Today in Hip Hop: November 13
A Harlem debut single, a Wu-Tang solo peak, a loss the culture still feels, a Toronto hinge point and a trap sermon all share this date.
Big L Releases Put It On
On November 13, 1994, Harlem lyricist Big L released Put It On, the lead single from his debut album Lifestylez ov da Poor and Dangerous, which followed the next year. The record paired his dense, punchline heavy writing with a brighter, radio ready hook, a balance his label wanted for an artist whose other material leaned dark and hardcore.
The single became the doorway into one of the most studied pens of the nineties. Big L career was cut tragically short, but the technical standard he set on records like this one is still the measure younger lyricists get judged against in New York and far beyond it.
Ghostface Killah Drops Bulletproof Wallets
Ghostface Killah released his third studio album, Bulletproof Wallets, on November 13, 2001. The project reached number 2 on the Billboard Top R and B and Hip Hop Albums chart, extending a solo run that had already produced Ironman and Supreme Clientele and cemented him as the most vivid storyteller inside Wu-Tang Clan.
The same day in 2001 also brought UGK fourth album Dirty Money, which reached number 19 on the Billboard 200 and number 2 on the Top R and B and Hip Hop Albums chart. Two regional pillars, New York and Port Arthur, Texas, landing major albums on one date says a lot about how wide the map already was in 2001.
Hip Hop Loses Ol Dirty Bastard
Ol Dirty Bastard, born Russell Jones, died on November 13, 2004, at a Manhattan recording studio, two days before his 36th birthday. He was a founding member of Wu-Tang Clan and one of the most original voices the genre has ever produced, switching between singing, rapping and pure improvisation in a way nobody has duplicated since.
His solo debut Return to the 36 Chambers gave the culture Shimmy Shimmy Ya and Brooklyn Zoo, records that still sound like they arrived from nowhere else. November 13 is a celebration date for this column most years. This entry is the loss that sits inside it, and the Clan story cannot be told honestly without pausing here.
The Weeknd Releases Trilogy
Toronto own The Weeknd released Trilogy on November 13, 2012, his first album with a major label. The set repackaged his three breakthrough mixtapes, House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, with new material, and turned an underground run built on free downloads into a commercial arrival that peaked near the top of the charts in Canada and the United States.
For this city, Trilogy is a hinge point. A Toronto artist who had started as an anonymous upload became, with this release, a major label act carrying a sound the whole industry would spend the next decade absorbing. The moody, spacious R and B on those tapes is now a default setting in pop. In 2012 it still sounded like the future arriving early.
Jeezy Releases Church in These Streets
Jeezy released his eighth studio album, Church in These Streets, through Def Jam on November 13, 2015. The project framed his street reporting as sermons, a concept that fit an artist who had long played the role of motivational speaker for the trap, a decade after his major label debut made him one of its defining voices.
The same date in 2015 also brought Ty Dolla Sign debut album Free TC, a project dedicated to his incarcerated brother. Taken together, the two releases show how much range one Friday could hold in that era, from Atlanta trap preaching to Los Angeles R and B with a family story at its centre.
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