Below are definitive moments that have shaped the modern hip-hop era...Instead of leading each point with a synopsis, let's hear what you think abt these events...


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Some people took what Ice-T did and ran with it.
I guess they really believed "There's no such thing as bad publicity".

Ice-T's battle with Time/Warner and the other censors of the day opened up the free speech debates. ( ironically, Luther Campbell did a better job of it, but I digress). As a result, people just started rhyming about ANYTHING. If it was filthy, it moved units.

while Body Count wasnt a great band, the song Cop Killer was along the lines of standard Ice-T fare...The songs protests police brutality...one of the lines in the hook is "fuck police brutality"(nobody said Ice-T was Dylan)....

mind you, this was pre-Rodney King tape...so white folks still thought that we were imagining racial profiling/police harassment/police brutality and couldnt IMAGINE why ANYONE would want to KILL an officer of the law *gasp*

what really happened here was this called the major labels to the carpet for the content of the hip-hop records they had been making a killing on for the past few yrs before that...

white folks were saying to the majors, "how DARE you release records like this?!?!..."

the majors replied: "we never listened to the shit before! why would we do THAT?...we listen to REAL music like Pink Floyd...these evil n****rs tricked us!...from now on, we'll watch these sneaky black weasels like hawks to protect you and your children!..."

thus began a period of censorship and cats losing their deals left and right...


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>thus began a period of censorship and cats losing their deals
>left and right...
>


he was speaking on getting dropped by Time/Warner and saying that some of his friends in the industry were warning him to just sit back and not upset the powers that be.

Ice-T: "It's kinda like when you were a kid. You're hanging out with your friends and decide to throw a rock through the windows of some rich guys house. Your friends try to talk you out of it, because they know you're gonna get in trouble, but something inside you makes you *have* to throw that rock. So you tell your friends to go home, and you throw it anyway..."


I thought that explained it perfectly.

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It may also have led to the gradual silencing of anti-establishment hip hop, which in turn led the way towards the rise of "never hesitate to put a nigga on his back" sentiments being acceptable and commercially viable.


_______________________________
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"One thing I look for in a quarterback is athleticism." - Dad

fuck all that, though.

peace.

also helps out Tipper and her PMRC.

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I have an idea of how, but I'm gonna see how you guys weigh in first.


( essentially though, what I'm gonna say is artists no longer 'earned' #1 status through airplay, requests, etc)

Record companies woke up to the fact that "America Loves Gangsters," and that sex and violence sells, as long as the barrels aren't aimed at their own children or wives.

After that, it became increasingly difficult for artists not of that ilk to break through the doors, which led to the birth of hip hop's independent scene (Hieroglyphics Imperium, Rawkus, Fondle 'Em, etc.), and the death of diversity and individuality. It became cool to bite, because biting was the quickest way to get a record deal.

It's amazing how many artists who released major-label albums in the early-to-mid nineties would have no chance of making it just a few years later.

_______________________________
gamblers and masturbators.

"One thing I look for in a quarterback is athleticism." - Dad

rappers TRIPPED over themselves to get to the studio and record raps with the word "n***a" in it 25 times....

Afrocentric hip-hop died the week Efil4zaggin debuted at #1 on the pop charts....

rappers were so happy to be free of the chains of social repsonsibility....and they celebrated by re-inventing themselves as street criminal caricatures...


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>
>Afrocentric hip-hop died the week Efil4zaggin debuted at #1 on
>the pop charts....
>

And there is no worthy black and brown audience.

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Rappers had a new goal to shoot for.

It was a great album, but they started being charactures of themselves.

Dre killed it tho.

when NWA, the most non-commercial A-list rap group at the time were able to top the POP charts with an ALBUM (an ugly and disgusting album subject-wise, to boot) rappers QUICKLY abandoned their "no sellout/fuck the radio and pop charts" stance and began chasing sales and money...

in the modern day era, hits and sales determine whether or not a hip-hop act deserves respect rather than their skill level or quality of material....


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>in the modern day era, hits and sales determine whether or not
>a hip-hop act deserves respect rather than their skill level
>or quality of material....

Black Eyed Peas made hits and sells a lot of records, but no one really respects them like that. In order to get respect in this modern day era, those hits and sales have to be accompanied with impact and influence in some way on how artists make music to gain respect.

sure, BEP may not be the first thing that comes to mind when people think hip-hop...

but that didnt stop Nas, Common, Busta, and Talib from gettin down with him...

will wasnt gettin that kind of production work pre-Elephunk...


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And old coots start paying attention to hip-hop because it might mean a big payday for them.

>And old coots start paying attention to hip-hop because it
>might mean a big payday for them.


when we were listening to it as teens we didn't give a second thought to the people who were getting ripped off. I'm glad they started gettin' theirs. James Brown got taken to the cleaners.



"you owe people...you owe Pook." (C) Ice-T

got ripped off even more, didn't they?

