people on wax in mass in New York rap. People were still rapping, being lyrical, talking about sexcapades and the like.
Enta Da Stage took Bacdafucup to it’s next possible conclusion. Black Moon’s approach to violence, “buck to your head now die is my slogan,” and their overall, dark, filtered approach painted a clear picture next to Onyx’s abstraction.
People were saying New York music is primarily known for, like, they would associate more Tribe and De La to New York, because they were saying New York is that quote unquote conscious stuff and we do more unconscious stuff. You know, that gangster stuff is more unconscious you know. So, when Black Moon came out with Enta Da Stage, it really changed the playing field, because as the individual I embody everything. I come from Franklin Avenue, we all come from the hood. Buckshot
See, you can read Genius lyrics or go goo-goo gaa gaa over bar analysis but neither of those things will help you appreciate enunciation/emphasis and flow. Buckshot was a master at this on Enta Da Stage.
Whether it’s something as simples:
Oh yeah, I seen ya mom I hit her off with a jumb, know what I’m saying? Off rhythm but forget it.
Or
Fronts in the bottom of my teeth like whatever, shiiiit. On the real getting played, what? I never did
Buckshot delivers those lines as if he’s having a conversation with you in the middle of his rhyme. And if I had to compare the way he places his words over the beat, Buckshot’s enunciation is sharp like Clifford Brown (as opposed to the slur of other rappers which is reminiscent of Miles).
And a line as simple as…
I used to — make-money — now I just take it.
…can’t be appreciated from a simple reading, it has to be heard…and we’re just talking about “I Got Cha Opin,” the whole albums contain gems like this.
If I had to guess, the first four songs on the album were the earliest recordings and Black Moon hit their stride after recording “Buck Em Down.”
I can’t lie. I put aside both KRS and Souls of Mischief when Enta Da Stage came out. I didn’t want to listen to anything else.
“Wu-Tang Clan is one of the Greatest stories in the history of Man and Universe.” سيف الله
No one knows a thing is going to work, until it works.
That’s why we’re inundated with sequel and prequel after sequel and prequel. It’s the best way to maximize profit, no one wants to incur losses. (I recall listening to the Cold Crush v Fantastic Romantic battle and one of the Cold Crush saying, “It’s [the purse for the battle] $800 and there’s 4 of us, so you know we going all out.) Because of that thought process large groups were on the decline. (It would be the last year for Leaders of the New School).
So who would have thought that a group of nine…yes 9 emcees would be successful? Couple that with the fact that the group was from Staten Island…the borough not generally known as the hotbed of Hip-Hop…and one would have to say that the Wu-Tang Clan would seem the LEAST likely to succeed.
But there I was at Tower Records across the street from Lenox Mall buying that and another cassette (which I’ll talk about in a second). Having no idea of whether I would like it or not, I decided to listen to Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) before I listened to the more well-known group’s album. Having at least a 45 minute trip via Marta and the #13 back to campus, I popped in Wu’s album with low to no expectations.
“Protect Your Neck” as a single was cool but on the album, surrounded by songs of similar theme and execution, it was more powerful.
The group’s humor, the Kung Fu (something that many of my generation grew up on) excerpts, and the murky sound, all worked. Reading about the making of the album, confirmed what our initial thoughts were. The Wu had a very “it is what it is” attitude about their debut.
It was a little bit of a shit-show! It wasn’t the cleanest of audio, and it wasn’t audiophile material, and they didn’t spend a lot of time mic-ing and recording stuff, but sometimes art shows up in funny ways. I get that when people do stuff real grimy, and that record just seemed to work. I took that approach when I was working with it to maintain the dirt and the griminess, but at the same time, make it pump and kick and all that stuff. Chris Gehringer, Engineer
I think I would be remiss in my coverage of this album if I didn’t include the fact that Enter the Wu-Tang possessed the age-old rap staple — The Party Clearer. If you’re unaware of what that is, let me help you out.
The Party Clearer, for reasons unknown, is a song that no matter what, gets the testosterone levels so high that the song never makes it to the end, a fight always invariably breaks out, and it clears the party until order is restored.
“Method Man” was such a song. I have no idea why. Material wise, there are more violent songs. There’s no “Throw Your Gunz” type hook. Yet as soon as the “I got white owl blunts” chorus started so did the pushing and shoving and before the next verse began, the fights spread throughout the Warehouse…or Clark’s Gym or anywhere the song was played in a club environment.
