1998 = The Most Underrated Year In Hip-Hop History

[Wacky D]

from the top of the year where we were still feeling the effects of '97. bad boy, bone thugs, wutang, etc. no limit snatches the crown from bad boy as the new royal family of hip-hop. eat your hearts out east coast. LL's 4,3,2,1 video with method man, redman & DMX hits the tube and introduces DMX to the masses. I could go on & on. meanwhile, on the r&b tip, i discover destinys child's "no no no part 2" video. my 1st thought is "wheres part 1". my 2nd thought is that theyre the next big thing even tho nobody is talking about them yet.

by the time the weather breaks, no limit is on a rampage droppin an album every 2 weeks, including the "i got the hook-up" soundtrack & movie. plus, theres like 4 other urban movies in theaters, all with dope soundtracks. one thing i notice is that despite "volume 1" being considered a sophomore slump, jay's career is progressing on def jam, he easily outsold "reasonable doubt", performed at mtv's spring break, and "streets is watching" was a success and he was droppin heat on other soundtracks with bleek and sauce money........then comes the feature on Jermaine dupri's huge record. also, on spring break is destinys child. they sure as hell blew up. and it seemed like they dropped part 1 AFTER part 2. i never got to the bottom of that. speaking of blowing up, theres a whole slew of artists about to blow in a major way. i didn't notice, but we were witnessing the changing of the guard right before our eyes. dmx, lox, big pun, noreaga, camron, etc etc were droppin in may/june/july. it was an overload. oh, and 3-6 mafia's "tear da club up" was strong on BET. i was watching their rise via the internet before the world domination album dropped in '97.

one name i left out purposely was cannibus. the remix video to 4,3,2,1 had dropped in the winter with cannibus' verse, along with master p. by spring-time, the beef with LL boils over. then cannibus takes the world by storm with "2nd round knockout" and had mike Tyson in the video. then LL responded with "the ripper strikes back" and this battle was looking goat-like. wyclef came correct with his diss record as well. he was out of his league but he dropped a hot one. then LL dropped "rasta imposta" and deaded that. im not exactly sure when that joint dropped but he chitted on the whole fugees crew.

i could go on but again, just trying to keep it short. sorry if i rambled but this is fresh on the brain right now and im feelin it.

wacky d graduates......the 8th grade.

master p drops "da last don". crazy double cd. 2 discs for the price of 1. that's a normal occurrence now, but back then, double cds used to run about 30 bucks. THEN HE HAD THE 3-D COVER ON TOP OF THAT. this was billed as his final solo album, and i didn't understand why until he dropped his next solo album in '99. but yea, no limit continues to rule as the #1 label. snoop signs to no limit and wastes absolutely no time dropping his no limit debut.

but the summer of '98 can be summed up by 2 things: FUBU shirts and earl simmons. dmx ruled with a mighty fist.....but don't sleep on noreaga. on the east coast, he was the 2nd biggest thing to dmx that summer.

then when school starts back up, we're immediately bombarded with a bunch of big releases. mainly lauryn hill's solo and joe camel's VOLUME 2. one low-key release was juvenile's "400 degreez". when "ha" came out, tons of people, including myself were like "what the f*ck is this?" but as the single lingered and grew on the doubters, it just slowly got bigger.......r.kelly dropped his big double cd in the 4th quarter. he had sparkle poppin as well. then at the very end of the year, December 22nd i believe.....DMX drops "flesh of my flesh" and does the unthinkable.

like i said man, this was like 3 different years rolled into one, and everything flowed smoothly because most of this chit was organic and chit kept moving. not saying that it wasn't funny chit going on behind-the-scenes back then, but a lot lot lot less than now. and for the young cats, as you can see, more stuff went down in just 6 months of '98 than the whole entire past 6 years of hip-hop.

AND KEEP IN MIND, I BARELY EVEN SCRATCHED THE SURFACE.

