I mean which rapper peaked the highest in their career. H long they were on top doesn't matter, record sales don't matter either it just matter how big they were at the time (say over a year).

---------------------------------------------
Leather In The Summer.
Silk In The Winter.


Twice upon a time,
there was a boy who died...
And lived happily ever after...

But that's another chapter...

imo of course, but he could be everything.

>imo of course, but he could be everything.

Illmatic was a masterwork, of course, but Nas was
sorta a reclusive figure and occupied more a niche

Can't really say that was really the peak of his career

He just happened to produce his (and the artform's) best
work

Agreed!!

Both were on top of the game, were respected by all corners
of the game, sold lots of records, critical acclaim, all of
that


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"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

when GRODT was at its high point.

i went to a club where they spun In Da Club like 10 times in a row, no joke....and the WHOLE club danced and rapped all 10 times.

i don't think i've ever seen anyone (from other rappers/actors/comedians/fans...you name it) want to be more down w/ a rapper than when 50 was hot.

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and a 50 cent song didn't even have to be playing.
they just were shouting that out.


b/w the mixtape
and the album, he pretty much cornered all markets.

the black folks were feeling it,
he even got that white pop love,
and to be honest, even *I* was feeling it.

and i can be quite a churl.

so, yeah.

50 had the zeitgeist like no other rapper i've ever seen.

September of '03 to November '04 DOOM put out vaudeville villain, madvillainy, and mm food.

it's rarely if ever about who put out the best, highest quality material, and nearly always about who was the biggest, hottest, the most "relevant" (to pop culture).

a lotta empty, superficial music discussion goin on here.

why am i here then? i'm sure people will ask.
i guess because i've been here so long already, since a time when there was a lot more quality posting imo, and because i'm not really on the blog scene like that so i don't really feel like taking time to seek out other places. more fun to stay here and be a pain in everyone's ass.

Not technically best, but BIGGEST.

maybe u should've explained that to the guy who i responded to, instead of clowning him.

don't get me wrong, i'm down for a good clownin as much as the next guy, but yall nuccas is savage wit it lol. u can't even make an honest mistake up in this piece without being ridiculed.

and again to my point- so many posts about who was the biggest, the hottest... so few about who is the dopest. like the K Lamar post from a few weeks ago. "is he #1 in the game right now?". FUCK the game. lets talk about who's the fuckin best and why. i guess i should just stfu and make the damn thread :/

I seen the cells of a Hammer cartoon.

I've also seen Jay-Z interviewed by Charlie Rose.

<----

Larry Otis!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeM89CITvMc

and his free new singles, produced by Tough Junkie!
http://soundcloud.com/toughjunkie/sets/larry-otis-leaks

dude was absolutely on top of the world at the time.

The hype between the Chronic and Doggystyle was enormous and it was both in a hip-Hop context *and* a mainstream MTV/Rolling Stone/whatever vibe...

1. MC Hammer - Kill the dumb shit, Hammer was the first MAJOR Superstar in Rap. I mean a cartoon show?? Toys?? Yep.

2. 50 Cent - As said before, In da club was the most played song EVER...Niggas in Paris gets repeated plays, but it still wasn't what In da club was then. His mixtapes were on fire, and everybody was shouting G-G-G-G-G-G-UUUUUUNIT

3. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Arguably #2....I just feel the internet era boosted 50's overall buzz and hype. Doggystyle was everywhere, the singles were everywhere, and he became a household name, even if for infamous reasons.

4. Eminem - I'd say MMLP era Em was HUGE, and became an immediate superstar.

5. Lil Wayne - 07-08 Wayne was on everything.

6. Drake - His buzz/hype was a result of Wayne, but he became major in that 2009-2010 period.

7. 2Pac - I only put him low because it feels as if there was a LOT more competition at that time for the "top spot"....when 1-6 were runnin shit, felt like 2nd place was faaar behind. With Pac, Biggie was right there, Snoop's buzz was still around before Doggfather, and plenty of other rappers had a big year in 96...so he wasn't ahead of the pack as a whole.

8. Biggie - Right around Pac's death and up to his own death

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they were/are at the peak of the rap game when the game isn't even that big anymore. Drake or Wayne will never come close to going Diamond.

**********
the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

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Respect the list but take Drake off and add Jay-Z The Blueprint Era or Hardknock Era is as high an Mc can be..

