official hip-hop litmus test: hip-hop's greatest year

1988 had the better albums out of those two. It's amazing what five years did to Run DMC.

∞

i guess there was more rap music in 93...

1993/fuiud

Why '93 over '94?

'94 til infinity

yeah i was gonna say, '94 (or even '91) >>>>> '93

i was still listening to hip-hop in 1988

I shouldn't even vote in this, since I've basically decided to never listen to new hip-hop ever again, but yeah, '88 for sure - I'll take a loop and a beat over swooshing synths and a fucking sung chorus every day of the year.

Voted 1993 b/c of 12 Inches of Snow.

A few Illmatic singles were released in '93. "Party and Bullshit" was 93.

I have probably playedBuloone Mindstate, Midnight Marauders, The Bliss Album...?, Return of the Boom Bap, and Reachin' more than the 1988 releases.

I'll take a loop and a beat over swooshing synths and a fucking sung chorus every day of the year.

Chronic was December 92 dude

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c9/SlickRickTheGreatAdventuresofSlickRick.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8a/Eazy-E_Eazy-Duz-It.jpg

^88

xpost!

― mark (er) s (k3vin k.), Thursday, August 18, 2011 9:53 AM (4 months ago)

mainstream rap just gravitated towards what seemed like cover versions. I enjoy a lot of those songs now and can hear all the production work & polish but at the time it seemed like a sad turn

yeah this is otm - I loved The Chronic and Doggy Style (and Uncle Sam's Curse what year was that?) but the element of rap that was like mindblowing sheer sonics gave way to what were essentially rock records structurally - same rules as rock in terms of how you get to the vibe/effect. whereas that late 80s stuff was so Structures In Sound - but then again, Wu Tang is fully up on that when they come around, and they weren't "throwback" to me at that point, they were taking that vision to where it would have gone next if it had remained the dominant discourse, which it didn't.

not that all rap had been dense layers of Bomb Squad & not that there isn't plenty of trad song structure at play in Nation of Millions and shit but that's how I break it down to an extent, rap becoming more a new approach to songcraft than a new approach to sound.

Chronic was December 92 dude
--Θ ̨Θƪ (sic)

As the singles (and Snoop) rolled out, you could def say 1993 was Dre's year tho

g-funk's sung choruses are dope though. I'm not really into sung choruses in rap, but who in their right mind didn't find "Snoop Doggy DOOOOO-OOOH-OOO-OOO-OGGG" engaging?

(yea yea I know it's just reappropriated "Atomic Dog" but itw as still dope...plus "Let Me Ride"!)

(ok ok yea mothership connection fuck off nowadays pedant)

93, honestly. I was fresh out of high school and really listening to rap a lot. one of my first roommates was a would be dj. good year.

As the singles (and Snoop) rolled out, you could def say 1993 was Dre's year tho

figured dude was whinging about current rap, my joke had layers

well, one and a half layers

1993

Not even a close race for me. I was 12 and impressionable.

yeah 93 was the first year I ever heard rap where they said "fuck" and "shit" and "titties"

prior to then, my only exposure was "He's the DJ...I'm the Rapper", and Shaq Diesel.

i was 0 and 5 respectively but 1988. if it was 94 instead, i'd pick 94.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH5CmB44TaY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ORLq1zSNow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axJpBlxW6n0

Voting 1993 but somedude's right - 91 or 94 would be my picks.

2003

god what a boring fucking question though. 2004. 2005. 1999. whenever.

thanks for sharing that valuable insight Lex, really getting new perspectives on reality here

well whenever is the right answer.

the thread is about assessing competing claims

it's not really hard to understand

still boring though

Seems to me if you prefer 1989 you should vote for 1988 and and if you prefer 1994 you should vote for 1993?

^ LOL makes no sense whatsoever

makes total sense actually

nineteen-ninety-who-gives-a-fuck

thread needs spotify playlists

i'd never really thought thro the shift in 80s vs early 90s rap production before, so it's a pretty interesting notion

what would be the equivalent year to best represent the timbaland/neptunes 'futurist' 'moment'? or would ppl who have ~strong opinions~ about this regard that as an already too diasporic/post-edenic/whatever moment?

I'm going with 1988 even though my rap tastes in general are much more '90s-leaning (I'd take 1994 and probably 1991 over either of these years). Fwiw I was 12 in 1993 and I didn't even start actively listening to hip-hop until much later on so this view is entirely based on hindsight.

