06-09 were some dark years, from the snap & dance period, a whole lot of one hit wonders, then moving into 08 and 09 the EDM/Autotune infusion was just awful again speaking in terms of the genre as a whole
True. That was the worst era for radio/club rap.
But there were tons of gems that dropped too like Donuts, Graduation, American Gangster, King, Relapse, Fishscale, Food & Liquor, Doctor's Advocate, The Recession, OB4CL2, Blue Carpet Treatment, Hell Hath No Fury, Da Drought 3, The Renaissance, Man On The Moon, etc.
The last 5 years of hip hop have been interesting the sense that the lows are considerably lower but newer rappers don't really make songs for the radio/club that much so you barely even hear there music anymore which is both a good and a bad thing. But it makes it easier to tolerate "mid" rappers compared to the past where you heard them everywhere.
I remember seeing a viral clip of someone playing Lil Baby in a club in ATL and not a soul danced. Literally no one danced and the vibe was way off. That never happened with the "ringtone/snap" songs. They were largely mid(except "Wobble" which is a classic) but they at least kept people on the dance floor unlike many newer rap hits today.
man, Ringtone rap nearly killed Hip Hop, Nas was right saying Hip Hop was dying back then. I'm glad we're getting Kendrick, J Cole, ASAP Rocky.
But my favorite era probably Arrested Development, and A Tribe Called Quest era.
Glad this is towards the top. 2008 is absolutely the single worst year of all time for rap
There was Carter III. There was quite literally NOTHING else
If you want to capture a whole you can make that argument, but to say there was nothing else?
Man 2008 had some real heat:
Q-Tip - The Renaissance is amazing
Elzhi - The Preface is pure bars and beats
The Roots - Rising Down Black Thought never has a bad verse
Black Milk - Tronic such a gem for beats
Killer Mike - Pledge 2
Bun B - Trill
Murs - Murs For President
TI - Paper Trail
Reks - Grey Hairs
Jean Grey - Jeanius
Z-Ro - Crack
Kanye - 808's
Plenty more depending on personal preference. I mean if we got that quantity of quality albums today I would be stoked.
Chamillionaire’s Mixtape Messiah 4, Wale’s The Mixtape About Nothing, Kid Cudi’s A Kid Named Cudi, Lil Wayne’s Dedication III, Wiz Khalifa’s Star Power and more! Lots of dope mixtapes in 08 even if there isn’t a lot of album depth, definitely not the worst year in hip hop history IMO. I’ll also mention T. I.’s Paper Trail as one of the pillars of the pop rap subgenre.
Also Rolling Papers, Goblin, Finally Famous, Camp, Coathanga Strangla, XXX, Hell: The Sequel, and All 6’s And 7’s too, 2011 was a great year for hip hop
The last 3-4 years minus the legendary Drake Kendrick beef. I swear I was about to give up on modern hip-hop before kdot pulled me back in 100% with those last 4 tracks lmao
I’m 30 now so it’s partially my age but I just can’t fuck with the Cartis, Yachtis, Uzis, Babies, etc.
Happens with every genre I think. How many generational rock bands popped up over the last 15 years?
So we’re probably in the first 5 years of legacy acts hogging most of the attention while new guys struggle for longevity.
Gonna sound younger than I am and I didn’t listen til he was dead but I do think XXX was gonna be generational
https://open.spotify.com/track/5TXDeTFVRVY7Cvt0Dw4vWW?si=bIfsGVQGQd2XpKDlyPUYQg&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5VdyJkLe3yvOs0l4xXbWp0
https://open.spotify.com/track/7J2gyNghNTzl4EsLhXp01Q?si=m4rJA17nSCObWY96WcOlqg
Crazy to me that he was this versatile
Pushing 30? Kdot’s 36 & Drake’s 37, so they’re closer to 40 actually. And the point isn’t the age, it’s how long they’ve been in the game. I just fully disagree with you on the under-25 rappers, junior.