"Highly developed spirits often encounter resistance from mediocre minds."-Albert Einstein

http://twitter.com/#!/TonyHanesPoetry

a few months ago...I personally never felt like Jay was the #1 "HOTTEST" Rapper in the game...maybe 01 Blueprint era, but that Hard Knock Life era still belonged to DMX if you ask me.

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the controversy, the movie, the feeding off of other contemporary superstars, the whiteness (lol)... i think it was a combination of his target audience, where mtv was at that point, co-signs and soccer moms in outrage..

def. wasn't the biggest w/ the hip hop base... but he was pretty huge at one point if you consider the general population..

----

https://weketchum.contently.com/

There's no album I can remember being on the top of Billboard longer than Please Hammer Don't Hurt him. He spawned like 5 singles off that album, and they all made some noise.

You're such pests...now, what is it you want? In your depths of your ignorance, what is it you want? Well, whatever it is you want, I can't deliver because I just don't see it. - Orson Welles


Never Tired, Always Sleepy

its a shame how his career went down

biggest fans so I'm ruling him out off that alone.

I'd say '92/93 Snoop, possibly 50 in 2003.

my answer also

----------------------------------
www.maxptah.com
"you gotta be real white to hate on a nxgga for eating." (c) okp infin8

there are plenty that can be argued but the beginning of his career with dre will be hard to match for a long time

PEACE LOVE and MONEY

https://soundcloud.com/dabeatnik/drumpf-beer

Em, Jay, Pac, Wayne, Snoop and 50 are up there. I mean they were high for longer but none reached Hammers high point.

Also people forget, DMX? At his highest? Around 1999-2000? Shit, this dude was at the top of the world and had the whole game in a headlock

---------------------------------------------------------------

If you can't understand it without an explanation

you can't understand it with an explanation

It's Dark and Hell is Hot, Flesh of My Flesh in 98..

..And then there was X in 99...

shit was wild, he was pulling in big opening weekends, starring in films.. collab's w/ just about everyone.. i remember him getting love from the "punk-ish" crowd.. all of the Ruff Ryders crew on his coattails.. i feel like he gets some extra points for doing all of that while literally barking and growling in his music.. looking back, that's pretty nuts by any decade's standards.. i'm pretty sure he growled on a duet w/ Aaliyah.. fucking wild lol

watch the undun FAT BOYS documentary and learn.


also, funnym, I heard Hammer's 'Turn this mutha out" last night and had a craving to hear the 'please hammer don't hurt'em" album

lurkin since 1999. werd.

.

maybe 2pac.

“So back we go to these questions — friendship, character… ethics.”

I think Wayne/Snoop/Em/50 are better answers...


1)Their fame was so large it brought their weed carriers under that halo.
2)They had album sales(even tho we aren't counting em), critical acclaim AND regular street love
3)They were all household names: Wayne popping up with Barbara Walters for instance.

Hammer sold alot and was really popular, but at that point it was almost like he wasn't a rapper, lol.

i don't think any of you ppl can accurately judge the level of Hammer appreciation, nationwide.

fuck you.

left out of so many responses? I'm not a huge Jay fan but his reign on top was longer than any of these guys being named.

muted.muxtape.com
(what i like)

>left out of so many responses? I'm not a huge Jay fan but
>his reign on top was longer than any of these guys being
>named.

and jay still should be in the convo... and outkast too...

muted.muxtape.com
(what i like)

All the big Jay Z moments I can think of have been overshadowed by someone who was bigger.

blueprint (including raising kanye's profile)
takeover + ether
bagged beyonce
expansion of rocafella roster (MOP/Dips etc)
started 40/40's
vodka business
film business
msg concert where literally all of hip hop came to bow down
named president of Def Jam
nets ownership
even the Linkin Park collabo was pretty big considering

lots of it came crashing down later but for that period he was as high as you can go in american/global culture. he didn't go the action figure /kfc commercial route like hammer but it's not like he wasn't EVERYWHERE

respect,
bc

"my old boy from the Point but I'm from Southwest..."

"Are you really ready to carry some weight?,
Are you ready to design your fate?" -Kelvin Mercer

01-04 Jay is exactly the answer to this question...

Y'all seriously forgot already?

