Sutter Pain
Your mothers main.
Big sucker for Canadian rap while this guy is no where near my favorite but he always has great beats and has fun doing it. How can you not like a man with a album cover like this
Lol that's way too much TL;DR for a claim trying to somehow link mass appeal with quality. Biggie was the front man for the east the same way Pac was for the west, and neither one put out a single album as great as Illmatic. I won't continue to argue the point since it's subjective anyway, but for as good as Ready to Die was overall, I'll take 40 flawless minutes over 70 not really quite flawless minutes at all myself.Not even.
lllmatic is a classic strong lyrics and the beats, even though some of them sound dated, are a picture perfect reflection of New York City in the mid-90s, but it's not the top album.
Russell Simmons didn't even sign Nas early on because he thought Nas sounded too much like Kool G Rap during an era when it was CRIMINAL to sound like another rapper unlike today.
Illmatic wouldn’t sell, it took years for Illmatic to hit platinum. Keep in mind, album sales isn't everything; if it was, 50 cent would be top 3.
My favorite albums didn’t sell too well, so don’t even try labeling me as superficial. Illmatic failed to live up to expectations in sales based on media hype, and the album wasn’t the threat or the answer to the dominance of West Coast Hip-Hop at the time
Ready to Die was the answer to the West Coast. Notorious BIG was the champion NYC needed and Nas didn't have enough power to hold down the NYC like BIG did.
Ready to Die was more powerful because the album was not only commercially appealing, but hardcore enough to please the die hard rap fan. Biggie kept it street and still sold records without being accused of a "sell out" regardless of heads gettin' on his case for designer clothes and champagne name drops. Illmatic failed to appeal to a wider audience unlike Ready to Die. Ready to Die was transcendent (groundbreaking) and appealed to people who might not listen to rap music.
Biggie was one of the main reasons why Nas flipped his style when he released his sophomore album It Was Written, in my opinion his best album to date ...but Illmatic fans hate "It Was Written" because apparently it was too commercial driven. Mainstream rap fans need to learn why and how underground MCs are more respected for their craft, and the underground rap fans needs to learn why and how the mainstream is able to touch a larger audience.
Shout out to Big Pun, Cuban Link, DMX, Wu-Tang, Jeru the Damaja, Black Moon, Smiff n Wessun, The Roots, Redman, and Mobb Deep. They also had a hand in the resurrection of the East. Biggie didn’t do it alone, but he was the front man of the movement. Nas wasn't.
I love you for mentioning cLOUDDEAD even if considering it rap is bit of a stretch lol.
Haha yeah it's definitely not your standard hip hop album. It's so good though - don't know how many times I've listened through it.
It's very difficult for an album of 15+ tracks to have all/nearly all of them being 5/5 star tracks. That's why Capital Punishment (Big Pun) didn't make it into my top 10....had some amazing tracks but also maybe 3 fairly poor ones and one or two average ones. I think Tupac's All Eyez on Me had the potential to be his best album but it's two-sided disc totalling 28 tracks and a lot of it is filler/party music. Some of my favourite songs on there though like 'Only God Can Judge Me' and 'Skandalouz'.
So you're one of THOSE people who like It Was Written better than Illmatic...
Hmm hit and miss for me in terms of some songs. Just wasn't a complete album imo but plenty of good stuff on there. The production was very good I'll give you that. I just think it's probably his 3rd best album after MATW and 7 Day Theory. That isn't to discard 2Pacalypse Now which was pretty good. He was a raw spitter back then lol...
Meth, is that you??
Where's Tical?
my list?
All lists lol.
Oh you like Triple Darkness? May I suggest Psychodrama, Snypaz, Crucial Conflict, EC Illa, MCG'Z, Da Smart, and Speed Knot Mobstaz?
Pun put out Capital Punishment during a time when the genre of hip-hop had come to a standstill. Classics were not being released with regularity anymore. Instead, mediocrity saturated the market, and records like Big Pun's were few and far between. What makes Capital Punishment so incredible is that, even if it was released during that period from 1992-96 where everything that dropped seemed to be dope, it still would have been one of the best projects of its time. That's how good this LP is. Big Pun establishes himself as one of the best rappers to ever do it here, and, in my opinion, in terms of pure rapping ability, he is the greatest of all-time, period. No one possesses his impeccable combination of skills, and absolutely no one can even come close to touching his masterful flow. Pun is one of those artists who doesn't even need a beat to sound good. He can put out an acapella album, and the result would still be enthralling. That is what separates the great rappers from the merely good ones, and that is what separates Big Pun from just about every other hip-hop artist in history. It's top 3 free.
I'm tired of kids who are brain dead hip hop fans and can never critically think for once.
I personally don't think he's the best but an argument can definitely be made for him though. Personally I would put ahead of him (on skill alone): GZA, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap and Nas definitely. He'd be in my top 10 on skill alone (but not overall). Lyrically, he's fantastic and the album is as well, if anything it's a slight on the production on some of the tracks on Capital Punishment more than anything, which I feel downgraded song quality. I liked his second album as well, albeit not as much. Was that an official album of his? I think it was released posthumously but I can't remember....sometime in 2000.
yes i also like other uk stuff like Giggs, Blade Brown and a lot of grime artists (but that's another topic). i will check out these artists you mentioned, only heard EC Illa.
