What was the best year, or best few years? 2000? 2003?

What would you say the low point was...06-07? The ringtone Rap era?

Do we count any mixtapes as classics, and are they measured at the same level as an official CD release classic?

Do you feel anything about the decade was better than the 90's? Whether it was the top lyricists...or production...club music...or even contributions from cities that weren't dominant in the 90's.

You can mention anything else about the decade, really. I feel like we talk about the 90's all the time, but I wonder how we'll judge the 00's in the future.

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Fans of Madlib and Dilla will never forget those years.

I followed rap music less and less as the years went on, but going to HS/college from 2000-2008 has cemented plenty of those albums in my memory. From Devin to DOOM to The Eastsidaz. And all the heat from The Neptunes, Timbo, Rich Harrison, etc.

Dipset, Freeway and Beanie, Kanye's best stuff....

I'm not even mentioning everything coming out of the South.

Good times all around.

Bowls
http://twitter.com/Bowls615

I'm sure you're going to have a bunch of people jumping in here to bitch about how this was the worst decade ever but I definitely think there were some really good and/or interesting moments in Hip Hop during this time...the meteoric rise of 50 Cent and then watching the shift from his brand of Hip Hop to Kanye in 2007, Nas Vs Jay Z, seeing Hipsters rave about Lil Wayne and him emerging as a star.... Also, can't forget The Roots being the house band on a late night show on a major tv network. I think people really underestimate how big of a deal that was and is. For them to be in that big of a mainstream setting but still drop concept albums like Undun and How I Got Over is truly uncharted territory.

>What was the best year, or best few years? 2000? 2003?

2000 was great but for me I'd say 2005 was the best year or at least my favorite year. Common dropped "Be", Ye dropped "Late Registration" and for me 2005's biggest moment was Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Sitting in the theater watching G Rap, The Roots, Dead Prez, BDK, Mos and of course was a truly great moment to me.

>
>What would you say the low point was...06-07? The ringtone Rap
>era?

For me the low points were the deaths of J Dilla and Jam Master Jay. Ringtone rap was wack as hell to me but it didn't cost anyone their life.
>
>Do we count any mixtapes as classics, and are they measured at
>the same level as an official CD release classic?

I personally don't measure them on the same level as official CD releases in general but I know that some people do. Early in the decade 50 was the mixtape king and he certainly deserves credit for raising that artform to a level where people do look at mixtapes no differently than official albums. Section 80 is probably the mixtape of the decade for me.
>
>Do you feel anything about the decade was better than the
>90's? Whether it was the top lyricists...or production...club
>music...or even contributions from cities that weren't
>dominant in the 90's.

I don't know about better but there was some production that I would certainly argue was just as good as some production in the 90's...J Dilla, El P, Kanye, Madlib, The Neptunes. All those dudes could more than hang in the 90's.
>
>You can mention anything else about the decade, really. I feel
>like we talk about the 90's all the time, but I wonder how
>we'll judge the 00's in the future.

I'd say the emergence of Kanye was probably the most significant development. As a producer and MC to watch him go from background "backpack" producer dude to major Hip Hop/Pop superstar was pretty remarkable. I would have never suspected that he could reach the levels of fame that he has.

>I'm sure you're going to have a bunch of people jumping in
>here to bitch about how this was the worst decade ever but I
>definitely think there were some really good and/or
>interesting moments in Hip Hop during this time...the meteoric
>rise of 50 Cent

The rise of 50 and before him Ja Rule is what made me begin to move away from rap. They were and still are shit.

and then watching the shift from his brand of
>Hip Hop to Kanye in 2007, Nas Vs Jay Z,

I enjoyed them deading the "beef" even more

seeing Hipsters rave
>about Lil Wayne and him emerging as a star....

More proof for me that the art was at an all time low and the old guard / gatekeepers didn't control the "canon" anymore, which in many was is a good thing and I actually like Wayne

Also, can't
>forget The Roots being the house band on a late night show on
>a major tv network. I think people really underestimate how
>big of a deal that was and is. For them to be in that big of a
>mainstream setting but still drop concept albums like Undun
>and How I Got Over is truly uncharted territory.

True

>>What was the best year, or best few years? 2000? 2003?
>
>2000 was great but for me I'd say 2005 was the best year or at
>least my favorite year. Common dropped "Be", Ye dropped "Late
>Registration" and for me 2005's biggest moment was Dave
>Chappelle's Block Party. Sitting in the theater watching G
>Rap, The Roots, Dead Prez, BDK, Mos and of course was a truly
>great moment to me.
>
Felt the same about DC's Block Party, but 2000 had Supreme Clientele, Vol. 2, Like Water For Chocolate, Train of Thought, The Unseen, Lets Get Free and Stankonia. Not one of the albums you mentioned is better than any of these, cue the "but but but, so and so had more impact!" Brilliant point... moving on
>>
>>What would you say the low point was...06-07? The ringtone
>Rap
>>era?
>
>For me the low points were the deaths of J Dilla and Jam
>Master Jay. Ringtone rap was wack as hell to me but it didn't
>cost anyone their life.

Great point / insight

>> Section 80 is probably the mixtape of the decade for
>me.

That was 2011. R-Tistic asked about 00-09

>I don't know about better but there was some production that I
>would certainly argue was just as good as some production in
>the 90's...J Dilla, El P, Kanye, Madlib, The Neptunes. All
>those dudes could more than hang in the 90's.

Agreed. Good balanced posting

was seeing fans who were once proud to champion the underground & have a healthy skepticism of pop rap or crossover rap turn 180 degrees out of shame & fully forsake their backpacks by the end of the decade

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

mentality was always wack and detrimental.

You couldn't tell me back when Elzhi's Preface dropped that the weird as s nigga Danny Brown would be loved by music fans the way he is now.

Or Kendrick Lamar. Man look, if you got consistent quality music the people are gonna come to you. You don't need the machine.

That "fuck the mainstream" thing is dead, these underground niggas are shining.