That’s a hit. Literally.
It would be a day before I listened to the other purchase from that now legendary Tuesday in November of 1993. That other purchase, of course, was A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders.
Twenty three years later, the debate continues: which is better, Tribe’s sophomore release, The Low End Theory, the album that solidified jazz’s hold on East Coast rap and reintroduced the world to Phife, or the follow up Midnight Marauders?
I certainly don’t want to revisit that debate but I must say, Low End had some fast forward material (25 years have past and I still haven’t listened to “Sky Pager” all the way through). Midnight Marauders is longer (not by much) and I found each song satisfying — then — and now.
Much like with Low End Theory, the single that proceeded the album, in this case, “Award Tour,” had fans salivating for the album. “Award Tour,” of course, has De La’s Dave on the hook, a likely guest spot, but Midnight was the album that moved Tribe away from the box that Buhloone Mindstate further pushed De La in.
This is a rap staple. If you’re looking to show where New York rap was circa 1993, throw this one on. It’s as good a teaching tool as any.
Between Midnight Marauders, Enter Da Wu Tang, Enta Da Stage, Return of the Boom Bap, Buhloone Mindstate, and 93 Til Infinity, I had more than enough to listen to. So much so, that when the buzzed about Pudgee the Phat Bastard debut, Give Em the Finger dropped, I bought it and listened to it once…maybe twice.
As I’ve stated, I was New York-centric, and, having lived through drive-bys, “where you froms,” and all that shit, I was not even in the least bit open to one of the biggest releases of 1993. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
(mind you, E-40's Federal came out in November of 93 also, which really could be the 9th debut…but I wasn’t checking for him at that time)
It’s impossible for me to forget when Hard to Earn came out. It was my 22nd birthday. A rainy Atlanta day where nothing went right.
Up until that day, my heavy rotation was still intact, somedays I would throw in the aforementioned Pudgee, and after January, I incorporated the (mostly) Beatnuts produced debut from Kurious, A Constipated Monkey.
Like I said, magazines were god, and that Source magazine with Gangstarr on the cover was the Spring time bible heralding in two highly anticipated releases: Hard to Earn and Illmatic. Jonathan Shecter’s oral history was so inspiring, I’m sure I read it three times when first I picked up the mag. The line, “This is the story of the building of a hip-hop classic,” stuck out the most.
But that would be later. Gangstarr’s Hard to Earn would be released first.
On release date, my birthday, I had no early classes that Tuesday morning and took my trek to Tower. Up until this point, I was a GangStarr supporter. I liked their music but always felt their albums were uneven. Hard to Earn made me a GangStarr fan.
Premier’s interludes were better than most people’s albums and Guru was displaying a comfort inside the beats that I must have overlooked before. It was enough to make me revisit their other albums.
But like I said, the climate had changed. Some students, egged on by off-campus, displaced New Yorkers, wanted to imitate art and for reasons that would require an entirely different post, had beef with me.
I learned that some of these students and their backers were “looking for me.” These were just words until I was in class, heard a knock on the door window, and saw the mob waiting outside.
None of the off-campus instigators were present but I was warned they would be coming to campus later to confront me.
I kept listening to Hard to Earn.
Shortly thereafter, my girlfriend at the time said she needed a break. She was younger, a freshman, it was Spring, and we had been together since her second month in school. She felt like she was missing out. We broke up.
I kept listening to Hard to Earn.
I didn’t work that night and went to a Zulu Nation meeting in the basement of Haven-Warren. Outside of the Five Percent, the Zulus were my second family. So when these despondent students and their backers came to “serve justice” after the meeting, the Zulus, Daoud Bowling and Esseen in particular, had my back.
We trooped up Fair street together, not even talking about the beef that just happened. We talked Hard to Earn.
Back at my boarding home, I got a call from ex of a few hours. She didn’t want to break up. I had my ill thoughts of why the day-long break-up, maybe she wanted to soil her oats and not be considered a cheat, who knows. But I wanted to be with her and she wanted me to come pick her up.
I put on Hard to Earn and trudged back to campus to pick her up. Because of all of this, it’s impossible for me to forget when Hard to Earn came out.
