The following is in direct reply to certain points that have been made thus far in this thread, as a long time viewer of this forum, this is the first time I feel strongly enough to register on the board with the sole purpose of highlighting my viewpoint. The first point that needs to be made is that anyone who places any authority in a list conducted by MTV needs to develop a wider knowledge of the genre as a whole…
(
warning: the following contains critiscm of
AEOM and
The 7 Day theory, if you are an obsessive Tupac fan who has a distinct inability to rationally address the quality of individual albums on the sole basis of quality as opposed to the merit of the individual that completed them, you might want to leave this thread now.)
Hituup said:
Then I saw Biggie at 3 and flipped. Jay-Z better than Biggie?
I would hesitate to use the word ‘better’ however it must be taken into consideration that Jay Z has had a more prolific career than BIG due to well known fact that CW only dropped two albums whilst he was alive, to compare that body of work to Jigga’s 8 solo studio pieces is foolish in the extremis. Certainly, one would concur with the popular belief that
Ready to Die is still the best of all albums in the two catalogues, however there must come a time when rap connoisseurs finally admit that an artist cannot be lauded upon the sole basis of one album.
Life After Death was a strong outing but it is far from a classic.
You then go out to change your opinion completely showing you have absolutely no conviction in it anyway....
Hituup said:
I agree that Jay-Z is better than biggie because to be realistic biggie's 2 albums can't measure up to the amount of hits, classics, and albums that Jay-Z got.
But overall though, biggie and jay-z are overrated. the ny scene makes em out to be something more than they are.
The reason Jay Z, Biggie and indeed Tupac can sell as many records as they do is because they do not suffer
Jadakiss syndrome and can permeate both coasts with pervading radio play. To say that
Ready To Die is a classic because of the ’NY scene’ is in my opinion ridiculous, it’s the one of very few albums in the industry that is held in worldwide universal acclaim. Similarly, how anyone can say the ’NY scene’ has presupposed the success of Jay Z is beyond me when it’s been shown that he sells records on a worldwide basis and is probably the most versatile rapper (business wise) that has lived. Additionally greater arguments could be formed from the Tupac - California association if one were wishing to converse about how regions have assisted rappers to flourish.
Hituup said:
The Notorious B.I.G. was under 2Pac's wing before his career took off. Had it not been for 2pac to coach & mentor him, Biggie Smalls' success would not have reached the height he reached. So biggie owed everything to him imo. And in turn Jay-Z was underneathe B.I.G, so when it comes down to it 2pac fathered these so called new york greats.
Absolute Bullshit. The friendship between Biggie and 2Pac has been overly embellished by the media, I’m in no way disputing the fact that they used to ’run together’ but lets not forget, in an early nineties 'highly invigorated' New York rap scene it was not uncommon for aspiring rappers to be brought together by their harmonized love of the art.
Do not be fooled, they were never best friends. Conversely to pronounce that Tupac ’coached and mentored’ Biggie is an obtuse assumption based on nothing but the hearsay of obsessive Tupac fans.
There is nothing similar about the style and delivery of either artist; Biggie has always been distinctly New York - many old New York heads will still remember him as a teen on the corners in Brooklyn spitting off the top of his dome…just because 2Pac achieved some success before Biggie in no way means he influenced him to any degree and to say that he owes his career success to Tupac just makes me pity your unbelievably misguided perception of the way in which both artists ’came up’ by themselves.
To say that Tupac fathered any New York artist is unbelievably foolish when it is well known that Pac himself had two main sources of influence which are both easy to hear throughout the course of his work. Scarface and Ice Cube…both artists whom incidentally sound nothing like anyone on the Eastcoast, now compare that to the style of Biggie and Jay Z…which are as I alluded to earlier both distinct NY styles.
Moreover, anyone with half an ayatollah of hip hop knowledge will understand that the rap topics, style, delivery, general outlook on life, lyrical proficiency and to a lesser extent flow between Tupac and Biggie / Jay Z couldn’t be more different. Feel free to request an elaboration should you not be clear about this.