(you can freak any record as long as you use 4 bars or less) was destroyed.

on one hand, this brought about the commercial pop rap era, b/c the biggest acts figured, fuck it, i got to pay anyway, and if i'ma pay, i'ma use the WHOLE SHIT. so you got hammer paying off rick james and basically rhyming over "Super Freak". i was apalled at that shit.

much as i loved old school, it was kinda sacrilegious from a hip hop perspective to not try and do something extra w/ the song.

and then puff's whole career was made off the same shit.

on the other hand, cats like pete rock, primo, etc, got even MORE creative to thwart the sample police, so it paved the way for todays production wizardry.

classic double edged sword.

peace & blessings,

x.

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** i move away from the mic to breathe in

http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/historic.html
Is sampling theft? When rapper Biz Markie sampled the melody of Gilbert O'Sullivan's 1972 hit "Alone Again, (Naturally)" for his song "Alone Again" on his 1991 album I Need a Haircut, he was only following in the footsteps of countless other rappers. Unlike the others, however, Markie went to court. After O'Sullivan denied Markie the right to use his song, Markie used the sample anyway, and O'Sullivan filed suit. Ignoring the nuances of copyright law and artistic creation, Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy likened Biz Markie to a common thief, stating, "Thou shalt not steal has been an admonition followed since the dawn of civilization." Upon rendering his verdict, which included an injunction against the future distribution of the album and the song, Judge Duffy referred the case to a U.S. district attorney for possible criminal prosecution. Although Biz never served time for his alleged violation of the Seventh Commandment, the case did set the precedent for viewing unlicensed sampling as a crime.

over "straight jacks". Not to mention increased love for "original production" and live instruments.

leads to advent of paid sample watchdogs

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it was all nyc (and the East Coast) had at that point.

they propped Illmatic, a 9 song album ( + and old ass "halftime" song), like it was the 2nd coming because Dre and Snoop and Death Row kicked the East Coast ass in music for so long ( waaaay before they crushed the buildings in the dogg pound video).

wasn't till Biggie came around that the EAst coast and nyc could stick their chest out again

the desperation of NYC is astounding... it's like the East Coast was ready to embrace ANYBODY who could put them on the map again even for a minute.

We crowned Ill Al Skratch, for God's sake! And besides being blatantly wack, they were just Snoop ripoffs with an "album" that was more like a maxi-single!

That was the other phenomenon: East Coast rappers trynna sound like Snoop... Whether it was Naughty by Nature and their proteges or Latifah with "Just Another Day" and all that...

To this day niggas is prolly sittin at the crib with that record in their hands thinkin "WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T I SAMPLE THAT?"

The reason why Dr. Dre is an all-time great and whoever that should have thought of it is a nobody.

For the rest of the country that is. Folks might not have access to samplers and lots of crates, but erebody know somebody with a bass guitar

inspired / kept alive east/west division (tim dog already had fuck compton pre-chronic)

less than 5 years later big and pac are dead

then it's all about "unity"

not trad sounding west and east coast music is marginalized (did you cop that latest kurupt? the latest buckshot? me either)

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Suddenly, everyone needed a 'movement like Wu-Tang.'

EVERYBODY toughened up for the cameras after Wu-Tang hit big...

NY had to fight the sentiment that the West Coast were the hardest cats on Earf....


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Wu-Tang institutionalized "realness" but NYC had already been moving towards a more "grimy" image.

add Onyx for the cartoon version

Black Moon and Wu-Tang were contemporaries (they're albums dropped within a couple weeks of each other). Onyx's "Bacdafucup" album dropped before both, and really introduced the grimy, aggro, "we don't give a fuck" NY attitude.

like my man said above....you had the "grimy" image already out there dating back to Onyx....

but Wu-Tang took griminess to platinum status....

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but it has been diminishing returns while they were active...Das has nowhere near the succes,s influnece, or impact of Wu...even at their most successful...


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Slam was more mainstream than damn near anything Wu-Tang put out, that single was HUGE.

but we all knew Onyx was based on a gimmick and nobody really took then seriously...after Slam, they faded away...

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When they did the joint with Wu-Tang on the album after that I remember that being a pretty big deal too....the gimmick part aint come til after that when them niggas started acting (literally).

>When they did the joint with Wu-Tang on the album after that
>I remember that being a pretty big deal too....the gimmick
>part aint come til after that when them niggas started acting
>(literally).

Bacdafucup was a straight up gimmick. It's sorta how 3 feet high
and rising went plat off the me myself & I single. Fans came back
for the ride on the second go round expecting the same thing which
they didn't get and the sales suffered. By the time the third album
dropped nobody was checking for them except for the die hard fans.

because regardless of quality, when that Wu "W" was on it, it meant something.

They were also responsible for labels like Rocafella and G-Unit and DipSet? I mean, those labels weren't labels so much as they were "crews."

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I mean, sure there were big crews and shit before Wu-Tang, but after they came around EVERYONE had those massive crews that sort of mimicked the Clan. I'll be as bold as to say without Wu, none of these cats would have existed. Though there is an anomaly to that argument, which is the Native Tongues movement.