And Danny, Kendrick and co have nuthin to do with the 00-09 years

But we agree that what's been happening from 10-13 is a damn good thing

danny brown is annoying *to me* & i havent given kendrick a shot since i don't steal music anymore & gotta be picky w/ my music $, but you do have a point that cats can grow a fanbase independently moreso than when u had to be signed to somebody to get heard

that said i maintain as i have for sometime that the "backpacker who champions mediocre artists bc they're not popular" is, by and large, a complete myth...a myth that has led to many a dope underground artist being unfairly scorned

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

To go from top of the world with The Marshall Matthers LP in 2000 to having all of his personal issues, substance abuse issues, etc and still "come back" in 2009 with a massive album was impressive. Not to mention the success of 8 Mile.

The last throws of th Cd rapper...
To The Internet Rapper..
To The Youtube Rapper
To the Tumblr Rapper..

Double 0
DJ/Producer/Artist
Producer in Kidz In The Hall
-------------------------------------------
twitter: @godouble0
IG: @godouble0
www.thinklikearapper.com

was the rise of the supremacy of MONEY as a defining characteristic of the Rap artist

YES, OF COURSE money was ALWAYS a prominent topic in hip-hop, an oft righteous reaction to the idea that Black/latino/poor ppl were deprived of things & power by society, but it was never quite as important in forming fans' opinions of artists as it became in the 00's, spurred by the Biggie/Puffy/Jay Z ethos that took hold in the mid/late 90's

imo it led to a lot of wackness being cosigned bc cats had stacks (or claimed to)

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

1: he wack tho

2: but he gettin money tho

1: I'm just sayin he wack

we've probably all been there

----------
https://93millionmilesabove.blogspot.com/
https://rateyourmusic.com/~Kosa12

>1: he wack tho
>
>2: but he gettin money tho
>
>1: I'm just sayin he wack
>
>we've probably all been there

& ive had this convo w/ ppl i respect as individuals, ppl i know are stand up dudes when it comes down to it

but the mentality is still poison IMO

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

you are trying to talk music and then they bring up the artist they like's bank account

like um...what are we talking about again

this mentality is terrible and I still run into it on the regular

----------
https://93millionmilesabove.blogspot.com/
https://rateyourmusic.com/~Kosa12

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

----------
https://93millionmilesabove.blogspot.com/
https://rateyourmusic.com/~Kosa12

To be part of those convos

supreme clientele
violent by design
deltron 3030
lets get free
stankonia
mind over matter (zion I)
marshall mathers lp
fantastic vol 2
HNIC
quality control (j5)
train of thought
masters of the universe (binary star)
like water for chocolate

dropped

idk if i can find a better year for rap in the 2000s

----------
https://93millionmilesabove.blogspot.com/
https://rateyourmusic.com/~Kosa12

>supreme clientele
>violent by design
>deltron 3030
>lets get free
>stankonia
>mind over matter (zion I)
>marshall mathers lp
>fantastic vol 2
>HNIC
>quality control (j5)
>train of thought
>masters of the universe (binary star)
>like water for chocolate
>
>dropped
>
>idk if i can find a better year for rap in the 2000s

id also add The Platform, NIA, and Warriorz

different in tone than the rest of that list but moving from Detroit to Atlanta at 17...a personal classic even tho its rightfully not regarded that way universally

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

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and i used to bump restless with frequency.

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

2000 was an incredible year, the last great one before this 2010-13 renaissance, but over all I could not stand the sound and tone of rap.

I appreciate (in retrospect) that Timbo, Manny Fresh, The Neptunes, Swizz, Ye, Just Blaze, Heatmakerz, Bink!, Palow and others moved rap away from solely relying on samples / loops and chops (at times creating great music), but the imitators and followers made rap sound cheap, generic, and soulless. Add to the fact muhfuckas began to barely rap and started the whole I'm not a rapper I'm a hustler shit, the music as Bammer has put it, just became an accessory to projecting a certain life style or identity in our changing world (the rise of technology), and it was corny (bordering on minstrelsy some times.

I love what Stones Throw and Def Jux did through those years; Madvillian and Cold Vein are two of the greatest rap albums of any era IMO. Those two labels kept my ear to rap though my heart had moved to discovering jazz, rock and r&b of the late 50 to mid 70s.

But since 02-06 were my college and heavy leftist organizing years shit like 50, G Unit, Jeezy,� TI, Dipset (more the image/persona than the actual music) Wayne, 4DL, etc etc just really fucn sucked. They were the sound of a corrupt culture to me at the time. Luckily age and experience has taught me not to focus on things I don't like or judge what the general population likes/liked to dance to. The ringtone era has to be one of the lowest points though outside of the murders / deaths of Dilla, JMJ and Baatin.

Also thank the holy universe for DOOM. from DOOMsday to Mouse & The Mask, was one of the most impressive and inspiring runs, ever. If I did top emcee shits, DOOM would be top10 because of it

Overall the mainstream classics like King, GRODT, Thug Motivation, Ye's first two LPs, Em's first three just DIDNT hit me. I didn't and don't fuck with them. Personally I feel things turned around near 06-09, but the alternative and lyrical crop like Chester Fench, Pac Div, The CoolKids, Kidz In The Hall, BTH's Blu (shoot me), Shawn Jackson were so generic and lifeless shit still looked grim, and the older rappers like Kast, Doom, Mobb Deep, LB, Talib, and Murs seemed to be losing creative inspiration or were breaking up.

It def wasn't as bad as some like to say it was, but it's nothing to really celebrate as a whole either.

he already arguably was a key part of 2 near classics in the early 90's & had a classic appearance on a seriously classic song

i don't see folks talking about those records a lot tho...Mr Hood was my shit when it came out

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

that would be like me saying in 1993 that the 80's were the worst decade in rock.

Well, sure....when compared to the decade that birthed the music, the decade they grew up & the prior 70's which were clearly better overall for rock music than the 80's.

However you could be here awhile listing great rock in the 80's.

In hip-hop the 70's can barely even count as a recorded art form because it's basically one year.....and if it does count that again gets birthing-credit-bonus points.

The 80's were when hip-hop was gaining its sea-legs, featured most of the seminal acts of the genre breaking through and by the turn of the decade had changed the face of music enough that it allowed....

The 90's to happen, when the art form truly kicked down any & every door plus posted roughly three of the top five years in the genre's history.

There's nowhere to go but down coming off those first three so no need to even bother evaluating it that way.

I spoke to why "I" felt that way and what were some of the positive and negative changes. And there are few young heads in here who look very fondly of these years and are calling some albums classic, that for me and you don't even qualify. so "worst decade" shouldn't be looked at as a forgone conclusion and more a point of departure. Shit I'd argue that 2010-13 can rival 98-03 in terms of quality.

