It certainly was a bestseller, selling upwards of ten million units in the US alone.
All Eyez On Me probably is 2Pac‘s most popular album, released when he was at the peak of his fame (while alive). Of course, because of the number of units sold and its iconic status, All Eyez On Me is a classic. Often though this is just parroting behavior by casual Hip Hop listeners who just don’t know many other Hip Hop albums, so who really can’t compare. Many people see this album as 2Pac’s magnum opus and one the best, if not THE best, Hip Hop album ever. Now, some of you will get all upset because you want to see this album ranked higher. The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech… Just Watch What You Say! is a tight album, one of Ice-T’s best and the one that established Ice-T as one of Hip Hop’s most prominent and authentic personalities. The album’s most important theme – as evidenced in the album’s subtitle and the song “Freedom Of Speech” – is the PMRC censorship that was being imposed on Hip Hop artists at the time. The chilled-out album opener “The Iceberg”, the dope 9-minute posse cut “What Ya Wanna Do”, the personal “This One’s For Me”, the gangster tale “Peel Their Caps Back”, the thought-provoking “You Played Yourself”, the multi-layered noise on “The Hunted Child” and “Lethal Weapon” – this album is packed with dope tracks. From the epic, ominous intro “Shut Up, Be Happy” (featuring Jello Biafra and brilliantly interpolating Black Sabbath’s classic “Black Sabbath”) to the all-out fun “My Word Is Bond” – this album has something for everybody. The album, Str8 off Tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton, was released a year later, framing an iconic career as a trailblazer for West Coast hip-hop.Ice-T‘s grittiest album, but one with great variation lyrically as well as sonically. While recording his follow-up LP in 1995, Eazy-E passed away suddenly from AIDS-induced pneumonia, a month following his diagnosis. Dre): 187um Killa, a virulent G-funk retaliation, peaking with the explosive “Real Muthaphuckkin G's” aimed at Dre. The feud would reach its apogee on Eazy-E’s 1993 EP, It's On (Dr. Ushering in gangsta-funk in 1991 with the burnished reality rap spectacle Efil4zaggin, that album would be N.W.A.’s last, due to a falling-out between Eazy E and Dr. Capitalising on the controversy, Eazy-E released his debut album, the seminal Eazy-Duz-It, remixing the hardcore, wry storytelling of “Boyz-N-The-Hood” and producing hulking narrative bangers like “Nobody Move”. The ungovernable, funk-injected recital of street life, which culminated with the anti-police anthem “F**k tha Police”, thrust the group’s charismatic figurehead to the forefront of rap. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella to form N.W.A., which erupted into mainstream America with gangsta rap’s definitive album Straight Outta Compton in 1988. Debuting his distinctive high-pitched timbre in 1987 with the stentorian, day-in-the-life anthem “Boyz-n-the-Hood”, he joined with Dr. Born Eric Wright in 1964 in Compton, California, Eazy-E founded Ruthless Records in 1986 with capital earned from drug dealing. A pioneer of gangsta rap and founder of the infamous West Coast group N.W.A., Eazy-E’s entrepreneurial guile and radical rhymes redefined the extremities of hip-hop in the late 1980s.