Hituup said:
Nobody with millions of fans is overrated. Nobody with movies, books, documentaries, course, and tribes all in their name is overrated. Nobody with a real life statue of them is overrated. He was great.
And your premise for the focal point of discourse here seems to be that anyone who is popular is not overrated. I could name a million popular artists who are overrated, many of whom posthumously earn more than the legacy of Tupac and have a much bigger fan base.. Statues, movies and books merely mean his memory is marketable. A testament to his legacy? Of course. But overrated all the same.
As the old adage goes 'everyone is entitled to their own opinion' the beauty of music is that there is no right or wrong opinion thus to chastise someone because they don’t share the same opinion of Tupac as you do is remarkably immature. Perhaps you should consider the more realistic idea that perhaps the said viewpoint has not been unduly influences by the post 1996 2Pac media overkill, rose colour glasses of prominent cultural activists and the multitude of fans who, it’s sad to say, were never aware of him until after his untimely passing. To insinuate that because someone does not agree with a majority they are ‘missing some pieces to a puzzle’ is not only non democratic but also stands against everything Pac himself stood for.
Hituup said:
Go ahead and listen to your mixtapes, while you keep wondering how the hell is 2pac in everyone's top 2.
Thug Life-underrated classic, but still classic
Me against The World-Certified Classic
All Eyez On Me-Certified Classic
7 Day Theory-Certified Classic
Posthumous albums: R U Still Down-Slept On Classic Still I Rise-Overlooked classic.
First of all if you going to use the word ‘certified’ I sincerely hope your not using it on the basis of any review given in the
Source, the Vibe or
XXL.
Thug Life is actually a below par album that like every other 2Pac album has benefited from revisionalism, made by anyone other than 2Pac I can guarantee you wouldn’t even remember the name of the work. Me Against the World is a good album but not flawless,
All Eyez On Me is unfortunately one of the most overrated rap albums ever..it’s saturated with inconsistent quality, there are some truly excellent stand alone tracks but placed amongst a multitude of very weak tracks they lose significance to the album. The production is muddled, Pac has been lyrically stronger and once again the guest appearances are for the most part abhorrent with the notable exception of Kurupt, Snoop and a few others.
The 7 Day Theory suffers from many of the same problems…
Don’t even get me started on the tripe that has dropped since his death. Do you think anyone would buy the garbage that was UTEOT had it not been a 2pac release? this highlights my point exactly.
People fail to understand that just because these albums are uber popular and have defined a genre of music does not make them classics. I am in no way disputing the work ethic of 2pac or his importance to rap music in general but better albums have been made by artists who are less significant to the culture which you wouldn’t listen to twice…2 Pac like most great artists who pass before their time have benefited from revisionalism. Why do you think that when originally released,
AEOM and
the 7 Day Theory garnered only average reviews by well respected Hip Hop magazines? Those same magazines that return to them five years after they have been made and label them classics? Quite simply, only because he is 2Pac.
It is interesting to note, that Tupac’s best album
S4MN you haven’t even mentioned here. No other 2Pac album is more cohesive, to the point, fuelled with raw and genuine emotion, engaging to the listener or lyrically / technically proficient than this album.
The biggest problem I have as a fan of
genuinely good hip hop and 2Pac is not the fact
AEOM and
the 7 Day Theory are unduly lauded, it’s that
S4MN seems to have been forgotten about...why?....
mainly because the style / tone of the album is perceived as being more old school - in direct contention with the majority of Pac’s fifteen to twenty five year old fan base that have grew up listening to a style more similar to that exhibited on Pac’s final two albums and subsequent drivel of posthumous releases.
Rant over
..and I don't wish to receive replies along the lines of "your smoking crack,
AEOM is the best fucking album ever bar none in the world since the start of time, it's great in every way..2 Pac is god" etc...I am well aware I have posted on a board overloaded with Tupac fans but unless you can articulately address the points I've made in an intellectual manner I will not satisfy your post with a response.