What was the best year, or best few years? 2000? 2003?

What would you say the low point was...06-07? The ringtone Rap era?

Do we count any mixtapes as classics, and are they measured at the same level as an official CD release classic?

Do you feel anything about the decade was better than the 90's? Whether it was the top lyricists...or production...club music...or even contributions from cities that weren't dominant in the 90's.

You can mention anything else about the decade, really. I feel like we talk about the 90's all the time, but I wonder how we'll judge the 00's in the future.

Fans of Madlib and Dilla will never forget those years.

I followed rap music less and less as the years went on, but going to HS/college from 2000-2008 has cemented plenty of those albums in my memory. From Devin to DOOM to The Eastsidaz. And all the heat from The Neptunes, Timbo, Rich Harrison, etc.

Dipset, Freeway and Beanie, Kanye's best stuff....

I'm not even mentioning everything coming out of the South.

Good times all around.

I'm sure you're going to have a bunch of people jumping in here to bitch about how this was the worst decade ever but I definitely think there were some really good and/or interesting moments in Hip Hop during this time...the meteoric rise of 50 Cent and then watching the shift from his brand of Hip Hop to Kanye in 2007, Nas Vs Jay Z, seeing Hipsters rave about Lil Wayne and him emerging as a star.... Also, can't forget The Roots being the house band on a late night show on a major tv network. I think people really underestimate how big of a deal that was and is. For them to be in that big of a mainstream setting but still drop concept albums like Undun and How I Got Over is truly uncharted territory.

>What was the best year, or best few years? 2000? 2003?

2000 was great but for me I'd say 2005 was the best year or at least my favorite year. Common dropped "Be", Ye dropped "Late Registration" and for me 2005's biggest moment was Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Sitting in the theater watching G Rap, The Roots, Dead Prez, BDK, Mos and of course was a truly great moment to me.

>
>What would you say the low point was...06-07? The ringtone Rap
>era?

For me the low points were the deaths of J Dilla and Jam Master Jay. Ringtone rap was wack as hell to me but it didn't cost anyone their life.
>
>Do we count any mixtapes as classics, and are they measured at
>the same level as an official CD release classic?

I personally don't measure them on the same level as official CD releases in general but I know that some people do. Early in the decade 50 was the mixtape king and he certainly deserves credit for raising that artform to a level where people do look at mixtapes no differently than official albums. Section 80 is probably the mixtape of the decade for me.
>
>Do you feel anything about the decade was better than the
>90's? Whether it was the top lyricists...or production...club
>music...or even contributions from cities that weren't
>dominant in the 90's.

I don't know about better but there was some production that I would certainly argue was just as good as some production in the 90's...J Dilla, El P, Kanye, Madlib, The Neptunes. All those dudes could more than hang in the 90's.
>
>You can mention anything else about the decade, really. I feel
>like we talk about the 90's all the time, but I wonder how
>we'll judge the 00's in the future.

I'd say the emergence of Kanye was probably the most significant development. As a producer and MC to watch him go from background "backpack" producer dude to major Hip Hop/Pop superstar was pretty remarkable. I would have never suspected that he could reach the levels of fame that he has.

>I'm sure you're going to have a bunch of people jumping in
>here to bitch about how this was the worst decade ever but I
>definitely think there were some really good and/or
>interesting moments in Hip Hop during this time...the meteoric
>rise of 50 Cent

The rise of 50 and before him Ja Rule is what made me begin to move away from rap. They were and still are shit.

and then watching the shift from his brand of
>Hip Hop to Kanye in 2007, Nas Vs Jay Z,

I enjoyed them deading the "beef" even more

seeing Hipsters rave
>about Lil Wayne and him emerging as a star....

More proof for me that the art was at an all time low and the old guard / gatekeepers didn't control the "canon" anymore, which in many was is a good thing and I actually like Wayne

Also, can't
>forget The Roots being the house band on a late night show on
>a major tv network. I think people really underestimate how
>big of a deal that was and is. For them to be in that big of a
>mainstream setting but still drop concept albums like Undun
>and How I Got Over is truly uncharted territory.

True

>>What was the best year, or best few years? 2000? 2003?
>
>2000 was great but for me I'd say 2005 was the best year or at
>least my favorite year. Common dropped "Be", Ye dropped "Late
>Registration" and for me 2005's biggest moment was Dave
>Chappelle's Block Party. Sitting in the theater watching G
>Rap, The Roots, Dead Prez, BDK, Mos and of course was a truly
>great moment to me.
>
Felt the same about DC's Block Party, but 2000 had Supreme Clientele, Vol. 2, Like Water For Chocolate, Train of Thought, The Unseen, Lets Get Free and Stankonia. Not one of the albums you mentioned is better than any of these, cue the "but but but, so and so had more impact!" Brilliant point... moving on
>>
>>What would you say the low point was...06-07? The ringtone
>Rap
>>era?
>
>For me the low points were the deaths of J Dilla and Jam
>Master Jay. Ringtone rap was wack as hell to me but it didn't
>cost anyone their life.

Great point / insight

>> Section 80 is probably the mixtape of the decade for
>me.

That was 2011. R-Tistic asked about 00-09

>I don't know about better but there was some production that I
>would certainly argue was just as good as some production in
>the 90's...J Dilla, El P, Kanye, Madlib, The Neptunes. All
>those dudes could more than hang in the 90's.

Agreed. Good balanced posting

was seeing fans who were once proud to champion the underground & have a healthy skepticism of pop rap or crossover rap turn 180 degrees out of shame & fully forsake their backpacks by the end of the decade

mentality was always wack and detrimental.

You couldn't tell me back when Elzhi's Preface dropped that the weird as s nigga Danny Brown would be loved by music fans the way he is now.

Or Kendrick Lamar. Man look, if you got consistent quality music the people are gonna come to you. You don't need the machine.

That "fuck the mainstream" thing is dead, these underground niggas are shining.

And Danny, Kendrick and co have nuthin to do with the 00-09 years

But we agree that what's been happening from 10-13 is a damn good thing

danny brown is annoying *to me* & i havent given kendrick a shot since i don't steal music anymore & gotta be picky w/ my music $, but you do have a point that cats can grow a fanbase independently moreso than when u had to be signed to somebody to get heard

that said i maintain as i have for sometime that the "backpacker who champions mediocre artists bc they're not popular" is, by and large, a complete myth...a myth that has led to many a dope underground artist being unfairly scorned

To go from top of the world with The Marshall Matthers LP in 2000 to having all of his personal issues, substance abuse issues, etc and still "come back" in 2009 with a massive album was impressive. Not to mention the success of 8 Mile.

The last throws of th Cd rapper...
To The Internet Rapper..
To The Youtube Rapper
To the Tumblr Rapper..

was the rise of the supremacy of MONEY as a defining characteristic of the Rap artist

YES, OF COURSE money was ALWAYS a prominent topic in hip-hop, an oft righteous reaction to the idea that Black/latino/poor ppl were deprived of things & power by society, but it was never quite as important in forming fans' opinions of artists as it became in the 00's, spurred by the Biggie/Puffy/Jay Z ethos that took hold in the mid/late 90's

imo it led to a lot of wackness being cosigned bc cats had stacks (or claimed to)

1: he wack tho

2: but he gettin money tho

1: I'm just sayin he wack

we've probably all been there

>1: he wack tho
>
>2: but he gettin money tho
>
>1: I'm just sayin he wack
>
>we've probably all been there

& ive had this convo w/ ppl i respect as individuals, ppl i know are stand up dudes when it comes down to it

but the mentality is still poison IMO

you are trying to talk music and then they bring up the artist they like's bank account

like um...what are we talking about again

this mentality is terrible and I still run into it on the regular

To be part of those convos

supreme clientele
violent by design
deltron 3030
lets get free
stankonia
mind over matter (zion I)
marshall mathers lp
fantastic vol 2
HNIC
quality control (j5)
train of thought
masters of the universe (binary star)
like water for chocolate

dropped

idk if i can find a better year for rap in the 2000s

>supreme clientele
>violent by design
>deltron 3030
>lets get free
>stankonia
>mind over matter (zion I)
>marshall mathers lp
>fantastic vol 2
>HNIC
>quality control (j5)
>train of thought
>masters of the universe (binary star)
>like water for chocolate
>
>dropped
>
>idk if i can find a better year for rap in the 2000s

id also add The Platform, NIA, and Warriorz

different in tone than the rest of that list but moving from Detroit to Atlanta at 17...a personal classic even tho its rightfully not regarded that way universally

and i used to bump restless with frequency.

2000 was an incredible year, the last great one before this 2010-13 renaissance, but over all I could not stand the sound and tone of rap.

I appreciate (in retrospect) that Timbo, Manny Fresh, The Neptunes, Swizz, Ye, Just Blaze, Heatmakerz, Bink!, Palow and others moved rap away from solely relying on samples / loops and chops (at times creating great music), but the imitators and followers made rap sound cheap, generic, and soulless. Add to the fact muhfuckas began to barely rap and started the whole I'm not a rapper I'm a hustler shit, the music as Bammer has put it, just became an accessory to projecting a certain life style or identity in our changing world (the rise of technology), and it was corny (bordering on minstrelsy some times.

I love what Stones Throw and Def Jux did through those years; Madvillian and Cold Vein are two of the greatest rap albums of any era IMO. Those two labels kept my ear to rap though my heart had moved to discovering jazz, rock and r&b of the late 50 to mid 70s.

But since 02-06 were my college and heavy leftist organizing years shit like 50, G Unit, Jeezy,  TI, Dipset (more the image/persona than the actual music) Wayne, 4DL, etc etc just really fucn sucked. They were the sound of a corrupt culture to me at the time. Luckily age and experience has taught me not to focus on things I don't like or judge what the general population likes/liked to dance to. The ringtone era has to be one of the lowest points though outside of the murders / deaths of Dilla, JMJ and Baatin.

Also thank the holy universe for DOOM. from DOOMsday to Mouse & The Mask, was one of the most impressive and inspiring runs, ever. If I did top emcee shits, DOOM would be top10 because of it

Overall the mainstream classics like King, GRODT, Thug Motivation, Ye's first two LPs, Em's first three just DIDNT hit me. I didn't and don't fuck with them. Personally I feel things turned around near 06-09, but the alternative and lyrical crop like Chester Fench, Pac Div, The CoolKids, Kidz In The Hall, BTH's Blu (shoot me), Shawn Jackson were so generic and lifeless shit still looked grim, and the older rappers like Kast, Doom, Mobb Deep, LB, Talib, and Murs seemed to be losing creative inspiration or were breaking up.

It def wasn't as bad as some like to say it was, but it's nothing to really celebrate as a whole either.

he already arguably was a key part of 2 near classics in the early 90's & had a classic appearance on a seriously classic song

i don't see folks talking about those records a lot tho...Mr Hood was my shit when it came out

that would be like me saying in 1993 that the 80's were the worst decade in rock.