 

[ℒℴѵℯJay ELECTUA]

the 90's went through some changes and Voices with a strong stamp on the industry..
1998 was still thrivin' off the last few years but with some fukkin trash thrown in from the year before..
I am speaking generally about this as some of my fav artists got their shine on in this year so don't be particular.

 

[Big Mel]

Yep. Sure there were some good to great albums in 1998 but the overall vibe in NYC was janky as fukk and the cultural divide between perceived "jiggy" vs "dirty backpackers" was one of the all time lows in the musics history.


I'd get scrutinized by one person for liking the Lox album and get ostracized the next minute for playing Bumpy Knuckles.


Wack year.

 

[Wacky D]

1996 was the peak of hip-hop IMO with it falling off a little in '97 and then a little more in '98 but '98 was the last great year for hip-hop, fukk anyone who says otherwise.

1998 >>> 1997

'97 had higher highs but lower lows.

 

[LionofJudah]

'98 was a great year for Hip-Hop, but I could tell the tide was changing and rap was starting to get wack. I'm 30 now, so I remember how dope 1994-1997 was regarding music. 1998 had bangers like 400 Degreez, Aquemini, Lost etc., but I knew 1999 moving forward was going to be terrible. I was right.

 

[Dead End]

There was some good albums...and even good albums that sold, but this was sort of the last hurrah for the "Golden Era". No Limit taking over was one of the worst things that ever happened. Made hip-hop way more into a disposable commodity than any "CAC/Jew executive". Like seriously, even Puffy at that point actually treated this shyt like an artform.

For me, the darkest period in hip-hop besides the Ja Rule/Murder Inc era

 

[ISO]

Hated the whole vibe in NY from this era.

 

[Doin2Much Williams]

Sophmore/ junior year... So u know i got some shyt to say...


Do or die: heads or tails

Jd: life in 1472

Quik: rhythmslisms

Fiend: one in err family

Busta: ele

Trick: Thug.com | Thug | New Hip Hop Songs, Music, Videos, Gossip, Rumors & News

Tribe: love movement (i enjoyed this, )

Dj honda: h2

Noreaga: nore

Mac: shell shocker

Cocoa brovas : rude awakening

Fat joe: don carta

Big ed: the assasin

Dr doo little soundtrack


.

 

[LionofJudah]

Forgot about Rhythm-al-lism and Heads or Tailz...Throw Gangstarr in there also. 1999 was garbage except for I Am.., Chopper City In The Ghetto, The Block Is Hot, World War III, and Guerilla Warfare.

 

[same damn lo sweater]

my favorite album that year by far was Blackstar


there were some solid albums that i liked at the time but probably wouldn't listen to now: Rza, Gangstarr, Def Squad, Hiero

 

[mobbinfms]

Forgot about Rhythm-al-lism and Heads or Tailz...Throw Gangstarr in there also. 1999 was garbage except for I Am.., Chopper City In The Ghetto, The Block Is Hot, World War III, and Guerilla Warfare.

Murda Muzik.

 

[mobbinfms]

my favorite album that year by far was Blackstar


there were some solid albums that i liked at the time but probably wouldn't listen to now: Rza, Gangstarr, Def Squad, Hiero

Gangstarr and Hiero shouldn't be in that list.

 

[LionofJudah]

Murda Muzik.

How did I forget?

 

[The_Third_Man]

my favorite albums of 1998:

1- Aquemini by Outkast
2. Moment of Truth by Gangstarr
3. Mos Def and Talib Kweli are black Star by Black Star
4- It's Dark and Hell is Hot by DMX
5- Capital Punishment by Big Pun

Honorable Mention: Shut em Down by ONYX
Sleeper album of the year:Lost by 8Ball
Most overrated album: Vol.2 by Jay-z

very good year

 

[28 Gramz]

Don't see how anybody can say 98 was garbage, especially comin off that jigyy 97 bullshyt. I was only in 7th grade back then but even I knew somethin was way off about the rap game that year. People like to blame the south for fukkin the hip hop up but what Puff was doing in 97 was the blueprint for the "i dont have to know how to rap..i got money" syndrome that's in the game today.