Furthermore reading the writings of David Drake, Jordan Sargeant, Breihan, Soderbergh, Noz etc, the "new (predominantly yt) critical gatekeepers" writing for Spin, Complex and Pitchfork, they are quite adamant about 00-09 having some of the best years and when the genre was most prolific creatively, not only economically.

Lastly I think I did a descent job of sketching out some ideas about the decade, and I'm glad RTistic opened this up cause we should talk about 00-09 more. I mean your great reply in the 400 Degrees post, in many ways related to this post, shows how much dialogue we're "lacking" as it relates to changes and new canons within the artform we all love so much.

while scrolling this post at work.

My apologies, I actually agree with pretty much everything you posted there, in particular the recent rap renaissance & the whole not feeling the 'big' albums that much.

Only differences I might take up with it or that I liked some of that prime Dipset stuff (at least Diplomatic Immunity & two Cam albums) plus find Cam's persona entertaining & I don't really have any albums I love from Stone's Throw aside from Madvillian.

That fool made me laugh with him (not at him) a lot during his lil run from 01-04/05. And I liked a good number of HIS songs. I know one can't really separate him from Dipset during the time, but maybe in my head I did cause I thought Juelz and Jones were trash rappers. And the whole blood gang in NY while wearing pink and shit just mad me shake my head

Also how many rappers jacked Cam's rhyme style, techniques and patterns? He don't get enough credit to be honest

Those early Def Jux and Stones Throw runs were too good to last.

>Those early Def Jux and Stones Throw runs were too good to
>last.

Not necessarily. There was a ton of good shit coming out, it was just completely overshadowed by the ringtone/bubblegum/trap noise.

Off the top, Babygrande had some nice shit coming out, Rawkus did a lil with their Rawkus 50, there was some decent shit coming out of Koch (everybody and their momma was gettin deals with them like Ichiban in the 90's), ST still had good music coming out... I mean, yeah it was significantly harder to find in stores, but thanks to the internet it wasn't hard to get or hear about it.

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

I miss Tha D... But I'll never move back there.


R.I.P. Disco D

rolling bass booms, no hats or hats played in triplets, snare drumfills, cowbells $ rimshots...all the stuff that could be heard in earlier decades as a small part of the rhythm section moved to the front of production/beats.

____________________________________________________________________

San Diego State's holy trinity of sports:
Kawhi Leonard
Marshall Faulk
Tony Gwynn (RIP)

#Aztec4Life

There are many great albums from those years.

2000 was a beast of a year and was better than 97, 98, & 99.

2001 brought the Nas/Jay battle which was actually good for hip-hop and I will go as far as to even say important for hip-hop.

Years 2001-2008 were not as prolific as other great years in hip-hop but the highs were high.

2009 was a great rebound and really set us up for the great years of 2010, 2011, & 2012.

I'll list some albums from that decade that I'd put up among my favorites;

The Fix - Scarface
Donuts - J Dilla
The Lost Tapes- Nas
Never Better - POS
The Renaissance - Q-Tip
Madvillainy - Madvillain
Supreme Clientele - Ghostface Killah
Below The Heavens - Blu & Exile
I'll Sleep When You're Dead - El-P
Game Theory - The Roots
Stankonia - Outkast
Beauty and the Beat - Edan
Fantastic Vol 2 - Slum Village
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 - Raekwon
The Ecstatic - Mos Def
Train of Thought - Reflection Eternal
A Piece of Strange - Cunninlynguists
The Blueprint - Jay-Z
Food & Liquor - Lupe Fiasco
Hell Hath No Fury - Clipse
Starchild - OC
Aziatic - AZ
Disposable Arts - Masta Ace
Trap Muzik - TI
Like Water For Chocolate - Common
Labor Days - Aesop Rock
The Grind Date - De La Soul
All of the Above - J Live
Mind Over Matter - Zion I
Masters of the Universe - Binary Star

And there are many others. The decade was interesting because MCs started going their own ways and we got a lot of great music.

While I didn't get down with a lot of the more commercial sounding stuff at the time (and upon revisiting most of it, it hasn't aged well), I've recently come to the conclusion that I was riding HARD for a lot of "underground" shit that sounds TERRIBLE now.

www.twitter.com/seandammit

no gate-keepers, no visionaries, very few trendsetters...
hell, very few trends.

just bland mediocrity.

material made just to get the dollars in your pocket and nothing else.

once def jam lost it's vision and other labels downsized and merged, less options were available and less sources of those options... that's why things got really bad.

history will argue bootlegging, but i lived it.
the conditions changed before bootlegging started kicking everybodies ass.
the numbers were down due to white flight.

and this is never going to be recorded into rap's history.

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

_______________________________________
When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

http://hardboiledbabesanddarkchocolate.tumblr.co

I did feel like a LOT of Underground music was Underground for a reason...and it shouldn't have been compared to 90's Boom Bap just because it was a descendant. I was more of a champion for Just Blaze and Kanye's evolution of that sound, along with folks like Madlib and Jay Dee. I can say I didn't even enjoy a lot of the "Dilla" era music from Dilla.

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

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>I did feel like a LOT of Underground music was Underground
>for a reason...

Like it attempts to evaluate a set of artists by standards those artists reject by self identifying as underground, and then uses those standards to say they failed to succeed, when that success model isn't what it means to be underground. and then:

>and it shouldn't have been compared to 90's
>Boom Bap just because it was a descendant.

this attempts to disconnect it from history while

>I was more of a
>champion for Just Blaze and Kanye's evolution of that sound,

this tries to chop the underground down by insinuating what they were trying to do was done better by those that went mainstream. Which again is weird because... well before I go in on that, do you see what I'm hinting at? It's a tad revisionist, and I'm wondering if that's just your I don't really fuck with that or if it's your intent to marginalize like that.

It's not the first time I've read something like this for you and I'm always left scratching my head because I don't think of you as being that dismissive.... but at the same time recognize we've all got our biases.

No snark in any of this I hope you realize.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

head than the average commercial fan...but yet I'm more of a "commercial/mainstream head" than most underground heads. It's a fine line, and I tend to offend both sides at times, even though I'll receive credit from both sides.

