Source: General / Radio One
Looking back at 1999, there’s a lot to take in.. especially the fact that albums that dropped that year have now been around for a quarter of a century. So, to kick off Hip Hop History Month, a few of us on the editorial team reflected on our favorite album of that year and gave special shutouts to other projects that stood the test of time.
Artist: Eminem
Album: The Slim Shady LP
Release Date: February 23, 1999
To be fair, when Eminem came on the scene in the late 90s, Hip-Hop was in a very.. strange place. Culturally, we were still recovering from the brutal murders of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., industry titans whose gifts were cut short far too soon.
Commercially, rap became a lot more pop: Radio-friendly singles and flashy videos translated into massive record sales at a time where people consumed (and physically purchased) music one album at a time. Of course, acts like DMX, Scarface and The Lox still offered more hard-edged records, but the climate was shiny, glossy and things felt very much big-budgeted. And as various competitors eyed the throne, along came Eminem, a white boy from Detroit who was neither flashy or particularly intimidating.. but little did we know (at the time) that’d he’d become one of the biggest acts rap had ever seen.
Introduced to the mainstream by Dr. Dre, it would’ve been easy to write Em off as a gimmicky artist who was fortunate enough to be carried by Dre’s production. But aside from the shocking lyrics, blonde hair and cartoonish persona… the boy could spit. Not only that, his major label debut featured tracks that ranged from goofy, to gloomy and toward the latter half, grotesque. A commercial and critical success, The Slim Shady LP is a testament to what happens when an artist is brave enough to be themselves. – J. Bachelor
Artist: Nas
Album: I Am..
Release Date: April 6, 1999
Commercially carried by two singles, Nas Is Like and Hate Me Now (featuring Puff Daddy), I Am debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It sold over 470,000 copies in its first week and eventually went double platinum.
By the time Nas dropped I Am he was already cemented as a prolific storyteller, and this collection worked to push that narrative a lot further. His bars on the final track Undying Love are basically cinema. He tells the story of a love affair gone awry while painting vivid scenes through prolific rhymes. He touches on young life in New York through N.Y. State of Mind, Pt. II, and raps to recently deceased emcees Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac on We Will Survive.
In addition to Puff Daddy (now Diddy), the project also featured guest appearances from Scarface, Aaliyah and DMX.
One little-known fact – I Am was originally intended to be a double album. But after songs were leaked, Nas was forced to shift gears and re-record a lot of the music. That prompted him to drop I Am in April, then Nastradaumus later that same year. Some of this project’s original music eventually showed up on his Lost Tapes album in 2002. – Matty Willz
Artist: Eve
Album: Let There Be Eve…Ruff Ryders’ First Lady
Release Date: September 14, 1999