Sometime shortly after that event, through the campus tape sharing system (that proceeded file sharing…what the hell was a file?) word got out that Nas’ bootleg album was in circulation. I immediately hunted it down.
And was not disappointed.
Nor was I alone. It seemed that everyone on campus had a copy. Wherever I went, someone was playing it. Hell, even the Georgia State Hip Hop radio show played a few songs off the bootleg.
It’s almost impossible to describe to someone who’s grown up in a time where everything is so readily available and access to stars so easy, what the true feeling of anticipation was.
You hear that people are highly anticipated all the time but that just means that you’ve burned through their mixtape that was released a month ago. A year without an artist’s music is like ten (actual) years and people seem to be hungry for music.
But like someone who has truly starved would say, most of us don’t know hunger.
Well, we were hungry for Nas’ album. The anticipation had built up since Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ,” and everytime we heard Nas (come on, we lost our shit over his verse in “Back to the Grill”) we knew that we were listening to a premier MC, the likes of, we had not heard since Rakim snuck on the scene with “My Melody/Eric B for President.”
Had all of those bootlegs translated into sales, Nas would have gone triple platinum the day that bootleg began being circulated. But it didn’t. It was seven years before Illmatic cracked the million albums sold mark.
But the album was everything that we thought it would be and then some. Illmatic is my teaching module for people who dismiss the art of rap. My go to statement is, “I bet Shakespeare couldn’t say Othello over a beat.” It’s no wonder that books have been dedicated to Illmatic.
Because of all the coverage, there’s no need for that here. Suffice it to say, the April 19th release was a formality. Me and my brothers all purchased it (“Represent” was different, other than that — it all pretty much was the same). This album brought Wakeel Allah back into Hip-Hop.
Illmatic in my opinion wasn’t the beginning of what New York rap would or could be, but the end. The “underground” album, the “we won’t go pop” edict climbed in it’s death bed the second that first Illmatic bootleg began circulating.
Despite having various producers, the top of their game New York producers at that, Pete Rock and Premier, Q-Tip, and that banging joint by L.E.S., Illmatic was still a coherent album but as Bashir Allah notes often, it was the beginning of the multi-producer trend which seldom produces the same result.
At the end of the day, rap is about dollar signs. Like I said, Illmatic came out on Tuesday, April 19th. That’s relevant because the album came out at the beginning of Freaknik week which began that Friday. That’s when it became apparent the direction that rap music would be headed.
Earlier, I used Freaknik as a key event in tracing the direction of Black folk. By 1994, the weekend event had grown to the point of explosion. To get in your car was to drive from parking lot to parking lot — every road was shut down with traffic and Black folk abandoning their cars for photos and other thangs.
I said that I would get back to one of the biggest releases of 1993…well here’s the opportune time. The Chronic, released in 1992, had people championing the strain of marijuana that some say Serious Seeds bred first, Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle that dropped at the end of November, five months later, had people who were previous teetotallers screaming out (and drinking)“Gin and Juice” but the Freaknik anthem was the apt “Ain’t No Fun.”
Doggstyle was the de facto theme of ever Black man and woman rolling those A-T-L skreets that Freaknik weekend.
While the New York rap obsessed were fawning over the release of Nas’ debut, the rest of America was celebrating the debut of the equally anticipated Snoop Doggy Dogg.
The first tape [of mine] that Warren G gave Dre was the one that hooked me up. When he finally got a chance to hear me, I was ready. I didn’t want to rap for him until I was ready. … Warren G and Nate Dogg were my best friends, and we formed 213. We didn’t have drum machines back then, just records, turntables and a microphone. Warren G called me and was, like, “Snoop, I got Dre on the phone, he liked the tape, he wants to work with us.” And I said, “Nigga, stop lying.” And someone said, “Hello?” And I said, “Who’s this?” And he said, “It’s Dre. Man, that shit was dope. I want to get with you. Come to the studio Monday.” Snoop Dogg
That was back in 91/92 and when “Deep Cover” dropped in April of 1992, everyone…West coast to East coast was asking, “Who is Snoop Doggy Dogg?” I was among those anticipating more from Snoop…until The Chronic.
I was never a fan of interpolated tracks, and like I mentioned, I had my fair share of that gangster experience. Because of that I passed.
