as said by Nas on "These Are Our Heroes" (Streets Disciple, 2004)?
(I know we've got a crowd here that'll discredit anything he says, but I've heard other rappers say the same thing.)

So, for those of you who'd know the "scenes" in hip hop's history better than I would, was there really a point in time in which being "conscious" could get you noticed? Got any examples of that for me?

Or did movements like the post-Rawkus/Soulquarians/Def Jux types, even though they didn't get much mainstream attention, make rappers with a more street image defensive about what they represented?

when jay shouted out talib/common and extended their careers or arguably made their careers.
i mean people still mention talib kweli when they talk about underground or conscious rap in 2014 and i'm pretty sure he hasn't recorded an album for a major label in 7 years.

anyway, jay shouted them out.
kanye's first single "all falls down" was a smash and was "conscious".
kanye had other songs he did following "get by" for other groups that were awful attempts at conscious rap that got heavy rotation like that song for dilated peoples or the one for slum village.
common, chappelle, talib, kanye, dead prez appeared on the cover of xxl in mid-2004.
jay-z hopped on the remix of that dead prez song that ended their career that was encouraging committing crime to better your life rather than empowering your self legally.

there was definitely a period in 2004 with kanye, chappelle, jay's cosign where a lot of okayplayer acts "mattered".

hence, block party.

when nas said that in late-04 it was relevant.

that was in many ways the last song nas made that mattered.

1) Talib's album dropped last year on EMI Universal..

2) If Ye and shortly after was the last conscious era then aren't we in a revival now? With Macklemore, Kendrick.. shit even J Cole got songs talmbout don't fix your "crooked smile". Or do you mean specifically "uplifting" conscious song? like a T.I. Live Your Life

Double 0
DJ/Producer/Artist
Producer in Kidz In The Hall
-------------------------------------------
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>1) Talib's album dropped last year on EMI Universal..

thanks. i didn't know he made music still.

>2) If Ye and shortly after was the last conscious era then
>aren't we in a revival now? With Macklemore, Kendrick.. shit
>even J Cole got songs talmbout don't fix your "crooked smile".
> Or do you mean specifically "uplifting" conscious song? like
>a T.I. Live Your Life
>
>

nowadays no rappers wanna be political bc they're on Obama's nuts

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

>anyway, jay shouted them out.
>kanye's first single "all falls down" was a smash and was
>"conscious".
>kanye had other songs he did following "get by" for other
>groups that were awful attempts at conscious rap that got
>heavy rotation like that song for dilated peoples or the one
>for slum village.
>common, chappelle, talib, kanye, dead prez appeared on the
>cover of xxl in mid-2004.
>jay-z hopped on the remix of that dead prez song that ended
>their career that was encouraging committing crime to better
>your life rather than empowering your self legally.
>
>there was definitely a period in 2004 with kanye, chappelle,
>jay's cosign where a lot of okayplayer acts "mattered".
>
>hence, block party.
>

Yeah, I guess when I was seeing all that go on, the way I saw it, their profiles were being raised due to Jay, Kanye, and Chappelle like you said, but we were still smack dab in the middle of the 50 Cent era and all that...and the Okayplayer crew that you spoke of were trying to court the mainstream, but still failing (perhaps other than Be).

Idk, I was there for that, but I didn't think that that whole movement was poppin enough to make any other rapper, or fan for that matter, salty about it.

sidenote: Yeah, "I Try" felt like a lame "Get By" ripoff, but you didn't like "This Way" or "Selfish"?!? (which I never even thought of as an attempt at a "conscious" song...but just a more female-/soul-brother-friendly kind of pimpin braggadocio.)

>when nas said that in late-04 it was relevant.
>
>that was in many ways the last song nas made that mattered.

If only the beat was dope...

________________________________________________________________
whenever you did these things to the least of my brothers you did them to me

however, I don't think that's the consciousness fad that rappers complain about.

After PE hit big with the It Takes A Nation album and "Fight The Power" blew up and was the lead song for "Do The Right Thing". Nations had the perfect mix of commercial success and critical acclaim and Chuck's famous "Rap Is The Black CNN" quote was plastered all over every magazine and report on Rap. BDP's By All Means Necessary was another major landmark album along with the Self Destruction song. After that you started to see a huge trend of "conscious" and "Pro Black" rappers getting signed by both majors and indies. Lakim Shabazz, PRT, X-Clan, Black By Demand, Positively Black, Two Kings In Cypher, etc all had deals and released albums and artists who in the past hadn't shown that type of consciousness in their material started to lean that way.

>as said by Nas on "These Are Our Heroes" (Streets Disciple,
>2004)?
>(I know we've got a crowd here that'll discredit anything he
>says, but I've heard other rappers say the same thing.)
>
>So, for those of you who'd know the "scenes" in hip hop's
>history better than I would, was there really a point in time
>in which being "conscious" could get you noticed? Got any
>examples of that for me?
>
>Or did movements like the post-Rawkus/Soulquarians/Def Jux
>types, even though they didn't get much mainstream attention,
>make rappers with a more street image defensive about what
>they represented?

It happened years before that and artist who didn't conform to the trend caught flack. LL famously was booed at a rally for Yusuf Hawkins. Schoolly D, the original Gangster rapper, felt compelled to record the "Am I Black Enough For You?" album. Jaz switched his style from his first album which was more in line with the Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince fun type of brag based rap to a more conscious style on the very next album. Even the rappers who didn't jump full on into that style incorporated "positive" messages on their album because that was the way it was done. G Rap had "Erase Racism", Kane had "Word To The Motherland" and other songs much like the whole gangster trend a bunch of people who really had nothing to do with Hip Hop got signed because companies saw dollars and thought they could capitalize on this "message music" so you had Sister Souljah getting signed when she was never really an MC. Professor Griff released a series of albums and a bunch of new found MC's coming straight out of the Nation releases songs.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

The trendy part of your topic is that being apart of the most likable artists is what you really mean, cause back when Big Daddy Kane, Poor Righteous Teachers, KRS-One, Rakim, Jungle Brothers, ATCQ, Queen Latifah, X-Clan, & etc.

If you notice all those kats were at the top of their game lyrically and musically, being conscious was just one of the things they would always do on at least 1/3 of their songs.

Even when Talib, Mos Def, Dead Prez, Non-Phixion, Brother Ali, etc, this isn't beign trendy to them but just that they rather rhyme about something other than what other do most of the time, when you're making good music, is that being trendy especially when these day and age it's more underground than ever?

https://tinyurl.com/y4ba6hog

---------
"We in here talking about later career Prince records
& your fool ass is cruising around in a time machine
trying to collect props for a couple of sociopathic degenerates" - s.blak

Not that it really answers the question, but I was listening to that album on the Way home and thought of how funny it would be for Kanye to try drop Kwe's name NOW

R.I.P. Loud But Wrong Guy
Dec 29th 2009 - Dec 17th 2017