:\

and the wu tang deal that allows the other artists to get their own deals is noteworthy

>and the wu tang deal that allows the other artists to get
>their own deals is noteworthy

branding, branding, branding

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Puffy's rise as an infuential public figure led to the death of grimy imagery and dirty, dark production's radio acceptability.

Biggie's death led to Puffy's rise as an artist.

Puffy's rise as an artist led to the eventual underemphasis of "skill" as a defining indicator of how well a rapper would be received.


_______________________________
gamblers and masturbators.

"One thing I look for in a quarterback is athleticism." - Dad

-joints for the streets
-joints for the heads
-joints for the clubs
-joints for the radio
-joints for the chicks
-misogynistic joints for the guys and the chicks

since who knows how long artists have fantasized abt making an album with "something for everybody"...

Biggie and Puffy did it...

and Puff did it with an aesthetically unappealing dude, so that meant EVERYBODY could do it...

Hello, Vivrant Thing
Hello, Hey Luv by Mobb Deep

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Shit, Jay-Z crafted an entire career based on Biggie's formula. Big Pun, too.


_______________________________
gamblers and masturbators.

"One thing I look for in a quarterback is athleticism." - Dad

I don't think it was popular until Biggie did it, but you may have a point. Admittedly, I haven't studied my 2Pac albums very thoroughly. I've had them all for a while, but I don't listen to them like that.

His albums always had one more woman/casual listener-friendly per album ("Brenda's Got A Baby", "Keep Ya Head Up", "Dear Mama"), but I don't think 2Pac made "club" records, at least not until 'All Eyez On Me'. And his previous albums didn't follow a formula in the way scorpion mentioned.

_______________________________
gamblers and masturbators.

"One thing I look for in a quarterback is athleticism." - Dad

pac claims he taught biggie how to succeed commercially
and that he took the formula and made himself an east coast version of pac
i'll say puffy did one better and helped refined his image and made him look smooth

Or do you really believe that 2Pac's albums followed the same formula? How do the songs on '2Pacalypse Now', 'Strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z', and 'Me Against The World' fit into the molds scorpion laid out?




_______________________________
gamblers and masturbators.

"One thing I look for in a quarterback is athleticism." - Dad

i'm basin' it on pac's steez, but his words verify it
pac had the thug songs"strictly for my niggaz", the girl songs"brenda's havin' a baby", the club songs,"i get around" the introspective songs, "keep ya head up", the mama songs,"dear mama"
i mean, he was the top sellin', top hyped artist
he was a star
and biggie was lucky to be around somebody who knew how to sell records and his image and brand
pac was a genius at that
he started humble and surpassed, eclipsed the group that put him on
pac was bigger than life
still is
he's the black elvis..bigger than jesus, if i may

i hear you on the formula, but i really cant agree 100% because "Ready to Die" blows up in 1995, "Me Against the World" puts Pac on the mainstream map, those of us in the inner city knew of him from digital and "stickly4myniggaz", but the stardom and martyr shit for Pac doesnt hit until after "All Eyes On Me" and his murder. so actually no, Big and Puff started that everything for everybody shit on "Ready to Die" and refined it to a science on "Life After Death", Kims and Mases first albums, and Puff's first album, yeah i forgot the name of it... was it "no way out"?

dropped
he had star status and was blown up by then
all eyes on me just continued it, as a reborn pac

shooting those off duty cops in atlanta who were harassing someone turned him into the hood hero...block is right..he became elvis when he got off for that.

respect,
bc

"Are you really ready to carry some weight?,
Are you ready to design your fate?" -Kelvin Mercer

"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals to discovery." - James Joyce

no i didnt, and you made my point, made him a star in the hood, the world falls in love after... and the topic was about the formula and pac is not the one, its puff and big, just accept it and die, please fuckin die with all your dumbass post, opinions and remarks

damn...

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Aside from the songs for the demographics you just mentioned, there were also songs made for the sole purpose of winning the West Coast, Midwest and Southern audience (via "Vol. 2 - Hard Knock Life").

Why hear a song "of substance" from a Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, ecetera when you can get the very same song as part of the something-for-everybody package from any random street rapper?

and sing along raps.

at the time the formula pissed me off....but Ive begun to understand why NY needed this so badly...


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After Biggie died.
He can't rap.
He can't produce.
Shit, he can't find talent anymore.

This album started the timer...

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artists started gettin' the public to believe that they really do the things they do in rap and not to take them for a joke...so now when mufuckas shoot at you, you really can't complain because you set the stage for them to believe that you'd really dust they ass off after shootin' your mouth

thanks for putting "truth telling" in quotes

rappers as prophets
Tattoos
Bandannas
definitely influenced the mixtape/unreleased music scene, cuz that dude STAYED recording/writing apparently

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LL Cool J?

when Biggie won over the female audience while still talking about street shit and misogyny, it was a breakthrough that Pac definitely played into and benefited from...


