In the wake of XXL’s 10 Freshmen for ’10 cover, one question kept coming up: What happened to New York? For hip-hop’s first 25 years, the music’s birthplace created dozens of stars. From the Bronx’s KRS-One to Manhattan’s Doug E. Fresh, Brooklyn’s Notorious B.I.G., Queens’s 50 Cent and Staten Island’s Wu-Tang Clan, each borough produced its own legends. Even outlying provinces like Long Island and Yonkers got in on the act, expanding New York rap’s borders with the likes of Public Enemy and DMX.
But that was then. Over the past seven years, the well has gone dry. Since 50 Cent detonated onto the scene with his eight-million-selling megabomb Get Rich or Die Tryin’, New York newcomers have been having a hard time blowing up. In fact, since 50 made his mark in 2003 with both his solo debut and G-Unit group album (Beg For Mercy), only a handful of local rappers have managed to debut in the top 10 of Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart: Juelz Santana (2003’s From Me to U), Sheek Louch (2003’s Walk Witt Me), Loon (2003’s Loon), Lloyd Banks (2004’s The Hunger for More) Tony Yayo (2005’s Thoughts of a Predicate Felon) and Mims (2007’s Music Is My Savior). And only Lloyd Banks (2004’s “On Fire”), Mims (2007’s “This Is Why I’m Hot,”) and Lil Mama (2008’s “Lip Gloss”) have had a first single break the top 10 of the Hot 100 singles.
In XXL’s May issue, which is on stands now, we went searching the five boroughs, as well as Long Island and Yonkers, in search of some answers as to how New York fell into a hip-hop drought. But over the course of the past week and a half, we gave y’all a year-by-year breakdown of the music that came out of the Big Apple and how it stacked up against the rest of the hip-hop nation. The series concludes today with 2009.
Men lie, women lie, but numbers don’t…
In 2009, 17 hip-hop albums debuted in the top 10 of Billboard’s top 200, 9 of which came from New York artists
NEW YORK ARTISTS
Pray IV Reign, Jim Jones
The Last Kiss, Jadakiss
Crime Pays, Cam’Ron
Back On My B.S., Busta Rhymes
The Ecstatic, Mos Def
Loso’s Way, Fabolous
The Blueprint 3, Jay-Z
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II, Raekwon
Before I Self-Destruct, 50 Cent
FLORIDA ARTISTS
Deeper Than Rap, Rick Ross
R.O.O.T.S. (Route Of Overcoming The Struggle), Flo Rida
Rebelution, Pitbull
TEXAS ARTISTS
UGK 4 Life, UGK
ILLINOIS ARTISTS
Category F5, Twista
GEORGIA ARTISTS
The State Vs. Radric Davis, Gucci Mane
NEW JERSEY ARTISTS
Blackout! 2, Method Man & Redman
MICHIGAN ARTISTS
Relapse, Eminem
Out of the 17 hip-hop albums to debut in the top 10 of Billboard’s top 200 in 2009, none were from new New York artists dropping their first album.
id=”74″]
SEE NEXT PAGE FOR 2009 SINGLES