>>I did feel like a LOT of Underground music was Underground
>>for a reason...
>
>Like it attempts to evaluate a set of artists by standards
>those artists reject by self identifying as underground, and
>then uses those standards to say they failed to succeed, when
>that success model isn't what it means to be underground. and
>then:

All I'm saying is that a lot of that music wasn't enjoyable to me. I'd hear the hyped up artists that were championed online (rarely from folks I personally knew)...check it out, and be like "eh.....I guess this is what they like?"

>>and it shouldn't have been compared to 90's
>>Boom Bap just because it was a descendant.
>
>this attempts to disconnect it from history while
>
>>I was more of a
>>champion for Just Blaze and Kanye's evolution of that sound,
>
>this tries to chop the underground down by insinuating what
>they were trying to do was done better by those that went
>mainstream. Which again is weird because... well before I go
>in on that, do you see what I'm hinting at? It's a tad
>revisionist, and I'm wondering if that's just your I don't
>really fuck with that or if it's your intent to marginalize
>like that.

Nowhere near me trying to "marginalize" it, but here's my issue.

Many underground heads are the same as the "Real Hip Hop" heads...especially those who are fans of the 2000's Underground. And what they do, is put this era of underground in the same category of the 90's "Hip Hop classics" as if it's the only descendant that's worthy of praise. Some of these folks will even knock a Jay, Kanye, even Lupe, basically anything that became mainstream, without acknowledging that it's also a descendant of the same era. And my issue is that a lot of the Underground artists and songs material is NOWHERE near as strong as the 90's classics, which is why it's only enjoyed by certain types.

Now, since names would eventually be mentioned, here's some "Underground" artists who I am not referring to, and who I enjoyed just as much or more than Mainstream artists: Little Brother, Slum, Murs, Brother Ali, Madlib...a few others, but those are some I actively listened to.

If you ask me about any other artist, I'll tell you if I liked em or not. But one thing I've said before on here, is that I hate how modern Underground Rap was so disconnected from the 90's and 80's, that they never made any party music, and were almost against anything that you could dance to. This is one reason I feel the Just Blaze type production was more of a descendant...because you can throw on Hip Hop Hooray, Check the rime, Buddy, even Shimmy Shimmy Ya and TROY in some places and people go WILD. And this may be me looking at it as a DJ, but yeah.

>It's not the first time I've read something like this for you
>and I'm always left scratching my head because I don't think
>of you as being that dismissive.... but at the same time
>recognize we've all got our biases.
>
>No snark in any of this I hope you realize.
>
>█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
>Big PEMFin H & z's
>"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1
>thing, a musician." � Miles
>
>"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

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

50+ FREE Mixes on www.DJR-Tistic.com!

Twitter and Instagram - @DJ_RTistic

As much as I think we can all agree that it's unfair to judge the merits of an artist's music based on the fanbase that he/she may unwittingly attract, you can't say that after a while that doesn't become an issue or a thorn in the side.

So look � I'm 30 and white. I watched a lot of my peers who look like me get off at way earlier train stops on this thing, and it always just felt a little off. Like, "oh, Aesop Rock/Slug is your favorite/the best rapper to do it, but you aren't even catching the references he's dropping to records from his peers, the Rawkus era, Golden era, etc? Interesting."

That level of fanatacism, minus the true knowledge of history (and I'm not saying you've gotta love it or even LIKE it, but this is a genre that rewards knowledge so you're better off at least UNDERSTANDING it) can be a little offputting.

I realize that this all almost seems like it belongs in a totally different post, but I'll say that the connecting factor is that this trend conjured, powered, and inflated a lot of subcultures of the genre in this era that appear to be a little limp today.

Oh and you want examples of the records I am referring to in the original reply? I'll just pull a couple from the A's, haha. Aesop Rock, Akrobatik, Aceyalone. Now for Aes and Ace, they both have material that I feel is classic brilliant shit...but it wasn't ALL good.

www.twitter.com/seandammit

In recognizing the strange disconnect socially and aesthetically by fans and rappers/producers of 00s "underground" to 90s "golden era rap", which was/is viewed as underground but was on major labels and many were popular. Redman went gold; Wu was going gold and plat; Common, The Roots, and post fame De La were near gold and having packed shows. Even groups like The Artifacts, Beatnuts and Freestyle Fellowship may not have sold many records but they were far from obscure. You could go to a record store and find them on the shelves. 90s underground like Ellaykhule or tha Juggornaughtz and Centibots or the whole bay scene was the "true" underground in the traditional DIY sense. But the music and fanbases of late Def Jux, Sole, Atmosphere and others of the like did not view it as such and felt like they were carrying on tradition.

I'm a Blaxican and by 04/05 (shit really 02/03) me and my boy Lin were kinda of getting tired of being part of the handfull of colored faces at shows by artist we liked. We were literally like where the fuck are all the Black people, shit Mexicans, Arabs and Indians.. well they were at the 50, Dipset and Eminem shows around women and having fun. While we were around a sea of whiteness hearing that "good ol boom bap" while the rapper "kicked knowledge son"! I feel it was a reason so many did the "backpack backlash" by the end of that decade. It was very look at me I'm a real head, you fake, when the genesis of this was "yo lets use whay we got, create and have fun. Fuck the poverty, gangs, guns and drugs for a couple hours".

I will say this. Me and my friends caught Slum 3 different times from 2000-2002 and they were ALWAYS FUN and racial mixed shows.

And I think you explained it better than I could have.

Yea...I never want to bring race into it, but that has been an unspoken disconnect I've noticed as well. Thing is, most Black folx don't even know the 2000's Underground rappers, so they have no idea how their fanbases are.

>You could go to a record store and find them on
>the shelves. 90s underground like Ellaykhule or tha
>Juggornaughtz and Centibots or the whole bay scene was the
>"true" underground in the traditional DIY sense. But the music
>and fanbases of late Def Jux, Sole, Atmosphere and others of
>the like did not view it as such and felt like they were
>carrying on tradition.

