Best Rapper Alive - 1990 (IF YOUR MVP CHOICE ISN'T ON POLL, MAKE A REQUEST IN THREAD)

Who is the MVP of 1990?


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mobbinfms

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Would go with Cube (Kill at will solidifies it) but Brother J deserves a mention before Guru for sure, Intelligent Hoodlum and CMW also dropped 1990


That said Rakim was still the best lyricist in 1990 even off The Ghetto alone
Brother J and Trag were on the list at one point. I thought about Eiht, but he never made any preliminary list.
 

mobbinfms

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Using some things that I already knew, combined with some research, I've attempted to come up with some sort of explanation for this.

My apologies if this is quite long, maybe I could just turn this into a thread, but I found it quite interesting, so let me know what you think.

There are probably a couple different factors. The fact that the RIAA doesn't actually track sales is one of the main ones. This is why you see albums released on major labels usually "selling" more, when in reality the major labels are just shipping more units, and that is essentially what the RIAA tracks, shipments.

This leads us to the fact that Cube released most of his material with Priority, which was quite a small label at the time, who couldn't afford to ship millions of copies just for a certification.

Before we continue, I'd like to take this time to introduce SoundScan. SoundScan is basically a very accurate way to track actual album sales by using data from stores when an album is scanned at the register. SoundScan began tracking sales in March of 1991.

Amerikkka's Most Wanted was released prior to the introduction of SoundScan. This means that there is a bit of a gap in accurate sales numbers. The good thing is that it was not certified platinum until September of 1991, 6 months after SoundScan began tracking sales.

So this means we could probably estimate that at the time Soundscan began tracking sales, Cube had moved around 800,000 units, that is if we are trusting RIAA numbers. This estimate comes from the fact that it took 3 months for AMW to go gold (500,000 units) and that it took about another year or so to sell another 500,000 units.

So from March of 1991-September 1991 we could say Cube sold 200,000 units and went platinum. The SoundScan data I have found from October of 2004 shows that since tracking began, AMW had sold about 750,000 units. If we take the 200,000 away from that we're left with 550,000 units needed to hit 2x platinum status from September 1991-Today.

Then, if we're talking Death Certificate, that was Cube's first album released after the introduction of SoundScan so this data is much more accurate.

As of October 2004, Death Certificate had sold about 1.6 million units. Based off of my previous estimates for AMW, I would be inclined to say that Death Certificate hasn't moved another 400,000 units in that time. Which means that it has not yet reached multi-platinum status either. It was certified platinum much faster than AMW but the total sales data is also more accurate as of 2004.

Although this data is from SoundScan, it should help to understand why Cube's first two albums are not RIAA certified multi-platinum. As RIAA doesn't directly track sales but rather units shipped, and the next pressing after the original releases in the United States for both AMW and Death Certificate did not come until 2003, it would not be an option financially to press/ship give or take 500,000 copies of each album over a decade after their releases. Even with more recent pressings and digital sales.

Speaking of digital sales, I don't think they have much impact in these numbers either. They certainly do factor in but there is no way they're doing much damage to those 550,000/400,000 numbers needed.

The Predator is without a doubt 2x platinum, and seems pretty accurate as far as certification date goes. Lethal Injection also should be very close, as it only needed 150,000 more copies as of 2004.

That's about it, I tried to shorten this as much as possible, and I did remove some other information. But if you have any other questions just let me know.

Also, this is just my theory/take on it, nothing definitive.
Where are you getting the Soundscan info? To my knowledge there is no database where that can be checked. Sometimes magazine articles would publish it in connection with stories.
where's the rep function when you need it?!

thanks a lot breh this (if correct) clears up a lot of haziness in my understanding

I just found it weird how AMW and especially DC blew up so quickly and hit plat status only now to remain at that level some 25+ years later

didn't make sense at all to me but now that you clarified the role of the record label and RIAA tracking shipments and what not, makes more sense
Just to clarify.
RIAA performs an audit to determine if a project has crossed certain sales thresholds. I say sales, but they are now looking at shipments minus returns. They rely on Soundscan but they also consider other information.

They do not track anything.
To obtain certification a record label or artist has to pay for an audit.
So theoretically, an album could sell millions of copies, but if no one requested and paid for an audit, it would never be certified anything.

To answer your more general question, the overwhelming majority of sales come in the album cycle. That's the album release, tour, singles. Most albums don't sell anything after the initial cycle. Classic albums will continue to sell. Illmatic was selling briskly throughout the 90s. That's why it went platinum. Remember it didn't go gold until 96. So from 96 to the year it went platinum it sold 500k copies. That's an amazing feat.
There are maybe 100-200 hip hop albums that will continue to sell on an ongoing basis. 90% of them are K Rino albums. :troll:
 

mobbinfms

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Also, Priority was not a small Indy label.
In the 90s, Cube's songs were all over the radio and video shows, and his record was in stores nationwide.
Also, when Cube was really selling in the early 90s, fans didn't pay attention to sales like that. So Priority would have had no reason to ship a bunch of albums that they didn't expect to sell to get a gold plaque.

But if they thought Cube was gonna sell two million, they had the resources to ship two million albums.
 

Inspect Her Deck

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Top 5 songs off AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted?

