Yeah I was in a toss up too... Deciding what I'd call Retro even.. like Montell Jordan.. I ended up doing oldschool as Fu Shnickens, Black Sheep, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul etc.. Everything upto 2000 I called oldschool.. May be a little high but every year it gets closer to oldschool.

I usually refer to tribe, gangstarr, digable planets, epmd, etc. as Golden Era hip hop. Rakim, big daddy kane, grandmaster flash, etc. as old school. But you know what, on SSL I have it all grouped under OLD SCHOOL, it's just easier.

Im with Rumor & Robinson, I usually tag everything before 2000 Old School, but it's depends on who you are, if your 30 that might not be old school, but if your 23 like me, that's old school :) But thats the thing about having crates because I have blacksheep choice is yours under my "club/party" crate and also under my "real hip-hop crate".

i think the pundits usually consider a song to be genuine old skool on or after its 10th anniversary. I usually classify songs based on this principle. I tend to bend the rules a little though, when it comes to mainstream and party hip hop. Presently In my ssl record crate songs up to 1998 i tend to classify as retro hip hop.

I have Classic hip-hop as pre-Biggie / 2 Pac (1992'ish and older), old school as Biggie / 2 Pac up to around 2000, and most stuff from 2k onward as just plain hip-hop. All that Nu-Soul / R&B dance stuff gets its own category.

Ryme hit it, Old school for me is Curtis Blow, Soulsonic Force, Uncle Jam's army, whodini.
I did things a bit different. For me, Classic Hiphop isn't just an era its the songs that stand the test of time. "Friends" and "OPP" are in my classic Hip hop just like "I know you got soul". I couldn't make the discision of where to draw the line so I just did a bit of genre/era stuff. Old school, Classic. New school, Gfunk, West Coast Gansster, East Coast Gangster, But if I had to draw the line Then I guess Old School for me would close out just before MC Hammer. I'm not sure what to name that era up till 98 or 99 from there.

Old School ('til 1989)
Mid School (1990 to 1997 ish)
New School (1998 to Present)

Nice on the years. That fits

Classic through '89
Old school '90 to late 90's
Everything else late 90's up

it's not really useful to do that. you should go by sound, like jazz hip hop, boom bap, gangster, pop, hardcore, experimental, commercial, etc. all stuff in eras don't really all go together. hip hop is vast, that is, if your mind is open.

I think the problem is that a lot of the people that we deal with at parties don't have open minds. "Excuse me Mr DJ...can you play me some real Hip Hop...like BEP My Humps" =)

Lol hehe so true

I got we don't want any of the rap stuff.. ya know tupac but 50 cent is ok

exactly what i mean. but we got to try sometimes and sneak it in there.

www.sessiona.com - positive hip hop movement
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Hey Audible check your private messages.

I normally categorize 1994 and before as "classic hiphop". The era of Fugees, tribe, digable, PRT, etc. Then from 1994 onto 1999 I just categorize that as a "90's HipHop". 2000 to present is "current HipHop" and I have one crate of "Club hits" which has everything i need to use to rock the crowd.

I know my way doesnt make much sense but it definitely works for me to have everything categorized for the right crowd.

Session A! hahahah whattup! Tell Analog and Frantik I said Whattup! This is JayP from Third Floor Radio.

I'm pretty late to the discussion, but I break it down a bit differently, not so much by year but by style:

Disco Era Rap - the really early records, where the rappers are performing over a studio band playing a disco beat, i.e. Enjoy, Sugar Hill, early Kurtis Blow, Jimmy Spicer, etc.

Old School Rap - the drum machine takes over. Run DMC were the kings of this era, along with UTFO, Whodini, Mantronix, the Fat Boys, etc.

Mid-School Rap a.k.a. the Golden Age-- definitely starts in '86, tho plenty of rap records released in '86 still fall into the Old School category. This is when sampling loops and chopping up breakbeats begins. Biz Markie, Big Daddy Kane, Eric B. & Rakim, EPMD, De La Soul, Audio 2, BDP, Ultramagnetic, N.W.A., and so forth.

New School Rap-- This more or less begins with Snoop Dogg, and is when production techniques get a bit more complex, and the music begins sounding far more polished. No more bedroom-level production. Biggie, 2Pac, Puff Daddy, Missy, Jay-Z...

Pop Rap-- Around the turn of the century, rap took over and became the pop music of America, and the sound became much more homogenized and "corporate," for a lack of a better term. This era lasts until today.

There are plenty of exceptions to the rule. Jurassic Five, for example, falls into the New School timeline, but they sound more like a disco era act like the Crash Crew at time than they do any of their peers. In today's era of pop rap, some indie rap acts are creating their own styles, and sound more rooted in the mid or new school than they do in today's sound.

^^^ Nice breakdown

I like that Disco Era Rap tag - may have to scan my library and see if worth using.....

So.......

What do you call this Mumble Rap and non lyrical fucked up ass hot garbage bullshit that started after 2010 to today???

I have a fair amount of the old disco era rap records, though I don't get much call for them anymore. I DJ'ed rap music from 1984 until around the time Biggie died, and my interest in the music has waned greatly since then, so I'm not really up on any new stuff. I don't even know what Mumble Rap is. Sounds pretty bad, but then, most of what I hear today doesn't grab me. There was something about the raw, unpolished sound of those late '80s acts that was lost once professionals, and computers, took over.

Evolution of Mumble Rap: Watchwww.youtube.com - great summary - lol

Greg Gioia, excellent. The only thing I would add to that is "Underground"