What’s missing?? Everything!! No Limit, E-40, Cash Money, SlipNSlide, Banned from TV, Pun, Big L, Ruff Ryders, mothaeffin BEATNUTS, “Benjamins,” the list goes on. I hope every artist missed takes it personal!!
10. DJ Quik - Summer Breeze (Remix)
9. Bone Thugs N Harmony - E1999
8. Do or Die - Po Pimp
7. Gangsta Boo - Where Dem Dollas At
6. Scarface - Never Seen a Man Cry
5. Spice 1 - Strap on the Side
4. MJG - Middle of the Night Remix feat. 8ball and Twista
3. The Dogg Pound - Smooth
2. Too $hort - Just Another Day
1. Tupac - How Do U Want It feat. K-Ci and JojoInteresting list, based off this post. I didn’t give the Pitchfork list much thought, because Pitchfork still isn’t an important part of the rap-writing universe. I don’t get why people continue to care about how they write about rap music. Why do you care what a bunch of hipsters say about rap? (Answer: because you are also probably a hipster that doesn’t interact in a meaningful way with the actual producers and origins of most rap). Yes, it’s an influential tastemaking site, but it has a relatively small readership compared to, say, WSHH. I have to give credit where credit is due in that their old Tracks section, the precursor to the Forkcast/Playlist features, exposed me to a lot of rap I probably wouldn’t have otherwise heard, and I’m hoping this is still the case for a generation of new readers still wrestling with their aural identity. But really, only a few rap albums/mixtapes reviewed a week and a scattered analysis of songs (which occasionally border on ironic/nonserious fawning) don’t equal importance to me. Outside of guys likes Drake and Breihan, these guys simply don’t know rap and cover it from an skewed perspective (judging most rap by the measuring stick of an album is pointless, for example/celebrating Drake because of how much it sounds like “chillwave”, for another example). Anyway, the Pitchfork 90s list kinda proves this point, and Pitchfork won’t be a meaningful barometer of rap music until it either a) stops referring to itself as “the essential guide to independent music and beyond” or b) quits treating rap as a novelty. It’s definitely made strides towards the latter, but it still treats itself as the former, which was a decent illusion in the pre-Myspace/Twitter/Blog/Tumblr age, but is just an outright lie now.
Anyways I was just hoping “25 Lighters” would make this list.
-Flex
Nah dude I write for them. Because its a place where you can get a paycheck to write about music with a large amount of editorial freedom & be read (actually READ) by a wide audience. I also get to write with a couple of my favorite music writers as well, even if a lot of the stuff they do for the site is also somewhat marginal. I know noz linked to the WSHH vs. Pitchfork traffic numbers, and I thought it was funny & pointed too, but keep in mind that one is a video aggregator and the other has editorial content & 500+ word essays on music.
I mean look, you can think it’s better to just ignore that audience or you can engage outside that audience, and I decided at one point I’d rather be convincing others than just stuck inside a circle jerk of rap fandom (I mean I think rap writers write a lot of bullshit too). I’d rather make an honest argument wherever I make it and have it actually be read than fall into the separate but equal trap. Because these artists deserve fans.
I feel you dude, in the end that’s all I want as well, hence the reason I still emailed Altered Zones and Pitchfork copies of our tape saying CHECK THESE DUDES OUT, I SWEAR YOU’LL LIKE THEM. I want people that don’t normally listen to rap to hear these guys, and I want these guys to gain new fans. What I worry about is the way they discuss rap, inside an indie rock or whatever framework that doesn’t fit. When you do that you invariably end up with complete misfires in editorial opinion, which will lead some of the idiots who read (or skim) the site to totally write off Z-Ro because the only record they reviewed of his they gave a 5.0 or whatever. Maybe that’s more of a problem with the readership than the writing, but it’s still a troubling point to me. - Flex
