September 29th, 1998: A 25th Anniversary Retrospective
September 29th, 1998 was Rap’s last great album release date. As a former Tower Records employee who worked the midnight sale that night, I offer a first-hand account deconstructing that night. I’ll explain what made it so special and why we’ll never experience another organic Rap release date like it ever again.
When it comes to Rap discussions, there are personal opinions and there are factual statements that people will often mistake for personal opinions. When I say that September 29th, 1998 was Rap music’s last great release date, that is not an opinion. It is a fact.
Sure, there were several great Rap release dates in the past but the fact of the matter is release dates for Rap records before we were deep into the SoundScan Era simply weren’t a thing regardless of how much revisionist history you might encounter from Rap discourse on real time social media.
For instance, on Wikipedia Big Daddy Kane’s Long Live The Kane and Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back were released on the same day. Thing is, they weren’t. Public Enemy’s album was likely released on a Friday by Columbia Records as they often liked to do for big releases and there’s evidence Long Live The Kane was probably released in late May by Cold Chillin’/Warner Bros., not in late June 1988. Point I’m making is people had no idea when Rap albums were released in the late ’80s. That’s proven by the fact for the past almost 20 years outlets have been saying Straight Outta Compton was released on August 8th, 1988, which was 6 whole months before Ruthless/Priority actually began shipping it on February 10th, 1989.
If people can’t remember that The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick wasn’t even out until it was almost Christmas 1988 as opposed to it dropping 4 weeks before Thanksgiving 1988 even occurred then let’s not kid ourselves like people were aware enough about Rap release dates back then to line up for multiple Rap albums. May 14th, 1991 was arguably the first real contender for the GOAT Rap release date with a legendary slate of De La Soul’s De La Soul Is Dead, Ice T’s O.G. Original Gangster, KMD’s Mr. Hood and Son Of Bazerk’s Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk.
Before then, it was thought Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk was released on May 7th, 1991 and all data is pointing to Chubb Rock’s The One being released on May 21st, 1991. That key addition to the lineup might’ve possibly tipped the scales in its favor. July 2nd, 1991 saw the impressive list of Heavy D & The Boyz Peaceful Journey, Slick Rick The Ruler’s Back and Leaders Of The New School’s A Future Without A Past but it’s not quite enough to be considered the greatest Rap album release date in history.
We look at other perspective great release dates like September 22nd, 1992 which had Diamond & Psychotic Neurotics’ Stunts, Blunts & Hip-Hop, Showbiz & A.G.’s Runaway Slave, Da Lench Mob’s Guerillas In Tha Mist and Redman’s Whut? Thee Album. There’s just one problem… Redman’s album wasn’t released on that day.
Whut? Thee Album entered Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart on October 24th, 1992 at #37 whereas Da Lench Mob, whose album was RIAA certified Gold on December 18th, 1992 had already been on that very same chart for 3 weeks and were sitting at #16. Whut? Thee Album was certified Gold on June 11th, 1993 and according to the RIAA website, the release date was October 9th, 1992. This would make sense as Columbia loved to release albums on Fridays.
When you check Cash Box, Whut? Thee Album is reviewed as a new release in the October 10th, 1992 issue and didn’t enter Cash Box’s Top 30 Rap Albums chart until November 7th, 1992 at #16. Da Lench Mob had been there for 3 weeks already at #9. Whut? Thee Album didn’t get a new release review in Billboard until the October 17th, 1992 issue so that shuts the door on the GOAT release date case for September 22nd, 1992.
September 28th, 1993 was the release date for KRS One’s Return Of The Boom Bap, Souls Of Mischief’s 93 Til Infinity and Spice 1’s 187 He Wrote as Jive/RCA labelmates. November 9th, 1993 gave us A Tribe Called Quest Midnight Marauders and Wu-Tang Clan Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), but on that day most people bought Midnight Marauders then bought the the Wu later even though a significant amount of heads entered the record store with the intention of buying both. That release date became an event after the fact as opposed to it being one already going in. Also, it takes more than just two classic albums dropping on the same day to be considered a GOAT Rap release date contender.
When we pore through 1994, there’s a few good overall release Rap dates there but no real GOAT contender. November 7th, 1995 presents a formidable case with GZA’s Liquid Swords, Goodie Mob’s Soul Food, Erick Sermon’s Double Or Nothing, and Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise. 1997 had quite a few notable and big Rap release dates, but none I’d say were far and away all-time great contenders. That brings us right back to September 29th, 1998. A release day that organically generated great excitement amongst Rap fans from every imaginable corner of fandom for multiple reasons.
1998 seems so far way but in my memory it feels like yesterday. Our Tower Records location was preparing for the final Tuesday of September for about two weeks. The supervisors even went as far as to devise a plan to pull the cash drawers at 30 to 45-minute intervals, and count them while the midnight sale was still going to speed up the closing process. They had the four fastest cashiers on the 2nd floor scheduled to work that shift to prevent us from getting backed up.