Well, sure....when compared to the decade that birthed the music, the decade they grew up & the prior 70's which were clearly better overall for rock music than the 80's.

However you could be here awhile listing great rock in the 80's.

In hip-hop the 70's can barely even count as a recorded art form because it's basically one year.....and if it does count that again gets birthing-credit-bonus points.

The 80's were when hip-hop was gaining its sea-legs, featured most of the seminal acts of the genre breaking through and by the turn of the decade had changed the face of music enough that it allowed....

The 90's to happen, when the art form truly kicked down any & every door plus posted roughly three of the top five years in the genre's history.

There's nowhere to go but down coming off those first three so no need to even bother evaluating it that way.

I spoke to why "I" felt that way and what were some of the positive and negative changes. And there are few young heads in here who look very fondly of these years and are calling some albums classic, that for me and you don't even qualify. so "worst decade" shouldn't be looked at as a forgone conclusion and more a point of departure. Shit I'd argue that 2010-13 can rival 98-03 in terms of quality.

Furthermore reading the writings of David Drake, Jordan Sargeant, Breihan, Soderbergh, Noz etc, the "new (predominantly yt) critical gatekeepers" writing for Spin, Complex and Pitchfork, they are quite adamant about 00-09 having some of the best years and when the genre was most prolific creatively, not only economically.

Lastly I think I did a descent job of sketching out some ideas about the decade, and I'm glad RTistic opened this up cause we should talk about 00-09 more. I mean your great reply in the 400 Degrees post, in many ways related to this post, shows how much dialogue we're "lacking" as it relates to changes and new canons within the artform we all love so much.

while scrolling this post at work.

My apologies, I actually agree with pretty much everything you posted there, in particular the recent rap renaissance & the whole not feeling the 'big' albums that much.

Only differences I might take up with it or that I liked some of that prime Dipset stuff (at least Diplomatic Immunity & two Cam albums) plus find Cam's persona entertaining & I don't really have any albums I love from Stone's Throw aside from Madvillian.

That fool made me laugh with him (not at him) a lot during his lil run from 01-04/05. And I liked a good number of HIS songs. I know one can't really separate him from Dipset during the time, but maybe in my head I did cause I thought Juelz and Jones were trash rappers. And the whole blood gang in NY while wearing pink and shit just mad me shake my head

Also how many rappers jacked Cam's rhyme style, techniques and patterns? He don't get enough credit to be honest

Those early Def Jux and Stones Throw runs were too good to last.

>Those early Def Jux and Stones Throw runs were too good to
>last.

Not necessarily. There was a ton of good shit coming out, it was just completely overshadowed by the ringtone/bubblegum/trap noise.

Off the top, Babygrande had some nice shit coming out, Rawkus did a lil with their Rawkus 50, there was some decent shit coming out of Koch (everybody and their momma was gettin deals with them like Ichiban in the 90's), ST still had good music coming out... I mean, yeah it was significantly harder to find in stores, but thanks to the internet it wasn't hard to get or hear about it.

---------------------------

I miss Tha D... But I'll never move back there.


R.I.P. Disco D

rolling bass booms, no hats or hats played in triplets, snare drumfills, cowbells $ rimshots...all the stuff that could be heard in earlier decades as a small part of the rhythm section moved to the front of production/beats.

There are many great albums from those years.

2000 was a beast of a year and was better than 97, 98, & 99.

2001 brought the Nas/Jay battle which was actually good for hip-hop and I will go as far as to even say important for hip-hop.

Years 2001-2008 were not as prolific as other great years in hip-hop but the highs were high.

2009 was a great rebound and really set us up for the great years of 2010, 2011, & 2012.

I'll list some albums from that decade that I'd put up among my favorites;

The Fix - Scarface
Donuts - J Dilla
The Lost Tapes- Nas
Never Better - POS
The Renaissance - Q-Tip
Madvillainy - Madvillain
Supreme Clientele - Ghostface Killah
Below The Heavens - Blu & Exile
I'll Sleep When You're Dead - El-P
Game Theory - The Roots
Stankonia - Outkast
Beauty and the Beat - Edan
Fantastic Vol 2 - Slum Village
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2 - Raekwon
The Ecstatic - Mos Def
Train of Thought - Reflection Eternal
A Piece of Strange - Cunninlynguists
The Blueprint - Jay-Z
Food & Liquor - Lupe Fiasco
Hell Hath No Fury - Clipse
Starchild - OC
Aziatic - AZ
Disposable Arts - Masta Ace
Trap Muzik - TI
Like Water For Chocolate - Common
Labor Days - Aesop Rock
The Grind Date - De La Soul
All of the Above - J Live
Mind Over Matter - Zion I
Masters of the Universe - Binary Star

And there are many others. The decade was interesting because MCs started going their own ways and we got a lot of great music.

While I didn't get down with a lot of the more commercial sounding stuff at the time (and upon revisiting most of it, it hasn't aged well), I've recently come to the conclusion that I was riding HARD for a lot of "underground" shit that sounds TERRIBLE now.

no gate-keepers, no visionaries, very few trendsetters...
hell, very few trends.

just bland mediocrity.

material made just to get the dollars in your pocket and nothing else.

once def jam lost it's vision and other labels downsized and merged, less options were available and less sources of those options... that's why things got really bad.

history will argue bootlegging, but i lived it.
the conditions changed before bootlegging started kicking everybodies ass.
the numbers were down due to white flight.

and this is never going to be recorded into rap's history.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

I did feel like a LOT of Underground music was Underground for a reason...and it shouldn't have been compared to 90's Boom Bap just because it was a descendant. I was more of a champion for Just Blaze and Kanye's evolution of that sound, along with folks like Madlib and Jay Dee. I can say I didn't even enjoy a lot of the "Dilla" era music from Dilla.

>I did feel like a LOT of Underground music was Underground
>for a reason...

Like it attempts to evaluate a set of artists by standards those artists reject by self identifying as underground, and then uses those standards to say they failed to succeed, when that success model isn't what it means to be underground. and then:

>and it shouldn't have been compared to 90's
>Boom Bap just because it was a descendant.

this attempts to disconnect it from history while

>I was more of a
>champion for Just Blaze and Kanye's evolution of that sound,

this tries to chop the underground down by insinuating what they were trying to do was done better by those that went mainstream. Which again is weird because... well before I go in on that, do you see what I'm hinting at? It's a tad revisionist, and I'm wondering if that's just your I don't really fuck with that or if it's your intent to marginalize like that.

It's not the first time I've read something like this for you and I'm always left scratching my head because I don't think of you as being that dismissive.... but at the same time recognize we've all got our biases.

No snark in any of this I hope you realize.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

head than the average commercial fan...but yet I'm more of a "commercial/mainstream head" than most underground heads. It's a fine line, and I tend to offend both sides at times, even though I'll receive credit from both sides.

>>I did feel like a LOT of Underground music was Underground
>>for a reason...
>
>Like it attempts to evaluate a set of artists by standards
>those artists reject by self identifying as underground, and
>then uses those standards to say they failed to succeed, when
>that success model isn't what it means to be underground. and
>then:

All I'm saying is that a lot of that music wasn't enjoyable to me. I'd hear the hyped up artists that were championed online (rarely from folks I personally knew)...check it out, and be like "eh.....I guess this is what they like?"

>>and it shouldn't have been compared to 90's
>>Boom Bap just because it was a descendant.
>
>this attempts to disconnect it from history while
>
>>I was more of a
>>champion for Just Blaze and Kanye's evolution of that sound,
>
>this tries to chop the underground down by insinuating what
>they were trying to do was done better by those that went
>mainstream. Which again is weird because... well before I go
>in on that, do you see what I'm hinting at? It's a tad
>revisionist, and I'm wondering if that's just your I don't
>really fuck with that or if it's your intent to marginalize
>like that.

Nowhere near me trying to "marginalize" it, but here's my issue.

Many underground heads are the same as the "Real Hip Hop" heads...especially those who are fans of the 2000's Underground. And what they do, is put this era of underground in the same category of the 90's "Hip Hop classics" as if it's the only descendant that's worthy of praise. Some of these folks will even knock a Jay, Kanye, even Lupe, basically anything that became mainstream, without acknowledging that it's also a descendant of the same era. And my issue is that a lot of the Underground artists and songs material is NOWHERE near as strong as the 90's classics, which is why it's only enjoyed by certain types.

Now, since names would eventually be mentioned, here's some "Underground" artists who I am not referring to, and who I enjoyed just as much or more than Mainstream artists: Little Brother, Slum, Murs, Brother Ali, Madlib...a few others, but those are some I actively listened to.

If you ask me about any other artist, I'll tell you if I liked em or not. But one thing I've said before on here, is that I hate how modern Underground Rap was so disconnected from the 90's and 80's, that they never made any party music, and were almost against anything that you could dance to. This is one reason I feel the Just Blaze type production was more of a descendant...because you can throw on Hip Hop Hooray, Check the rime, Buddy, even Shimmy Shimmy Ya and TROY in some places and people go WILD. And this may be me looking at it as a DJ, but yeah.

>It's not the first time I've read something like this for you
>and I'm always left scratching my head because I don't think
>of you as being that dismissive.... but at the same time
>recognize we've all got our biases.
>
>No snark in any of this I hope you realize.
>
>█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
>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."

As much as I think we can all agree that it's unfair to judge the merits of an artist's music based on the fanbase that he/she may unwittingly attract, you can't say that after a while that doesn't become an issue or a thorn in the side.

So look – I'm 30 and white. I watched a lot of my peers who look like me get off at way earlier train stops on this thing, and it always just felt a little off. Like, "oh, Aesop Rock/Slug is your favorite/the best rapper to do it, but you aren't even catching the references he's dropping to records from his peers, the Rawkus era, Golden era, etc? Interesting."

That level of fanatacism, minus the true knowledge of history (and I'm not saying you've gotta love it or even LIKE it, but this is a genre that rewards knowledge so you're better off at least UNDERSTANDING it) can be a little offputting.

I realize that this all almost seems like it belongs in a totally different post, but I'll say that the connecting factor is that this trend conjured, powered, and inflated a lot of subcultures of the genre in this era that appear to be a little limp today.

Oh and you want examples of the records I am referring to in the original reply? I'll just pull a couple from the A's, haha. Aesop Rock, Akrobatik, Aceyalone. Now for Aes and Ace, they both have material that I feel is classic brilliant shit...but it wasn't ALL good.

In recognizing the strange disconnect socially and aesthetically by fans and rappers/producers of 00s "underground" to 90s "golden era rap", which was/is viewed as underground but was on major labels and many were popular. Redman went gold; Wu was going gold and plat; Common, The Roots, and post fame De La were near gold and having packed shows. Even groups like The Artifacts, Beatnuts and Freestyle Fellowship may not have sold many records but they were far from obscure. You could go to a record store and find them on the shelves. 90s underground like Ellaykhule or tha Juggornaughtz and Centibots or the whole bay scene was the "true" underground in the traditional DIY sense. But the music and fanbases of late Def Jux, Sole, Atmosphere and others of the like did not view it as such and felt like they were carrying on tradition.

I'm a Blaxican and by 04/05 (shit really 02/03) me and my boy Lin were kinda of getting tired of being part of the handfull of colored faces at shows by artist we liked. We were literally like where the fuck are all the Black people, shit Mexicans, Arabs and Indians.. well they were at the 50, Dipset and Eminem shows around women and having fun. While we were around a sea of whiteness hearing that "good ol boom bap" while the rapper "kicked knowledge son"! I feel it was a reason so many did the "backpack backlash" by the end of that decade. It was very look at me I'm a real head, you fake, when the genesis of this was "yo lets use whay we got, create and have fun. Fuck the poverty, gangs, guns and drugs for a couple hours".

I will say this. Me and my friends caught Slum 3 different times from 2000-2002 and they were ALWAYS FUN and racial mixed shows.

And I think you explained it better than I could have.

Yea...I never want to bring race into it, but that has been an unspoken disconnect I've noticed as well. Thing is, most Black folx don't even know the 2000's Underground rappers, so they have no idea how their fanbases are.

>You could go to a record store and find them on
>the shelves. 90s underground like Ellaykhule or tha
>Juggornaughtz and Centibots or the whole bay scene was the
>"true" underground in the traditional DIY sense. But the music
>and fanbases of late Def Jux, Sole, Atmosphere and others of
>the like did not view it as such and felt like they were
>carrying on tradition.

THIS is exactly what I meant, about "carrying on tradition." Many of these fans hated on any and everything commercial, regardless of the content or how skilled the rappers were. I even remember the backlash Murs received for "Dreadlocks" and when I defended him and said "did you listen to the lyrics??" they said "I mean....well the lyrics aren't bad...but it's a Hyphy club beat, we only want him to Rap on Boom Bap beats." They were more mad about this than the "Animal style" video, LOL


>I'm a Blaxican and by 04/05 (shit really 02/03) me and my boy
>Lin were kinda of getting tired of being part of the handfull
>of colored faces at shows by artist we liked. We were
>literally like where the fuck are all the Black people, shit
>Mexicans, Arabs and Indians.. well they were at the 50, Dipset
>and Eminem shows around women and having fun. While we were
>around a sea of whiteness hearing that "good ol boom bap"
>while the rapper "kicked knowledge son"! I feel it was a
>reason so many did the "backpack backlash" by the end of that
>decade. It was very look at me I'm a real head, you fake, when
>the genesis of this was "yo lets use whay we got, create and
>have fun. Fuck the poverty, gangs, guns and drugs for a couple
>hours".

Yea, and I had a few moments where I felt like "Blacks don't appreciate Real Hip Hop, all they want is brainless party music" but then I thought about it...going out, partying has ALWAYS been about dancing. Some eras, such as Disco, House and Funk, they'd party to songs with NO lyrics. Or repeated lyrics...It's time for the percolator. Jack jack jack ya body. Or verses with random talking like Parliament or "Funkin for Jamaica." So if we're partying now to random instructions on "Tell me when to go" or "Lean wit it rock wit it"...even if the music isn't nearly as deep, that's truer to the roots of party music than anything from the recent underground.

without going on and on and on and on and on....

But I think the main point I want to put out there is that boom bap != underground.

Now I'm assuming the link gets made because of the notion of "keep it real" being closely related to that 'real boom bap' shit, but they can't be used interchangably or in this case used as a measure of undergroundness.

Boom-bap is a sound, while underground is more like an ideology (gets tricky).

Underground is an attempt to address something in a form (in this case music) which the main outlets for that form do not because of perceived broader acceptability. That's the general idea but I think the nature of any particular underground movement develops of its own accord.

Hip-hop began as an underground music. Throughout the early to mid 80's there were plenty of attempts to take it to the mainstream with moderate success until the end of the 80's. So during the 80's there was crossover hip-hop and there was an underground hip-hop, both coming out of an underground music. As the crossover gained traction however, it took the music as a whole out of the underground.

By the 90's hip-hop was a mainstream music, with underground elements. Actually let's say at the time there was mainstream, underground and underexposed. I think a lot of the disconnect comes out of confusing underexposed for underground. Underexposed happens once a movement gains mainstream traction, but a number of the artists which potentially could be in that crossover area end up underexposed to actually pop. But underground has no goal of crossing over.

What I'm seeing you doing in your initial post is attempt to compare underexposed artists to underground artists. In the 90's a lot of those underexposed artists gained a lot of traction so that they were out there. But that was there goal.

Using Rawkus as an example Company Flow was an underground group, Black Star was an underexposed group. There wasn't anything about Company Flow that could have been done differently to break them in the mainstream. To lyrically dense with a dirty production aesthetic to ever capture more than the niche audience that was into that. Black Star however had all the makings of a group that could crossover.

Not to speak for El, but IMO that's why Def Jux was born. Because Rawkus was not really looking to push underground music but underexposed music, which became more and more evident with each Sound Bombing volume.

Not to go on and on, but my main contention with your post is the marginalization of folk that were on that underground shit, because they didn't achieve what the underexposed were doing. The objectives were different. Even further what they were doing was just as important as everyone else. Because they weren't putting limits, or trying to fit their sound into the 'in' sounds, they were able to experiment sonically, lyrically, etc. The benefits of this always trickle up through the underexposed to the mainstream.

Don't get me wrong... a lot of that shit sucked. I wasn't a fan of 95% of the underground in the 2000's. I think it was a poor decade all around. Mainly because all of these things feed off each other. So if the mainstream is horrid, it makes the underexposed aspire horribly, and the underground react to the horrid.

I stop now.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

>
So if the mainstream is horrid, it makes
>the underexposed aspire horribly, and the underground react to
>the horrid.
>
>I stop now.

>I can say I didn't
>even enjoy a lot of the "Dilla" era music from Dilla.

Dooinit. The Jay Dee era just had more funk and a groove to me that I enjoyed

one of the greatest things about the god was his ability to do it all & create varied styles of music that appealed to pretty much anyone

just curious

not STARTED by me.

first of all to answer your question...
2001 was the best year for rap music in the 00's, by a huge disparity.
look at the sheer volume of memorable, quality material that was released and rotated.
the vibrant conditions that having CHOICE in the mainstream created is what existed in every golden era in music.
2000 would be a 2nd imo.
3rd, could go a few ways...

anyway... what happened?

rap music sales were blistering hot from 1996 to the beginning of the 00's with a more specific focus on 1998/1999/2000...

those 3 years, everything that had an ad in the source and a video in rotation on bet bascially went gold.

because white demographics were buying in huge numbers.

1996 was the year rap music turned a corner for the white consumer...
starting with 2pac, bone thugs n harmony, westside connection... moving to biggie, puffy, mase, dmx, big pun, etc...

the above names are like reading the most popular rap acts with white casual/dedicated rap fans.
but that's how it went down, there was HUGE traction and that's what lead to that late 90's run being the banner years for sales and in turn rap music clout within the entertainment industry.

1999 was probably the biggest year for rap sales.
everybodies music charter and sold big without anybody having to do top 40 records.


so with that preface out of the way...

enter the viacom purchase of bet and robert johnson being out of daily operations for the first time.

stephen hill & a motley crew of people way too old to ever be involved in the hip-hop movement take control of programming and they take any autonomy away that the producers of individual shows used to enjoy in the late 90's up til about 2000 in favor of dictating what videos will be rotated and never deviated from.

what this created was the homogenous conditions of the early-mid 00's and the east coast "backpacker-shaming" conditions that would follow...

acts that used to have a home at bet a few short years earlier just because they were dope to the programming producers, no longer had a home anywhere except on the internet.

major labels scaled back what they released to a few archtypes.
the concept behind what became "prototypical 00 singles" was usually defined by it's relevancy to the club because label heads decided that this would diminish risk and capture as much white dollar$ as possible because all the music was essentially "party music".

major miscalculation...
white people liked rap because it was a risk-free hood tour guide.
not because they wanted safe music by Black rappers dictated by corporations.
they really wanted all the worst that Black culture had to offer...
the NWAs, the onyxs, the DMX's... the whoever else.
when rap music became solely about wearing a mitchell and ness with an oversized fitted, rapping about liquor and women over big kicks, korg triton presets and clap snares...
white people, or a large portion of white people that were consumers a few short years earlier - tuned out.
rap's sales dropped dramatically from 2000 -> 2009 and still are dropping.

this was the white flight from rap music that was mostly fostered by stephen hill & friends changing the style and programming at BET.
but also at major labels for whittling down the TYPES of commercialize mainstream rotated singles to try to diminish risk and capture as much of the market share as possible without calculating what was actually the driver of rap's popularity with it's biggest consuming demographics (YT).

late 02... benzino destroys the source - boom there is another anchor of rap music's massive success in the late 90's/early 00's down the toilet.
suddenly with the stakes superhigh to execs because the flight in sales hasn't been recognized - there is really no gate-keepers to filter content.

now, forgetting the effects this has on the sales of rap with white demographics... let's focus on the influence it has on up and coming Black aspiring rappers and producers.

with a slender rotation list compared to a few years prior, the mainstream shaming of east coast sampled drums based music outside of a few acts, no national competition, and only a few different "types" of songs getting coverage.
things become so by the numbers for up and coming Black music acts that it sort of is sophomoric.
rap becomes the ultimate hustle...
"JUST BLAZE DRUMS - $10.99"
"neptune style beat #14 - $399 to lease"
"say bruh, you like hip-hop? come listen to my mixtape..."

they saw the sales rush and how rich people were getting with how little work from 96-01 and said "ME TOO!"

rap becomes less about people saying "let me see how far i can take THIS" to "hey he's rich, my shit almost sounds like his. so pay me, too!"

the status quo route to millions of dollars.

really just small spikes to keep ppl's attentions while chunks of people tune out year by year...
-04 lil jon and "crunk music", dipset/kanye chipmunk knock-off beats
-06 snap music, hyphy
-07 simplistic ringtone rap songs
-08 hipster hop
other little bs spikes that really were just blips to try to keep peoples attention...

the neptunes and timberland, share their sounds with white pop acts yearning for Black credibility, crossing a line that had been drawn in the 90s or earlier...

many elements of Black music, now for sale, wind u showing up on white acts songs/albums.

all the while white fans fleeing a sinking ship, going to youtube, going to file sharing blogs, discovering rap from before they were fans (80s, 90s) bemoaning rap's present unraveling conditions...

anyway, i'm getting tired writing.
but this reply is basically a retread of various threads/replies i've made since 2010.

end game:
the cruddy, gloomy portrait of Black culture was what sold rap music and made it have value to corporations.
and secondly, and most importantly, SAMPLES AND LO-FI!
old crackly records with incredible musicians playing on them spliced up and manipulated to make new songs...
you take out both of those things and you have a massive white flight from the genre beginning in 2002 and leading up til today.

and secondly, you get a whole bunch of get rich quick scheme music that succeeded based on the fact it was new and rap was still coming down from a really hot period.
the influence of stephen hill/corporations vision of rap music rearing itself in the actual music produced by people trying to "get on" like somebody eating feces and then having a bowel movement from it.

this isn't as concise and articulate as it could be but whatever...
this is what i want to contribute to this conversation.

you ignored me bruh?

