I bought 50 cents The Massacre bootleg in 5th grade off a student in my class. What does that tell you
It was pablo
at least i got 2016 right
The limewire era with very slow internet preceded torrenting so most people were pirating single songs
Album culture really got fleshed out around 2010 when average people could download without needing supreme patience
A lot of people had fast internet in the early 2000's already. And nobody had Youtube or Spotify yet. I used to hang around different hiphop forums back then where we shared albums via IRC channels or DC++ rooms. And all it took was that you knew one person with high speed internet and a CD burner and they could share it with everyone they knew.
I can almost guarantee that The Eminem Show is the most bootlegged album of all time. And if it isn't, it has to be some other album from ca 2000-2005.