july 96 quote from will

[bigted]

1996 is what gave it some fresh air tho.' The last quarter of had A Tribe Called Quest, Digital Underground, De La Soul, Nas (before the Escobar crap), Busta Rhymes, The Fugees, and a few other artists came out over shadowing the gangsta rap and gangsta wannabees. There waz non-mainstream success with other real emcees at the time as well. 1993 thru' the middle of 1996 seemed like the hopeless years until those acts i mentioned above returned. In these days of D12, Chingy, Lil' Wayne, Eminem, 50 Cent, Petey Pablo, G-Unit, Ludacris, Jay-Z, Terror Squad, Ja-Rule, Nelly, and so on, i LOOOOOOOOONG for 1996.

:werd: It'd be easier to make a top 10 list of the top mainstream mcs and albums out in '96 that u could actually listen to, u couldn't do that in '04, check this out:

1996

1-2Pac ("All Eyez On Me" was probably the best hip-hop album released since '96, unfortunately though he was murdered that year and hip-hop's been goin' down ever since then)

2-Nas ("It Was Written" put him on the mainstream scene, "Illmatic" was an underground release)

3-LL Cool J("Mr. Smith" went triple platinum)

4-Fugees("The Score" sold almost 10 million)

5-Foxy Brown(What female in '04 actually could spit with the fire that she did then on "Ill Na Na"? :dunno: )

6-De La Soul(They were actually getting some airplay with "Stakes Is High")

7-Busta Rhymes(He was bringin' humor and comedy to hip-hop when he released "The Coming")

8-Coolio(He was a west coast mc that wasn't a gangsta wannabe when he released "Gangsta Paradise")

9-Tribe Called Quest (another ol' school hip-hop group that got some airplay when they released "Beats, Rhymes, and Life")

10-Warren G(he was bringin' that refreshing "G" Funk Style when he released "Take a Look Over Your Shoulder")

Don't get me wrong it wasn't the golden year in hip-hop, but compared to now it is, to say '04 was better than '96 would be like saying the '04 Pistons would beat the '96 Bulls, it wouldn't happen. You could actually listen to a hip-hop radio station back then which you can't really now. The only mcs in '04 that were worth listening to on a mainstream level were LL Cool J("The Definition"), Kanye West("College Dropout"), Twista ("Kamakaze"), and Nas ("Street's Disciple") but they didn't get as much airplay as though artists above did.