Greatest debut album in rap/hip-hop history?

Greatest debut album in rap/hip-hop history?

  • Total voters
    38
NEsnake12

NEsnake12

New Fish
With us running out of rock albums I figured I'd get the ball rolling on hip-hop. No "major record label debut" shit, so the Slim Shady LP and others like that will come next round.
 
Quality pole. There are five or six worthy contenders there.
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Hip-hop artists in general put out most of their best stuff early on in their careers, when their sound/story is fresh. Hence why the 1st-3rd album polls will be stacked and then likely fall of quickly. Contrast that to the rock bands (especially the 60's ones) who often took 5+ albums to really hit the mark
 
SOC, LTI, The Chronic (it’s amazing Dre has two albums on here AND a billion dollar company that changed the consumer landscape in America), 36 Chambers, College Dropout are all amazing.

3 Feet High and Rising might warrant some consideration as well.

DoggyStyle was sort of the Chronic II, but also excellent.

In terms of societal impact (for better or worse), I’m not sure anything piece of art has changed our culture more than Straight Outta Compton.

It was the most outlandish, over the top record ever when it came out. Now every fucking 10 year old talks about shooting people like it’s nothing.

It’s unreal how much that record changed everything. It was a bit of a slow burn, but that really was the Meet the Beatles of gangsta rap. Now basically all rap is gangsta rap
 
While my whole high school was obsessed with dressing and looking like dumpster divers for ironic "I just don't care" conformity, stinking, not shaving lady legs, and "hacking" (which then/there meant standing in a circle and kicking a fucking beanbag), I was the one rural white boy waiting in front of the town's only record store for the store to open so I could be the first to pick up the Wu-Tang double album that was set to release that day. Got the whole football team hooked on that shit, and we used to blast ODB's "Dog Shit" on the bus on the way to games as the coaches awkwardly pretended to not hear.

With no real influences to guide me in that direction, I gravitated toward hip hop from an early age and have never liked the sound of distortiony guitars and dudes "singing"/screaming/whining 12 word songs. Always preferred the east coast sound to the west coast sound, but there's good shit all around.

I was already hip hop obsessed when the 36 chambers was released, but nothing blew me away like that before or since. The other debuts that left the biggest mark were pretty much every single Wu-Tang solo album (they're all soooooo fucking good), Busta Rhymes' The Coming, Outkast's Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik had heavy rotation for a while and was a totally different sound to me at the time (although I think ATLiens was better). Somewhat later, I was floored by the originality and quality of Quasimoto (Madlib)'s The Unseen.
 
Snoop Dogg - Doggystyle

Better album than The Chronic, hands down. Chronic has a few great songs, but lots of shit tracks. Not even a contest between these two albums. Beastie Boys and 50 Cent having entries over Snoop is the crime of the century.
 
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I don't actually believe this album is the greatest, just there was a mythical hype to 50cent and it reminds me of driving around with my douchebag friends sophomore year of high school blasting two kicker 12s in Mommy's 4Runner.
 
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Like the obvious choice he is straight outta Compton. Sure the chronic was important and great in its own right but straight outta compton created a new musical paradigm.

Atbsivflti
 
Like the obvious choice he is straight outta Compton. Sure the chronic was important and great in its own right but straight outta compton created a new musical paradigm.

Atbsivflti
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Bias gonna bias.
 
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