THIS is exactly what I meant, about "carrying on tradition." Many of these fans hated on any and everything commercial, regardless of the content or how skilled the rappers were. I even remember the backlash Murs received for "Dreadlocks" and when I defended him and said "did you listen to the lyrics??" they said "I mean....well the lyrics aren't bad...but it's a Hyphy club beat, we only want him to Rap on Boom Bap beats." They were more mad about this than the "Animal style" video, LOL


>I'm a Blaxican and by 04/05 (shit really 02/03) me and my boy
>Lin were kinda of getting tired of being part of the handfull
>of colored faces at shows by artist we liked. We were
>literally like where the fuck are all the Black people, shit
>Mexicans, Arabs and Indians.. well they were at the 50, Dipset
>and Eminem shows around women and having fun. While we were
>around a sea of whiteness hearing that "good ol boom bap"
>while the rapper "kicked knowledge son"! I feel it was a
>reason so many did the "backpack backlash" by the end of that
>decade. It was very look at me I'm a real head, you fake, when
>the genesis of this was "yo lets use whay we got, create and
>have fun. Fuck the poverty, gangs, guns and drugs for a couple
>hours".

Yea, and I had a few moments where I felt like "Blacks don't appreciate Real Hip Hop, all they want is brainless party music" but then I thought about it...going out, partying has ALWAYS been about dancing. Some eras, such as Disco, House and Funk, they'd party to songs with NO lyrics. Or repeated lyrics...It's time for the percolator. Jack jack jack ya body. Or verses with random talking like Parliament or "Funkin for Jamaica." So if we're partying now to random instructions on "Tell me when to go" or "Lean wit it rock wit it"...even if the music isn't nearly as deep, that's truer to the roots of party music than anything from the recent underground.

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

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without going on and on and on and on and on....

But I think the main point I want to put out there is that boom bap != underground.

Now I'm assuming the link gets made because of the notion of "keep it real" being closely related to that 'real boom bap' shit, but they can't be used interchangably or in this case used as a measure of undergroundness.

Boom-bap is a sound, while underground is more like an ideology (gets tricky).

Underground is an attempt to address something in a form (in this case music) which the main outlets for that form do not because of perceived broader acceptability. That's the general idea but I think the nature of any particular underground movement develops of its own accord.

Hip-hop began as an underground music. Throughout the early to mid 80's there were plenty of attempts to take it to the mainstream with moderate success until the end of the 80's. So during the 80's there was crossover hip-hop and there was an underground hip-hop, both coming out of an underground music. As the crossover gained traction however, it took the music as a whole out of the underground.

By the 90's hip-hop was a mainstream music, with underground elements. Actually let's say at the time there was mainstream, underground and underexposed. I think a lot of the disconnect comes out of confusing underexposed for underground. Underexposed happens once a movement gains mainstream traction, but a number of the artists which potentially could be in that crossover area end up underexposed to actually pop. But underground has no goal of crossing over.

What I'm seeing you doing in your initial post is attempt to compare underexposed artists to underground artists. In the 90's a lot of those underexposed artists gained a lot of traction so that they were out there. But that was there goal.

Using Rawkus as an example Company Flow was an underground group, Black Star was an underexposed group. There wasn't anything about Company Flow that could have been done differently to break them in the mainstream. To lyrically dense with a dirty production aesthetic to ever capture more than the niche audience that was into that. Black Star however had all the makings of a group that could crossover.

Not to speak for El, but IMO that's why Def Jux was born. Because Rawkus was not really looking to push underground music but underexposed music, which became more and more evident with each Sound Bombing volume.

Not to go on and on, but my main contention with your post is the marginalization of folk that were on that underground shit, because they didn't achieve what the underexposed were doing. The objectives were different. Even further what they were doing was just as important as everyone else. Because they weren't putting limits, or trying to fit their sound into the 'in' sounds, they were able to experiment sonically, lyrically, etc. The benefits of this always trickle up through the underexposed to the mainstream.

Don't get me wrong... a lot of that shit sucked. I wasn't a fan of 95% of the underground in the 2000's. I think it was a poor decade all around. Mainly because all of these things feed off each other. So if the mainstream is horrid, it makes the underexposed aspire horribly, and the underground react to the horrid.

I stop now.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

>
So if the mainstream is horrid, it makes
>the underexposed aspire horribly, and the underground react to
>the horrid.
>
>I stop now.

www.twitter.com/seandammit

>I can say I didn't
>even enjoy a lot of the "Dilla" era music from Dilla.

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

Dooinit. The Jay Dee era just had more funk and a groove to me that I enjoyed

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

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Twitter and Instagram - @DJ_RTistic

one of the greatest things about the god was his ability to do it all & create varied styles of music that appealed to pretty much anyone

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

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

50+ FREE Mixes on www.DJR-Tistic.com!

Twitter and Instagram - @DJ_RTistic

just curious

----------
https://93millionmilesabove.blogspot.com/
https://rateyourmusic.com/~Kosa12

not STARTED by me.

first of all to answer your question...
2001 was the best year for rap music in the 00's, by a huge disparity.
look at the sheer volume of memorable, quality material that was released and rotated.
the vibrant conditions that having CHOICE in the mainstream created is what existed in every golden era in music.
2000 would be a 2nd imo.
3rd, could go a few ways...

anyway... what happened?

rap music sales were blistering hot from 1996 to the beginning of the 00's with a more specific focus on 1998/1999/2000...

those 3 years, everything that had an ad in the source and a video in rotation on bet bascially went gold.

because white demographics were buying in huge numbers.

1996 was the year rap music turned a corner for the white consumer...
starting with 2pac, bone thugs n harmony, westside connection... moving to biggie, puffy, mase, dmx, big pun, etc...

the above names are like reading the most popular rap acts with white casual/dedicated rap fans.
but that's how it went down, there was HUGE traction and that's what lead to that late 90's run being the banner years for sales and in turn rap music clout within the entertainment industry.

