Everybody always thinks “Their” times music is the best. People ultimately like the music that they can relate to the best. With small exception for the POP music that crosses over.  HipHop is still a relatively new genre of music.  We are just starting to see the emergence of legacy rappers, more  international rap, and mixing of genres.

Its not that I think there haven’t been good albums since 1993-4 era. There have been plenty of great albums. I don’t think that hiphop has seen this many influential debut albums since this era.

For better or for worse you can probably trace your favorite rapper’s influences to at least one of these albums.  This era was something we will likely never see again. People read the hard copy of magazines.You didn’t have to say hard copy because there was no ‘E-Copy’.  Folks got their dose of hip hop from Yo MTV Raps or RapCity not from searching them on youtube.  The internet and social media was not a factor.  Trends did not travel so fast. That meant that regional music had a more distinct sound.  Outkast had not yet centralized southern music formerly in lead by Miami and Houston.

In todays hiphop you have a group like Migos popularize a flow and before you know it their are 20 remixes. Technology has lowered the bar of entry for music. The internet has brought the focus away from entire albums and spotlighted the SINGLE. Shopping your Demo has turned into Dropping a mixtape.

Simply put. There are fewer OUTLIERS.  Who’s pushing the culture today? Who’s maintaining their own sound? There was a time when you could tell the region of an album by the beats and the slang. Those things have blended. Because of social media and the internet much of it is the same. You must work hard to maintain your regional influences.

So I send out a challenge. Find a era of 2 years in hiphop that had more influential debut albums than 1993-1994. Keep in mind that there were more great albums in this era that I didn’t list because they weren’t there debut.