Eras of hip hop

I feel like golden age hip lasted from 1985 to around early 1997, but a more accurate time is most of 1987 to most of 1992 if you want to be be pure, although late 1992 to 1994 still had stuff that fits that pre snoop pre wu tang vibe 1991 vibe, you could say mid 1992 to early to mid 1996 is the second part, it comes second to 87-92, imo its not as good but still pretty solid.  I would say mid 1996 to early 1997 is when hip hop started slightly declining with snoop dogg and dr. dre very medicore releases, tupac and biggy passing away and shiny suit rap vibe and crew (allayiah, lil kim, mase, missy elliot, timbaland) just starting out. Even though early to mid 1997 to 1998 had some classic style core 90s rap leftover it wasn't as good as earlier. 

The chronic and other albums in late 1992 sort of setup the gangsta rap of the rest of the 90s, the chronic still has enough elements to make it a classic early 90s record but it has some of that cheesy overdone mid 90s gangsta rap style that may have been more original at the time than in retrospect.  Wu-Tang and Snoop Dogg in 1993 solidified that mid 90s second wave gangsta rap vibe but I can't say they are better than the best artists of the earlier rap wave, they had a few things in common with late 90s/Y2K commerical rap tbh that 1987 to mid 1992 hip hop truly doesn't, though its respectively mid 90s rap and still good. 

If I never knew prior, and didn't hear these back in the day, I would have thought they came out in 1998. 

1993



1994



Mid 1996



Mid 1996




I don't care for rap after the late 90s except experiemental, horror themed or underground rap, I think most commerical hip hop in the 2000s-present wasn't as good as the 90s. Although the early 2000s had more diverse hip hop like mos def and some more experimental stuff by outkast and other artists, it was mostly gone for me by 1997-99. 

I prefer stuff like this to the wu tang/snoop era, although I can appreciate both: