Now don't get me wrong. I still love hip-hop and always will love hip-hop but for me personally, it went downhill from '94 onwards. There were still some good artists out, some good songs, some good albums but they were few and far between. In '94 we had the debut album from Outkast which birthed an amazing MC in Andre 3000, Biggie's debut album, "Illmatic" from Nas, "The Sun Rises In The East" from Jeru, Common's "Resurrection" which showed how much he had improved as an MC from his debut album and birthed the classic "I Used To Love H.E.R," Pete Rock And CL Smooth's sophomore album, The Beatnuts debut album, Organized Konfusion's "Stress" album, even Gang Starr's "Hard To Earn" came out that year, the list is endless and that little synopsis doesn't even include the "Word...Life" album from O.C, the Gravediggaz debut album, the Method Man debut album or even "Dare Iz A Darkside" from Redman!
With all those albums that I just mentioned they were all completely different. They were creative and went against the grain. "Come Clean" from Jeru was so different, as was "Time's Up" from O.C. It went against the grain in a good way though. Gravediggaz went the horrorcore route and did it way better than the Flatlinerz, The Beatnuts album gave birth to some of the best beats in that year even if the lyrics were a bit "hmmm," and in many peoples opinions "Dare Iz A Darkside" is Red's best album along with Method Man's "Tical."
'96 we had The Fugees sophomore album, a huge improvement from their terrible first album, Jay-Z's "Reasonable Doubt", "It Was Written" from Nas, "Atliens" by Outkast, "Beats, Rhymes And Life" from A Tribe Called Quest, "Ironman" from Ghostface Killah, "The Coming" from Busta Rhymes, "All Eyez On Me" from 2Pac and even "Hell On Earth" from Mobb Deep. Again a superb year for hip-hop.
Big Pun did his thing in '98 as well being blessed with the excellent "Black Star" album in the same year, "Aquemini" from Outkast as well as "Moment Of Truth" from Gang Starr and er..... (If you can think of any others feel free to leave a comment)
I loved "2001" from Dr. Dre as I did "Internal Affairs" from Pharoahe Monch and "Operation Doomsday"from MF Doom and they were all released in '99 I believe.
In 2000 we did have "Supreme Clientele," "The Marshall Mathers LP" and "Stankonia" from Outkast but that was mixed in with Mystkal, Nelly and Lil' Kim's album. Again depending on our preferences and for me it slowly deteriorated during the concluding years.
Fast forward onto 2003 and I was on my daily jaunt in Soho looking for some vinyl to buy and as I walked into the record shop (for the life of me I cannot remember the name of the shop) I heard this amazing track playing. I asked the guy "who is this?" and with that he passed me the cover for "The Listening" from Little Brother. The track I had heard was "Speed."
Album was of course purchased and proceeded to listen to the album. Wow!!! 9th's beats with Phonte's rhymes alongside Rapper Big Pooh had my head constantly bobbing! Check these quotes I lifted from wikipedia;
Questlove said "I'm so friggin' jealous of Little Brother. Hip-Hop the way I love it, tight beats, on point lyrics? What!!! I made 4,887,234 people listen to "Whatever You Say" at gunpoint and I don't even own a gun!
Pete Rock said "The Listening" kinda brings me back to the days of when the 90's was poppin'. It's more realistic than what I'm hearing today and sounds like these guys put a lot of work into it. I love this album. Classic.
DJ Jazzy Jeff said "The Listening" is the best hip-hop album I heard in a long time... dope beats... dope rhymes... I wish this was all hip-hop... thank you... I needed dat.
And DJ Spinna said "Little Brother is straight up hot. Reminds me of the glory days of A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul & the Native Tongues. It's fantastic to hear this kind of vibe out there. We need more albums like "The Listening".
And I agree with all four of them. Listening to this album gave me faith that good hip-hop does still exist. Of course I then had to look for everything that 9th, Tay and Pooh have done. I loved the Justus League collective that they had going on as well as the newly formed Soul Council. I also loved "The Minstrel Show", the 3rd album had glimpes of former glories, the 4th album I could take or leave. Personally I prefer old 9th beats to the new 9th but he is still able to pull something special out the bag!
Rapper Big Pooh had an excellent debut album with "Sleepers" especially as the whole album was produced by 9th Wonder and Khrysis, anything he released after that I could take or leave.
The Foreign Exchange with Nicolay & Phonte were great but the hip-hop community wanted a Phonte solo album and he blessed us with "Charity Starts At Home" which was superb!
Thank GOD for LITTLE BROTHER!!!
P.S. This is only my opinion, you may agree, you may not but please feel free to share your comments!