1999 was probably the biggest year for rap sales.
everybodies music charter and sold big without anybody having to do top 40 records.


so with that preface out of the way...

enter the viacom purchase of bet and robert johnson being out of daily operations for the first time.

stephen hill & a motley crew of people way too old to ever be involved in the hip-hop movement take control of programming and they take any autonomy away that the producers of individual shows used to enjoy in the late 90's up til about 2000 in favor of dictating what videos will be rotated and never deviated from.

what this created was the homogenous conditions of the early-mid 00's and the east coast "backpacker-shaming" conditions that would follow...

acts that used to have a home at bet a few short years earlier just because they were dope to the programming producers, no longer had a home anywhere except on the internet.

major labels scaled back what they released to a few archtypes.
the concept behind what became "prototypical 00 singles" was usually defined by it's relevancy to the club because label heads decided that this would diminish risk and capture as much white dollar$ as possible because all the music was essentially "party music".

major miscalculation...
white people liked rap because it was a risk-free hood tour guide.
not because they wanted safe music by Black rappers dictated by corporations.
they really wanted all the worst that Black culture had to offer...
the NWAs, the onyxs, the DMX's... the whoever else.
when rap music became solely about wearing a mitchell and ness with an oversized fitted, rapping about liquor and women over big kicks, korg triton presets and clap snares...
white people, or a large portion of white people that were consumers a few short years earlier - tuned out.
rap's sales dropped dramatically from 2000 -> 2009 and still are dropping.

this was the white flight from rap music that was mostly fostered by stephen hill & friends changing the style and programming at BET.
but also at major labels for whittling down the TYPES of commercialize mainstream rotated singles to try to diminish risk and capture as much of the market share as possible without calculating what was actually the driver of rap's popularity with it's biggest consuming demographics (YT).

late 02... benzino destroys the source - boom there is another anchor of rap music's massive success in the late 90's/early 00's down the toilet.
suddenly with the stakes superhigh to execs because the flight in sales hasn't been recognized - there is really no gate-keepers to filter content.

now, forgetting the effects this has on the sales of rap with white demographics... let's focus on the influence it has on up and coming Black aspiring rappers and producers.

with a slender rotation list compared to a few years prior, the mainstream shaming of east coast sampled drums based music outside of a few acts, no national competition, and only a few different "types" of songs getting coverage.
things become so by the numbers for up and coming Black music acts that it sort of is sophomoric.
rap becomes the ultimate hustle...
"JUST BLAZE DRUMS - $10.99"
"neptune style beat #14 - $399 to lease"
"say bruh, you like hip-hop? come listen to my mixtape..."

they saw the sales rush and how rich people were getting with how little work from 96-01 and said "ME TOO!"

rap becomes less about people saying "let me see how far i can take THIS" to "hey he's rich, my shit almost sounds like his. so pay me, too!"

the status quo route to millions of dollars.

really just small spikes to keep ppl's attentions while chunks of people tune out year by year...
-04 lil jon and "crunk music", dipset/kanye chipmunk knock-off beats
-06 snap music, hyphy
-07 simplistic ringtone rap songs
-08 hipster hop
other little bs spikes that really were just blips to try to keep peoples attention...

the neptunes and timberland, share their sounds with white pop acts yearning for Black credibility, crossing a line that had been drawn in the 90s or earlier...

many elements of Black music, now for sale, wind u showing up on white acts songs/albums.

all the while white fans fleeing a sinking ship, going to youtube, going to file sharing blogs, discovering rap from before they were fans (80s, 90s) bemoaning rap's present unraveling conditions...

anyway, i'm getting tired writing.
but this reply is basically a retread of various threads/replies i've made since 2010.

end game:
the cruddy, gloomy portrait of Black culture was what sold rap music and made it have value to corporations.
and secondly, and most importantly, SAMPLES AND LO-FI!
old crackly records with incredible musicians playing on them spliced up and manipulated to make new songs...
you take out both of those things and you have a massive white flight from the genre beginning in 2002 and leading up til today.

and secondly, you get a whole bunch of get rich quick scheme music that succeeded based on the fact it was new and rap was still coming down from a really hot period.
the influence of stephen hill/corporations vision of rap music rearing itself in the actual music produced by people trying to "get on" like somebody eating feces and then having a bowel movement from it.

this isn't as concise and articulate as it could be but whatever...
this is what i want to contribute to this conversation.

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

you ignored me bruh?

Soooooo 1999, 2000, or 2001?

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

what about those years?
what are you asking me?
i probably didn't have time to read the reply you're talking about... sorry.

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

I just remember asking which year you thought it all started and you not saying shit.
i think my point was that the year was the only thing we were in disagreement about because I thought you'd say post 2001 and I'd say the writing was on the wall in 1999.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

1999 was better than people try to portray it.

a lot of memorable still enjoyable songs from 1999.

i made a post on here where just off the top of my head i named like 50 hot rap singles from 1999 that all had mainstream rotation.
it was a reply to dr claw and it was 2010 or 2011.

ask somebody do the same for like 2006 or something... lol.
there might not even have been 50 mainstream nationally rotated singles for that whole year the way things were trending at that point.

anyway, there was still a balance and an abundance of material from a multitude of contributors...

simon says was one of the biggest rap records of the year.

it wasn't all swizz beatz synth horns and shit.

in fact, swizz beatz sound was "over" by late 2000 in favor of timberland, rockwilder, and neptunes.

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

on face value it would seem like how'd it go from 99 to 2000. But inside of it all the writing was on the wall. $$ won out over everything in 1999 and was flaunting it's strength by 2000. And I'm talking behind the scenes not even what the artists were doing.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

go back and check that post i did a few years ago.

i did 2000 and then ended up deleting the txt file i had the post saved in and never bothered re-doing it.

then i did 2002 and it sucked so badly i didn't even bother posting it.

anyway, 2001 had better songs than 2000.

after q4 2001, MAYBE q1 2002... that's where i kind of draw the line, although as a fan i was still watching until well into 2005 hoping things would turn around to where they were.

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

That was 99. By 2003 MCA folded.

I want to say more but my churning brain is stopping me... for now.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

Not only who got put on and released music, but artist like Pharoah Monch just were in limbo FOR YEARS unable to release material

people may want to nit pick here and there and thee may be valid critivisms, but the general narrative has held up over the years.

Im the 80s and early 90s I used to RANDOMLY turn on the radio or channel 31 to watch Video music box and hear a song that is now considered a CLASSIC of the genre. Nowadays I can listen for months and hear nonsense, no matter how low I set my tolerance.

I sometimes don't think people realise how fragile popular trends in music were. Conditions had to be right for a Chuck Berry to emerge back in the day. If things are restrictive and banal, it could really effect music. People rely on an 'invisible hand' of music to provide them with tunes it seems.

-------
http://adevotedappraisal.tumblr.com - Essays, reviews, short stories and free writes on music, film and life around us.