We established these new guidelines after seeing how slammed the video floor was the night/day of August 31st/September 1st, 1998 when the Titanic VHS & DVD went on sale at midnight. It took supervisors from all three floors to count & input all of the sales from that initial 36 hour stretch.
Back then I’d acquired a gang of friends on the 2nd floor — Tower Records Boston’s music floor — due to the fact that on the weekends I covered for the Emerson, Massachusetts Communications College (MassCom), New England Conservatory Of Music, and Berklee College Of Music students who either had schoolwork, practice/rehearsals, gigs or prior engagements and couldn’t work those shifts.
I was already working 3 PM to Midnight from Monday to Friday on the 1st floor and scheduled from 11 AM to 8 PM on Saturday and Sunday on the 2nd floor. We got an hour break for lunch each shift and on the weekends I often hustled my way into closing on the 1st floor in the video store after my 2nd floor shifts were over because they always got slammed with customers and video returns on the weekend. I made myself invaluable to the Tower Records management and my fellow employees alike.
Now let’s examine why this particular Rap release date was so huge and such a monumental event that can never again be re-created or synthesized. The players involved are Jay-Z, who’s about to launch his Roc-A-Fella empire off the back of this album riding the momentum of the massive retail success of the straight to video “Streets Is Watching” to become a legitimate superstar. By September 1998, that Roc A Fella VHS was RIAA certified Platinum in 4 months time.
A Tribe Called Quest, one of Rap’s most influential, beloved and respected groups was calling it quits which brought out a wide cross section of fans to say goodbye and pay their respects. They also wanted to buy The Love Movement early for the 2nd disc which was a limited edition 6 track collection of rare and unreleased material.
OutKast, the same group that once proclaimed that “The South’s got something to say” at the 1995 Source Awards had become one of the biggest Rap groups on Earth by 1998. They amassed a diverse fanbase over their first two albums produced by Organized Noise and were on the cusp of superstardom. OutKast moved a disgusting amount of units with a lead single “Skew It On The Bar-B” that failed to even crack the Hot 100 but “Black Ice” had been hot on the radio and video networks for months. Brand Nubian reunited with its original members for the first time since their classic 1990 debut LP, One for All on Foundation.
The last piece of the puzzle was the long awaited album from the underground’s favorite duo Mos Def and Talib Kweli, collectively known as Black Star. They were regarded as the “last hope” to save Rap from its overly commercial leanings at the time. Needless to say, people had no idea Rawkus was backed by corporate money that allowed this indie label to stomp with the big dogs. “Definition” was Top 20 in R&B Singles Sales on Billboard and climbing on the R&B charts. It was getting spins on the radio like they rocked shiny suits themselves.
The Fall of 1998 was very special in the timeline of the eventual decline of both box stores and music sales numbers. It was just before sites like Amazon.com would rule it’s first ever holiday sales season and cut significantly into the profits of brick & mortar music stores like Tower Records, Strawberries, HMV, Virgin and electronics stores like Tweeter and Circuit City.
That dreaded Titanic sale I mentioned previously? We were selling out of pallets of VHS tapes. People couldn’t even comprehend the concept of “widescreen” back then. Every day was excruciating when we explained to customers on the video floor about panscan, aspect ratios and that in standard VHS video they cropped out a significant amount of the camera shot to fit it onto the TV screen.
We even had a prop created by the art department that showed how much of the screen was cut off! In 85% of cases after we did this demonstration, the customer still opted for the standard VHS copy. This is how I knew there was no hope for humanity, even when presented with all of the evidence and information they’ll still make the wrong choice the overwhelming majority of the time.
Extra space was made in the Rap section for the new releases. Just in case, there’d be extra boxes of Jay-Z’s Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Love Movement, and OutKast’s Aquemini available if the bins went bare. Several Tower employees got $100 advances on their next paychecks from the store’s key supervisor to pay for their own midnight sale purchases.
An informal line began to form outside at about 10:45 PM. Eventually, they just queued up without even having been told to by the staff, even though some were sent out to make sure the line went down the right street, had the proper spacing and were led to the escalator. There was a line of customers down the block on Newbury St. by midnight.
Everyone came out: middle-aged adults, college students, teenagers, kids with their parents, casual fans, diehards, and backpackers alike all showed up to buy CDs and participate in this organic event we didn’t publicize. It was almost as if each person who lined up that night had come out to vote.
We’d already decided a half hour into the midnight sale that we’d be playing all five of the albums the next day in the store — clean versions, mind you. After 45 minutes, the crowd thinned out enough so we could finally close the store. Now, it was time to swap out the last two drawers of the night to sell to all of the Tower employees.
Employees that weren’t even working that day showed up to cop their albums. The top sellers in order were: Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life, The Love Movement, Aquemini, Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, and Brand Nubian’s Foundation. That was also the order we played them in the store the next day.