Soooooo 1999, 2000, or 2001?

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

what about those years?
what are you asking me?
i probably didn't have time to read the reply you're talking about... sorry.

I just remember asking which year you thought it all started and you not saying shit.
i think my point was that the year was the only thing we were in disagreement about because I thought you'd say post 2001 and I'd say the writing was on the wall in 1999.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

1999 was better than people try to portray it.

a lot of memorable still enjoyable songs from 1999.

i made a post on here where just off the top of my head i named like 50 hot rap singles from 1999 that all had mainstream rotation.
it was a reply to dr claw and it was 2010 or 2011.

ask somebody do the same for like 2006 or something... lol.
there might not even have been 50 mainstream nationally rotated singles for that whole year the way things were trending at that point.

anyway, there was still a balance and an abundance of material from a multitude of contributors...

simon says was one of the biggest rap records of the year.

it wasn't all swizz beatz synth horns and shit.

in fact, swizz beatz sound was "over" by late 2000 in favor of timberland, rockwilder, and neptunes.

on face value it would seem like how'd it go from 99 to 2000. But inside of it all the writing was on the wall. $$ won out over everything in 1999 and was flaunting it's strength by 2000. And I'm talking behind the scenes not even what the artists were doing.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

go back and check that post i did a few years ago.

i did 2000 and then ended up deleting the txt file i had the post saved in and never bothered re-doing it.

then i did 2002 and it sucked so badly i didn't even bother posting it.

anyway, 2001 had better songs than 2000.

after q4 2001, MAYBE q1 2002... that's where i kind of draw the line, although as a fan i was still watching until well into 2005 hoping things would turn around to where they were.

That was 99. By 2003 MCA folded.

I want to say more but my churning brain is stopping me... for now.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

Not only who got put on and released music, but artist like Pharoah Monch just were in limbo FOR YEARS unable to release material

people may want to nit pick here and there and thee may be valid critivisms, but the general narrative has held up over the years.

Im the 80s and early 90s I used to RANDOMLY turn on the radio or channel 31 to watch Video music box and hear a song that is now considered a CLASSIC of the genre. Nowadays I can listen for months and hear nonsense, no matter how low I set my tolerance.

I sometimes don't think people realise how fragile popular trends in music were. Conditions had to be right for a Chuck Berry to emerge back in the day. If things are restrictive and banal, it could really effect music. People rely on an 'invisible hand' of music to provide them with tunes it seems.

>I sometimes don't think people realise how fragile popular
>trends in music were. Conditions had to be right for a Chuck
>Berry to emerge back in the day. If things are restrictive
>and banal, it could really effect music. People rely on an
>'invisible hand' of music to provide them with tunes it
>seems.

this is something that really changed.

exec sees act doing something totally different, takes chance, the act going left while everyone else is going right makes millions of dollars and spawns great influence on other musicians of their time.

just by taking that risk, the course of an entire genre is changed.

now you take a genre that's red hot.
you say, ok let's keep this going for as long as we can...
nobody make any sudden moves, just keep partying and we'll all keep making money.

diminishing returns due to no risks being taken.

risks make money.

but in the 00's because mainstream sources of media were so over-controlled by publicly traded corporations (no risk to appease shareholders), if you didn't know the right person and weren't making music that sounded like the last hit record, it didn't matter if you had a million dollar hand just waiting to be played... they'd ignore you into obscurity.
look at what happened to the cool kids.
oh, you don't want to sign with us?
ok cool, we're just going to erase you from ever existing and move on the next one.

>
>I sometimes don't think people realise how fragile popular
>trends in music were. Conditions had to be right for a Chuck
>Berry to emerge back in the day. If things are restrictive
>and banal, it could really effect music. People rely on an
>'invisible hand' of music to provide them with tunes it
>seems.
>
>


cultural and social spaces being eradicated by the ruling class.


the art we love and loved did not just come up out of nothing, there were social and cultural conditions that lead to that shit, and thats not to romanticise poverty or nothing like that.

What your working your thoughts around is that even though people lacked access to social resources and healthy living space, they created social and cultural spaces to combat the margins and silences of urban (and rural) destitution. By building a language through sounds and images artist and fans worked through aesthetic problems and facilitated regiments for people to hone their craft.

But now with EVERYTHING being privatized, with gentrification happening everywhere and everyone congregating to the net, their is no physical space. Just a litany of free work that is really works in progress and a litany of online critcal voices with no theory / thesis on anything but "you a hater", "shits wack", "its a classic" (4hrs after release), "so and so a fame whore", or a like and <3 and move onto the next one week trend

more like 1998. probably the last year the source mattered somewhat.
they did a lot of suspect shit in the 90s and had biased reviews and
dropped the ball on some reviews as well. anybody relying on the source
after 98 had issues.

I'm 25 now, got into hip-hop seriously after Stillmatic came out in 2001. I have a brother who's eight years older than me, so I was into the late-90s stuff, but I started pursuing it seriously own my own from 2002 -.

I was originally an underground head borne by the internet, so I was all about the underground stuff that championed consciousness and rejected whatever jiggy/bling shit was popular at the time. Some of the stuff still holds up now...some doesn't. Funny looking back at myself as a 13 year old buying The Cold Vein from Best Buy, but impressionable young minds can be molded by a lot of different things.

I feel like that whole scene cooled at around 2005/2006. It was a combination of the underground thing becoming mainstream via Kanye and associated acts and the "underground acts" one-note acts becoming stale. I just didn't feel as moved by a lot of their later projects as I did by the earlier ones even though they were preaching the same things. I was gonna start listing records but I can go on and on. I'll give one example of a record that didn't hold up...I listened to Soul Position - 8,000,000 Stories. The "serious" joints on the second-half of the album just don't hold up and...wait is this dude on an interlude talking about candy? What?

Going to college from 2006-2010, I naturally got into more mainstream stuff. I think Wayne's run from 05 (probably earlier but I didn't really get into him into Carter 2) until 2007 was historic. 2008 he was actually kind of wack but the Carter 3 album was great. From what I remember there wasn't too much great underground stuff at the time...I was really into Wayne, T.I., Luda, T-Pain, The-Dream...whatever was popular at the time. I thought (and still think) Drake's So Far Gone mixtape was really dope. The "new generation" didn't really come around until 2011, but you could see the seeds being planted in 2009 with the XXL Freshman list and Drake, Cudi, J. Cole, Charles Hamilton, etc... starting to make some noise.

Growing up via the internet, I was accustomed to the "canon" of classic 90s records like Illmatic, 36 Chambers, ATLiens, etc... but I've really started getting into earlier 90s hip-hop lately, especially with all the vinyl re-issues coming out. Digable Planets, De La Soul, Black Moon, Ice Cube, Goodie Mob, Organized Konfusion, Pharcyde, Souls of Michief...I always knew the names and knew their singles but I never got into their full albums until now. Objectively the 90s was better than the 00s for hip-hop. It's not even close.

TWENTY CLASSIC ALBUMS FROM THE 2000S:
- Supreme Clientele
- The Grind Date
- Disposable Arts
- The Cold Vein
- Murs 3:16
- College Dropout / Late Registration / Graduation (pick one)
- Mood Muzik 2
- The Listening
- Madvillainy
- Da Drought 3
- Underground Kingz
- Speakerboxxx / The Love Below
- Fantastic Vol. 2
- King
- The Black Album
- The Blueprint
- God's Son
- Diplomatic Immunity
- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2
- The Unseen

Impeccable/Notable Runs from the 2000s:
- Wayne from 2005ish - 2007 as mentioned above...simply unstoppable
- Doom from 2003 to 2004
- Andre in 2006/2007 when he was rapping over every mainstream song
- Eminem in late 2002/early 2003 in mixtape mode. I was never a big fan of G-Unit but between the Benzino diss songs, the 8 Mile stuff and the random mixtape stuff this was Em at his best IMO
- Madlib production-wise from Quasimoto to 2004 or so
- Cam'ron in this era: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugkjSxnzPDM

Sorry this was all off the top of the head - I'm sure I missed a lot

More specifically the "death" of the "bar band," but I feel like it's more personal, than it is across the board.

Essentially, the void created by Nirvana and the grunge movement left a open lane for "fun" and dance-y shit. And in that void, rap music made a move and staked claim in the "we're having fun, making money, fucking all the bitches" nature of hair metal bands and the like.

I thought this out better than this, but I'm drinking and that's all I'm typing for now. lol

peoples reluctance to discuss/parse anything remotely related to 2000-2009 in favor of rehashing the same trite nostalgic bullshit they were talking about in 2000-2009 is indicative of what exactly?

i mean it's not 3 months were talking about.
it's an entire decade of music that is almost completely lost to any sort of accurate re-telling.

shockingly enough, the most recent decade to our live & times...

what does this indirectly say about things?

while not realizing that a lot of it was corny/wack/BS/bad as well.

And this is not just Rap music...but fashion. Cartoons. Movies. Dances. Pop music. Rock. Video games.

I can't pinpoint when this attitude started, but it's been like this for a good while.

first Decade where Rap didn't have to share a thing with R&B fully 1)

meaning the late 70's through 80's called a fad or gimmick

90's hardcore and shock and also words and buzz 2)

in the 00's it all became all out Pop Music. no longer were you a Hardcore rapper, Soft Rapper, Safe rapper or social, it was a Gumbo all the same first time ever. 3)

a whole new generation of era grew up seeing there heros as Rappers period. 4)

the 00's marked the end of the Boutique label and Domiance instead was all signed directly to a Jimmy Iovine and a Clive Davis outright.

the Labels stopped doing Boutique and went straight into things. 5)

Big Pop Artists with Hip Hop Producers became the Norm as to being surprising in the 90's 6)

More rapping singers became more acceptable 7)

Rappers lasting longer as well. first decade where it ain't a thing 8)

Rappers winning Big time Awards like an Outkast for Pop Album of the year at the Grammys. 9)

to me the 00-09 marked a anything goes with Hip Hop and also it became accessible and lost its edge. 10)

coporate endoresements and merging became the norm along with more, films, commericals, clothing line, etc,. 11)

its been dissed as being dead by its elder statesmen and middle age and yet it still thrives so its at War with itself and yet it's firmly established and it still has a divide however for many different reasons. 12)

Deaths, Boutique Label CEO's beefing, Protest, bootlegs, critics, Fox News, etc... nothing can stop it and it ain't going nowhere 13)

1. Game Theory
2. Stankonia
3. God's Son
4. Rising Down
5. The End Of The Beginning
6. The Black Album
7. Like Water For Chocolate
8. Only Built For Cuban Linx Pt 2
9. Laugh Now, Cry Later
10. Graduation

Mainly because that was my early college years and it was when I was really going out of my old element as far as discovering new music. So many of my favorite albums came out during that 2 year period:

Blu & Exile - Below The Heavens
Kanye West - Graduation
The Roots - Game Theory
Brother Ali - The Undisputed Truth
CunninLynguists - A Piece of Strange, Dirty Acres
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor, The Cool
J Dilla - Donuts
Talib Kweli - Eardrum
El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

>Talib Kweli - Eardrum

He could've trimmed some of the fat but its a good album.

