Summer of 1996, Reasonable Doubt and It Was Written were my personal soundtrack

[The Blind Man]

Honestly, people that I knew who were real salty about IWW were the "underground" heads who went to Lyrcist Lounge and listen to Stretch and Bobbito every week. Don't get me wrong, they had a legitimate viewpoint because IWW is a different album then Illmatic. And it's definitly the more commercial/polished album. But I always said, even back then, if you judge the album on its own merit, it's damn near a 5 mic album. The lyrics were crazy. The content was crazy. Yea some of the shyt Nas was spitting was far fetched and exaggerated for entertainment value (just like every other rapper and their music) And yea, majority of the shyt Nas was spitting he didn't necessarily go through like that (just like every other rapper and their music) When it comes to the drug raps, a lot of these rappers be spitting some off the wall shyt that, if your really in the know, know that a lot of the shyt they say don't add up (Foxy Brown's verse on Affirmative Action comes to mind) But with all of that aside, from an entertainment stand point, it was definitly a great album.

thats exactly what me and mines were bumping at that time, it took me awhile to get on IWW, guess we was waiting for illmatic 2 lol, the first single threw us off, gave it the guess we was spoilt for choice at the time.

It wasnt even the subject matter, Nas had showed in "NY state of mind" where he was heading...

"Be havin dreams that I'ma gangster -- drinkin Moets, holdin Tecs
Makin sure the cash came correct then I stepped
Investments in stocks, sewein up the blocks"

He nailed the album, covered the hip hop heads with primo, dre, havoc, had L.E.S on board, Live Squad (yo we read inside covers for prod credits fam we was on some shyt!!) had the polished beats with Trackmasters, B.I.G/Bad Boy had shown the way to do smooth tunes and what are, looking back, pretty lyrical songs, only thing was that it didnt live up to Our/My expectations, im grown now I dont fault artists for that lol

RD was more accessible to us even tho it was speaking on similar topics, we only knew Jay from underground features, with Original Flavours and on two albums that we played to death, Mic Geronimo and Big L, at the time RD was an "underground" alternative to IWW.

And in 96 we was some picky hip hop elitest mofo's, im only speaking how it was for us all them years ago, not stating it as gospel for peeps over the world.

 

[Ohene]

i said earlier this week the same shyt about RD being religion to those in the know.


to me RD blew IWW the fukk outta the water. i didn't even see it as close and neither did those around me. the contrast in feel between both albums couldn't be more real vs. fake.


one was a genuine article....the other was 'eh'.

you piss mee off sometimes...but Ima dap you. Both classics...but Reasonable Doubt is tier 1...IWW is tier 2

 

[userofherb]

powerful thread, crazy how any1 who heard IWW after illmatic didnt like the album at first, but all respect it in hindsight. i personally think both albums are perfect examples of god mc'ing. i mean think about it.. to this day ppl still be like " i never got that line til now" about both albums.

5 star thread, its dope to c the point of view of dudes who were goin thru that golden era in hip hop.