>I sometimes don't think people realise how fragile popular
>trends in music were. Conditions had to be right for a Chuck
>Berry to emerge back in the day. If things are restrictive
>and banal, it could really effect music. People rely on an
>'invisible hand' of music to provide them with tunes it
>seems.

this is something that really changed.

exec sees act doing something totally different, takes chance, the act going left while everyone else is going right makes millions of dollars and spawns great influence on other musicians of their time.

just by taking that risk, the course of an entire genre is changed.

now you take a genre that's red hot.
you say, ok let's keep this going for as long as we can...
nobody make any sudden moves, just keep partying and we'll all keep making money.

diminishing returns due to no risks being taken.

risks make money.

but in the 00's because mainstream sources of media were so over-controlled by publicly traded corporations (no risk to appease shareholders), if you didn't know the right person and weren't making music that sounded like the last hit record, it didn't matter if you had a million dollar hand just waiting to be played... they'd ignore you into obscurity.
look at what happened to the cool kids.
oh, you don't want to sign with us?
ok cool, we're just going to erase you from ever existing and move on the next one.

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

>
>I sometimes don't think people realise how fragile popular
>trends in music were. Conditions had to be right for a Chuck
>Berry to emerge back in the day. If things are restrictive
>and banal, it could really effect music. People rely on an
>'invisible hand' of music to provide them with tunes it
>seems.
>
>


cultural and social spaces being eradicated by the ruling class.


the art we love and loved did not just come up out of nothing, there were social and cultural conditions that lead to that shit, and thats not to romanticise poverty or nothing like that.

_______________________________________
When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

http://hardboiledbabesanddarkchocolate.tumblr.co

What your working your thoughts around is that even though people lacked access to social resources and healthy living space, they created social and cultural spaces to combat the margins and silences of urban (and rural) destitution. By building a language through sounds and images artist and fans worked through aesthetic problems and facilitated regiments for people to hone their craft.

But now with EVERYTHING being privatized, with gentrification happening everywhere and everyone congregating to the net, their is no physical space. Just a litany of free work that is really works in progress and a litany of online critcal voices with no theory / thesis on anything but "you a hater", "shits wack", "its a classic" (4hrs after release), "so and so a fame whore", or a like and <3 and move onto the next one week trend

more like 1998. probably the last year the source mattered somewhat.
they did a lot of suspect shit in the 90s and had biased reviews and
dropped the ball on some reviews as well. anybody relying on the source
after 98 had issues.

******************************************
Falcons, Braves, Bulldogs and Hawks

Geto Boys, Poison Clan, UGK, Eightball & MJG, OutKast, Goodie Mob

I'm 25 now, got into hip-hop seriously after Stillmatic came out in 2001. I have a brother who's eight years older than me, so I was into the late-90s stuff, but I started pursuing it seriously own my own from 2002 -.

I was originally an underground head borne by the internet, so I was all about the underground stuff that championed consciousness and rejected whatever jiggy/bling shit was popular at the time. Some of the stuff still holds up now...some doesn't. Funny looking back at myself as a 13 year old buying The Cold Vein from Best Buy, but impressionable young minds can be molded by a lot of different things.

I feel like that whole scene cooled at around 2005/2006. It was a combination of the underground thing becoming mainstream via Kanye and associated acts and the "underground acts" one-note acts becoming stale. I just didn't feel as moved by a lot of their later projects as I did by the earlier ones even though they were preaching the same things. I was gonna start listing records but I can go on and on. I'll give one example of a record that didn't hold up...I listened to Soul Position - 8,000,000 Stories. The "serious" joints on the second-half of the album just don't hold up and...wait is this dude on an interlude talking about candy? What?

Going to college from 2006-2010, I naturally got into more mainstream stuff. I think Wayne's run from 05 (probably earlier but I didn't really get into him into Carter 2) until 2007 was historic. 2008 he was actually kind of wack but the Carter 3 album was great. From what I remember there wasn't too much great underground stuff at the time...I was really into Wayne, T.I., Luda, T-Pain, The-Dream...whatever was popular at the time. I thought (and still think) Drake's So Far Gone mixtape was really dope. The "new generation" didn't really come around until 2011, but you could see the seeds being planted in 2009 with the XXL Freshman list and Drake, Cudi, J. Cole, Charles Hamilton, etc... starting to make some noise.

Growing up via the internet, I was accustomed to the "canon" of classic 90s records like Illmatic, 36 Chambers, ATLiens, etc... but I've really started getting into earlier 90s hip-hop lately, especially with all the vinyl re-issues coming out. Digable Planets, De La Soul, Black Moon, Ice Cube, Goodie Mob, Organized Konfusion, Pharcyde, Souls of Michief...I always knew the names and knew their singles but I never got into their full albums until now. Objectively the 90s was better than the 00s for hip-hop. It's not even close.

TWENTY CLASSIC ALBUMS FROM THE 2000S:
- Supreme Clientele
- The Grind Date
- Disposable Arts
- The Cold Vein
- Murs 3:16
- College Dropout / Late Registration / Graduation (pick one)
- Mood Muzik 2
- The Listening
- Madvillainy
- Da Drought 3
- Underground Kingz
- Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
- Fantastic Vol. 2
- King
- The Black Album
- The Blueprint
- God's Son
- Diplomatic Immunity
- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2
- The Unseen

Impeccable/Notable Runs from the 2000s:
- Wayne from 2005ish - 2007 as mentioned above...simply unstoppable
- Doom from 2003 to 2004
- Andre in 2006/2007 when he was rapping over every mainstream song
- Eminem in late 2002/early 2003 in mixtape mode. I was never a big fan of G-Unit but between the Benzino diss songs, the 8 Mile stuff and the random mixtape stuff this was Em at his best IMO
- Madlib production-wise from Quasimoto to 2004 or so
- Cam'ron in this era: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugkjSxnzPDM

Sorry this was all off the top of the head - I'm sure I missed a lot

A one-stop page for new content from former Grantland-ers: https://twitter.com/grantlander33

More specifically the "death" of the "bar band," but I feel like it's more personal, than it is across the board.

Essentially, the void created by Nirvana and the grunge movement left a open lane for "fun" and dance-y shit. And in that void, rap music made a move and staked claim in the "we're having fun, making money, fucking all the bitches" nature of hair metal bands and the like.

