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One thing to note is that three of his top five most streamed songs were never released as singles (including the #1, Ambitionz Az A Ridah), which is kinda crazy. The Beatles and Pink Floyd's #1 songs (Here Comes The Sun and Wish You Were Here) were also not released as singles but the rest of their most streamed songs were.
By the way, 2Pac might be my favorite rapper but All Eyez On Me is definitely not "often regarded as the greatest rap album of all-time", I'm not even sure it's regarded as the best 2Pac album (that might be Me Against The World).
He's very popular but he's not as highly regarded as Nas, Biggie, Wu-Tang, Kanye, Kendrick, A Tribe Called Quest, Mobb Deep...etc.
Hi Analord!
Let's be real, what you tell is true among pseudo-purists, and Rock n Roll fans turned critics that occupy 90% of the spots inside US publications. Now, just ask to 100 people coming from the hip hop culture who's the best rap artist of all-time / what's the best rap album ever, nobody will answer Mobb Deep or Paid in Full, but tons will answer 2Pac / AEOM. I'll always give more credit to someone from a culture who simply says what he enjoys the most over a professional writer who tries to sound knowledgeable by listing the thing that nobody really heard or cared about, not even the writer himself.
Very good to see a true music writer speak out about a insane comment post early today about 2pac matter´s in the hip hop scene, I live in Brazil and even here everybody knows what 2pac represent to USA and beyond while Nas and Mobb Deep truly many unknows.in the same Brazil.
Thanks bro for the info, I come from a very small country in the Pacific, listening to Tupac was one of the best memories growing up in the islands, gone but never forgotten, keep up the good work.
So you're saying All Eyez On Me is the most popular album ever among hip-hop fans ? If so, what are you basing this on ? Are you referring to specific lists or polls ? I mean, there are obviously more popular albums, notably by Eminem.
Oh, and "nobody really heard or cared about" the artists I mentioned ? You know all of them have multiple platinum albums, right ?
I live in Brazil bro you live in brazil if yes u can discuss with me his popularity here, so Do you live in Brazil?
150k is a lot once we consider his albums weren't even released there by Death Row, which obviously wasn't a global label. 2Pac sold tons of units through piracy there, on ebay-like websites his most popular albums up to this day are actually pirat ones.
A closer to reality view of his popularity there would be YouTube annual views:
2Pac - 51.2 million
Notorious B.I.G. - 26.4 million
Nas - 5.71 million
Wu-Tang Clan - 3.28 million
Mobb Deep - 3.00 million
A Tribe Called Quest - 927,000
Even contemporary acts like Kanye (43.9 million) and Kendrick (39.7 million) are behind 2Pac.
I haven't said it is 'the most' popular ever, I said it's widely regarded as the best, which means it is among the ones that would be very frequently mentioned when asking to hip-hop fans what's the best rap album ever.
If it is 'the' most popular or not, I would say the only serious challenger would be Illmatic.
Also, you say that "among hip-hop fans" it is "obviously" not the most popular album because of Eminem. This is flawed. Em' sold so well precisely because he sold tons of albums to non-hip hop fans. If we define an hip hop fans as every person who has, say, 20 or more hip hop albums at home, I definitely wouldn't take the risk to assume there would be more copies of TMMLP than AEOM.
Let's not pretend I don't know them, Analord.
I wasn't speaking specifically about all the ones you listed, their level of success is very different. From someone like Kanye who has tons of #1 albums to A Tribe Called Quest or Mobb Deep, who couldn't get more than a pair of weeks in a top 10 with one album, there's a wild gap.
My message was an answer to the spirit of your messages, that ignored the hip hop community reality, instead focusing on critics' darlings, with, let's face it, critics being mainly 60+ white people.
The irony with the critics bubble is that they love to call 'best' anyone who tried something before others, yet on their own field they can't do a thing but copy each other. They mix 'pioneers' or 'influential' with 'best' all the time. As if music shouldn't be entertaining. As if rap music isn't supposed to bring a message. 'Ohhh, they were the ones who brought samples in?! Ok we put them 1st!'. Then you get lists saying Paid in Full is the best rap album of all-time. Then so many 'critics' are just too bored / uninterested to dig into the genre they just kept repeating the same stuff.
That's how you end up with albums like Paid in Full or It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back which have more people listing them on their "all-time best" lists online than people actually streaming these albums. It happens to other genres as well obviously, I can mention Screamadelica just to point out another clear example. These are the ones nobody really heard of, myself I asked several times what's their favorite track off the record to people claiming Screamadelica was so good, and more often than not what I was expecting happened, meaning that they weren't able to tell me a single song from the record.
Back to rap, as I said the core of rap music is to bring a message, so what should matter to know who did it 'best' is who brought the most meaningful message, and who was able to be deliver it in the most impactful way. 2Pac obviously spoke a lot to the hip hop community, he was their spokesperson, the one who delivered their message the best. That he was the one who used samples first matters very little.