But there was no escaping Doggystyle. It pretty much outshone everything. Dre’s clean, fine-tuned mix, Snoops flow, and the content that celebrated a lifestyle that many people wanted to emulate, were all a recipe for maximum record sales.
Notice, though, I said “pretty much.” If you lived in Atlanta or were from the South, you had your own soundtrack that summer of 94.
I moved to Atlanta in 1990. This is when Atlanta was still Atlanta…well, what we knew of it at least.
Atlanta was Screaming Wheels. Atlanta was kids decked out in they Starter Coats, suede 3 on 3 Champion sneaks, doing the Yeek on the Marta platforms. Atlanta was Arnell Starr’s American Rap Makers. Varsity. Greenbriar. South Dekalb. Red Dog. That was Atlanta.
Atlanta was Success-N-Effect, Kilo G, etc. But no one ever talked about Atlanta having rappers. (Please refer to ATL: The Untold Story Of Atlanta’s Rise In The Rap Game or The Art of Organized Noize for a better understanding of what I speak.)
My families from the South. South Carolina. The backwoods to be specific. Trenton, South Carolina. Growing up from the South you get used to people talking down on people from the South. Calling you ‘Bamas’ or slow. And then there’s the inherent generational shame that’s passed down from family who still remember “cleaning up white folks homes” or in my families case, picking cotton. You learn to associate yourself with anyplace BUT the South.
I didn’t gravitate to most Southern rap for that reason alone. Sure, I loved all the Miami Bass and it’s Atlanta imitator, but that was more party music on Friday before we REALLY went out. I didn’t buy it. But all that changed when I heard OutKast’s “Player’s Ball.” These boys could RAP…and they were repping Atlanta.
To be very honest, when we first met Big Boi and André it was the originality and them being young kids that stood out. The industry hadn’t really hit Atlanta yet. Kriss Kross had came out and TLChad came out and we always believed there was a real music industry here, so it was really more about if the opportunity comes for us, let’s make sure we’re ready to represent properly. We wanted to do something that our forefathers, which was New York hip-hop, would respect. So when we met Big and Dre, the biggest thing about them was they could rap. They were competitive to New York emcees. Rico Wade
Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik came out a week before I headed to Denver for the summer. I played it out before June was over. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but I have to add that when I came back to Atlanta in August, not a car drove by, not a house playing music, there was not one place that was not playing Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik. People randomly said “Hootie Hoo…my white owls are burning kinda slow.”
Who wasn’t moved by “Git Up, Git Out?”
With Outkast…we…The South…had a champion.
Being in Denver that summer meant that the only place I heard Jeru the Damaja’s The Sun Rises in the East, which came out at the end of May, and The Beatnuts’ Street Level was in my headphones. Doggystyle was still in the air and Warren G’s Regulate…G Funk Era took the nation by storm that summer. I’ve never listened to it, but I’m sure some would say it’s a classic.
For whatever reason, Jeru’s album didn’t connect with me. I liked a few songs but I don’t know. That left The Beatnuts. Despite their content, “I make bitches, make me sandwiches and scratch my ass when it itches…” the beats were top notch. Street Level is perhaps one of the last sample heavy Hip-Hop releases and Psycho Les and JuJu lived up to their name on this album and it’s still one of my favorites.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t wait for that summer to be over.
To many of us Biggie Smalls was “Party and Bullshit.” Biggie was “Dreams of Fuckin’ an R&B Bitch.” Via our tape sharing syndicate, many of us had heard Biggie’s demo. There may not have been Nas-like anticipation when we found out about his upcoming album, but we were eager.
The Source featured Biggie in the October 94 issue, and while it was a peace, the article entitled “The Mayor of St. James Place” didn’t read like a “classic album coming out soon” piece.
But then we heard the DJ Premier produced “Unbelievable.” We were used to Premier making otherworldly beats, but this was on another level. Anytime I heard a beat and I couldn’t tell how it was constructed, how the sample was played, or any of that, I was mesmorized. The icing on the cake was using R. Kelly’s “Your Body’s Calling” for the hook. (I needn’t tell you that 12 Play was a big album, right?)