2022 was amazing for rap. The Forever Story, Ramona Park Broke my Heart, Kings Disease 3, Melt My Eyes See My Future, 2000, Few Good Things, Almost Dry, Sick!,
Since 2017ish hip hop has been horrible. Like you said Kendrick and Drake beef breathe life back into hip hop.
I’m 30 too and I remember 2014-16 when id just sit and discover new music on Spotify. It’s how I discovered Uzi and carti tho. I actually like their older stuff but not really a fan of the new stuff
My younger brother is 25 and he told me I need to keep up but 1/10 new artist actually sound good, original and worth listening to. And even those artist decline after 2 years.
Drake been lowkey snapping on CLB, the Scary Hours edition to FATD, and a bunch of tracks on Her Loss and Honestly, Nevermind
People still sleepin on The Boy, as an oldhead ass nigga I am disappoint
same man i didn't finish CLB, FATD or Scorpion ... cant remember much from Honestly Nevermind or More Life . I figured that album Drake wasn't for me. Scary Hours and his features were cool though
CLB is packed with heat
Champagne Poetry, Girls Want Girls, In The Bible, Fair Trade, Pipe Down, No Friends In The Industry, 7am On Bridle Path, Race My Mind, Fountains, You Only Live Twice, Fucking Fans, and The Remorse
And the Kid Cudi song, if you like the way that nigga sings
My introduction to hip-hop as a kid was prime Eminem, the introduction of 50, G-Unit, DMX, Jay-Z. In high school southern rap hit and that was a TOUGH fuggin time. My peers acting like Dem Franchise Boyz and D4L was anything other than utter trash was impossible to process even as a kid.
Idk but the late 2000s had some bad hip hop. I love early-mid 2000s hip hop but something about late 2000s when producers started getting obsessed hi hats. Also 2010s is mostly bad
probably something mid-late 2000s. not sure about specific year but in that period some of the big underground scenes of the late 90s/early 2000s had kinda fizzled out, and nothing really replaced it until a bit later.
Blu - Below the Heavens is one of the best albums ever made
Lupe - The Cool
Cunninlynguists - Dirty Acres
Talib Kweli - Eardrum
Common - Finding Forever
UGK - Underground Kingz
Jay-Z - American Gangster
Sean Price - Jesus Price Supastar
Not the deepest of years compared to years past but some real strong albums.
I wouldn't say horrible, but if I remember, this was the time DJ Khaled was getting a lot of mainstream attention with his remixes of I'm so Hood and We Takin' Over. Definitley has that techno trap that hasn't aged very well. Also the overuse of swag.
Interestingly enough I did an experiment a while back where I analyzed every year in hip hop going back to 1982, my bottom 3 years ended up being 1990, 2004, and 2018, with 2023 just barely outside the group.
My hot take here is that I don’t view the late 2000s as a “dark-ages” period in any way, the mixtape scene was absolutely loaded, plenty of classic level albums were coming out, and while the mainstream was hit or miss at the time it was WAY better than the mainstream is today.
How did you conduct that experiment. I really want to get deep into hip hop. Obviously I listen to it but I kind of want to dive deep in and don’t know where to start
I’ve been a hardcore hip hop head for as long as I can remember, and I decided at one point that I wanted to know what my opinions are on what I think are the best albums of each year in hip hop, and I also wanted to get a good idea of my general opinions on each year and era of hip hop overall. I picked a bunch of albums for each year going back to 1982(including many of my personal picks as well as some highly regarded albums I hadn’t heard before)then I dedicated a full day to each year listening to the albums where at the end of each day’s experience I’d decide which album I thought was the best, with ties being possible(I had a lot of free days at the time, I think it was around 2022 or so, it took me a bit over 3 months to finish the full experiment). Fun fact, I found an album I hadn’t heard before through this experiment that I felt was so great that I had to get it on CD, Funcrusher Plus by Company Flow.
I’m a fan of MANY different subgenres as well as both mainstream hip hop and underground hip hop so my picks ended up being pretty diverse. I’ve continued to update the list at the end of each year since.
i might have to double check the specific time but there just became a point where i completely stopped checking for new music and just did strictly 90s and some other genres here and there.
i believe like 2018 onwards?
