damn niggaz tryina stick me for my paper

Album Rating: 4.5

This album brings me back to looking out my window in the beat up projects I lived in as a kid. This album gave me a persevering & redemptive glow inward & outwardly in those days. He was so real on this album, Suicidal Thought was so raw. I respect big & I’m glad he made the music he did, but on the other hand I feel a lot of the current “Hip Hop” scene was misguided by some of his words & have obnoxiously embellished on the whole materialistic flashy style of big. O well…. ! Notorious the movie brought me back to my respect for his art.

at least biggie showed humanity and admitted his flaws in his songs

modern rappers have taken the bragging part of his (and others) rapping, but not much else. too bad.

also this quote for good measure

"I find rap just plain crappy poetry over a beat. I agree with Fee, actually. The best rappers are the ones that rap about something other than slapping fine ass ho's. Eminem and Kanye West rap about something other than women and livin in the south and getting crunk. They're the best."

rofl

Album Rating: 4.0

bragging has been a part of rapping ever since the inception of hip hop though, take the majority of rakims lyrics for instance



rapping about women, living in the south, and getting crunk sounds like a pretty awesome combo to me tbh

yes but what im saying is that usually the bragging was contrasted with songs admitting flaws and showing messages other than brags and disses, etc.

im not saying rappers today do that, but it usually seems like it's a constant effort to top themselves in terms of bragging and all that

Album Rating: 4.0

i guess rakim had the random songs where he talked cryptic five percent nation slang



but for the most part he was just about bragging without any emotions involved it seems to me

i actually havent listened to rakim though ive heard he's essential (tho it seems like you dont like him; maybe i'm wrong) so i have no idea about him

point is, mainstream radio rap usually consists of bragging and not much else of substance. this isnt one of those 'old music rulez new music is dumb' arguments because those suck and there are, out side of the mainstream (and, occasionally, in it too) a lot of taleneted rappers. it's just that's what it seems to me

edit: nvm you have an album rated as classic haha

Album Rating: 4.0

yeah im a huge rakim fan. i guess i just have different standards about what kind of lyrics i like. i have no problem with lyrics about debauchery, bitches, and violent shit, that stuff is fun.

i'm fine with that, as long as it has substance and emotion, and isnt just meaninglessly controversial or anything like that

Album Rating: 4.0

yeah exactly.



have you listened to much z-ro?

never heard of

Album Rating: 4.0

hes probably my favorite rapper alive. ill post a track or two by him on your shoutbox so as not to crowd up this review

Album Rating: 4.0

in other news sputnik signs me off when i visit your page and won't let me sign in again there soooo



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfOxb229MFk

B.I.G. rules.

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

This IS the greatest rap album in my book of all time period.

Album Rating: 5.0

biggie is tight, this is probably the only rap album I constantly listen to although to be fair i havent listened to the majority of classics in the genre, i.e. illmatic, 36 chambers (?) etc.

Album Rating: 3.0

This album only scores a 3/5 from me. I don't know....there's a handful of great songs on it, but it's way too inconsistent, and at times, it's unlistenable.



I dig this album, but seriously, this ^ (well, before you took those words back)



"Wow, ok. I've never heard anyone that appreciates rap music say that this wasn't a definitive rap album. I would say it's quite consistant throughout cosidering there are 17 songs."



17 songs definitely does NOT make a record consistent. In fact, that's exactly the problem with this album, two much filler going on. This is a good album, and it played an undoubted role in the genres evolution, but calling it the definitive rap album seems to be a cliche of every hip-hop fan. As soon as a fan says otherwise, they get called untrue for it...this is still easily open to criticism like anything else, is all I'm saying.

"17 songs definitely does NOT make a record consistent."

he didnt say it was consistent because of the 17 songs, he said it was consistent in spite of its 17 songs

basically that it was surprisingly consistent considering it has 17 songs (which it is imo)

classic

Album Rating: 4.0

Has anyone heard the new version? Like, the one on iTunes? I really want to get this, but it says that some samples were removed from the CD (like the Parliament sample on "Machine Gun Funk") because of copyright issues. Does this have any significant impact on the quality of the CD, or am I cool just getting the iTunes version?