Oct 30, 20264 min read

Today in Hip Hop: October 30

October 30 carries weight in this culture: a Brooklyn master at his smoothest, a Queens pioneer lost, a Philadelphia debut that became an anthem, and two New York giants entering the Rock Hall.

OMYGOTTI

Toronto hip-hop artist | 730K+ Facebook

1990

Big Daddy Kane Drops Taste of Chocolate

Big Daddy Kane released his third studio album Taste of Chocolate on October 30, 1990. It peaked at number ten on the Top R and B and Hip Hop Albums chart and confirmed the second side of Kane: after the raw speed of his first two records, here was the smooth operator, dressing sharp and rapping like every bar had been tailored.

The album matters because it widened the job description. Kane proved an MC could be a technician and a heartthrob in the same breath, a balance later generations from Brooklyn and beyond have been chasing ever since. Taste of Chocolate is not always the first Kane record named, but the lane it opened never closed.

My take: Kane at his smoothest was still Kane. The pen never took a night off, it just changed suits.

2002

Hip Hop Loses Jam Master Jay

Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC was shot and killed at his recording studio in Queens on October 30, 2002. He was 37. Born Jason Mizell, he was the DJ behind the most important group of hip hop first era, the man whose cuts and stage presence turned two MCs into a stadium act and helped carry the culture from park jams to arenas.

Run-DMC broke barriers that artists still walk through: the Rock Hall, the Aerosmith collaboration, the Adidas era. Jay was the engine room of all of it, a Hollis, Queens product who stayed rooted in his neighbourhood and mentored younger artists there. October 30 is remembered in this culture with real grief, because the loss was both musical and personal to a whole borough.

My take: Every DJ who ever held a group together owes Jay a debt. He made the turntables a headline instrument, and Queens has never forgotten him.

2012

Meek Mill Releases Dreams and Nightmares

Meek Mill released his debut studio album Dreams and Nightmares on October 30, 2012, through Maybach Music Group and Warner Bros. Records. The album topped the Top R and B and Hip Hop Albums chart and introduced Philadelphia's hungriest voice to the whole map, years of mixtape work finally given a major label frame.

Its title track outgrew the album entirely. The intro, quiet piano turning into a full sprint, became one of the defining records of the decade, a locker room, parade and protest staple that still raises the temperature in any room in Philadelphia. Debut albums rarely hand an artist a permanent anthem. This one did it in the first three minutes.

My take: The Dreams and Nightmares intro is a civic document in Philly. Meek arrived with his whole city on his back and never put it down.

2020

Busta Rhymes Returns With ELE2

Busta Rhymes released his tenth studio album, Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God, on October 30, 2020. It reached number seven on the Billboard 200 and arrived as a sequel to his 1998 classic, more than two decades later, with guest appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak and Mariah Carey among a long list of collaborators.

Sequels that late are usually nostalgia plays. Busta treated his like a title defence, rapping at full speed over big production and reminding a new generation why his name sat on greatest MC lists before many of them were born. Twenty two years between chapters, and the breath control had not aged a day.

My take: Busta did not come back for a victory lap. He came back competing, and ELE2 is what a veteran sounds like with something left to prove.

2021

Jay-Z and LL Cool J Enter Rock Hall

Jay-Z and LL Cool J were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on October 30, 2021, Jay-Z in the Performers category and LL Cool J receiving the Musical Excellence Award. Two New York careers that started in the genre lean years were formally placed in the permanent record of American music, in the same ceremony, on the same night.

The pairing told the story of the culture arc. LL was one of rap first solo superstars, a teenager with a boombox on his first album cover who became an institution. Jay-Z turned the hustler narrative into a business empire and a catalogue that spans four decades of charts. By 2021 the argument was no longer whether hip hop belonged in that building. It was which wing.

My take: Same night, two blueprints: the first solo star and the ultimate self made mogul. October 30, 2021 was a coronation the culture earned decades earlier.