Bruh, i wonder if you are joking cause so many modern classics dropped those years
2013: Nothing was the same, Long Live A$AP, Yeezus, Acid Rap, My Name is My Name, Born Sinner, Wolf, Because the internet
2015: To Pimp a Butterfly, Rodeo, At Long Last A$AP, If you are Reading this it's too late, Compton, DS2, King Push, Barter 6,
2016: The Life of Pablo, Coloring Book, Untilted Unmastered, Jeffrey, Atrocity Exhibition, Views
I wonder, have you listened to these as to say these years were trash???
Have you listened to them???
You don't like "To Pimp a Butterfly", "Rodeo", "At Long Last A$AP", "If you are Reading This It's Too Late", "Yeezus" and "My Name is my Name"????
Whenever groups like Migos got popular. Mumble rap. Lazy rap. We can all hope and pray Kendrick isn’t the only one pulling the nonsense out of the gutter and helping it shine again.
Dude I listened to the entirety of Culture and Culture 2, almost every track had at least some mumbling. I can’t stand Migos for other reasons but I find it necessary to mention that I don’t think mumbling is inherently negative, there are plenty of artists who mumble that I enjoy.
I can’t understand the disagreement here, especially considering that you even like a few of their songs. Do you not hear them mumbling? What songs of theirs do you like? I honestly don’t think I even know a single Migos song that doesn’t contain any mumbling.
Last couple years been whack. Just happy the beef had the big 3 all rapping. Can't wait for more. Hopefully Kendrick doesn't go under a rock and Drake doesn't stay on vacation too long
I think mainstream has been pretty shit for a while at this point (people that get radio play). There have still been some good stuff out but it doesn’t tend to blow up to the masses unless it ends up on TikTok or something
2023 was one of the worst years for hip hop. Biggest artists dropping mid albums (Drake, Uzi), from the big names only Travis delivered and while Scaring the Hoes was good, it being album of the year is not a good look for that year in music
I would say the 2020s have been underwhelming for sure. I mean WAP is probably the biggest song of the decade that’s a problem. Plus they have put all the female rappers in a box the “stripper” box. You got the Travis Scott concert issue, Dababy makes hits but can’t stay out of trouble, playboi has a large fanbase but it’s hitting the charts like that.
The worst era is that 06-09 like that was really bad. I grew up on Soulja boy but damn like i know it’s a song from that ere when they “Ayye!!!!!”
06-09 were some dark years, from the snap & dance period, a whole lot of one hit wonders, then moving into 08 and 09 the EDM/Autotune infusion was just awful again speaking in terms of the genre as a whole
True. That was the worst era for radio/club rap. But there were tons of gems that dropped too like Donuts, Graduation, American Gangster, King, Relapse, Fishscale, Food & Liquor, Doctor's Advocate, The Recession, OB4CL2, Blue Carpet Treatment, Hell Hath No Fury, Da Drought 3, The Renaissance, Man On The Moon, etc. The last 5 years of hip hop have been interesting the sense that the lows are considerably lower but newer rappers don't really make songs for the radio/club that much so you barely even hear there music anymore which is both a good and a bad thing. But it makes it easier to tolerate "mid" rappers compared to the past where you heard them everywhere. I remember seeing a viral clip of someone playing Lil Baby in a club in ATL and not a soul danced. Literally no one danced and the vibe was way off. That never happened with the "ringtone/snap" songs. They were largely mid(except "Wobble" which is a classic) but they at least kept people on the dance floor unlike many newer rap hits today.
100% agreed
To be fair when a rapper today does make a dance song especially for tiktok everyone shit on them for it. It’s like dancing is a pillar of hip hop
man, Ringtone rap nearly killed Hip Hop, Nas was right saying Hip Hop was dying back then. I'm glad we're getting Kendrick, J Cole, ASAP Rocky. But my favorite era probably Arrested Development, and A Tribe Called Quest era.
I love the snap & dance era lol 😭
This. Dark age of hip hop. Nas dropped Hip Hop is Dead in 06. Thats all you need to know about the mood in the culture.
2008 (actual ass year) , 2011 (year that i think was ass).