That Pete Rock song is greatness.

granted, I started doing all this stuff back in 2008 so that's when the number of releases included really starts to balloon and I give a 0.5 bonus to the total after every 30 albums (2009 has 161 compared to 2000's 34), and I was obviously not too deep in my early teens which was up through 2006, but still...even now, hitting 60 or 70 rap releases for a year is kind of an accomplishment. 2009 was like the light at the end of a tunnel for me, a lot of the big rappers from these days started breaking out heavily on the mixtape scene and, for whatever reason, it seemed like EVERY rapper all of a sudden developed amazing taste in beats even if their rhymes weren't always that good. There's been a ton of fun rappers to come out over the past 4 years but the directions producers started to go in 2009 is what really revived the hip-hop conversation IMO.


I have 27 years listed and ranked so the fact that all but one of these years show up in the bottom half of my rankings says about all I need to say about my opinion of the 2000s as a whole. There were a LOT of classic albums, many of them graded and topping these lists. But there was a lot of middling, disappointing and straight trash stuff in between.



http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/all_in_together_now__hip_hop_by_the_year


#9: 2009 - 7.76: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/tormented_by_my_radio__hip_hop_2009
#14: 2000 - 7.49: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/drop_heavier_levels__hip_hop_2000
#17: 2002 - 7.36: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/state_of_mind_purple__hip_hop_2002
#18: 2008 - 7.34: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/pull_your_wig_on_tight__hip_hop_2008
#19: 2005 - 7.32: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/like_hash_through_your_system__hip_hop_2005
#21: 2004 - 7.22: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/just_how_the_song_say__hip_hop_2004
#23: 2006 - 7.04: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/puttin_it_on_wax__hip_hop_2006
#25: 2001 - 6.97: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/cant_date_skills__hip_hop_2001
#26: 2007 - 6.95: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/let_the_trunk_rattle__hip_hop_2007
#27: 2003 - 6.92 (this is the lowest ranked year in my handbook): http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Nodima/no_herb_in_the_record_bin__hip_hop_2003



~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." © Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

so i'm not old enough to remember any previous changes hip hop went through.

but looking back i'd say the creativity of the artists just DIMINISHED rapidly.

hiphop went from a culture of hiding the sleeves of the records being played so nobody knew what the break was, so couldn't sound like you.

to every rapper wanting to jump on the same producers beats so they could all sound the same and not out of place.


thank mami wata i got into broken beat in 02-03.

I would've been musically happier in retrospect. I felt like fucn physical anachronism bumpin Hubbard's First Light in my walk/discmen or broke down Pontiac Grand Am, while others bumped Ja and Jeezy. I was like 22/23 feeling old as shit LOL

Mark it. If it fell too far outside of that realm, it won't last.

there's way too much other shit going on to boil it down to that narrow a group of artists

Look at all the OKP related shit in those years.

All the DF shit.

All the shit Kanye made/produced.

Can't ignore them cats if you're talkin bout 00's hip-hop

leaving Madlib & Dilla out is pretty wack (& quest himself would prolly laugh heartily himself if u delegate dilla to some quest-related category)

also see my Oddisee > Kanye post

also, Kast was better in the 90's lolol

from a previous decade. I felt like he was the pinnacle of everything the 90s built.

Whereas Kanye chipmunk beats took all the way the fuck over and that shit wasn't really around in the previous decade. Ye and Blaze bought Jay another decade with Blueprint. Yes, it built on Supreme Clientele, but SC didn't really explode until early 2000.

Doom wasn't a "change" in rap. He was kinda in his own area in general that never resulted in a widespread cultural movement. Doom fans are Doom fans.

If you were rapping about new-agey shit betwee 2000 and 2009 and you were GOOD at it? You were somehow connected to Kast, Ye, or Roots. Straight up. And new-agey shit kinda took over, if we're talking about stuff that's gonna last.

Hell look at the Killer Mike El-P shit even. That's Kast-created.

How the fuck is Ceelo even still around? That's DF right there.

I'm not saying anything outside of Kast/Ye/Roots is irrelevant. What I said was if you were TOO FAR outside of them, your shit ain't gonna stick.

but im dumb

so maybe i just dont get it


but cats werent choppin shit like Dilla did on Donuts in the 90's

>Hell look at the Killer Mike El-P shit even. That's
>Kast-created.

No actually it was created by Adult Swim and had nothing to do with Kast. Trying to attribute both of their longevity to kast is fucking insulting to the hardwork they both put in to stay at it to now, in Mike's case *despite* a meaningless DF affiliation.

>How the fuck is Ceelo even still around? That's DF right
>there.

No that's actually Dangermouse right there. If it weren't for DM Cee would probably still be doing it and possibly at some level of success (ie Pussycat Dolls and shit), but nothing about his solo career is really due to his DF affiliation.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
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."

I was tired. Sorry. I only meant they originated with DF.

>from a previous decade. I felt like he was the pinnacle of
>everything the 90s built.

this is arguable


>Hell look at the Killer Mike El-P shit even. That's
>Kast-created.

this is factually wrong

Nobody really buys music any more so it's just space on their ipod. Mixtapes have gotten so good that a lot of fans would only want to hear the mixtape and not the official album b/c it's better music (I think it also says a lot about how polarized radio listeners and album listeners are). Mixtapes used to be just for promo and have tons of throw away tracks but a lot artists have mixtapes that I'll listen to for years after. I think 50 Cent & Kanye changed the mixtape game and caused both rappers and fans to take them more seriously.

I still listen to some anticon stuff here and there, and a lot of it just sounds like noise. I really can't do a lot of "spiritual miracle lyrical" rap anymore, but I used to stan for that stuff because it was "difficult". I still rock Aceyalone's "A Book Of Human Languages" and how that LP launched me heavy into the 2000s in loving stuff like that.

I left a lot of it behind tho

.

I always knew what was out but yeah. I didn't support it much.

I'm curious

Like super serious rappity rapping opening up doors for lyrical guys like j cole and kendrick to not have to dumb it down to make money?

Might make for an interesting piece

namely Doom, Little Brother, the early Justus League days, Tanya Morgan, De La Soul "The Grind Date" and shit like Tiron's Ketchup mixtape. Even Carter 3 is a classic to me

it's like cats realized they had to go harder to keep dope shit alive since the labels couldn't be depended on anymore

it also set the stage for Kendrick to get on

that decade wasnt as good as the 90s but not as bad as some people say it was

this 2010 - 2019 shit has me worried though

>namely Doom, Little Brother, the early Justus League days,
>Tanya Morgan, De La Soul "The Grind Date" and shit like
>Tiron's Ketchup mixtape. Even Carter 3 is a classic to me
>
>it's like cats realized they had to go harder to keep dope
>shit alive since the labels couldn't be depended on anymore
>
>it also set the stage for Kendrick to get on
>
>that decade wasnt as good as the 90s but not as bad as some
>people say it was
>
>this 2010 - 2019 shit has me worried though

>What was the best year, or best few years? 2000? 2003?


the best year was '00. The first half of that decade was much better than the second half (and its not even close)


>Do we count any mixtapes as classics, and are they measured at
>the same level as an official CD release classic?
>


For every classic album released from like 05-09 I can probably name a corresponding mixtape from the same rapper that is just as good. Little Brother, Jeezy, Wayne, Spitta, Wale etc .. all adapted to the new industry and put out classic tapes


I understand why older hip hop fans, who grew up in the Tony Touch/Clue singles-driven era of tapes, would be skeptical to consider any mixtape in such high regard. But the format has changed



>Do you feel anything about the decade was better than the
>90's? Whether it was the top lyricists...or production...club
>music...or even contributions from cities that weren't
>dominant in the 90's.


ah the Descriptivist vs. Prescriptivist question. Unless you're a purist boom bap fan, there is no denying the production has improved. It improved so greatly that it influenced other genres to a certain extent. I mean, did people really care to listen to entire instrumental albums like that before?

lyrically, I can't really say. I mean its easy to point at the lowest common denominator as justification for the lyrics going to shit (I was guilty of that too at one point in time), but theres also a number of MCs I can point to who were putting it down as hard as anyone from previous decades.

>ah the Descriptivist vs. Prescriptivist question. Unless
>you're a purist boom bap fan, there is no denying the
>production has improved.

i actually agree w/ this in a technical sense (Donuts is my favorite album ever of any type & the instro album point is a good one) but the question remains to me whether hip-hop production lost a bit of it's allure/freshness simply bc of time passing (and a much wider knowledge & understanding of how hip-hop beats are made, as well as the explosion of DAWs getting so many ppl into the process) & whether the "advances" in technique & sound sufficiently compensate for that loss

since the got damn Chronic. And I'll fight and defend it, prove it, whatever.

For most people outside of L.A., they saw the whole decade as a dark period, while some even say we fell off for good after 96. I'll argue that we had a great year in 2001, but the nationwide impact wasn't as big as I thought back then.

The Game came in 2005, and I'd say he was a top 25 Rapper for the decade...but he didn't bring the West or L.A. back in any way...he was just big on his own. Did anything follow that? Nope...even folks in his camp like G. Malone left and had to do it on their own, and never got close.

What Jerkin did was get the youth on L.A's side, because most folks who are like 26-32 or so now have the lowest perception on L.A. and West Coast Rap...folks who are 35+ were there to see Chronic, Doggystyle, etc. With Jerkin, we followed the whole Snap and "Crank dat" YouTube type stuff, and put our own twist to it that youngsters nationwide loved.

I'll even go as far as to say that it busted the door wide open for Kendrick, Dom Kennedy, even Odd Future..because it was like "Yeah, we Jerk (ha..), we dance, BUT....check this out too!" and people were willing to listen. It's no coincidence that all these different styles here came out within the same few years...it was all connected.

I don't want to say it had a bigger impact than Hyphy, because you it's clear that Hyphy is Jerkin's Dad...and Jerkin was a completely stripped down, more basic, and wacker version of Hyphy, to be real. But what is true, is that Hyphy's biggest hits came from Lil Jon, not because they were better than the Rick Rock/Mac Dre/Keak songs, but because he was Lil Jon and was the Luke of the decade. With Jerkin, ALL the songs were produced and put out by lil young L.A. kids who had no direction or even major connects, and they got big from being viral on YouTube.

>since the got damn Chronic. And I'll fight and defend it,
>prove it, whatever.

