Best Rapper Alive - 2001

[MidnightMercenary]

What are y'all favourite tracks on Blueprint and Stillmatic?

Mine are Never Change and Stillmatic Intro respectively

Blueprint: Never Change, Heart of the City, Takeover

Stillmatic: Rewind, Stillmatic Intro, 2nd Childhood

In that order

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Another banger by one of the GOATs

 

[B-Mint94]

What are y'all favourite tracks on Blueprint and Stillmatic?

Mine are Never Change and Stillmatic Intro respectively

Blueprint: Song Cry
Stillmatic: You Da Man

 

[MidnightMercenary]

Rewind has always been one of my favorite Nas tracks

The storytelling is impeccable and one of the greatest I've ever heard

 

[prophecypro]

Nas over Scarface in 2002?

Only from the perspective that for a 12 month period he went on a crazy run of Stillmatic- Lost Tapes-God Son and a ton of decent guest features in between (Stay Chiseled with Large Pro, Aint Ready to Fly with Dynamite, The J. Lo track)

You can give 01 to Jay for Blueprint in a close, to me 2002 is between Nas and Eminem with Face, 50, Clipse and Jay rounding up

 

[B-Mint94]

Rewind has always been one of my favorite Nas tracks

The storytelling is impeccable and one of the greatest I've ever heard

Nobody to this day has been able to replicate what Nas did on that track. Lupe said that he tried and failed lol

 

[prophecypro]

This is a Jay-Z/Nas race

Buuuuuuutt I would say you gotta have Beans, Jada, Redman and Sticky Fingaz in 2001 as well

And do not forget Cormega and Az for 9 Lives and Testament

Do not sleep on the albums those 6 men dropped in the summer of 2001

 

[mobbinfms]

When Jay spit the one hot album every ten year average it was more true than anything Nas said on Ether on a professional level.

Calling IWW meh was definitely not a fact.
Of course, an opinion can never be a fact, but the broader point is that IWW was never universally considered meh. There was a vocal minority that disliked it, but it was massively successful and considered a classic by a larger demographic of the hip hop community at the time. To be extremely fair to Jay, at best, it was polarizing. Even calling I Am shyt was pushing it. Nastradamus was the only truly awful album Nas had at the time...to be sure he was on a decline though.

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

Calling IWW meh was definitely not a fact.
Of course, an opinion can never be a fact, but the broader point is that IWW was never universally considered meh. There was a vocal minority that disliked it, but it was massively successful and considered a classic by a larger demographic of the hip hop community at the time. To be extremely fair to Jay, at best, it was polarizing. Even calling I Am shyt was pushing it. Nastradamus was the only truly awful album Nas had at the time...to be sure he was on a decline though.

And I found it weird he said that considering that before Blueprint, IWW was better than all his albums but Reasonable Doubt

 

[mobbinfms]

And he put Bandana P to the sword as well...


The sun don't shine when his money stacks bigger than you

:pdahell:
P had basically fallen off by that point. The signs were there on the newly recorded material for Murda Muzik and it was clear as day on HNIC. Jay, wisely, chose to go after both Nas and P because he sensed that they were weak and wouldn't be able to properly respond. He horribly miscalculated with Nas of course, but he was right with P.

If P had been able to muster up a proper response to Takeover, and dropped an album on par with Murda Muzik (or better) than we would have known the true extent of damage from Takeover, instead he threatened to wrap Jay up like a package :phands:and dropped the worst Mobb album by leaps and bounds to that point :phands:
So the question becomes, did Jay kill P, or did P kill P?

 

[prophecypro]

2001 for me:

1. Jay
2. Nas
3. Cormega
4. Beans
5. Jadakiss
6. Redman
7. Sticky Fingaz
8. Ludacris
9.AZ
10. DMX
Honorable Mentions: Eminem for D12, Kardinal Offishal, Tash and Z-Ro for the Liks, Rass Kass for the Van Gough bootleg, Havoc (Kinda carried Prodigy on the Infamy which is rare and weird), Kurupt, Psycho Les and JuJu

 

[mobbinfms]

That song hurt becuz Nas and P are two of my favorite MCs. Im not even a Jay fan and that song had me

P was never the same after that tho

He was never the same before it too though.

 

[mobbinfms]

If the blueprint dropped on the same day stillmatic did then jay would be the best rapper of that month for crying out loud lol.

Not to me.

 

[Inspect Her Deck]

:pdahell:
P had basically fallen off by that point. The signs were there on the newly recorded material for Murda Muzik and it was clear as day on HNIC. Jay, wisely, chose to go after both Nas and P because he sensed that they were weak and wouldn't be able to properly respond. He horribly miscalculated with Nas of course, but he was right with P.

If P had been able to muster up a proper response to Takeover, and dropped an album on par with Murda Muzik (or better) than we would have known the true extent of damage from Takeover, instead he threatened to wrap Jay up like a package :phands:and dropped the worst Mobb album by leaps and bounds to that point :phands:
So the question becomes, did Jay kill P, or did P kill P?

P killed me, stabbed my brain with the nose bone

I think a bit of both. He wasn't so far gone to have completely lost it so he had a chance to roar back at Jay but he went for the self destruct option lol.

Tbh if Jay didn't react so badly to Nas' Ether it wouldn't have been as effective. Jay made it worse.

 

[mobbinfms]

This is false.

Nas was already halfway finished with Stillmatic before the shyt TRULY popped off with Jay. He already was "back on his shyt" during QB's Finest. Nas wasn't even originally going to respond but Jungle and his QB brethren basically forced him too.


Nas's 2001 would be the equivalent of if Drake sent a diss towards Kendrick Lamar, and K.Dot not only dropped a response, but that response was so potent that it made Drake lose his entire cool and persona live on, let's say The Breakfast Club. On top of that Kendrick goes to war with Game, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock; STILL comes out on top AND manages to drop a fire album. Accomplishing all of that in the final few months of a year is an incredible feat.

THATS what Nas did in 01. He completely pulled Jay-Z's card. Jay fukking Z. One of the GREATEST Mc's of ALL TIME, was shook by Ether and had no response but to diss a woman and a child. He also went at it with Prodigy, a legendary lyricist. Cormega, a true underground icon. And Nature, who is nothing to sneeze at. He sonned them. Dropped an incredible album, and all of this within two months.

That's a fukking MVP homie.

And this is no shade to Jay-Z or The Blueprint, which is a certified classic. You will NEVER hear me utter that Blueprint isn't a top shelf masterpiece. But Nas owned him, and Hip Hop that year.

I'm just gonna sit back and let @Ziggiy take it from here because nobody can rebut any of this

Spoiler

I'm lying I'm gonna keep posting my normal bullshyt