Hip Hop was better in the 80s. Not necessarily the music, but the genre itself was fresh and new.
There were only a handful of albums in the first half of the 80s. It was more of a singles game. You'd release a 12" single and 6 months later you'd release another single. Sometimes there would be a song on the b-side.
Towards the second half of the 80s rap albums and rap videos became more common.
Nowadays the market is overcrowded and truthfully it's been overcrowded for about 20 years now. Back in the 80s it was considered a big deal if somebody came out with a new rap album. And it didn't matter who it was, or if the album was any good, just the fact that it was a rap album was a big deal.
Now, a big name artist can drop an album and you might not even check for it because there's so much other stuff to listen to.