So more important than Doggystyle, Westside Connection, The emergence of The Game, etc? I don't see how you could possibly make that argument but I'm all ears.
>
>For most people outside of L.A., they saw the whole decade as
>a dark period, while some even say we fell off for good after
>96. I'll argue that we had a great year in 2001, but the
>nationwide impact wasn't as big as I thought back then.
>
>The Game came in 2005, and I'd say he was a top 25 Rapper for
>the decade...but he didn't bring the West or L.A. back in any
>way...he was just big on his own. Did anything follow that?
>Nope...even folks in his camp like G. Malone left and had to
>do it on their own, and never got close.

I disagree that Game didn't have a huge impact..he did. He was one of the most buzzed about rappers during that time. Some of it was due to his constant name dropping and then ultimately his falling out with G Unit but either way he was one of the most talked about rappers around at that time. G Malone was never really a member of Game's camp though. I mean he flirted with Dre for a minute and ultimately went with Mack and the Cash Money dudes and then he couldn't deliver when it came time for Beach Cruiser to come out. Instead of making a hardcore street record, which is what everyone expected from him, i.e. making uber pop songs with Cataracs.
>
>What Jerkin did was get the youth on L.A's side, because most
>folks who are like 26-32 or so now have the lowest perception
>on L.A. and West Coast Rap...folks who are 35+ were there to
>see Chronic, Doggystyle, etc. With Jerkin, we followed the
>whole Snap and "Crank dat" YouTube type stuff, and put our own
>twist to it that youngsters nationwide loved.

And you think the "jerk movement" provided a positive perception of LA Hip Hop? I'd argue that most people who were into that scene were more pop/dance fans than actual Hip Hop fans anyway so they weren't paying attention to artist like Murs, Jay Rock, etc because that's not what they were into. They just wanted to dance and look fly.
>
>I'll even go as far as to say that it busted the door wide
>open for Kendrick, Dom Kennedy, even Odd Future..because it
>was like "Yeah, we Jerk (ha..), we dance, BUT....check this
>out too!" and people were willing to listen. It's no
>coincidence that all these different styles here came out
>within the same few years...it was all connected.

The city's too spread out to just lump everything into one big pot of gumbo like that and say that Jerkin did anything for people like Kendrick and Dom. LA has always had it's different divisions that didn't necessarily intersect. From the Electro Pop Rap days of World Class Wrecking Crew, Egyptian Lover, Arabian Prince and the LA Dream team going on at the same time as Ice T was jumping off those were for the most part different fan bases. Then when NWA and Ruthless blew up you had the Pharcyde, Freestyle Fellowship and the Good Life, Project Blowed style MC's and then you also had Tone Loc and Young MC (who was from NY but blew up while out here) in their own little pop bubble. Cali Swag movement and Kendrick (K Dot at the time) were just too different to really have much to do with each other. That to me is like arguing that Mims had something to do with the emergence of Joey Bada$$ which it didn't.
>
>I don't want to say it had a bigger impact than Hyphy, because
>you it's clear that Hyphy is Jerkin's Dad...and Jerkin was a
>completely stripped down, more basic, and wacker version of
>Hyphy, to be real. But what is true, is that Hyphy's biggest
>hits came from Lil Jon, not because they were better than the
>Rick Rock/Mac Dre/Keak songs, but because he was Lil Jon and
>was the Luke of the decade. With Jerkin, ALL the songs were
>produced and put out by lil young L.A. kids who had no
>direction or even major connects, and they got big from being
>viral on YouTube.

But that's the thing...they didn't really get "Big". They all had very short moments in the sun and now barely 3 or 4 years later no one can really even remember most of the names of the guys affiliated with that so called movement. In the end I put Jerkin right next to other gimmick moments in Hip Hop like the Pee Wee Dance, The Fly & Laffy Taffy. Pretty harmless in the big scheme of things but ultimately one hit wonders that you hoped saved their money because as big as they seemed when you look at the actual numbers didn't truly blow up. LA isn't some small town that was in desperate need of attention. Sure there weren't a ton of artists doing things nationally but the underground was building and if anyone truly makes a significant impact from LA they will always get a look just based on the fact that they are from LA, Compton, etc and all of the history that comes with that. To me that "any attention is good attention" mentality would be understandable from like Montgomery Alabama or something but not from LA.

>>since the got damn Chronic. And I'll fight and defend it,
>>prove it, whatever.
>
>So more important than Doggystyle, Westside Connection, The
>emergence of The Game, etc? I don't see how you could possibly
>make that argument but I'm all ears.

In the long run, it's having more impact in other ways. It was one of those things that jump started more than people realize, and it came from out of nowhere. And once again, I said it was the "Best thing"...mainly about what came after, not about the music, or even how important it is when you look through the years and say "what were the most important songs, artists, albums"...just the change in gears from the Gangsta shit we were known for, which became cliche and even negative...to a COMPLETELY new attitude and change in culture.

Even with Chronic, people were already paying attention to L.A. Rap, at least halfway....so that made them say "OH......." and Doggystyle followed that as to solidify that we were here. But the eyes were already on us, if that makes since. In 2007, 2008, commercial heads were paying zero attention to anything L.A. aside from The Game, Snoop, basically a few big names and that was it.

With Westside Connection, they made great music that we loved, but that actually started dividing fans of West Coast music and East Coast...even The South. It was the blatant, in your face, "This is the West, fuck who don't like it, fuck what you think is dope" and that for sure didn't get love everywhere, even though folks respected the attitude.

>>
>>For most people outside of L.A., they saw the whole decade
>as
>>a dark period, while some even say we fell off for good
>after
>>96. I'll argue that we had a great year in 2001, but the
>>nationwide impact wasn't as big as I thought back then.
>>
>>The Game came in 2005, and I'd say he was a top 25 Rapper
>for
>>the decade...but he didn't bring the West or L.A. back in
>any
>>way...he was just big on his own. Did anything follow that?
>>Nope...even folks in his camp like G. Malone left and had to
>>do it on their own, and never got close.
>
>I disagree that Game didn't have a huge impact..he did. He was
>one of the most buzzed about rappers during that time. Some of
>it was due to his constant name dropping and then ultimately
>his falling out with G Unit but either way he was one of the
>most talked about rappers around at that time. G Malone was
>never really a member of Game's camp though. I mean he flirted
>with Dre for a minute and ultimately went with Mack and the
>Cash Money dudes and then he couldn't deliver when it came
>time for Beach Cruiser to come out. Instead of making a
>hardcore street record, which is what everyone expected from
>him, i.e. making uber pop songs with Cataracs.

He had huge impact for HIMSELF...but what did it do for L.A. and L.A's rappers? That's the point of it. And G. Malone was originally BWS, not to name drop but I was part of the camp then, and thought it had potential between Malone, Black Friday, Billboard before his death..and then Techniec, Eastwood, etc. BWS was supposed to literally be the West Coast G-Unit, and absolutely NOTHING came from it. And no other L.A. artists were put on. So fans outside here loved Game, and may have heard a few tracks from the other artists via mixtapes, but none of them even had the chance to flop by dropping an album.

>>
>>What Jerkin did was get the youth on L.A's side, because
>most
>>folks who are like 26-32 or so now have the lowest
>perception
>>on L.A. and West Coast Rap...folks who are 35+ were there to
>>see Chronic, Doggystyle, etc. With Jerkin, we followed the
>>whole Snap and "Crank dat" YouTube type stuff, and put our
>own
>>twist to it that youngsters nationwide loved.
>
>And you think the "jerk movement" provided a positive
>perception of LA Hip Hop? I'd argue that most people who were
>into that scene were more pop/dance fans than actual Hip Hop
>fans anyway so they weren't paying attention to artist like
>Murs, Jay Rock, etc because that's not what they were into.
>They just wanted to dance and look fly.

Jerkin itself didn't create a positive perception exactly, it's all about what it lead to, which sounds wild but I see how it did..I don't think it was just a coincidence that right after Jerkin died, people outside of L.A. were paying attention to Dom Kennedy, TDE/Kendrick, Odd Future, and everyone else. What it did was told L.A. rappers, "f'k being local...whether you're dancing like us making BS records or rapping...there's a whole WORLD out there that is available to us!" Even though the internet has helped rappers become big since the early 2000's...it had never worked for L.A. artists until this point.

I agree that "Hip Hop" fans weren't into Jerkin, but as said, it was an age thing...there aren't many "Hip Hop" fans under the age of 25, if you ask me....BUT, what I realized is that these 15-25 year old kids tend to enjoy a bit of everything, and aren't as divided on some commercial/underground because technically, most of what they listen to is "Underground" in a sense that it's not just pushed by major labels, and is heard online before on local radio.

>>
>>I'll even go as far as to say that it busted the door wide
>>open for Kendrick, Dom Kennedy, even Odd Future..because it
>>was like "Yeah, we Jerk (ha..), we dance, BUT....check this
>>out too!" and people were willing to listen. It's no
>>coincidence that all these different styles here came out
>>within the same few years...it was all connected.
>
>The city's too spread out to just lump everything into one big
>pot of gumbo like that and say that Jerkin did anything for
>people like Kendrick and Dom. LA has always had it's different
>divisions that didn't necessarily intersect. From the Electro
>Pop Rap days of World Class Wrecking Crew, Egyptian Lover,
>Arabian Prince and the LA Dream team going on at the same time
>as Ice T was jumping off those were for the most part
>different fan bases. Then when NWA and Ruthless blew up you
>had the Pharcyde, Freestyle Fellowship and the Good Life,
>Project Blowed style MC's and then you also had Tone Loc and
>Young MC (who was from NY but blew up while out here) in their
>own little pop bubble. Cali Swag movement and Kendrick (K Dot
>at the time) were just too different to really have much to do
>with each other. That to me is like arguing that Mims had
>something to do with the emergence of Joey Bada$$ which it
>didn't.

I kind of answered this in the previous response. And yeah, I know L.A. has always, always been way more diverse than people realize (part of what I showed on The Timeline)...but we became EXTREMELY stagnant. In the 2000's, everyone here and outside had the attitude that "to blow up from L.A., you HAVE TO go through Dr. Dre." We mention Game, but think about the failed L.A. artists who were supposed to come through Dre btwn Snoop and The Game...and how many of them even got ONE album out?

So as said before...the Jerkin era didn't directly lead to Kendrick and all of them blowing up, but it did help break doors down...and let folks know that L.A. still had A Hip Hop scene. And I've even argued that Jerkin was as "true" to "Old School Hip Hop" than a lot of the more Underground or "Real Hip Hop" type music was...because it was dancing, and it's own culture, and high energy. Even if most of the music was horrid, cheap, made in bedrooms...it was a "do it yourself" attitude that was for once absorbed by a large number of people.

Mims to Joey Badass is a huge huge huge stretch, and you know that. Mims was ONE artist with a South sounding hit in 2007. What would make a bit more sense is saying the Get Lite/Toe Wop style NY music lead to Joey Badass...which it didn't, but that was a whole style and culture, and I think that was slept on as well..it had potential.