I mean that's why he "retired" 'cause it got to be ridiculous how much he took over (pun intended)

*and y'all know I'm no Jay stan like that at all. but really? its not even close.

by the time "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" or "Encore" were big singles, that shit was
unprecedented in my opinion. . I never in all my life can think of a moment in
Rap when EVERY car radio in NY was playin' the same thing.

------------------------------

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Cent's year without question at all.

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i'd say late 02/early to mid 03 was 50's. by November Jay had it on lock. Black album outsold the G-Unit album, and was numebr 1 in 2 non-consecutive weeks.

his group album, while did very well was not as talked about as the black album:

In its first week of sales, Beg for Mercy sold 377,000 copies. It placed third, behind Tupac Shakur's eighth posthumous release, Tupac: Resurrection, which moved 430,000 albums, and Jay-Z's The Black Album, which sold 463,263 copies (from wiki).

Jay was pretty big from late 03 til 04. im not sure if he was bigger than 50, but he was close at soem points in 03 and certainly in 04 (when "Dirt off my Shoulder" and "99 Problems" starting getting a lot of play).

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from MMLP to "the eminem show" to "8 mile" and then to GRODT.

you can even put outkast in there with the SB/TLB crossover.

Happy 50th D’Angelo: https://chrisp.bandcamp.com/track/d-50

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never "THAT dude" @ any one particular moment (big/X/50/wayne/kanye = jordan/shaq/duncan/bron) but undeniably the one when you aggregate over a 10-12 yr period.

_____

"DEEZ IZ MAH MINKS" - ray lewis, mtv cribs

http://i45.tinypic.com/apjspe.jpg

He was the only rapper who performed at the concert for new york a month after 9/11, he's got more number one albums than everybody in history except the Beatles.

When it comes down to it, I guess it's how you interpret the question. To me, nobody else has really hit those "heights" if we're talking about mainstream exposure in pop culture. Other rappers/groups has definitely had higher peaks within the hip-hop community (see: 50 in 2003), but I thought the question was who has reached the highest highs overall, and to me, you have to have Jay in the discussion...

----

the "highest" at the exact moment of each peak.

IMO, as a Jay fan, he doesn't belong in this particular discussion.

_________________

I didn't realize how many hits dude had till I saw him in concert, but thinking back to all those periods, somebody else was bigger.

He was asking who's creative peak hit at the same time as their most successful point in their career. I think 50 wins that argument hands down. Snoop is a good number two. But like, with Hammer (to me) his creative peak came an album before his success peak with Let's Get It Started. Equally so, I don't count Em, because Marshal Mathers was (to me, and most) his creative peak, but he only got bigger after that.

_
Yo! That’s My Jawn: The Podcast - Available Now!
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If that wasn't the point, then I don't understand the question at all. Let me rephrase that.... I get the question, I just don't understand why anyone would think that would breed discussion.

_
Yo! That’s My Jawn: The Podcast - Available Now!
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But rephrasing it made it awkward.

so it's not a GOAT discussion,
b/c longevity doesn't count.

nor does consistancy.


just take all of the rappers that have come out.
who peaked the highest?

i am assuming that by "peak,"
the OP is taking into account critical aclaim,
commercial success, and how folks was feeling said artist
in the "streets."

���������������������������������������
http://s17.postimg.org/6r7bfqpnz/kyrieglass.jpg - They Call Him Mr. Glass

I felt like they shut everything down for a minute, everybody had to acknowledge or react to what they were doing in some form or fashion.

* #1 R&B charting rap album
*The second rap act to appear on American Bandstand (the Sugar Hill Gang appeared first on the program in 1981)
*The first rap act to chart in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 more than once
*The first rap artist with a Top 10 pop charting rap album
*The first rap artist with gold, platinum, and multi-platinum albums
*The first rap act to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine
(one of) The first rap act(s) to receive a Grammy Award nomination
*The first rap act to make a video appearance on MTV
*The first rap act to perform at a major arena
*Signed to a major product endorsement deal (Adidas)
*The second rap act to be inducted into the Rock and roll hall of fame

Lies run sprints.
Truths run marathons.

It just has to do with them existing before acts who would later do all of those things and more.

There are plenty of originators, but there are also a ton of people who took shit to the next level.

...they were the first to do a lot of things, but they also did it bigger than any group has ever done since their peak

>It just has to do with them existing before acts who would
>later do all of those things and more.
>
>There are plenty of originators, but there are also a ton of
>people who took shit to the next level.