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it inspired people to bring silly ass beefs to the forefront ( and hide the fact that they ain't sayin shit musically). Also, it allowed one rapper to steal another rapper's fan base over some silly shit. Meaning, nowadays as a fan you have to choose sides. God forbid you like rival MC's...


second, (speaking on GRODT), it inspired the "rich gangsta" subgenre. The one where you'd shoot a guy's grandmother in the chest with a rusty 9mm, that is, if you didn't have to go to the bank and deposit your vast sums of wealth. decisions,decisions...

reached a fever pitch here...

the label almost literally said, "hey! all you nihlistic n****rs and voyueristic white rap fans...check out our man 50 Cent...he's an unrepentant REAL drug dealer!...why, he's so real and so tough, he got shot NINE times over a drug beef and LIVED...he's harder than Biggie AND Tupac!!!...isn't that COOL!...so we know you wanna check out his album...he's pals with Dr. Dre and Eminem, so you KNOW he's cool...man, he's cool...look at how ripped he is...blah blah blah...."

I was disgusted (c) Eddie Murphy

>reached a fever pitch here...
>
>the label almost literally said, "hey! all you nihlistic
>n****rs and voyueristic white rap fans...check out our man 50
>Cent...he's an unrepentant REAL drug dealer!...why, he's so
>real and so tough, he got shot NINE times over a drug beef and
>LIVED...he's harder than Biggie AND Tupac!!!...isn't that
>COOL!...so we know you wanna check out his album...he's pals
>with Dr. Dre and Eminem, so you KNOW he's cool...man, he's
>cool...look at how ripped he is...blah blah blah...."
>
>I was disgusted (c) Eddie Murphy

everyday.

yes, and marketing is a colonial tool towards power. christ wake the fuck up

peace & blessings,

x.

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=========================================
** i move away from the mic to breathe in

he wasnt cooning, he acted the shit out of that roll, but made a bad choice, that was illuminated by the reaction he recieved within the black community and critics circles and the oscar win, so fuck outta here with that shit. for the millionth time art is not innocent or exist in a vaccuum

DING & DING!!!

Where their "best" rapper sounds "southern"

one wack singing cat replaces another

SMH @ 50 dissing D'Angelo and then whoring himself out for record sales.

while DJ Clue can be credited for restructuring/ruining the mixtape game...it was 50 who solidified the mixtape as a viable way for an emcee to get exposure and build buzz and/or serve as a bridge between records deals...

Lil Wayne used this formula to his advantage...

after 50's success the mixtape game quickly became saturated...the success of Lil Wayne has bogged the mixtape game down to a point where the glut of mixtapes will very soon cancel it out as a viable tool to increase an emcee's profile...



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i mean, when did run dmc ever rightfully relinquish the crown?
gave ny a purpose to its mc
a bar for them to reach for
i.e., the best
jay ran with it, nas didn't really want it...celebrity wasn't really his thing, ja tried for prince, 50 turned him into court jester, all other mcs fail

Biggie's death led directly to Jay-Z's rise. Jay-Z's second album was a more blatant attempt to copy both the aforementioned album formula, as well as Biggie's entire persona. Hell, the original title was 'Vol. 2 - Heir To The Throne'. He wasn't even trying to hide it at first.

Jay-Z's rise led to a shitload of imitators. Eventually, the whole non-writing thing became en vogue, but with most rappers not being talented enough to pull it off, rapping as a whole suffered. But by this time, the art of emceeing wasn't too important, so it didn't matter.

I think Jay-Z's popularity also led to the emphasis of entrepreneurship as a key element to how a rapper is perceived. Rappers who did't have multiple businesses or vanity labels were looked at as dinosaurs and unsuccessful. And success became more of a measuring stick than musical output.


_______________________________
gamblers and masturbators.

"One thing I look for in a quarterback is athleticism." - Dad

Jay-Z legitimized drug dealing in hip-hop and the Black community....

before Jay...selling dope was our dirty little secret...

we knew it was wrong, so we didnt talk abt it publicly...much...

then Jay-Z came...

he was proud to be a drug dealer.

he glamorized it....made it sound like the movie Scarface...

all of a sudden it wasnt somethigng be ashamed of anymore, but to be PROUD of!

soon, NY emcees were ALL drug dealers...moving kis in their rhymes and trying their best to convice us that rap was a pastime and that drug sales was their REAL career....we could not have Rick Ross today if not for Jay-Z...

of course, this spilled into the streets as thousands of young Black men and women began to regard the dope game as a LEGITIMATE career choice...

Thanks, Jay.

My personal take on this: In my eyes, Jay-Z is Satan. No matter how dope his rhymes may have been at one point and not matter how many jams he made and no matter how "family-freindly" he is now...I would not shake his hand.

I do realize that I am the only person that feels this way and I dont expect anyone else to share my feelings on this.


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...dropped before reasonable doubt

jay-z carried it further, yes.

but

a) Cuban Linx gets muddled in the slang and 5% speak

b) and its reasonably clear that many of the elements are fictional

c) Ghost and Rae dont pretty it up

whereas Jay made hustling sound like being a junior analyst...nor did he obscure his boasts in vague references and slang or made up characters like Wu did...