>>
>>I don't want to say it had a bigger impact than Hyphy,
>because
>>you it's clear that Hyphy is Jerkin's Dad...and Jerkin was a
>>completely stripped down, more basic, and wacker version of
>>Hyphy, to be real. But what is true, is that Hyphy's biggest
>>hits came from Lil Jon, not because they were better than
>the
>>Rick Rock/Mac Dre/Keak songs, but because he was Lil Jon and
>>was the Luke of the decade. With Jerkin, ALL the songs were
>>produced and put out by lil young L.A. kids who had no
>>direction or even major connects, and they got big from
>being
>>viral on YouTube.
>
>But that's the thing...they didn't really get "Big". They all
>had very short moments in the sun and now barely 3 or 4 years
>later no one can really even remember most of the names of the
>guys affiliated with that so called movement. In the end I put
>Jerkin right next to other gimmick moments in Hip Hop like the
>Pee Wee Dance, The Fly & Laffy Taffy. Pretty harmless in the
>big scheme of things but ultimately one hit wonders that you
>hoped saved their money because as big as they seemed when you
>look at the actual numbers didn't truly blow up. LA isn't some
>small town that was in desperate need of attention. Sure there
>weren't a ton of artists doing things nationally but the
>underground was building and if anyone truly makes a
>significant impact from LA they will always get a look just
>based on the fact that they are from LA, Compton, etc and all
>of the history that comes with that. To me that "any attention
>is good attention" mentality would be understandable from like
>Montgomery Alabama or something but not from LA.

Having the President's wife doing a dance that you made big (yeah, Texas created it, but CSD MADE that dance big) is pretty huge to me. Yeah, they were all one hit wonders, but as said, it's about the impact that it had. You can't compare it to individual songs...it's about what it grew into.

L.A. for sure isn't a small town...but I lived in Florida from 2002-2008, and believe me, the perception of anything we made was LOW, low, very low. Even when The Game came, it was basically, "All y''all got is The Game." Even Hyphy and The Bay got some love in 05-06. So it felt like L.A. was even less important than places like Tampa Bay.

DJ Mustard is now one of the top club producers out, Top 5 I'd say...and the West Coast sound is actually in the clubs now, which hasn't happened since the mid 90's, when artists like Adina Howard, Da Brat, and Biggie had songs with a West Coast influence. And his sound is a direct, 100% descendant of Jerkin.

Before Jerkin...you would go to L.A. clubs, and could literally go 2-3 hours without hearing but 1-2 L.A. songs, IF that! After Jerkin, you may got 30 min, even a hour, ONLY hearing L.A. songs. That's a HUGE difference. And outside of L.A., you used to never, ever ever hear anything that wasn't 90's Snoop/Dre/Pac in the club...now you may actually hear a YG, Problem, for sure Tyga, Ty Dolla Sign, maybe even a Joe Moses.

So as a whole, on top of everything already said...I think it finally represented a change in L.A. culture. Think about how The Game came in 2005, but was wearing shit that nobody in L.A. was REALLY wearing since the early 90's...even bangers weren't all chucks and khakis by 98. Kids here were more into dancing than banging for once, and it was represented. In 2001-2004, the Clown/Krump culture was HUGE, and luckily we had Rize to document it...but there was ZERO music to go along with it that really got play, aside from J-Squad's tracks and those that you would hear in like "Stomp the yard." All of it was done to Just Blaze, Timbaland, Neptunes, and Lil Jon type beats...never to our own music, because that was only about bangin, and never about having fun.

>In the long run, it's having more impact in other ways. It was
>one of those things that jump started more than people
>realize, and it came from out of nowhere. And once again, I
>said it was the "Best thing"...mainly about what came after,
>not about the music, or even how important it is when you look
>through the years and say "what were the most important songs,
>artists, albums"...just the change in gears from the Gangsta
>shit we were known for, which became cliche and even
>negative...to a COMPLETELY new attitude and change in
>culture.

I would agree with you if there was something more substantive there beyond the 1 song per artist look that all of those cats got. To me for something to leave a significant and lasting imprint it has to go further than just 1 song. Even if it were something like back when Kid N Play blew up I'd buy this argument because Kid N Play not only had a decent to solid album beyond just one song but they also expanded into movies that EVERYONE enjoyed. No matter how hardcore you claimed to be everyone enjoyed at least the first couple of House Party movies. Jerkin never did anything like that. That Mario Van Peebles movie was supposed to be that and that shit was so God awful that most people never even saw it. I actually wish they could have carved a little fun niche out of it but in the end I don't believe they did and they will forever be looked at as a gimmick.
>
>Even with Chronic, people were already paying attention to
>L.A. Rap, at least halfway....so that made them say
>"OH......." and Doggystyle followed that as to solidify that
>we were here. But the eyes were already on us, if that makes
>since. In 2007, 2008, commercial heads were paying zero
>attention to anything L.A. aside from The Game, Snoop,
>basically a few big names and that was it.

But the difference with the Chronic and I would argue Death Certificate as well is that there was still a lot of resistance to LA. You had the backlash against NWA, Tim Dog with "Fuck Compton" and still just an overall vibe that "them dudes over there is wack". People may have been paying attention but I would say the Chronic is the album that broke the door down to where it not only got major play on the radio on the East Coast but it was an album that was a must have on the street level. Doggystyle like you said followed and then that's when you could argue that the West took over but all of that shit that came after was much more significant than Jerkin ever was. Think about all of the post Chronic releases from Dogg Pound to Pac. Those things made a huge impact on the street level and the mainstream level.
>
>With Westside Connection, they made great music that we loved,
>but that actually started dividing fans of West Coast music
>and East Coast...even The South. It was the blatant, in your
>face, "This is the West, fuck who don't like it, fuck what you
>think is dope" and that for sure didn't get love everywhere,
>even though folks respected the attitude.

When Westside Connection hit things were taken to another level and you had Mack and WC leaving their own mark. I actually think that influenced the Midwest and the South to also have an attitude of fuck you this is where I'm from and I'm not apologizing for it. At that time the East Coast was still in many ways setting the tone for all things Hip Hop and while I think it may have alienated some NY fans I also think there there was a certain amount of respect for the whole attitude like you mentioned. NY is all about attitude and one thing I've always believed is that even if they don't like you if you tell them to fuck off to some degree they respected that more than a lot of the pandering that had gone on. We're talking more than 15 years ago and people are still yelling "Weeessiiidee" a la Cube. All of those dudes had some level of star quality. Most people couldn't really name one person directly linked to Jerkin. I think that says it all.

>He had huge impact for HIMSELF...but what did it do for L.A.
>and L.A's rappers? That's the point of it. And G. Malone was
>originally BWS, not to name drop but I was part of the camp
>then, and thought it had potential between Malone, Black
>Friday, Billboard before his death..and then Techniec,
>Eastwood, etc. BWS was supposed to literally be the West Coast
>G-Unit, and absolutely NOTHING came from it. And no other L.A.
>artists were put on. So fans outside here loved Game, and may
>have heard a few tracks from the other artists via mixtapes,
>but none of them even had the chance to flop by dropping an
>album.

I agree with you here but I think that was more because none of those artists could actually deliver anything that people wanted to hear. They didn't take advantage of the ear that Game had. Eastwood had been around for a while and IMO never could deliver a decent song or present a picture of who he was as an artist. I also blame Game for this to a certain degree. When The Documentary came out I thought he missed an opportunity to really bring the West back because when you listen to the album it never truly felt like a West Coast album. All of the 50 Cent appearances, Em, Yayo. There was something from everywhere except LA on that album. I always thought he should have had at least one song with a bunch of the Black Wall Street dudes on there to give them that introduction. I also thought that album should have had way more West Coast producers on it. No way that album should have come out without at least a couple of beats from Quik, Battlecat or even DJ Khalil.

>Jerkin itself didn't create a positive perception exactly,
>it's all about what it lead to, which sounds wild but I see
>how it did..I don't think it was just a coincidence that right
>after Jerkin died, people outside of L.A. were paying
>attention to Dom Kennedy, TDE/Kendrick, Odd Future, and
>everyone else. What it did was told L.A. rappers, "f'k being
>local...whether you're dancing like us making BS records or
>rapping...there's a whole WORLD out there that is available to
>us!" Even though the internet has helped rappers become big
>since the early 2000's...it had never worked for L.A. artists
>until this point.

See and I think it's because those artists had an interesting take on Hip Hop. I don't think Jerkin had anything to do with it. In fact if Odd Future, Dom and TDE had come out as full force as they later did I'd argue we may have never even had Jerkin.
>
>I agree that "Hip Hop" fans weren't into Jerkin, but as said,
>it was an age thing...there aren't many "Hip Hop" fans under
>the age of 25, if you ask me....BUT, what I realized is that
>these 15-25 year old kids tend to enjoy a bit of everything,
>and aren't as divided on some commercial/underground because
>technically, most of what they listen to is "Underground" in a
>sense that it's not just pushed by major labels, and is heard
>online before on local radio.

I disagree that there aren't that many Hip Hop fans under 25. All you need to do is head out to Rock The Bells or any of those damn shows in the desert that are primarily geared towards Hip Hop and see how big (and young) the audience is. Now you could argue that there aren't as many BLACK fans but tons of kids that age were listening to Hip Hop just not shit from LA because there wasn't a lot for them to really get into.
>
>>>
>>>I'll even go as far as to say that it busted the door wide
>>>open for Kendrick, Dom Kennedy, even Odd Future..because it
>>>was like "Yeah, we Jerk (ha..), we dance, BUT....check this
>>>out too!" and people were willing to listen. It's no
>>>coincidence that all these different styles here came out
>>>within the same few years...it was all connected.

To me that's like arguing that the success of Tyrese had something to do with Kendrick. Again I think these are totally different fan bases. Jerkin mainly appealed to girls and girls (in general) aren't going to be all into lyrics and flow etc. They just want to party and have a good time. Of course the guys will go along with it to a certain degree because they want to hang out with the girls but anytime you have something in Hip Hop that is too dedicated to the non Hip Hop no male core audience you're gonna have a hard time surviving or leaving a lasting positive impression.



>
>I kind of answered this in the previous response. And yeah, I
>know L.A. has always, always been way more diverse than people
>realize (part of what I showed on The Timeline)...but we
>became EXTREMELY stagnant. In the 2000's, everyone here and
>outside had the attitude that "to blow up from L.A., you HAVE
>TO go through Dr. Dre." We mention Game, but think about the
>failed L.A. artists who were supposed to come through Dre btwn
>Snoop and The Game...and how many of them even got ONE album
>out?

Oh yeah this has been a problem for years so we agree there. I think many of those artists made a mistake in now branching out on their own and establishing their own style of Hip Hop instead of waiting for someone from the NWA family tree to blow them up.
>
>So as said before...the Jerkin era didn't directly lead to
>Kendrick and all of them blowing up, but it did help break
>doors down...and let folks know that L.A. still had A Hip Hop
>scene. And I've even argued that Jerkin was as "true" to "Old
>School Hip Hop" than a lot of the more Underground or "Real
>Hip Hop" type music was...because it was dancing, and it's own
>culture, and high energy. Even if most of the music was
>horrid, cheap, made in bedrooms...it was a "do it yourself"
>attitude that was for once absorbed by a large number of
>people.

