"You ain't gonna sell two copies if you press a double album"

The Challenge
written by JusHH

What’s the hardest thing to do in rap? A hit record? Please, it seems that anyone with a cute gimmick can get one of those. Get a platinum album? Nope. Even with the decline in album sales, every year someone is bound to sell a million records and in many years, multiple artists reach that mark. Get 5 Mics or win a Grammy? Nope and nope. You see, this thing is so hard to do that its only been attempted a handful of times and most of them have failed. When the Wu-Tang Clan and Jay-Z both failed to accomplish this feat in their respective primes, it tells you just how tough this really is. It’s so rare that it falls below many people’s radar…

I’m talking about the Double Album.

Making a great double album has for some reason, proven to be a low point for many artists’ catalogs. Even those who’ve produced classic albums dropped the ball when they attempted to put 24 songs together at one time. Every time that it is announced that a rapper is releasing a double album, the buzz is almost instantaneous. Months of anticipation builds until you finally get the album, pop it into your deck and 45 to 90 minutes later – disappointment. You say either one of two things to yourself when you finished listening to the album.

One, you say to yourself, “man, if dude would have just took “x” number of songs of disc 1 and “x” number of songs off disc 2, this album would be a classic.” How many people created their own personal playlist for Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint 2: The Gift and The Curse”? Your hindsight is definitely 20/20 as you secretly wished that Jay-Z would have just picked the best 12 songs and forgot about the whole idea to begin with. The same went for Nas and his 2004’s “Street’s Disciple” album. There were just some songs that definitely shouldn’t have made the cut. It’s still a mystery why such great artists can make more than 12 or 13 quality songs at one time but when they attempt to fill two discs, some horrible songs always seem to end up on the list. We’re often told that rappers make 40 or 50 songs per album and just choose the best ones but maybe it’s too difficult to maintain that quality over two discs.

Two, if some of the songs don’t make you cringe, too many will be mediocre which forces you to get bored and you’ll find yourself having trouble finishing the album. You know the signs of this because you don’t play the album a lot and when you do play it a year or two later, you completely forget that certain songs existed. The entire second disc on Wu-Tang’s “Forever” album is a complete blur after “Triumph”. Even if you didn’t bother to listen to both of the CD’s back to back, it is still hard to finish. The sheer monotony just puts you to sleep and you end up skipping over songs. Nelly put forth the best effort by giving each album its own theme. But even that missed the mark as much of those songs left a lot to be desired. I recently listened to the “Art of War”, Bone Thugs’ double album, and I realized that there were some pretty decent songs that I completely blanked on. It was like I was hearing them for the first time. But the only feeling that I had when I finally finished, was that it was too long. With Hip-Hop fans having the attention span of a 4-year old, trying to keep them consistently bumping to your music over a span of 20+ songs.

Nas and Jay-Z both said prior to the release of their double albums, that they felt that having a double album on your resume is required in order to be considered one of the best. Unfortunately their albums were one of the worst in their careers. But they were right about one thing, the Double Album is Hip-Hop’s secret litmus test for a rapper’s greatness. The Double Album shows a rapper’s ability to be versatile, consistent, creative and show a strong control over his own craft. You have to have all of these things not only to keep your audience’s attention for so long, but to have them love it so much that they keep hitting the repeat button. With such a daunting task, it should be no surprise that the only two artists to come up with classic double albums are Biggie and 2Pac.

So to the current stars such as Eminem, 50 Cent, Kanye West, TI and Weezy, the challenge is in front of you. Are you up for it?