Ghost and Rae even described the record as fantasy, despite the realism, in their interviews...

Jay lets the listener know that "*I*, Jay-Z/Shawn Carter, am a drug dealer. A kingpin, actually. Right now as I stand in the booth, I sell cocaine. That is my profession. I make enormous amounts of cash doing it and I am rapping only to legtimize myself...."


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it had a more "cinematic" feel. You knew it was a story. The also had a drug USE element to it.


>
>Jay lets the listener know that "*I*, Jay-Z/Shawn Carter, am a
>drug dealer. A kingpin, actually. Right now as I stand in the
>booth, I sell cocaine. That is my profession. I make enormous
>amounts of cash doing it and I am rapping only to legtimize
>myself...."

Disagree with this. Before Jay (big really), the drug dealer was largely a third person in rap. He made it first person. However, it was (and is) always, since RD, in the past tense. He envisioned (and crafted) RD as a "going legit" type of deal, where he left his past behind and entered into the rap game. Really that's where he set up his whole persona - he could present the cred of being a dealer, or even a kingpin, but put it all in the past tense. Which he does to this day. It's the type of mentality that can have a late 20s early 30s dude have albums entitled "in my lifetime" (my dad used to laugh at that) b/c that was his past life..

Since then, he's never backed off the past tense thing. Remember "Hov did that so hopefully you won't have to go through that". Then he used the occassion of american gangster to make yet another past tense foray into the drug game...

the real problem is that those who followed him (looking at you clipse, lox and cam specifically) claimed to be drug dealers moonlighting as rappers (or not even rappers at all) simultaneously. Jay was always past tense with his.

>the real problem is that those who followed him (looking at
>you clipse, lox and cam specifically) claimed to be drug
>dealers moonlighting as rappers (or not even rappers at all)
>simultaneously. Jay was always past tense with his.

rmbr the intro on Vol 1 with Pain In The Ass saying "Im not a rapper...Im a hustler who happens to know how to rap..."

it all came from S. Carter

with Biggie, he always portrayed the starving street level criminal/dope boy...whereas Jay was a Escobar-esque kingpin...


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I'm sitting here reading Jay-Z lyrics, and I can't find one song where he ever mentioned himself as a drug-dealer in present tense. The only things he ever mentioned himself being in present tense were womanizer and murderer.

>Jay-Z legitimized drug dealing in hip-hop and the Black
>community....
>
>before Jay...selling dope was our dirty little secret...
>
>we knew it was wrong, so we didnt talk abt it
>publicly...much...

Huh? There were tons of ppl talking about selling crack before Jay.

>then Jay-Z came...
>
>he was proud to be a drug dealer.
>
>he glamorized it....made it sound like the movie Scarface...

If you listened to ANY Jay...but especially reasonable doubt, he actually delves into the confliction of drug dealing. Stating (and repeating for 13yrs now) that he felt he had no other choice and regrets that he had to live that way BUT he did relish in his success, like ANYONE who was poor and became successful would. Hell he even had a song calle REGRETS on the damn album.

>all of a sudden it wasnt somethigng be ashamed of anymore, but
>to be PROUD of!
>
>soon, NY emcees were ALL drug dealers...moving kis in their
>rhymes and trying their best to convice us that rap was a
>pastime and that drug sales was their REAL career....we could
>not have Rick Ross today if not for Jay-Z...
>
>of course, this spilled into the streets as thousands of young
>Black men and women began to regard the dope game as a
>LEGITIMATE career choice...
>
>Thanks, Jay.

Geez man...are you serious? You must HATE black ppl and think we are the most gullible idiots on the face of Earth. WOW. All Jay's fault huh?

>My personal take on this: In my eyes, Jay-Z is Satan. No
>matter how dope his rhymes may have been at one point and not
>matter how many jams he made and no matter how
>"family-freindly" he is now...I would not shake his hand.
>
>I do realize that I am the only person that feels this way and
>I dont expect anyone else to share my feelings on this.

hahahaha...then 2 live crew is responsible for porn and overhyper sex in music, Hammer is responsible for all dancing, Kool Herc is Satan's father?

Come the fuck on man!

This whole post is super emotional over a 'rapper'.

>>of course, this spilled into the streets as thousands of
>young
>>Black men and women began to regard the dope game as a
>>LEGITIMATE career choice...
>>
>>Thanks, Jay.
>
>Geez man...are you serious? You must HATE black ppl and think
>we are the most gullible idiots on the face of Earth. WOW.
>All Jay's fault huh?

...right? :-|

It wasn't even successful like that, and was a consequence of OB4CL as someone mentioned earlier.

where personality and style are valued over lyrics/skills and content.

modern would be from around 98 or thereabouts.

but i think most lessonheads know everything in here already. its not quite dead-horse-dom, but its close. im sure itll be a decent read but whats happened over the last 10 years is less documented/discussed. im guessing that will come later though. if it doesnt, then everyone might as well just wear their 'angry old man' hats and call it a day.

