The first few hip hop albums you heard

[b-dolo]

Paid in full, great adventures of slick rick, loc-ed after dark.

[noel411]

That's exactly how it was with us too. I remember a mate of mine got DMX - Flesh of my Flesh and another mate got It's Dark and Hell is Hot and then we all made copies of it on cassette. Love how it was all co-ordinated it reminds me of how when I was really young my dad and his friends would buy Amiga games then copy them for everyone so they only bought a few games but had heaps more. Then me personally I would record my favourite songs on to a tape and make my own mixtapes. We would all swap cds too make copies then bring them back to school the next day, I remember getting 40 Dayz 40 Nightz off a mate that was mindblowing.

Then you get one of the rich kids in the late 90's who had a cd burner and fast enough internet to download songs and that was a game changer, for $10 this one kid in high school would burn whatever we gave him as a list.

Sanity at Hurstville used to have this little DJ shop attached to it that had DJ equipment but it had a ton of rap and dance music. In the main Sanity you would get like Coolio, Eminem etc all the basic stuff but in this other place is where you'd get Master P, Xzibit, Ruff Ryders, All the Wu-Tang shit, Dr Dre, Snoop it was paradise. We tried to buy Restless for $25 all in shrapnel and the guy wouldn't sell it to us haha I remember once having $30 and spent like an hour deciding on what I wanted to buy, I think I bought The W that time. I distinctly remember a time where I had The W and Forever in my hand for 10 minutes trying to decide which one to buy.

Naughty By Nature - 19 Naughty Nine was another popular album it felt like everyone in my year had that CD. The day I bought Moment of Truth by GangStarr and Liquid Swords at the big HMV store in the city was monumental for me lol

I remember going to that music store underneath the George St cinema and being blown away, I wish I was old enough to have had a job so I could've bought a bunch of shit. Soul Clap was a great store for hip hop they mostly focused on underground stuff which is where I was getting stuff like Non Phixion, Necro, Immortal Technique, all the import stuff.

One of my great regrets was I swapped Regurgitator's Unit for the Marshall Mathers LP with a guy at school and I quickly grew out of Eminem by the time Eminem Show came out but I always liked the Gurge.

There was a cool simplicity to it all built connections with friends, swapping and sharing cds with each other and trying to one up people with the "listen to what I just got" When I was 18 and at my first job out of high school this guy was a bit older than me and would bring in underground rap cds for me to go home and listen to and he put me on to a whole ton of shit that I still have on a hard drive: Arsonists, Copywrite, Murs, Cage, Cunninglinguists, Company Flow, Ras Kass, Aesop Rock, 7L & Esoteric. Actually, my favourite part about Wu-Corp was always the discovery of dope music even non-hip hop I've pretty much always used this place as a way to discover music.

Fuc'n Amiga games, haha. I was a part of that too. We had an Amiga 500 n used to trade games with other cunts.

My mum used to work in Bankstown n there was a mall there with hmv, sanity, n another big one that went defunct ages ago. I used to go to those shops n just look through all the hip hop shit, but i couldn't afford any of it, haha. I knew the names n covers of everything that was out, but not what they sounded like, hahaha.

I was always just getting discount shit. They opened a second hand cd shop in Parramatta n that became my main source of CDs. That shop was fucking great. I deadset can't even remember what it was called tho.

There was another great one in merrylands too, but they didn't have a hip hop section. Everything was mixed n u just had to go thru the whole fucking shop, lolololol.

Those 2 shops were where i got everything in the mid 90's.

[The Hound]

There was still a lot of stuff going around at the time. I heard NWA, Gravediggaz, Wu tang Clan, Redman, Cypress Hill ect in the 90’s

You're a boomer though it was different for youngsters having to discover stuff pre-internet that wasn't the mainstream. Most of that stuff was really word of mouth, a mate of mine's older brother put me on to gravediggaz.

Fuc'n Amiga games, haha. I was a part of that too. We had an Amiga 500 n used to trade games with other cunts.

My mum used to work in Bankstown n there was a mall there with hmv, sanity, n another big one that went defunct ages ago. I used to go to those shops n just look through all the hip hop shit, but i couldn't afford any of it, haha. I knew the names n covers of everything that was out, but not what they sounded like, hahaha.

I was always just getting discount shit. They opened a second hand cd shop in Parramatta n that became my main source of CDs. That shop was fucking great. I deadset can't even remember what it was called tho.