I don’t like people watching me making my beats, but with Big I was just comfortable. He was actually the one who said, ‘Yo, scratch R. Kelly’s ‘Your Body’s Callin’.’ You know where he goes, ‘Unbelievable~’’ And I was like, ‘Yo, that sounds like it’ll work.’ Then he just went in there and spit it. No paper, no nothing. Premier
I wrote in detail about hearing this song for the first time here (and my subsequent disappointment with the album). But suffice it to say, Ready to Die shifted the pendulum back to the East Coast. Despite many of the records mentioned above, commercially speaking (meaning everywhere else in the US), people had moved on to what some were calling ‘gangsta rap.’
Diddy ain’t one of the most successful people associated with rap for no reason. He saw in Biggie something that most of us couldn’t possibly have seen — the best of both worlds. Biggie had the street pedigree and rhyming skills to appeal to the fickle hardcore Hip-Hop head and the talent and charisma to sell music to the mainstream. In that way, he was the most unlikeliest of stars.
But it worked. Everyone loved Ready to Die…or better put, everyone could find something that they loved on Ready to Die and that’s what made it a successful album that had a shelf life longer that most rap albums…surely longer than any modern East Coast rap album.
Unlike, Illmatic, Ready to Die was Double Platinum in a year. And that changed the paradigm for what New York rappers aspired to — they now wanted those big commercial numbers too. Gone were the swipes at R&B and crossover. The Ready to Die aesthetic became the blueprint.
(Ugk’s Super Tight came out in August of 94 also, but I wasn’t checking for them at the time)
I could have ended this piece with Ready to Die and made it a clean year but I extended it to include one more album.
But I have to be honest, when I first listened to it, I was dismissive. The album that I’m talking about is Pete Rock and Cl Smooth’s follow up to Mecca and the Soul Brother, Main Ingredient.
Where Mecca was opulent and sunny, Main Ingredient seemed to be more subdued and calm. In retrospect, the music fit the season that it was released in — Mecca in the Summer and Main Ingredient in the Fall. The albums were almost the same in length but Mecca and the Soul Brother seemed like a more full album.
I have to mention it here, like I mentioned the many other asides above, because I was on the wrong side of history when it came to this album…which my brother Bashir loves to remind me of. Main Ingredient is actually a more polished work with a greater variety of sounds, tempos, etc. I can admit when I’m wrong.
Although 1995 saw a few good releases (Mobb Deep’s The Infamous and Raekwon’s Only Built For Cuban Linx come to mind), in terms of volume, there would never be a time as abundant with quality releases as those 14 months between September of 93 and November of 94.
Not to mention, that was a time of three tectonic shifts in the genre of rap — from jazzy/lyrical, to hardcore, and finally to pop/mainstream. And there hasn’t been much change since…unless we talk about the move away from rap all together…but that’s another article all together…one that we started with Kanye Babies.
It’s because of all of that, that I consider those the best 14 months in the history of Hip-Hop. I’m sure that competitiveness and inspiration played a large role in so much creativity happening in this time period. The bar was set really high. So high that albums that would be Instant Classics if they were released now were barely noticed. (We’ll discuss the Digable Planets, whose sophomore album, Blowout Comb, was released in October of 1994 in depth later)
So keep these albums in mind next time someone bombards you with the 1988 is the best year convo…throw down your 94 cards like you have a full house of spades, you’ll win every house — trust.
Here’s a partial list of the album releases from September of 93 to November of 94:
De La Soul Buhloone Mindstate September 21, 1993
Krs-One Return of the Boom Bap September 28, 1993
Souls of Mischief 93 Til Infinity September 28, 1993
Black Moon Enta Da Stage October 19, 1993
Pudgee the Phat Bastard Give ’Em the Finger October 26, 1993
A Tribe Called Quest Midnight Marauders November 9, 1993
Wu Tang Clan Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers) November 9, 1993
Snoop Dogg Doggystyle November 23, 1993
Kurious A Constipated Monkey January 18, 1994
Gangstarr Hard to Earn March 8, 1994
Nas Illmatic April 19, 1994
Outkast Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik April 26, 1994
Jeru the Damaga The Sun Rises in the East May 24, 1994
Warren G Regulate…G Funk Era June 7, 1994
The Beatnuts The Beatnuts Street Level June 21, 1994
UGK Super Tight August 30, 1994
Biggie Smalls Ready to Die September 13, 1994
Digable Planets Blowout Comb October 18, 1994
Pete Rock & CL Smooth Main Ingredient November 8, 1994
