1993 was a very special year for hip hop music. You had 2Pac starting to refine his craft and persona with his second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z…, Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray” was blasting out of speakers all year long, Onyx were wreaking havoc with their debut album, Bacdafucup.
You had also Big Daddy Kane making his comeback with Looks Like a Job For…, Cypress Hill following up their classic debut with Black Sunday, Souls of Mischief providing a different taste of West Coast hip hop than what Dre and Snoop were offering, and KRS-One making his solo debut with Return of the Boom Bap.
But talk to most hip hop heads and they’ll probably remember 1993 as the year that the Wu-Tang Clan made their debut, and A Tribe Called Quest released their third, and arguably best, album. The craziest thing about this is that Midnight Marauders and Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) dropped on the same day – November 9, 1993.
It must have been a beautiful day for rap fans. Imagine rocking “Award Tour,” “Electric Relaxation” and “Oh My God” until the tape popped then bumping “Protect Ya Neck,” “Method Man,” “C.R.E.A.M.” and “Can It Be All So Simple” until you were speaking 100% Shaolin dialect? To top it all off, Snoop’s debut, Doggystyle, dropped only a couple of weeks later.
Is November 9, 1993 the greatest release date in hip hop history? Maybe. Here are a few other stacked rap release dates:
- September 13, 1988 – Ice-T’s Power and Eazy-E’s Eazy-Duz-It
- November 24, 1992 – The Pharcyde’s Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde and Kool G Rap & DJ Polo’s Live and Let Die
- February 13, 1996 – 2Pac’s All Eyez on Me and Fugees’ The Score
- September 29, 1998 – OutKast’s Aquemini, Jay-Z’s Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Love Movement, Black Star’s Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star and Brand Nubian’s Foundation
- September 11, 2007 – Kanye West’s Graduation and 50 Cent’s Curtis
- June 18, 2013 – Kanye West’s Yeezus, J. Cole’s Born Sinner and Mac Miller’s Watching Movies with the Sound Off
