david bammer Member since Jun 20th 2010 4467 posts
Sat Mar-17-12 10:07 PM
"naughty by nature's photography/art direction upon their arrival..." Sat Mar-17-12 10:14 PM by david bammer
in many ways, naughty by nature were a pre-cursor to a lot of the cruddy inner-city east coast imagery you would end-up seeing on cover-art/music videos/magazine promo pics for the next 3 years or so.
1991 in new york city was a transitional year. you had a lot of new 90's clothing brands and styles in their infancy, but there was still a lot of leftovers that would soon be passe as hell like big gucci link chains, big ass hightop nike force sneakers and hightops fades kicking around too.
i think you can make the case that the direction naughty by nature took in portraying themselves when they came out as naughty by nature in late 1991 really was a starting point of a lot of things to follow... but ESPECIALLY what followed image-wise in east coast hip-hop in the wake of their arrival the following year in 1992.
epmd & the hit squad, kris-kross, ice cube, showbiz & ag, diamond, nas, the double x posse, of course apache and latifah, brand nubian even r&b acts like mary j blige, tlc and jodeci... the list goes on. but they all were doing things image-wise that sort of really came to a proliferation with the image direction tommy boy and naughty by nature took when they came out in 1991.
they also had one of the more memorable logos in rap history. something that reached it's zenith in hip-hop with the wu-tang clan. i'm not claiming they hold the crown of innovating that because groups like public enemy and run dmc had done that years prior and everybody had a logo in those days... however, all i'm saying is the wu were arguably influenced by naughty by nature's art direction as shown in their earliest singles and promo pics and next to the w-sword the naughty by nature bat logo is probably the 2nd hiphop logo to come to my mind from that 1992-1994 period in rap music.
i've never seen or heard anybody really give naughty by nature the props they deserve on this front. or any props for that matter anymore because of how popular they were with white audiences before that reached hip-hop journalistic acceptance in the late 90's. but their photography/art direction were innovative, influential and most importantly DOPE. they made a HUGE impact on this front only rivaled by a few elite acts in the genre who had game-changing style, imagery and art direction that re-defined everything to come after it...
5. "Just the way Tommy Boy marketed them was so smart" In response to Reply # 0
They were hood, but Treach was still a ladies man, and was often sold as such. At least for those first couple albums, it seems as if they found the healthiest possible balance in an era where "keeping it real" still counted for something.
Def Jam dusted it off, updated it a little, and used it when they were selling Method Man to the masses.
___________________________ OL' DIRTY BASTARD on himself: "I may curse, I may have a bad mouth, whatever whatever. I'm not that bad, yaknow'mean. Bad to y'all, I dunno how y'all... I don't give a fuck. Um, I'm a good person at heart, for real and shit.
9. "They weren't always Naught by Nature as I recall" In response to Reply # 5
My boy showed me a promo pic from their first try around the time they blew up. It was far from menacing. That's the first time I was exposed to the world of hip hop marketing.
Taking shots in the dark/that's a bad call Going straight for your head/ gotta saw it off
6. "tangent, what do you think of Asap rocky's art direction/aesthetic/photo..." In response to Reply # 0
_______________________________________ When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer
david bammer Member since Jun 20th 2010 4467 posts
Sun Mar-18-12 01:59 PM
12. "RE: tangent, what do you think of Asap rocky's art direction/aesthetic/p..." In response to Reply # 6
i don't have enough exposure. i think that 13 year old white girl with tinfoil on her teeth in the purple video put me off from his art direction enough i'll probably never watch another video again.
it seems unfocused and uniteresting to me, only losely held together by amateur filmmakers with high-end cameras but no real forethought of a "direction". but again, that's off watching 7 seconds of 1 video and nothing else. so i'm not really knowledgeable on what he's doing nor do i care.
7. "they were my fav hip hop group not named the geto boys" In response to Reply # 0
treach held down the rapping, gave that hood element and appealed to the ladies
vin rock was like the perfect straight man, something abt how he came across was like just an avg everyday dude rhyming w/ his boys something that most of us did & could easily relate to...i dont remember a single vin rock verse that ever stood out but i cant imagine the group w/o dude
& of course KG the musician, making beats that were hard, but radio friendly, again appealing to both men & women w/o selling out too hard in either direction
10. ""You're chillin w/ a titty feelin villian"" In response to Reply # 7
would be his stand out verse for me lol.
>...i dont remember a single vin rock verse that ever stood >out but i cant imagine the group w/o dude > >& of course KG the musician, making beats that were hard, but >radio friendly, again appealing to both men & women w/o >selling out too hard in either direction > >dope group that doesnt get nearly enough props > >
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