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and also because they were on a independent label, there were no far reaching effects or repercussions felt through the whole of the genre of hip-hop from that trial...


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I never liked their music, but Luther Campbell pretty much fought that battle alone. Nobody ever really stood up for them, and he didn't let it ruin him.


I think they stretched the 1st amendment to it's limits, but he had the right to do his thing.


The sad part is, they fought for 1st amendment rights in music, (pretty much ruining their careers in the process) which gave artists the freedom to talk about ANYTHING, and all people did after that was talk about selling drugs and pimping.

www.www.facebook.com/pages/DJJedi/44191809751
www.myspace.com/djjedi1
www.twitter.com/DJJedi

so called "hip-hop journalism" delegitimized (was it ever legit)?

now most everything is a biased us weekly with agendas

before it could really get started....

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oh...her...yeah

but the whole thing, could it ever be legit with any of the journalists so close to the subjects? or fearing the wrath of the subjects?

(wow that's a disturbing visual)
anyway
you gotta remember that the source was looked upon as "the bible of hip hop" and their mics were coveted by every rapper at the time
little did we know that it was all a dream © Biggie
this broad runnin around poppin it off with all these rappers and then writing about them on some "OMG he's so real"
and then benzino actually runnin the show while Mays was the front
where's the horse at?

.

.

they were able to fanagle guest appearances from big name rappers...

Benzino's "leaked" sex tape was the final brick crumbling into the ocean...


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After that whole incident, David Mays might as well have hung a "Mics for sale" sign on the door of their offices, 'cause that's what sure in the hell happened.

>After that whole incident, David Mays might as well have hung
>a "Mics for sale" sign on the door of their offices, 'cause
>that's what sure in the hell happened.

Used to be an East Coast thing put out by legitimate DJs back in the late 80's to mid 90's. Now it's a running joke that killed making good full length albums.

...that you couldn't find elsewhere

the internet pretty much eliminated the whole "well, you gotta have ron g's new tape to get that song" type of thing

I don't think heads really realize how much that cat turned the entire game on its head....

Not only did he kill the old school mixtape game, his "ExCLUEsives" brought leaks to hip-hop.

Dude got signed to Rocafella because everybody seriously got tired of him playin all they shit as soon as they made it.

1) nothing but exclusives (and incidentally no actual mixing)
or
2) the artist show case, ala 50 Cent rhyming over everyone else's instrumentals. It's how 50 Cent got enough buzz to get Em and Dre to the table (or so it's told). It's how Mr. Drop it like it's hot, went from a 3rd string member of the hot boyz, to a legitimately dope rapper.

It's #2 that is important to modern hip hop.

The "nothing but exclusive" tapes went to tapes hosted by rappers with a few of their songs on em, to the "50 Cent" tapes.

Gangsta Grillz used to just be a southern "nothing but exclusive" compilation series....I got a couple of the early ones around here somewhere.

#2 doesn't happen without #1.

this post doesn't exist w/o Straight Outta Compton.

If we're talking modern developments, the Yung LA/Drake/Wa Le tape is what this is really about. Because those artist centric tapes have largely replaced the albums as repositories of real hip hop.

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I remember reading some DMX interview saying that he was.

so arguably, he saw what was happening down there and gave it a ny slant...

did he help kill the underground?

I never saw Kanye as a backpacker-type MC.

>I never saw Kanye as a backpacker-type MC.
>
>
>


IDK about that Kanye is one of my favs and I'm not tryna put him in a box or nothin, but he raps on alot of topics that backpackers touch on.

> but he raps on alot of topics that
>backpackers touch on.

He ran with Kweli nem, and he said pretty much everything they was sayin in a way everybody could understand it.

nothing to do with smarts...

and whatever he brings to the table as being separate and apart from what everyone else was saying....

Which is unfortunate.

He may have put a few people on to Com and Kwe, but overall he didn't make that much of a difference. He didn't really make an attempt to really push those guys to masses and Com just regressed anyway so I don't think this is a big deal.

These acts laid the foundation for present Southern hip hop.

>These acts laid the foundation for present Southern hip hop.


those acts that you named pretty much ARE present Southern Hip-Hop. They're all either still active, or not too far removed from it.

P been done since like '04-'05 (that Tight Whips shit was the last "hit" he had), and Lil Jon been in label drama forever....he did some joints for E-40 and he works with Pitbull alot, but no solo shit in years.

Master P is the most important out of the 3 tho, No Limit opened the floodgates for the modern South.

>P been done since like '04-'05 (that Tight Whips shit was the
>last "hit" he had), and Lil Jon been in label drama
>forever....he did some joints for E-40 and he works with
>Pitbull alot, but no solo shit in years.


he's "washed up" and he was active only 5 years back. Meaning, his chapter is still being written. I mean, it's kinda hard to be a pioneer in the present, ya dig what I mean?


