"I'm after the gold,then after that the platinum"

1998 was that last great year in hip hop. Why? Cause artist mainstream and underground had a chance for one or both of those plaques. That was the last year you had enough hip hop heads buying albums to make a rapper's dream come true. Think of the dope shit that dropped that year or 97 and 96. When BlackStar dropped their album best believe they had a plaque in mind but they didn't compromise their music. Gangstar's Moment Of Truth was the apex of true hip hop. A dope fucking album that went gold. Could you imagine your favorite rapper's today like Blu Scholars having a chance for a plaque but still must compete for it. Rapper's nowadays don't compete no mo'. Commercial rappers may compete like that Ye/50cent fiasco but MS artist suck. It seems these underground artist are just releasing stockpile LPs to just secure their own little nerdy fanbase. Also alot of semi-mainstream artist wanna fucking get whoever is hot on their album instead of competeing with them like Drake. SHIT! Back in the day mad cats wouldve went after Lil Wayne,but muthafuckas just wanna do songs with him cause he's hot. And when I say compete I dont mean diss tracks neither.

When was the last time you heard a Uptown Saturday Night? Every year we comprise a list of albums that came out that year and most that shit is mediocre. Even I'm guilty of hyping shit that aint all that. Face it, these underground cats aint all that original. Im beginning to believe theres been only 8 5 star gems released after 98': MF DOOM Operation DoomsDay* SeanPrice,Jesus Price Superstar* Moka Only,Lime Green* Megalon's A Penny 4 Your Thoughts* K-Rino BloodDoctrine* Deltron 3030*BlueSky/BlackDeath presents The Holocaust* Espace from Monsta Island/MIC

There's been a lot more than 8 classics released in the last decade.

That said, I agree with your first paragraph.

Trotter i completely agree with your first paragraph, ive always thought 98 was the last GREAT year. I dont think theres been more than 8 classics in the last decade, and i also dont agree with your list of those 8

Some albums I consider classic in the last decade

Nas- Stillmatic
Nas- The Lost Tapes
Jay Z- The Blueprint
Eminem- The Marshall Mathers LP
One Be Lo- SONOGRAM
Binary Star- Masters Of The Universe
Common- Like Water For Chocolate
Ghostface Killah- Supreme Clientele
Jurassic 5- Quality Control
Little Brother- The Listening
Little Brother- The Minstrel Show
Deltron- 3030
Immortal Technique- Revolutionary Part 2
Blu & Exile- Below The Heavens
Madvillian- Madvilliany

There's more but I'll stop there.....

Agree with most of those KJ.

It did seem like 1999 was the year of straight dookie. 98 did have a lot of bangers that came out. Regarding mainstream hip hop, it went downhill. 99-03 was a very dry period where I really didn't buy any new cds aside from Wu releases.

I remember when GP WU dropped their album in 98'. They've stated on the LP they were going gold. In 98 that wasn't outside the realm of possibility. But the album sucked. There was a lot of shit coming out w/ the WU brand that was diikie