I thought this out better than this, but I'm drinking and that's all I'm typing for now. lol

_
Yo! That’s My Jawn: The Podcast - Available Now!
http://linktr.ee/yothatsmyjawn

peoples reluctance to discuss/parse anything remotely related to 2000-2009 in favor of rehashing the same trite nostalgic bullshit they were talking about in 2000-2009 is indicative of what exactly?

i mean it's not 3 months were talking about.
it's an entire decade of music that is almost completely lost to any sort of accurate re-telling.

shockingly enough, the most recent decade to our live & times...

what does this indirectly say about things?

---
�Change is inevitable. Progress is optional.� � Tony Robbins

while not realizing that a lot of it was corny/wack/BS/bad as well.

And this is not just Rap music...but fashion. Cartoons. Movies. Dances. Pop music. Rock. Video games.

I can't pinpoint when this attitude started, but it's been like this for a good while.

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

50+ FREE Mixes on www.DJR-Tistic.com!

Twitter and Instagram - @DJ_RTistic

first Decade where Rap didn't have to share a thing with R&B fully 1)

meaning the late 70's through 80's called a fad or gimmick

90's hardcore and shock and also words and buzz 2)

in the 00's it all became all out Pop Music. no longer were you a Hardcore rapper, Soft Rapper, Safe rapper or social, it was a Gumbo all the same first time ever. 3)

a whole new generation of era grew up seeing there heros as Rappers period. 4)

the 00's marked the end of the Boutique label and Domiance instead was all signed directly to a Jimmy Iovine and a Clive Davis outright.

the Labels stopped doing Boutique and went straight into things. 5)

Big Pop Artists with Hip Hop Producers became the Norm as to being surprising in the 90's 6)

More rapping singers became more acceptable 7)

Rappers lasting longer as well. first decade where it ain't a thing 8)

Rappers winning Big time Awards like an Outkast for Pop Album of the year at the Grammys. 9)

to me the 00-09 marked a anything goes with Hip Hop and also it became accessible and lost its edge. 10)

coporate endoresements and merging became the norm along with more, films, commericals, clothing line, etc,. 11)

its been dissed as being dead by its elder statesmen and middle age and yet it still thrives so its at War with itself and yet it's firmly established and it still has a divide however for many different reasons. 12)

Deaths, Boutique Label CEO's beefing, Protest, bootlegs, critics, Fox News, etc... nothing can stop it and it ain't going nowhere 13)

mistermaxxx R.Kelly, Michael Jackson,Stevie wonder,Rick James,Marvin Gaye,El Debarge, Barry WHite Lionel RIchie,Isleys EWF,Lady T.,Kid creole and coconuts,the crusaders,kc sunshine band,bee gees,jW,sd,NE,JB

Miami Heat, New York Yankees,buffalo bills

1. Game Theory
2. Stankonia
3. God's Son
4. Rising Down
5. The End Of The Beginning
6. The Black Album
7. Like Water For Chocolate
8. Only Built For Cuban Linx Pt 2
9. Laugh Now, Cry Later
10. Graduation

Mainly because that was my early college years and it was when I was really going out of my old element as far as discovering new music. So many of my favorite albums came out during that 2 year period:

Blu & Exile - Below The Heavens
Kanye West - Graduation
The Roots - Game Theory
Brother Ali - The Undisputed Truth
CunninLynguists - A Piece of Strange, Dirty Acres
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor, The Cool
J Dilla - Donuts
Talib Kweli - Eardrum
El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

>Talib Kweli - Eardrum

He could've trimmed some of the fat but its a good album.

That Pete Rock song is greatness.

----------
https://93millionmilesabove.blogspot.com/
https://rateyourmusic.com/~Kosa12

granted, I started doing all this stuff back in 2008 so that's when the number of releases included really starts to balloon and I give a 0.5 bonus to the total after every 30 albums (2009 has 161 compared to 2000's 34), and I was obviously not too deep in my early teens which was up through 2006, but still...even now, hitting 60 or 70 rap releases for a year is kind of an accomplishment. 2009 was like the light at the end of a tunnel for me, a lot of the big rappers from these days started breaking out heavily on the mixtape scene and, for whatever reason, it seemed like EVERY rapper all of a sudden developed amazing taste in beats even if their rhymes weren't always that good. There's been a ton of fun rappers to come out over the past 4 years but the directions producers started to go in 2009 is what really revived the hip-hop conversation IMO.


I have 27 years listed and ranked so the fact that all but one of these years show up in the bottom half of my rankings says about all I need to say about my opinion of the 2000s as a whole. There were a LOT of classic albums, many of them graded and topping these lists. But there was a lot of middling, disappointing and straight trash stuff in between.



http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/all_in_together_now__hip_hop_by_the_year


#9: 2009 - 7.76: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/tormented_by_my_radio__hip_hop_2009
#14: 2000 - 7.49: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/drop_heavier_levels__hip_hop_2000
#17: 2002 - 7.36: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/state_of_mind_purple__hip_hop_2002
#18: 2008 - 7.34: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/pull_your_wig_on_tight__hip_hop_2008
#19: 2005 - 7.32: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/like_hash_through_your_system__hip_hop_2005
#21: 2004 - 7.22: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/just_how_the_song_say__hip_hop_2004
#23: 2006 - 7.04: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/puttin_it_on_wax__hip_hop_2006
#25: 2001 - 6.97: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/cant_date_skills__hip_hop_2001
#26: 2007 - 6.95: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/let_the_trunk_rattle__hip_hop_2007
#27: 2003 - 6.92 (this is the lowest ranked year in my handbook): http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/no_herb_in_the_record_bin__hip_hop_2003



~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

so i'm not old enough to remember any previous changes hip hop went through.

but looking back i'd say the creativity of the artists just DIMINISHED rapidly.

hiphop went from a culture of hiding the sleeves of the records being played so nobody knew what the break was, so couldn't sound like you.

to every rapper wanting to jump on the same producers beats so they could all sound the same and not out of place.


thank mami wata i got into broken beat in 02-03.

_______________________________________
When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism
it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer

http://hardboiledbabesanddarkchocolate.tumblr.co

I would've been musically happier in retrospect. I felt like fucn physical anachronism bumpin Hubbard's First Light in my walk/discmen or broke down Pontiac Grand Am, while others bumped Ja and Jeezy. I was like 22/23 feeling old as shit LOL

Mark it. If it fell too far outside of that realm, it won't last.

there's way too much other shit going on to boil it down to that narrow a group of artists

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whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me