What was the best-selling rap album of 1991?
The year 1991 was a significant one in hip-hop. To scan a list of rap albums released that year is to gain a visceral sense of what hip-hop’s golden age once felt like—so many groundbreaking records dropped in ’91.
In terms of the debutants, Cypress Hill, Del the Funky Homosapien and 2Pac all released their first albums in 1991. Pete Rock & CL Smooth released their first ever EP, while GZA also released his debut LP, although this wasn’t actually a success. He only made his name later with the Wu-Tang Clan and his second solo album Liquid Swords.
As for the more seasoned artists, the likes of Gang Starr, Slick Rick, A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah and De La Soul all released their second albums, while DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Public Enemy and Big Daddy Kane put out albums in ’91, too.
NWA also released their second album, N*ggaz4Life, and that sold incredibly well. It debuted at number two in America and apparently sold 954,000 copies during its first week, eventually climbing to the top of the chart. It was the first ever number-one gangsta rap album.
Ice Cube, incidentally, also released his second album away from the group that year. He’d left NWA towards the end of 1989, and his second album, Death Certificate, was a direct competitor to N*ggaz4Life, which proved, ultimately, to be NWA’s last ever album.
But despite the drama of the NWA situation, and despite the innovation and quality of hip-hop during this era, none of the aforementioned artists were quite as commercially successful as Vanilla Ice was in those days. He released his first album in 1990, but it was so successful that it continued to sell in huge numbers throughout ’91.
Vanilla Ice had released a demo version of the album under the title of Hooked in 1989, but, after he was signed to a label, he recorded parts of it and repackaged it as To the Extreme. It was released under that name in September ’91, and, after a steady start, it became a phenomenon.
Driven by the success of singles ‘Ice Ice Baby,’ ‘Play That Funky Music’ and ‘I Love You,’ Ice’s pop-rap stylings connected with a big audience. It spent a number of weeks climbing the charts, until, in mid-November, it reached number one in America. It stayed there for 16 weeks in a row.
This was a remarkable feat, and, at the time, it was considered to be the fastest debut album of all time. By January ’91, it had apparently sold six million copies—but it wasn’t slowing down yet. By March that figure had risen to more than 10 million. It was the best-selling hip-hop album ever until that point, and it popularised the form to a whole new mainstream audience.