Are there any years considered as particularly *bad* for hip-hop?

as

1998 was the start of that surely? Vol. 2, those DMX records, Superthug, It Ain't My Fault etc.

xpost

what would be the equivalent year to best represent the timbaland/neptunes 'futurist' 'moment'? or would ppl who have ~strong opinions~ about this regard that as an already too diasporic/post-edenic/whatever moment?

― thomp, Monday, January 9, 2012 8:32 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think the reason that 1988 and 1993 are so well-regarded is that they both spawned MULTIPLE movements instead of having one sound dominate

hmm maybe 1999 would be the best representation. misread yr post.

btw, altho the gap between 88 and 93 is an aesthetic one, it's also heavily informed by the changes wrought by Biz Markie losing the "Alone Again" court case? as i understand it the costs of making a major label album as sound collage-y as Nation of Millions had become prohibitive by 93?

Are there any years considered as particularly *bad* for hip-hop?

― Gavin, Leeds, Monday, 9 January 2012 13:33 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

2009 was pretty lame.

1911 was terrible

even though lately I've been listening to more recordings from the 80s (BDP, Ultramagnetic MCs, etc), I am voting 93 as I feel like the rap then took the template 1988 set to a new level, and I find myself in the overall scheme of things listening to rap from this era more.

lol Noodle

btw, altho the gap between 88 and 93 is an aesthetic one, it's also heavily informed by the changes wrought by Biz Markie losing the "Alone Again" court case? as i understand it the costs of making a major label album as sound collage-y as Nation of Millions had become prohibitive by 93?

― Poppy Newgod and the Phantom Banned (Noodle Vague), Monday, 9 January 2012 13:40 (26 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i always found this view odd. if you look at p much any liner notes from 92-95, they are chock full of samples and as hiphop was making more money than ever, i dont think ppl minded paying for them? like to make another pauls boutique wld mean 20 samples on a song instead of 3 but that doesnt mean that people werent still sampling old funk and soul breaks 5 years on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6zf7P8eTRI

jesus christ this is "Critical Beatdown" vs. "Kill My Landlord" stfu about Max B

head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole head up the brooklyn media butthole

big ups to the heads up the brooklyn media butthole

http://recogthereal.blogspot.com/2012/01/source-magazine-fat-tape-september-1993.html

http://recogthereal.blogspot.com/2011/12/source-magazine-fat-tape-march-1993.html

http://recogthereal.blogspot.com/2011/12/source-magazine-fat-tape-april-1993.html

"love the way you lie" was a bad example, that was one of the few eminem songs that DID get in heavy rotation on most rap stations (hit #7 on the r&b/hip hop chart)

^^^dope find xp

"love the way you lie" was a bad example, that was one of the few eminem songs that DID get in heavy rotation on most rap stations (hit #7 on the r&b/hip hop chart)

― seasonal thug (some dude), Tuesday, January 10, 2012 7:03 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

aite you pay more attention that stuff but i imagine that was the rihanna aspect rather than the eminem

that doesn't really matter, does it?

anyway eminem is a weird case because EVERY mainstream hip hop fan pays lip service to him being a genius etc. but he was never really big on rap radio

some dude you didn't pick a year

88 i guess but that's more because i feel like that's a better pinpoint of the best year of its era than that i necessarily prefer it to the overall 93 era

You know who was also probably around the 23rd best selling artist of a given year?: ORIGINAL CONCEPT

^ this is amazing

It doesn't matter whether you like max b
or if you prefer rap from 88 to 93
because a leader has arrived to part rap's Red Sea
the emperor of hip-hop, mr. djdee

http://img9.elex-tech.org/10000/2011/1201/92/e/6990/600x600x75x0.gif

anyway the real answer to this question is 1998

^brinks, baby!

whatever happened to benzino?

his latest mixtape received rave reviews in Hip Hop Weekly

lol

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

UPSET SPECIAL

Yes!

thumbs up

ok, who passed the OFFICIAL HIP-HOP LITMUS TEST?

I don't remember what I voted

or if I voted

R.I.P. whiney it's sad he was a pollmaker

I don't remember what I voted

― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Wednesday, February 8, 2012 8:09 PM (6 days ago)

autofail

A win for modernity! 20 years ago beats 25 years ago!

gtfo

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0fnz5ggk91r1nqr4o1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1331357870&Signature=siuLlugh6fKRHPb1K%2BCcWShTPSk%3D

yeah, no more iggy azalea articles

can't believe i read this whole thing. that middle section was some dark shit.