at the time.

I don't forsee cats 10 years from now arguing about Cassidy and Fabolous...

BUT

It's pretty clear that before Biggie, Bootcamp or Wu or any other grimy "hold a cipher down" mf'er could run NYC, but after biggie that ended.

I think someone else said it about (My Sp?), that Biggie "ended" the east coast underground.

Whether it was Biggie or Puffy, after the "one more chance" rmx, (prolly starting with Juicy - if you ask me), NYC commercial radio rappers had to change.

And Puffy n'nem, if you ask me, was merely responding to the West Coast funk monopoly when they used Juicy Fruit for Juicy. "We can funk too" And Puffy added in some R&B for good measure, and that's all she wrote.

Biggie had a formula, ran with it. Everyone else copied it.
Cats who weren't gonna cater their music to a national audience, got fucked.

While that was happening though, the whole make a "national" record, and not a 5 boros record, fucked NYC hip hop.

When Mobb Deep did a song with 8 Ball and MJG, me and my potnas laughed hard. My sides still hurting from Bun B on 50 Cent's joint from back in the day. - These cats was catering. And it was failing until 9 shots put the current nails in the east coast coffin. Now the tightest crew, or rather the most money making crew in hip hop has every region but the midwest covered. And best believe if they could gangstify Common....

But making a national record is poised to fuck up Houston, and other cities as well. Cause now Flip be rhyming quicker. Everyone in the Souhh now (Outside of the Northside of Houston where it originated, and ATL where it was duplicated) think they can get krunk - when they wasn't no way even close to krunk a few years back.

Or, rephrased, Krunk used to mean more than just lil jon. Ying Yang was talking about gettin krunk to MONEY AND THE POWER, (yup, money and the power by Scarface).

Anyway, that's my take on the whole history of hip hop since 96.

one
k. orr