>
>Master P is the most important out of the 3 tho, No Limit
>opened the floodgates for the modern South.

I really want to agree with you. I just take issue with the shortness of the timeline. When I think Old School cats from the south ( as compared to the modern south), I go back to DJ Magic Mike, 2 Live Crew, Geto Boys, etc.

As far as the modern south goes, P is the blueprint...No Limit laid so much groundwork for these new cats, almost everything they doin goes back to what P did.

is, in my opinion, Master P's major contribution to the development of modern hip-hop.

In the old days, most rappers used their criminal pasts (real or imagined) as part of their mythology:

"He used to be a gangbanger/drug dealer, but he discovered he had a talent for rapping and changed his life around to become an entertainer blah blah blah"

Master P's narrative was similar to this, except that there wasn't really any turnaround. He wasn't a hustler who became an entertainer... he was a hustler who sold entertainment instead of drugs (or in addition to drugs).

And nobody in their right mind tried to make the argument that he was talented... but he was undoubtedly a shrewd businessman. He sold a million records without major distribution and independently produced his own blockbuster movie--something that even respected black filmmakers like Spike Lee and John Singleton had been unable to do. That was all that mattered.

The money validated him. I can remember the first time he appeared on the cover of The Source in a suit made of dollar bills and the caption "YOU AIN'T NEVER SEEN PAPER LIKE THIS..." That was the day that I (REALLY) stopped taking The Source seriously. But that would soon become rap's new status quo: If you made money, you were impeachable, whether or not you had "skills."

(Accompanying this trend was the tendency for rappers to view "the game" and their audience with a degree of contempt similar to that of the drug dealer for the drug addict.)

...

Ima try & add my 2 cents later

But we thought they would?

I thought Eminem would change the game. All he did was make money for himself.

Puffy and his beat-jacking
Southern artists hitting it big
50 Cent
Soulja Boy
Grammy categories
R&B/Rap collabos
gangster-inspired, drug-fueled, misogynist MCs

Peace,

*** MARBLES ***

thought that shit was gonna be THE label for this generation's native tongues.


Instead all we got was a coupla really great 12's and one of the most promising, yet disappointing rosters on a record label in recent memory.

redefined "beef"
this was some deeply personal shit that could've easily turned violent
I mean dudes was taking shots at baby mothers, mothers period, children, all kinds of foul shit
and yet it all stayed on wax
from then on, every other "beef" became WWE
I mean, they made peace and moved on
and damm near 10 years later fools is still Nas/Jay Lost and shit

to me, this was the greatest beef in hip hop
bigger than KRS/Shan in the 80's and NWA/Ice Cube in the 90's
Takeover/Ether brought out the best in both
it marked the end of Jay's "Jigga" era, and as a result he started making more personal/introspective records
it revitalized Nas, who in his own words was "left for dead, dissed, and forgotten"
hip hop needed that

....this moment may be the biggest change in hip hop rules since the beginning

n/m

When the Jungle Brothers put out "J. Beez Wit The Remedy" featuring the weirdness of a new J.B. named Sensational and when Kool Keith of met up with Godfather Don for Ultramagnetic MC's third album "Four Horsemen" album is when you could tell they was bringing the weirdness in underground rap music out from the back where you could notice it while other styles of rap was going on and much stronger.

Even though Sensational only stayed with the Jungle Brothers for only one album, he left his impression on the group and it's fans long enough to get to some who would then become rappers to take a new direction and rhyme with a little different diction over some of the most weirdest beats that sound more like a science project.

While at the same time Kool Keith was concocting some new personas that would really rock the hip-hop boat, even though "Four Horsemen" was a pretty tame album it help forge a partnership with Kool Keith & Godfather Don for thier project as the Cenobites and they would rhyme about anything from cursing out rappers to weird sexual topics over basement boom-bap beats.

Also I would like to say Pharoahe Monch of Organized Konfusion went in that direction on a few songs on their second album as well but enough for people to take notice.

And then came groups like Company Flow, Rubberoom, Kool Keith as Dr.Octagon, M.F.Doom, and so on who really basically took those styles and created their own sound or subgenre in rap itself.

*CROCKA*

word booty.

HSUBAKCITS

www.smokingsection.net



http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r9/chowyunskinny/Gold%20Chef/iron_chef.jpg

Here's discogs link http://www.discogs.com/artist/sensational and here is his spacemy link: http://www.myspace.com/Chunkobliss and from the audio on his page he's still got his bugged out rhyming style but his music is much clearer and now hip-hop has caught up with his style of beats.

I would say that his style of beatmaking & rhyming was way ahead of it's time cause we got new kats trying to sound like what he's been doing for mad years.

changed the rhythm of hip hop (and R&B)
changed the emphasis on sonic 'heaviness'
brought 'pop' influences INTO hip hop rather than take hip hop to pop

MOst people forget that until well into the 1990s, video girls were either skinny model types or athletic dancers or just "regular" looking.