There was another great one in merrylands too, but they didn't have a hip hop section. Everything was mixed n u just had to go thru the whole fucking shop, lolololol.

Those 2 shops were where i got everything in the mid 90's.

Haha I used to go to stores and just check out all the stuff I couldn't afford too. I got my first job at Sanity at Roselands which isn't far from Bankstown and there was a sister store downstairs I had to do shifts at called IN2MUSIC which had a better selection of rap. There was a metal shop in Cronulla and I went in there asking if he had any Snoop Dogg and the guy laughed at me lol

I used to buy The Source and would buy the occasional album when I had money off the strength of what I saw in the magazine, Trick Daddy Thugs Are Us was a monumental waste of $35 lol

I remember buying Dr Dre's 2001 not long after it released and that cd got a ton of plays.

Now I am reminded how popular 2Pac's Greatest Hits was around 98/99 whenever it came out, felt like everyone had that cd. For a kid in the mid to late 90's with no job I got myself a decent cd collection saving birthday money and spare change I got off my parents, off the top of my head I had:

LL Cool J - Mama Said Knock You Out, Puff Daddy - No Way Out, Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise, Redman - Malpractice, Dr Dre - 2001, Death Row Greatest Hits, 2Pac - 2Pacalypse Now & Greatest Hits, Wu-Tang - 36 Chambers & The W, Naughty By Nature - 19 Naughty 9, GangStarr - Moment Of Truth, GZA - Liquid Swords, Snoop Dogg - Tha Last Meal, Tha Eastsidaz, Def Jam Greatest Hits, Ghost Dog Soundtrack, Trick Daddy's wack album plus all the stuff that was copied and burned off others and a couple of albums like Living End, Silverchair, Regurgitator, those hit machine/100% hits

[zooruka]

You're a boomer though it was different for youngsters having to discover stuff pre-internet that wasn't the mainstream. Most of that stuff was really word of mouth, a mate of mine's older brother put me on to gravediggaz.

Not really I’m probably the same age as you guys (Give or take a few years?) but I grew up in Perth whereas you guys are from Sydney. Perth had a strong underground rap culture in the 90’s.

[The Hound]

Haha I'm just teasing ya, I would honestly say I was just too young to be up on the scene at that time but yeah I do agree the underground scene when I was getting involved seemed far behind Melbourne and Adelaide (don't know much about Perth's scene tbh)

Most of what was popular with my circle was all the Death Row/west coast stuff really

[noel411]

It got really popular by the late 90's. It grew enormously within the space of a year or 2. It was only in '95/'96 when i was in year 7 n 8 that it was like a select few at my high school were into it. I think even in year 8 it was starting to grow quite a lot.

I had a weird early cd collection cos it was mostly just shit i could get cheap. Whether from shops or cd's my older brother's mate didn't want. He was very much into gangster rap. Geto boys, spice one, then he got into master p n all that.

I used to buy the source too, n look at all the shit I couldn't afford to buy, haha. I knew about everything that was out. Just hadn't heard it, haha.

[Rev Jones]

In Europe rap got a wider audience in 1992-1994 through The Chronic (+ following G funk releases), Black Sunday & It Takes A Thief. But it all really started with The Chronic. Before The Chronic it was singles sales only really. Old skool & early gangsta rap (NWA) had had much more of a niche audience.

The Source & Vibe wasn't in stores down here before The Chronic dropped, and The Chronic (1992) predates Vibe (1993) anyway.

@ Hound I had that Thugs R Us album too. I always liked it lol sorry. I bought his earlier albums too

[Holocaust]

LL Cool J-Bad was definitely the 1st album I had in my walkman

[jaydee3]

First song I heard and got me into hip hop was run dmc rock box. First albums in no order. Public enemy its take a nation. Run dmc raising hell. Marley marl in control vol.1.

[Erquel]

I distinctly remember the first two hip-hop songs I heard.
Cypress Hill - Certified Bomb
Wu-Tang Clan - Shame On A Nigga (feat. System Of A Down)

And I went from there))

[Andy Warhov]

DMX - Its dark and hell is hot
2Pac - All eyez on me
Kanye west - College dropout

[hotnikks]

DMX - Its dark and hell is hot
2Pac - All eyez on me
Kanye west - College dropout

At least you started from the golden era classic albums there.

[hotnikks]

I might as well add Fugess The Score to my list.