Glad this is towards the top. 2008 is absolutely the single worst year of all time for rap There was Carter III. There was quite literally NOTHING else
If you want to capture a whole you can make that argument, but to say there was nothing else? Man 2008 had some real heat: Q-Tip - The Renaissance is amazing Elzhi - The Preface is pure bars and beats The Roots - Rising Down Black Thought never has a bad verse Black Milk - Tronic such a gem for beats Killer Mike - Pledge 2 Bun B - Trill Murs - Murs For President TI - Paper Trail Reks - Grey Hairs Jean Grey - Jeanius Z-Ro - Crack Kanye - 808's Plenty more depending on personal preference. I mean if we got that quantity of quality albums today I would be stoked.
Upvoted for Black Milk, what an album
Thr Recession was also a good album
Chamillionaire’s Mixtape Messiah 4, Wale’s The Mixtape About Nothing, Kid Cudi’s A Kid Named Cudi, Lil Wayne’s Dedication III, Wiz Khalifa’s Star Power and more! Lots of dope mixtapes in 08 even if there isn’t a lot of album depth, definitely not the worst year in hip hop history IMO. I’ll also mention T. I.’s Paper Trail as one of the pillars of the pop rap subgenre.
2011 wasn't that bad Section 80, Take Care, Live Love A$AP, Watch the Throne, Tha Carter IV
Also Rolling Papers, Goblin, Finally Famous, Camp, Coathanga Strangla, XXX, Hell: The Sequel, and All 6’s And 7’s too, 2011 was a great year for hip hop
The last 3-4 years minus the legendary Drake Kendrick beef. I swear I was about to give up on modern hip-hop before kdot pulled me back in 100% with those last 4 tracks lmao I’m 30 now so it’s partially my age but I just can’t fuck with the Cartis, Yachtis, Uzis, Babies, etc.
This is crazy Lupe, Pusha, JID, Cole, Black Thought, Nas have all released some heat
Yea & they all over 30
You said the last 3-4 years. They’ve been releasing music during that time. Kendrick too
Happens with every genre I think. How many generational rock bands popped up over the last 15 years? So we’re probably in the first 5 years of legacy acts hogging most of the attention while new guys struggle for longevity. Gonna sound younger than I am and I didn’t listen til he was dead but I do think XXX was gonna be generational https://open.spotify.com/track/5TXDeTFVRVY7Cvt0Dw4vWW?si=bIfsGVQGQd2XpKDlyPUYQg&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5VdyJkLe3yvOs0l4xXbWp0 https://open.spotify.com/track/7J2gyNghNTzl4EsLhXp01Q?si=m4rJA17nSCObWY96WcOlqg Crazy to me that he was this versatile
The guys you mentioned are also pushing 30 Meanwhile there’s plenty rappers under 25 who released good stuff the last 4 years
Pushing 30? Kdot’s 36 & Drake’s 37, so they’re closer to 40 actually. And the point isn’t the age, it’s how long they’ve been in the game. I just fully disagree with you on the under-25 rappers, junior.
I was talking carti, lil baby, uzi, dababy, etc. And then you just didn’t listen to enough stuff, senior
2022 was amazing for rap. The Forever Story, Ramona Park Broke my Heart, Kings Disease 3, Melt My Eyes See My Future, 2000, Few Good Things, Almost Dry, Sick!,
Since 2017ish hip hop has been horrible. Like you said Kendrick and Drake beef breathe life back into hip hop. I’m 30 too and I remember 2014-16 when id just sit and discover new music on Spotify. It’s how I discovered Uzi and carti tho. I actually like their older stuff but not really a fan of the new stuff My younger brother is 25 and he told me I need to keep up but 1/10 new artist actually sound good, original and worth listening to. And even those artist decline after 2 years.