The reaction to Black Star, in particular, was interesting. It was probably the first time — after the separation between the mainstream rap industry and the indie rap industry — that I saw underground rap fans come out in force and rally behind an album. I feel as though those fans bought at least three of the five available projects that night, on average. It was all considered a win for Hip-Hop culture on September 29th, 1998 and there were no wrong choices. We’ll never experience a day like that again. I bought every single CD that dropped that night, and I still own them to this day.
September 29th, 1998 came just before sites like Amazon.com would have its first ever holiday sales season, cutting significantly into the profits of brick and mortar music stores like Tower Records. It also came before P2P sites like Napster and sites like mp3.com would result in more CD-Rs and CD-RWs being sold than actual CDs just 8 months later. Keep in mind that CDs were selling like hotcakes made with crack batter in Fall 1998. Britney Spears’ lead single dropped on the same day of the midnight sale I’m writing about, folks! This was when the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and co. were all beginning their dominance of TRL.
CD-Rs and CD-RWs already sold at high numbers since the new Apple iMacs 3Gs were introduced to the retail market the previous month. They were also prevalent in Metro Boston Area high schools, colleges and universities, but in 9 months time, it was a different story altogether. To further put things into perspective, only 5% of all American homes possessed DVD players in October 1998. And most importantly, September 29th, 1998 occurred before the Internet and Napster could really negatively affect physical album sales.
In 1998, Rap was the top-selling genre of music and retailers were well aware of this fact. They pulled out all the stops in terms of marketing. We had holdovers from the first Golden Era releasing records the same day as new “hot” rappers. Many were in line because they recognized the significance of this event, and they all waited for the day Rap finally ruled the sales charts. It will never be like this again in a heavily curated playlist and streams-driven era ruled by data, analytics, and algorithms.
On October 17th, 1998 Billboard announced that Jay-Z sold 352,000 units in the opening week of sales. Reasonable Doubt moved only 43,000 in that same span and In My Lifetime Vol. 1 scanned 138,000 copies. The Roc A Fella Era was officially in effect as Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life jumped from #89 with partial sales reported the previous week to #1 on the Top R&B Albums Chart. The Love Movement moved from #70 the previous week with a partial sales count down to #3 on that very same chart after selling 175,000 copies.
Sitting at #2 was OutKast’s Aquemini after moving an impressive 227,000 units without a radio hit. This was before they even dropped the single for “Rosa Parks” which would become a smash hit and further change the trajectory of their careers. Brand Nubian’s Foundation entered the Top R&B Albums at #12 followed by Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star at #13.
On the Billboard 200, Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life debuted at #1, Aquemini debuted at #2, and The Love Movement was #3. Sitting at #4 in its 6th week on the charts was The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill. Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star entered the Billboard 200 at #53 while Brand Nubian’s Foundation stepped to the rear with the 59th spot.
To fully put everything in perspective, Gangsta Boo’s Enquiring Minds entered the Billboard 200 that week at #46 and Everlast’s Whitey Ford Sings The Blues just cracked the Billboard 200 for the first time at #173. For the unaware, this album would go on to sell 2 million units in about 6 months time. It was 2x Platinum certified by the RIAA on March 29th, 1999 while Lauryn Hill was sitting at 5x Platinum in that same time period. People were buying records, kids.
By the next Summer, that very same Boston Tower Records would realize that it was at Ground Zero of a new digital revolution as on June 1st, 1999 Napster spread from Northeastern University to Emerson College, Berklee College Of Music, Boston University, Harvard University and onto the campuses of over 50 colleges and universities in the Metro Boston Area thanks to a kid from Brockton, MA. Boston had a thriving independent Hip-Hop scene so shows at The Middle East, The Western Front, Harper’s Ferry & Bill’s Bar and buying tapes, CDs, and vinyl from Biscuithead Records, Newbury Comics, Tower Records, UGHH or digging at Looney Tunes, Nuggets, Mystery Train, or Satellite Records always gave underground Rap fans a refuge from the mainstream Rap on TV and the radio.
Every big music release date since has either been synthesized or strategically formulated in hopes of getting an apathetic fanbase excited. Consider the manufactured Kanye West vs. 50 Cent sales battle on September 11th, 2007 — or artists just dogpiling on a release date — like on June 18th, 2013, with Kanye West’s Yeezus and J. Cole’s Born Sinner, which for the record Statik Selektah had that release date announced first for his album Extended Play.
In some cases it worked out in the short term. But there will never be another purely organic release date that draws in rap fans of all types into stores to buy CDs, especially albums that represented what these particular five did. The beginning of a dynasty; a swan song; the ascension of new legends; the voice of the underground screaming to be heard; and a reunion of one of rap’s most influential groups. I’ll never forget the genuine level of anticipation, eagerness, and excitement exuded by the fans that came out that night. It saddens me to my core future generations won’t experience anything authentic like this for themselves with how the music industry presently operates.