My list:
AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted
A Gangsta's Fairytale
Endangered Species
You Can't Fade Me
The nikka Ya Love to Hate

The nikka You Love to Hate
AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted
Once Upon a Time in the Projects
Endangered Species
The Bomb
 

OGBobbyJohnson

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This year is ridiculously competitive brehs. :wow:
LL came back triumphantly with a Marley Marl helmed album. Vicious on the mic and bodied his feature on the EPMD album.

Rakim, who was already the best rapper to ever do it and a legend, somehow stepped his game up on the mic. Mahogany, the title track and in the ghetto :wow:
I liked his album more than Cube's :ehh:

Q Tip helmed what is a masterpiece to me with Tribe's first album. I like that album more than Cube's too :ehh:

Grand Puba was a beast and I was a Puba Stan at one point in my life. So many rimless legendary songs on that album. Puba was sharing mic duties though. :yeshrug:

G Rap :wow:
Streets of New York :wow:
I liked his first album more though. :yeshrug:

Cube's album isn't my favorite of 1990 :yeshrug:
But he came and dropped Kill at Will and that pushes him to the top. :wow:
Coming out to NY to work with 3rd Bass' producer, ends up running into the Bomb Swuad instead :mjlol:
Album is a five mic classic. Then the EP :scust:
Cube getting my vote :blessed:
Back when Hip Hop was competitive :wow:
 

str8up

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Where are you getting the Soundscan info? To my knowledge there is no database where that can be checked. Sometimes magazine articles would publish it in connection with stories.

To obtain certification a record label or artist has to pay for an audit.
So theoretically, an album could sell millions of copies, but if no one requested and paid for an audit, it would never be certified anything.

Here's the SoundScan info I found UKMIX • View topic - The UKMix Soundscan Database

This is the most reliable one I came across, because as you said, it is quite hard to come by. So perhaps it's not that accurate, and in that case just disregard my post.

And regarding your second paragraph, that is a good point I forgot to add that back in as another reason why they might not be certified

The record company might simply have just never requested an audit, and I wouldn't be shocked if this was the answer to his question.

The whole situation with Priority seems like one where getting RIAA certifications wouldn't have been that high of a priority, no pun intended lol.
 

mobbinfms

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Here's the SoundScan info I found UKMIX • View topic - The UKMix Soundscan Database

This is the most reliable one I came across, because as you said, it is quite hard to come by. So perhaps it's not that accurate, and in that case just disregard my post.

And regarding your second paragraph, that is a good point I forgot to add that back in as another reason why they might not be certified

The record company might simply have just never requested an audit, and I wouldn't be shocked if this was the answer to his question.

The whole situation with Priority seems like one where getting RIAA certifications wouldn't have been that high of a priority, no pun intended lol.
Thanks for posting that link :salute:
I'm gonna go to Best Buy tomorrow to see if they have 300,000 copies of Hell on Earth and 180,000 copies of the Infamous :pdahell:
Mobb Deep - Hell On Earth 699,388 (10/2004)
Mobb Deep - The Infamous 820,883 (10/2004)
 

str8up

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Also, Priority was not a small Indy label.
In the 90s, Cube's songs were all over the radio and video shows, and his record was in stores nationwide.
Also, when Cube was really selling in the early 90s, fans didn't pay attention to sales like that. So Priority would have had no reason to ship a bunch of albums that they didn't expect to sell to get a gold plaque.

But if they thought Cube was gonna sell two million, they had the resources to ship two million albums.

This is one of the reasons why SoundScan was great. It provided the data for labels to see if it would be a good financial decision to ship more albums.

Although I don't know how available this would be to Priority at the time, but there were definitely a lot more pressings early on for The Predator as well.

While we're on the topic, one thing that I edited out but forgot to save was how SoundScan really helped the smaller genres grow.

Before SoundScan tracking there were only 4 Hip Hop albums that reached #1, as before SoundScan was just word of mouth calling and trusting retailers not to lie.

At the same time lying about record sales was encouraged, either for dislike of a genre, or to help get rid of excess albums/make popular albums seem even more popular.

So here are the 4 Hip Hop albums that reached #1 prior to SoundScan followed by #5 which was after SoundScan was introduced

I'll let you decide for yourself if you see anything strange about this sequence of events :mjpls:

1. Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill (1987)
2. Tone Loc - Loc'ed After Dark (1989)
3. MC Hammer - Please Hammer, Don't Hurt Em (1990)
4. Vanilla Ice - To the Extreme (1990)

and number 5?

N.W.A.'s second album
 

Inspect Her Deck

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Voting has stalled a little on this one

Will be interesting to see the developments for places 2-5
 

lucky lefty

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InspectHisdikk that man juice gargling, bytchmade sissy continues his quest to have the most WOATly threads of 2016 with yet another god awful attempt by a desparate delusional dikksucking stan of these infinitely inferior, lyrically remedial, flow challenged, brick factory dropping, sorry ass excuses for struggle rappers to downplay the GOATness of the GOAT our Flow Lord and Lyrical Savior Hova Da Gawd by rewriting MVP to fit their fakkit ass fukk nikka narrative
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Meanwhile those of us who don't have to wipe the struggle rapper semen off our lips before posting know even the worst adlib from the GOAT our Flow Lord and Lyrical Savior Hova Da Gawd's worst 1990 song shyts on the entire musical existences of every flabby and sick wannabe MC listed by InspectHisdikk and thus secured the GOAT Hov's MVP trophy for the zillionth year inna row
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