Some of these old Source Reviews....

[Kidd Dibiase]

Didnt they give benzino group 5 mics

 

[Wild self]

The guy who ran the Source at the time said that he wanted to give Outkast a 5 but Benzino hated them for some reason and wouldn’t allow it.

i’ll try to find a link for the interview. I read it yyeeeaaarrssssssss back during the Nas BBS days. He also said that he was backstage one night and witnessed Biggie talking to Suge about leaving Bad Boy and coming to Death Row.


He also talked about what went into giving Nas the 5 Mics and how he felt uncomfortable with the decision at the time because of all the great albums they specifically DID NOT give 5’s too. But basically the entire staff overrode him and basically told him it would be a big mistake not to give Nas the 5.


He talked alot about Benzino’s weird relationship with Dave Mays and how Mays was scared of Benzino and Benzino ran roughshod over alot of shyt.

Benzino has a lot of hate in his blood, long before Eminem came in the game. They snubbed IWW and Outkast early projects

Back then, 3 and a half mics meant you werent even trying. 3 mics might as well been a half of a Mic. While Made Men be getting 4.5 mics while they were wack lyrically

Plus they had a huge anti West Coast and Southern bias and gave a lot of props to east coast artists that didn't deserve it. It low key created regional beef as we knew it.

 

[Tj Bronson]

Didnt they give benzino group 5 mics

It was a 4.5

I'm not sure if it was that or some other instance of them giving his group coverage that caused the majority of their editorial staff to walk out.

 

[mobbinfms]

Benzino has a lot of hate in his blood, long before Eminem came in the game. They snubbed IWW and Outkast early projects

Back then, 3 and a half mics meant you werent even trying. 3 mics might as well been a half of a Mic. While Made Men be getting 4.5 mics while they were wack lyrically

Plus they had a huge anti West Coast and Southern bias and gave a lot of props to east coast artists that didn't deserve it. It low key created regional beef as we knew it.

I used to think the Source was biased as well, but @DANJ! debunked that myth in this thread
https://www.thecoli.com/threads/edi...to-be-myth-source-top-100-albums-list.255224/

Also, who were the East Coast artists they gave a lot of undeserved props too? Besides Made Men

 

[mobbinfms]

It was a 4.5

I'm not sure if it was that or some other instance of them giving his group coverage that caused the majority of their editorial staff to walk out.

I think he snuck an article about them into the magazine.

 

[Tj Bronson]

I think he snuck an article about them into the magazine.

That's what it was

 

[mobbinfms]

I remember reading that interview but I can't remember who it was with. But he had said something about it being hard to label something a classic immediately upon release and used a Scarface album they gave 5 to as an example. Said he bumped the album a lot at the time, but by the time of the interview he couldn't even remember the album's title, which made him wonder why it had been called a classic. I can agree with the idea of things being difficult to classify as classic right out the gate, but some of these are undeniable (like The Chronic) and should've got that 5.

Man I wish I still had my old magazine collection. There's so many of those reviews I'd like to read again

The Chronic
Doggystyle
36 Chambers
Ready To Die
Infamous
OBFCL

These all seem obvious to us now, but that’s the benefit of hindsight.

 

[mobbinfms]

Reading the review, I'm trying hard to figure out how this is a 3 mic album. That was a glowing review worth far more than the rating it got. They had less positive reviews for albums that got 4.5 or even 5 mics.

The review and rating were independent of one another. So the person who wrote the review, assuming they were a part of the Mind Squad that collectively determined the mics, may have thought it was 4.5-5 mics, but been outvoted. That didn’t mean they couldn’t write a glowing review.

 

[Playaz Eyez]

I THINK To Pimp A Butterfly got a 5 but who the hell knows. I stopped REALLY giving a fukk about Source reviews in 08-09. I was all about XXL for awhile but they fell the fukk off too

XXL fell off HARD. Their reviews now are just 2 sentences at the bottom of the page like an ESPN update.

 

[Buckeye Fever]

Made Men(Benzino) got 4.5 mics

Lil Kim even got 5

 

[Buckeye Fever]

I think young mc got 1.5 mics

 

[TheDarceKnight]

Yea I remember dude who ran the Source back in the day straight up said that Outkast’s debut album deserved a 5.


IWW and RD both deserved 4.5


They re-rated Chronic, Doggystyle, and Ready To Die years later and retroactively gave them 5

Yeah I definitely remember the issue where they gave out some 5s to albums they’d previously stiffed. Pretty sure Cuban Linx was one of them.

 

[Tetris v2.0]

It’s a travesty that Kim album got a 5, when it wasn’t nearly as good as La Bella Mafia was.

Crazy that she gets the 5 and Jeezy, whose album changed the landscape entirely, gets a 4

I can't name one record off Kims shyt except Lighters Up

 

[Playaz Eyez]

Crazy that she gets the 5 and Jeezy, whose album changed the landscape entirely, gets a 4

I can't name one record off Kims shyt except Lighters Up

The album was very mediocre back then, and even with fresh ears for it now (recently revisited Notorious KIM and Naked Truth) and it was just as weak then as it is now. There’s songs with Bun B, Game, and Twista that I liked, but that’s it

 

[DANJ!]

It was better when the 5 mic club is more exclusive

Saying a classic can only happen when its 5/5 without benefit of time and impact to others is hard. You can have an album be classic even if its not perfect, its like that with most. And that was one of the problems the Source had to deal with along with perceptions of bias

I dont really blame them for giving some of these 4 and a half/4 at the time. Thats why even though a lot of the albums they re-mic'd or retroactivley gave are classics it kinda made it less exclusive and then afterwards it got shaky with the 5 mic handouts


On a sidenote the Source also needs to upload their mic reviews online even the ones in print. I dont think anyone knows what albums got what mics after 2010 unless you looked? Has any album gotten 5 mics after MBTDF? Kendrick?
Seen a few 4 mic and 4 and a half

This.

And hindsight is always 20/20... the true dictator of whether something is a classic or not is time. We're in that kinda culture now, but in 1992 or so, most people weren't listening to something new one or two times and calling it classic. Also, there was great shyt dropping pretty regularly, so how do you instantly know which ones were gonna be in higher standing and be more influential in the coming years, etc... only a psychic coulda known for sure. There's a lot of things I thought were dope as hell when I was 13 that nowadays, I might've retained about half the album, if that. There's also albums that I like more now than I did then. None of these ratings were made to be set in stone anyway... that 4.5 for that Made Men joint, tho'... that was ridiculous from day one, and everyone knew why.