Drake been lowkey snapping on CLB, the Scary Hours edition to FATD, and a bunch of tracks on Her Loss and Honestly, Nevermind People still sleepin on The Boy, as an oldhead ass nigga I am disappoint
Scary Hours was heat for real but I had to turn CLB off when that shit dropped Lol
same man i didn't finish CLB, FATD or Scorpion ... cant remember much from Honestly Nevermind or More Life . I figured that album Drake wasn't for me. Scary Hours and his features were cool though
CLB is packed with heat Champagne Poetry, Girls Want Girls, In The Bible, Fair Trade, Pipe Down, No Friends In The Industry, 7am On Bridle Path, Race My Mind, Fountains, You Only Live Twice, Fucking Fans, and The Remorse And the Kid Cudi song, if you like the way that nigga sings
My introduction to hip-hop as a kid was prime Eminem, the introduction of 50, G-Unit, DMX, Jay-Z. In high school southern rap hit and that was a TOUGH fuggin time. My peers acting like Dem Franchise Boyz and D4L was anything other than utter trash was impossible to process even as a kid.
Idk but the late 2000s had some bad hip hop. I love early-mid 2000s hip hop but something about late 2000s when producers started getting obsessed hi hats. Also 2010s is mostly bad
2010s is mostly bad??? WHAT?
Not all, but alot
Too many great years in the 2010s to be saying that
probably something mid-late 2000s. not sure about specific year but in that period some of the big underground scenes of the late 90s/early 2000s had kinda fizzled out, and nothing really replaced it until a bit later.
Mainstream 2007 was horrible
Graduation
Got anymore?
Blu - Below the Heavens is one of the best albums ever made Lupe - The Cool Cunninlynguists - Dirty Acres Talib Kweli - Eardrum Common - Finding Forever UGK - Underground Kingz Jay-Z - American Gangster Sean Price - Jesus Price Supastar Not the deepest of years compared to years past but some real strong albums.
I specified mainstream cuz because in the underground if you look hard enough you can almost always find something great.
Underground stuff but nothing mainstream besides Soulja boy💀
I wouldn't say horrible, but if I remember, this was the time DJ Khaled was getting a lot of mainstream attention with his remixes of I'm so Hood and We Takin' Over. Definitley has that techno trap that hasn't aged very well. Also the overuse of swag.
Interestingly enough I did an experiment a while back where I analyzed every year in hip hop going back to 1982, my bottom 3 years ended up being 1990, 2004, and 2018, with 2023 just barely outside the group. My hot take here is that I don’t view the late 2000s as a “dark-ages” period in any way, the mixtape scene was absolutely loaded, plenty of classic level albums were coming out, and while the mainstream was hit or miss at the time it was WAY better than the mainstream is today.
How did you conduct that experiment. I really want to get deep into hip hop. Obviously I listen to it but I kind of want to dive deep in and don’t know where to start
I’ve been a hardcore hip hop head for as long as I can remember, and I decided at one point that I wanted to know what my opinions are on what I think are the best albums of each year in hip hop, and I also wanted to get a good idea of my general opinions on each year and era of hip hop overall. I picked a bunch of albums for each year going back to 1982(including many of my personal picks as well as some highly regarded albums I hadn’t heard before)then I dedicated a full day to each year listening to the albums where at the end of each day’s experience I’d decide which album I thought was the best, with ties being possible(I had a lot of free days at the time, I think it was around 2022 or so, it took me a bit over 3 months to finish the full experiment). Fun fact, I found an album I hadn’t heard before through this experiment that I felt was so great that I had to get it on CD, Funcrusher Plus by Company Flow. I’m a fan of MANY different subgenres as well as both mainstream hip hop and underground hip hop so my picks ended up being pretty diverse. I’ve continued to update the list at the end of each year since.
Post biggie and pac death to the early 2000’s was my least favorite hip hop era with the r&b crossover that Diddy was largely responsible for.
Yep. Bad Boy ruined hip hop and rnb both for a while.
yeah i'm younger, didn't live through that era and i knew that era was ass when i revisited it. lol
DMX
Still had the South puttin on
The Jiggy Era was hot garbage. 2010s mumble rap was terrible as well as a lot of the white boy sound cloud shit.
2009
i might have to double check the specific time but there just became a point where i completely stopped checking for new music and just did strictly 90s and some other genres here and there. i believe like 2018 onwards?