If you wanted to look at big tits and big asses, you had to go watch reggae videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScVfT6nU74

Once in a while you would catch some super-thick girls in hip-hop videos, but it was rare enough that when you saw it, you REMEMBERED it.

For example, the infamous "Bad Boy Video Girl":

http://splicd.com/V8pG1mG7BeI/166/209
http://splicd.com/Z0DUFjcHGO8/10/0

Or the Wu-Tang "Ice Cream" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-2klRHBvxo

When did thick bitches become de rigeur for rap videos, though? When did we start developing this side industry of famous video hoes?

Gloria Velez was the first vixen I remember being widely known by name... But "Big Pimpin" wasn't the beginning, I don't think...

and they met the girl from Diamond D's "Sally Got a One track mind" video, at some club or whereever.


He said they kept calling her Sally, lol.


He said she was a good sport about it, though, they actually had drinks and danced and she hung out with them.


"Sally, you ready for another Rum n Coke??"

,

I wanna say Holla Holla video by Ja Rule was the turning point...Gloria Velez was featured prominently there...as she was in Big Pimpin...

That was when niggas was gettin mega budgets for videos, and Hype made sure he spent every penny, lol.

and mother of Justin...I remember wondering who she was because she was in all the early Bad Boy videos and she stood out because of her hair and features...


I cant see ther Biggie clip @ the gig....are you taumbout the chick sitting next to LL while he kicks his verse?

that could either be Misa or ol girl from Total



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The ridiculously thick chick with the big nose who's dancing behind LL during his verse... She's also in the "Big Poppa" vid; she's the girl BIG's rapping too during the "True" verse, and she's in bed with him in the "Warning" video.

Hype overboarded with both of Tip's videos.

Around that time is when the chick in the rap video reincarnated to a video vix(ho)en.

one
k. orr

I mean, yeah, it was 2 Live Crew, and yeah, they had done videos in that "spirit" like before ("Me So Horny"), but "Pop That Coochie" took it to the next level. Back in The Box's heyday, I believe it was the most requested video for the entire summer of 1992. After that, more and more video ho's started creeping into videos.

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(I was gonna acknowledge you said that up above but my browser crashed)

"Holla Holla" or "Thong Song" (not a hip-hop record, I know...)

but "Hoolla" came before SisQo's anyway.

:)

that hasn't been mentioned yet?

No one mentioned Bambattaa, Flash, Herc either.
Hell we could throw in Edison, why y'all bullshitting.

That's how I took the post at least.

...changed the game in hip-hop.

First, it introduced Puff Daddy as a musical entity. Second, while it might not be the first time an R&B song got a "hip-hop remix" it was certainly the biggest to that point. Third, it also lead to the fusion of hip-hop and R&B being "acceptable." Beyond the occasional anolmaly like Rakim appearing on a Jody Watley records, rappers who appeared on R&B singers/groups tracks was consoidered a sucker move. After that remix, "street" MCs appearing on songs on R&B tracks became much more acdceptable. I'd say it lead to everything from Biggie rhyming on a Total record, to ODB rhyming with Mariah, to Jay-Z rhyming with Beyonce. The logical progression of all this was the tracks that guys like Ja Rule put out in the early '00s.

...so how did the murder of Scott La Rock alter the course of hip-hop? how has any other notable hip-hop artist's death (i.e. Eazy E, MC Trouble, Trouble T-Roy or B.I.G) affected the course of hip-hop to reach its current state?

I don't think the others you listed have all that much bearing on *modern* hip-hop, though...

i fully contend that had he not severed his vocal chords weeks after his album dropped, west coast rap wouldve looked VERY different given promotion and development as an artist.

west coast wouldve looked a lot more balanced with thier own lyrical juggernaut, who knows, mightve kept pac political and social instead of thug life.

DOC's tragedy might be the butterfly who caused the hurricane.

This event is what ultimately led to otherwise gifted lyricists being frowned upon by the industry, dismissed as "backpackers", "mixtape rappers", "16-bar rappers", "street corner rappers", "freestyle battle rappers" who couldn't make a song/album if their lives depended on it not being given a fair chance.

Apparently, a strategic move on PE's part, due to the caught feelings of one Lyor "Elroy" Cohen.


I still maintain that one of the biggest surprises in hip-hop history...

is the quality solo material Griff had with Luke Skyywalker Records.

He had 3 solo lps on that label, and the first 2 were fantastic. He had these spoken-word joints that, to this day, are riveting. I love his solo lps.

I still have his "Pawns in the Game" 12" cover hanging on my old room's wall @ my folks.

>He had 3 solo lps on that label, and the first 2 were
>fantastic. He had these spoken-word joints that, to this day,
>are riveting. I love his solo lps.

Pawns In The Game and KAOS II WI7DOME were favorites.

"The V Amendment"... WHOO.

as all get out (or should I say, "They were all that").

If I'm not grateful to Luke for anything else, I am grateful that he did have a record label that could give Griff a full and uncut platform to express himself, without censorship and without bullshit.

good post scorp