Nov 7, 20264 min read

Today in Hip Hop: November 7

One date, three eras. A queen arrives, the Wu reaches its sharpest point, and the Hall of Fame opens its doors to Brooklyn.

OMYGOTTI

Toronto hip-hop artist | 730K+ Facebook

1989

Queen Latifah Drops All Hail the Queen

On November 7, 1989, Queen Latifah released her debut album All Hail the Queen on Tommy Boy Records. She was 19 years old. The record mixed rap with singing and carried a clear point of view, anchored by Ladies First, her collaboration with Monie Love that put respect for women in hip hop on record at a time when few major releases were saying it out loud.

The album peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Top R and B and Hip Hop Albums chart, a serious showing for a debut in 1989. Its standing only grew with time. In 2023 the Library of Congress selected All Hail the Queen for preservation in the National Recording Registry, placing a teenage rapper from Newark in the national archive.

My take: My take: Latifah set the template for range. Rap, sing, act, host, run the company. The debut already had the voice. Everything after was scale.

1995

GZA Unleashes Liquid Swords

November 7, 1995 gave hip hop one of its most studied albums. GZA released Liquid Swords, his second solo album, through Geffen Records. RZA produced nearly the whole record in his Staten Island basement studio, building the sound around dialogue samples from the martial arts film Shogun Assassin and references that run from chess to crime to philosophy.

GZA — Photo: Coup d'Oreille via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The album peaked at number 9 on the Billboard 200 and number 2 on the Top R and B and Hip Hop Albums chart, with appearances from across the nine member Wu Tang Clan and affiliate Killah Priest. It was certified gold within months and went platinum nearly 20 years later, which tells you the record kept finding new listeners long after its first winter.

My take: My take: Liquid Swords is the Wu album I hand to writers. Every verse is placed like a chess move, nothing wasted, nothing loud for no reason.

1995

Coolio and Goodie Mob Share the Day

The same November 7, 1995 was crowded in the best way. Coolio released Gangsta's Paradise, the album built around its title track, and it became the most commercially successful record of his career, selling more than three million copies in the United States. A single song had already crossed every border rap had in 1995, and the album proved the audience stayed for the full project.

Atlanta answered the same day. Goodie Mob released their debut album Soul Food, the record that helped define the Dungeon Family sound and put Southern storytelling on equal footing with both coasts. Erick Sermon also released his second solo album Double or Nothing that day. Three regions, three directions, one release date.

My take: My take: Read that day as a map. New York craft, West Coast reach and Atlanta soul all shipping on November 7, 1995. The balance of power was already shifting.

2020

Biggie and Whitney Enter the Rock Hall

On November 7, 2020, The Notorious B.I.G. and Whitney Houston were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The ceremony ran as a virtual event because of the pandemic, which changed the room but not the weight of the honour. Biggie entered the Hall 23 years after his death, on the strength of two studio albums released in his lifetime.

The induction placed hip hop royalty and R and B royalty in the same class, a pairing that made sense for anyone who grew up on both. Biggie's catalogue had already been studied like literature by then. The Hall simply made the institution say it formally, in a year when the culture could only watch from home.

My take: My take: Two albums was enough. That is the whole lesson of Biggie. Impact is not a discography count, it is what the work does to everyone after it.