Again, their crossover success made rap commercially viable on a worldwide scale. Hundreds of millions of people became aware of rap music, because of their success. 50 Cent, Hammer & Eminem can't say the same, their fans were already aware that rap music existed.

It's about the highest PEAK of any act in the history of hip hop.

Jay-Z is a very close second place

Lies run sprints.
Truths run marathons.

>It's about the highest PEAK of any act in the history of hip
>hop.

It's not a stretch to assume the level of public awareness at their peak was greater also.

>
I'm thinking this post isn't strictly about who has the most sales, because what would be the fun in that?

Anyway, my argument is that Run DMC introduced the mainstream to rap, so more people knew of them and had to form some sort of opinion on them than any other rapper regardless of sales. 50 Cent can sell 10 million, but the guy who doesn't like rap will ignore him and therefore not have an opinion of him. That same person may have listened to a Run-DMC song because it was unlike anything that he'd ever heard before. Because of this I think that Run-DMC's peak may have been higher than anyone else's. They weren't just rappers, they were rap. I remember when Run DMC was the only rap group that was played on MTV.

Nigga I'm FAST....*pyoon*
ARE YOU TRYING TO RACE?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Hiper18Yc

.

************************************************************

there may be correct answers leading up to 2000 (run dmc, beastie boys, vanilla ice, mc hammer, tupac, etc.)

but from 2000 and after 2004-ish, no rapper has even come close to what eminem was then.

albums sales, crossover, record label, production, movies, mtv, clothing line, magazine covers, controversies...

Happy 50th D’Angelo: https://chrisp.bandcamp.com/track/d-50

d12 has 2 multiplatinum albums that debuted @ #1. think about that.

same w/ banks, yayo and game. all dropped platinum #1 debuts.

i don't remember 2 bigg mc doing them type of numbers.

_____

"DEEZ IZ MAH MINKS" - ray lewis, mtv cribs

http://i45.tinypic.com/apjspe.jpg

>d12 has 2 multiplatinum albums that debuted @ #1. think about
>that.
>
>same w/ banks, yayo and game. all dropped platinum #1 debuts.
>
>i don't remember 2 bigg mc doing them type of numbers.

That's just the immediate circle, realistically RUN DMC were the ones who solidified the idea that rap music is a commercially viable genre. One could argue that they were bigger than Em & 50 because hundreds of millions of people worldwide were introduced to rap because of them.

LOL

still, i like the metric. and it does result in Hammer being below the other 2.

fuck you.

he went broke cause he hired his whole neighborhood and made them background dancers and bodyguards and shit.

Nigga I'm FAST....*pyoon*
ARE YOU TRYING TO RACE?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Hiper18Yc

you had to be there

------------------------------------
2019 CABG Survivor

2016 OK Survivor Champion

be about it or be without it

RIP GOATs

See #41

Adidas started to brand their band name on sweatshirts soley based on the My Adidas track only one year after it was released.

I remember just staring at this thing in a Dunhams store back in like 87/88

http://classickicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/run-dmc-adidas-vintage.jpg

Lies run sprints.
Truths run marathons.

But they had similar star power to all the ones we named and were indisputably at the top...I mean the Beasties had to ride on their coattails a bit to get recognition

Public Enemy...they toured with Anthrax in the 80's and the cross over was incredible.

>Public Enemy...they toured with Anthrax in the 80's and the
>cross over was incredible.

-

Lies run sprints.
Truths run marathons.

I mean the Beasties had to ride
>on their coattails a bit to get recognition
>

Lies run sprints.
Truths run marathons.

Is the correct answer

.................. ___@@@__
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---- `----(@)=========+====(@)---'

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Get Out the Room
http://getouttheroom.podomatic.com
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when they were at their hottest, nobody was really seeing either one of them

Everyone after them used their marketing (BIG hiphop video releases, cross-genres collabos, movies, cartoons)and branding (think Adidas before them and after!).

1st album changed everything for hiphop.

edit: Their very first single "Its like that / Sucker MCs" reached #15 on the R&B charts! Think about that fam, we're talking in 1983!!!

Rappers would die to do that now, even with all the marketing and social acceptance of hip hop. 1983!!!

Challenger-

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M. Ali - the Greatest - https://youtube.com/watch?v=jkhpZoPOfZI