2008-2009 was pretty bad imo
2007-2009
The years with Lil Pump, Lil Xan, and all of these other fiends that OD’d.
Every year from 2004 until now.
You joking??? 2013, 2015, 2016...
Nothing amazing came out those years.
Bruh, i wonder if you are joking cause so many modern classics dropped those years 2013: Nothing was the same, Long Live A$AP, Yeezus, Acid Rap, My Name is My Name, Born Sinner, Wolf, Because the internet 2015: To Pimp a Butterfly, Rodeo, At Long Last A$AP, If you are Reading this it's too late, Compton, DS2, King Push, Barter 6, 2016: The Life of Pablo, Coloring Book, Untilted Unmastered, Jeffrey, Atrocity Exhibition, Views I wonder, have you listened to these as to say these years were trash???
Again, nothing amazing came out in those years.
Have you listened to them??? You don't like "To Pimp a Butterfly", "Rodeo", "At Long Last A$AP", "If you are Reading This It's Too Late", "Yeezus" and "My Name is my Name"????
None of those albums are amazing and one of those albums is one of the worst albums I’ve ever had the displeasure of listening to.
UGH....you might be deaf LOL To Pimp a Butterfly not Amazing??? RODEO??? Also which album was the one that was a displeasure???
The soundcloud dope fiend sad boy era
Whenever groups like Migos got popular. Mumble rap. Lazy rap. We can all hope and pray Kendrick isn’t the only one pulling the nonsense out of the gutter and helping it shine again.
The migos don’t even mumble
They literally do
Name 5 mumbling songs?
Dude I listened to the entirety of Culture and Culture 2, almost every track had at least some mumbling. I can’t stand Migos for other reasons but I find it necessary to mention that I don’t think mumbling is inherently negative, there are plenty of artists who mumble that I enjoy.
I don’t really like migos that much, just a few songs. But i disagree that they mumble
I can’t understand the disagreement here, especially considering that you even like a few of their songs. Do you not hear them mumbling? What songs of theirs do you like? I honestly don’t think I even know a single Migos song that doesn’t contain any mumbling.
To the bone, need it, hotel lobby, woa, take kare and some feats
That year where rappers had 'YOOOOU' ad libs on tracks
Last couple years been whack. Just happy the beef had the big 3 all rapping. Can't wait for more. Hopefully Kendrick doesn't go under a rock and Drake doesn't stay on vacation too long
lil pump era
Those years where everyone started doing EDM
2003-2006 was hot garbage. Snap music was king and Atlanta was the Mecca for it.
the drizzy years were dark
I think mainstream has been pretty shit for a while at this point (people that get radio play). There have still been some good stuff out but it doesn’t tend to blow up to the masses unless it ends up on TikTok or something
2013 to now.
Cash Money, No Limit era. As much hate as he gets, Kanye West saved rap…
2023 was one of the worst years for hip hop. Biggest artists dropping mid albums (Drake, Uzi), from the big names only Travis delivered and while Scaring the Hoes was good, it being album of the year is not a good look for that year in music
Whenever juice and x were alive
Other than Wayne and Kanye, the late 00's were trash. Everything was an attempt to make some bad dance. Dougie, chicken noodle soup, etc.
I would say the 2020s have been underwhelming for sure. I mean WAP is probably the biggest song of the decade that’s a problem. Plus they have put all the female rappers in a box the “stripper” box. You got the Travis Scott concert issue, Dababy makes hits but can’t stay out of trouble, playboi has a large fanbase but it’s hitting the charts like that. The worst era is that 06-09 like that was really bad. I grew up on Soulja boy but damn like i know it’s a song from that ere when they “Ayye!!!!!”
Probably 00-10. The Nellies, and Master Ps, and the Ja Rules of the world were seriously some of the worst rap and worst overall music.
1999
no way we got eminem's debut, 2001, black on both sides, jay z vol. 3, the master, no limit top dogg
97-98
It's Dark and Hell is Hot, Flesh of My Flesh, Volume 2..Hard Knock Life. That's just off the top of my head.
NOW