Nelly said that the 2000s were the hardest era in hip-hop. He is right and flawed.

On Thursday, the day of the premiere of the seventh season “Store, an interview program hosted by Maverick Carter, Paul Rivera and occasionally LeBron James (“The Shop” is a James SpringHill Entertainment production), Nelly, Cedric the Entertainer and Becky Hammon, two-time WNBA champion head coach. The Las Vegas Aces joined the conversation. As the title suggests, “The Shop” is a makeshift barbershop that has long been considered a spot where black men in particular have their most in-depth and honest conversations about life; this episode transformed the Las Vegas Aces’ home court right into a barbershop.

Either way, there is a clip circulating on social media showing the a part of the conversation (arguably the most salacious and persuasive part) where Nelly makes her statement that the 2000s were the hardest era in hip-hop because when he was releasing music (in the 2000s after all), he was competing with DMX, Jay-Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Ludacris, etc. His point was that all these rappers were competing for the top rap spots, and since the competition was extraordinary and all the big ones sold out, the level of competition was high and subsequently it was the most difficult time to release music. And I do not entirely disagree with that. He also forgot about Kanye West, who ALSO took up a LOT of space in the years with “The College Dropout,” “Late Registration,” “Graduation,” “808s and Heartbreak,” and “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.”

You could also be wondering why he made such a press release? Well, the impetus for the conversation was Paul Rivera talking about rap music at the Grammy Awards and how Killer Mike took home the three most coveted albums in the rap category, none of which were televised. Nelly said the Grammys have to do higher. Paul then asked if Nelly had a chip on her shoulder after arriving from St. Louis, and then Nelly went into his spiel about who he needed to compete with back then, which type of is unnecessary. But perhaps it was the fact that he had a chip on his shoulder that made him compete that much harder and that made him successful amongst the competitive titans of that decade. No one will deny that Nelly didn’t kill the game.

But it begs the query: Did Nelly release music and achieve such success during the most difficult time to release music for his contemporaries? It’s a tough query. No doubt competing with all of those artists at a time when artists like DMX went platinum with two albums in the same calendar 12 months: “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot” and “Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood”. Jay-Z sold albums and released classics like “The Blueprint” and “The Black Album.” I mean, Eminem is Eminem, he’s one in every of the best-selling artists of all time, and most of those sales occurred in this decade. 50 Cent released one in every of the most groundbreaking albums ever with 2003’s “Get Rich or Die Tryin'” and followed it up with “The Massacre,” which also achieved success.

The point is that Nelly is right that he released and moved units at a time when some hip-hop titans were doing it and when people had to purchase physical units of albums to attain those sales. It’s remarkable to be one in every of the biggest artists moving so many units when people had so many other notable artists at their disposal.

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But I actually think the ’90s were the hardest decade for competition. Rappers were just beginning to make an actual profession in hip-hop. It was much, much harder to get albums into stores and get the sales to maintain you going. The Internet didn’t exist at the starting of this decade, so journalists were gatekeepers in a way that democratized blogs – if a blogger liked you in the 2000s, they may do the whole lot they may to amplify you as much as possible, something that existed to a much lesser extent in the 90s and I’m not even getting began on the 80s.

At least in the Eighties, there may not have been enough artists to actually compete in the same way, but the Nineties produced many classic debut albums from artists that maintained legions of fans well into the 2000s. I feel the 2000s, the blogger era, allowed artists to have a much larger following, making the previous gatekeepers obsolete in some cases. (I suppose the opposite is also true: if a author hates you, he may attempt to spoil your profession.)

Look, in the case of hip-hop conversations, it is not controversial in any respect. I’m not even 100% sure what Nelly was attempting to convey, but it surely’s an interesting idea. Most importantly, rappers like Nelly have managed to attain a level of success normally reserved for pop’s biggest stars, identical to lots of the other artists he mentioned. Nelly is still relevant, which is one other seemingly incredible feat, but Nelly has had loads of hits, so here they’re.

Now in case you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hearken to each “Sweat” and “Suit” because why not?