Oh I agree that Jerkin was in line with plenty of songs like "The Wop" by B Fats and "Pee Wee's Dance" by Joeski Love so no argument there. But like those artists they end up being footnotes for lack of having more than 1 song to ride on.
>
>Mims to Joey Badass is a huge huge huge stretch, and you know
>that. Mims was ONE artist with a South sounding hit in 2007.
>What would make a bit more sense is saying the Get Lite/Toe
>Wop style NY music lead to Joey Badass...which it didn't, but
>that was a whole style and culture, and I think that was slept
>on as well..it had potential.

My point with Mims to Joey is just to show how different Jerkin was to what Dom or TDE were and are doing. They share nothing in common other than general location so I think it's unfair to give them any credit for Kendrick blowing up. They are in completely different lanes. I'd give more credit to someone like Lupe Fiasco for opening the door for Kendrick than Cali Swag Movement.

>Having the President's wife doing a dance that you made big
>(yeah, Texas created it, but CSD MADE that dance big) is
>pretty huge to me. Yeah, they were all one hit wonders, but as
>said, it's about the impact that it had. You can't compare it
>to individual songs...it's about what it grew into.

But how is that helping Dom or Kendrick? Nobody looks at that and says oh they got something going on in Cali let's check out this kid Kendrick who sounds absolutely nothing like them. I think people are a lot more likely to go listen to the Texas and Atl snap stuff than search out Kendrick because those things are all similar.
>
>L.A. for sure isn't a small town...but I lived in Florida from
>2002-2008, and believe me, the perception of anything we made
>was LOW, low, very low. Even when The Game came, it was
>basically, "All y''all got is The Game." Even Hyphy and The
>Bay got some love in 05-06. So it felt like L.A. was even less
>important than places like Tampa Bay.
>
>DJ Mustard is now one of the top club producers out, Top 5 I'd
>say...and the West Coast sound is actually in the clubs now,
>which hasn't happened since the mid 90's, when artists like
>Adina Howard, Da Brat, and Biggie had songs with a West Coast
>influence. And his sound is a direct, 100% descendant of
>Jerkin.

Mustard is definitely the bastard child of Jerkin so we agree there.
>
>Before Jerkin...you would go to L.A. clubs, and could
>literally go 2-3 hours without hearing but 1-2 L.A. songs, IF
>that! After Jerkin, you may got 30 min, even a hour, ONLY
>hearing L.A. songs. That's a HUGE difference. And outside of
>L.A., you used to never, ever ever hear anything that wasn't
>90's Snoop/Dre/Pac in the club...now you may actually hear a
>YG, Problem, for sure Tyga, Ty Dolla Sign, maybe even a Joe
>Moses.

It will be interesting to see how long that lasts. Of course you want music from your region playing in your local club but you (or maybe I should say I) also want it to be quality and not just the latest fad.
>
>So as a whole, on top of everything already said...I think it
>finally represented a change in L.A. culture. Think about how
>The Game came in 2005, but was wearing shit that nobody in
>L.A. was REALLY wearing since the early 90's...even bangers
>weren't all chucks and khakis by 98. Kids here were more into
>dancing than banging for once, and it was represented. In
>2001-2004, the Clown/Krump culture was HUGE, and luckily we
>had Rize to document it...but there was ZERO music to go along
>with it that really got play, aside from J-Squad's tracks and
>those that you would hear in like "Stomp the yard." All of it
>was done to Just Blaze, Timbaland, Neptunes, and Lil Jon type
>beats...never to our own music, because that was only about
>bangin, and never about having fun.

This is true. I looked at Game and thought "damn you just stepped right out of Death Row in 96". It was so manufactured and had such a time stamp on it that's the other reason I don't think any of his artists caught on. When I would drive by Dorsey and Crenshaw NOBODY looked like that. None of my little cousins looked like that. Clown and Krump culture was bigger in my opinion and it was definitely a shame that there were no artists to break out of that to really blow up because that's the type of thing that I'm talking about as far as having a longer and more national impact than just a couple of one offs. If Tight Eyes or some of those cats could actually rhyme and make some good music? That shit would have been huge and respected at the same time because that felt more organic to me and more in lines with Hip Hop culture instead of just your typical disposable pop/rap song that disappears in a couple of years. In the end I hear where you're coming from especially since you're a DJ I just think it's a huge stretch to say that Jerkin was the most important thing to come from LA since The Chronic.

as well..

To say "most important" would be a huge huge stretch. And I know that even saying "it's the best thing that's happened" is still a shocker, but it is a difference from saying it's that important.

>
>>In the long run, it's having more impact in other ways. It
>was
>>one of those things that jump started more than people
>>realize, and it came from out of nowhere. And once again, I
>>said it was the "Best thing"...mainly about what came after,
>>not about the music, or even how important it is when you
>look
>>through the years and say "what were the most important
>songs,
>>artists, albums"...just the change in gears from the Gangsta
>>shit we were known for, which became cliche and even
>>negative...to a COMPLETELY new attitude and change in
>>culture.
>
>I would agree with you if there was something more substantive
>there beyond the 1 song per artist look that all of those cats
>got. To me for something to leave a significant and lasting
>imprint it has to go further than just 1 song. Even if it were
>something like back when Kid N Play blew up I'd buy this
>argument because Kid N Play not only had a decent to solid
>album beyond just one song but they also expanded into movies
>that EVERYONE enjoyed. No matter how hardcore you claimed to
>be everyone enjoyed at least the first couple of House Party
>movies. Jerkin never did anything like that. That Mario Van
>Peebles movie was supposed to be that and that shit was so God
>awful that most people never even saw it. I actually wish they
>could have carved a little fun niche out of it but in the end
>I don't believe they did and they will forever be looked at as
>a gimmick.

I for sure agree that Jerkin burnt out extremely fast...but the way I see it, I feel that the sound it created just immediately said "all right, eff the gimmicks, and lets at least make regular club music" which is what happened.

I can agree that I am looking at it as a DJ...and that's why I probably see it as more important to overall L.A. culture and the Rap. For example...in early 2008, if I happened to DJ a HS party, you saw the dudes posted around, maybe hopping on girls as usual, but still just standing, looking hard, etc etc. Just a year later, ALL of them were dancing, even the ones who couldn't dance. Even the super tall dude, the fat dude, etc etc...and I don't think we ever saw a shift that happened overnight in that way that also had music behind it.

>>
>>Even with Chronic, people were already paying attention to
>>L.A. Rap, at least halfway....so that made them say
>>"OH......." and Doggystyle followed that as to solidify that
>>we were here. But the eyes were already on us, if that makes
>>since. In 2007, 2008, commercial heads were paying zero
>>attention to anything L.A. aside from The Game, Snoop,
>>basically a few big names and that was it.
>
>But the difference with the Chronic and I would argue Death
>Certificate as well is that there was still a lot of
>resistance to LA. You had the backlash against NWA, Tim Dog
>with "Fuck Compton" and still just an overall vibe that "them
>dudes over there is wack". People may have been paying
>attention but I would say the Chronic is the album that broke
>the door down to where it not only got major play on the radio
>on the East Coast but it was an album that was a must have on
>the street level. Doggystyle like you said followed and then
>that's when you could argue that the West took over but all of
>that shit that came after was much more significant than
>Jerkin ever was. Think about all of the post Chronic releases
>from Dogg Pound to Pac. Those things made a huge impact on the
>street level and the mainstream level.

Yeah, I know there was huge resistance to us, and that Chronic is when people GOT IT, like "damn...they got this..." and it was no way to really hate or stop the momentum. And it worked for that good 92-96 period.

>>
>>With Westside Connection, they made great music that we
>loved,
>>but that actually started dividing fans of West Coast music
>>and East Coast...even The South. It was the blatant, in your
>>face, "This is the West, fuck who don't like it, fuck what
>you
>>think is dope" and that for sure didn't get love everywhere,
>>even though folks respected the attitude.
>
>When Westside Connection hit things were taken to another
>level and you had Mack and WC leaving their own mark. I
>actually think that influenced the Midwest and the South to
>also have an attitude of fuck you this is where I'm from and
>I'm not apologizing for it. At that time the East Coast was
>still in many ways setting the tone for all things Hip Hop and
>while I think it may have alienated some NY fans I also think
>there there was a certain amount of respect for the whole
>attitude like you mentioned. NY is all about attitude and one
>thing I've always believed is that even if they don't like you
>if you tell them to fuck off to some degree they respected
>that more than a lot of the pandering that had gone on. We're
>talking more than 15 years ago and people are still yelling
>"Weeessiiidee" a la Cube. All of those dudes had some level of
>star quality. Most people couldn't really name one person
>directly linked to Jerkin. I think that says it all.

Yea good point, it did influence the South and Midwest to feel like "maybe we don't have to dickride NY or even cater to them to get big"...and it may have even lead to the South's future dominance at that time. And yeah, Westside Connection and not Pac was the reason that everybody screamed and still screams "Westside" for sure.

Jerkin for sure didn't produce any one artist of major impact...YG and Mustard are the main ones who were there at the time that are prospering, along with maybe Ty Dolla. There's others who are doing ok on a local club tip. But I still don't think that takes away from how it was good for the overall scene.

>
>>He had huge impact for HIMSELF...but what did it do for L.A.
>>and L.A's rappers? That's the point of it. And G. Malone was
>>originally BWS, not to name drop but I was part of the camp
>>then, and thought it had potential between Malone, Black
>>Friday, Billboard before his death..and then Techniec,
>>Eastwood, etc. BWS was supposed to literally be the West
>Coast
>>G-Unit, and absolutely NOTHING came from it. And no other
>L.A.
>>artists were put on. So fans outside here loved Game, and
>may
>>have heard a few tracks from the other artists via mixtapes,
>>but none of them even had the chance to flop by dropping an
>>album.
>
>I agree with you here but I think that was more because none
>of those artists could actually deliver anything that people
>wanted to hear. They didn't take advantage of the ear that
>Game had. Eastwood had been around for a while and IMO never
>could deliver a decent song or present a picture of who he was
>as an artist. I also blame Game for this to a certain degree.
>When The Documentary came out I thought he missed an
>opportunity to really bring the West back because when you
>listen to the album it never truly felt like a West Coast
>album. All of the 50 Cent appearances, Em, Yayo. There was
>something from everywhere except LA on that album. I always
>thought he should have had at least one song with a bunch of
>the Black Wall Street dudes on there to give them that
>introduction. I also thought that album should have had way
>more West Coast producers on it. No way that album should have
>come out without at least a couple of beats from Quik,
>Battlecat or even DJ Khalil.

Even though I was in the camp, I always felt he was too much of an East Coast artist that just happened to be from here. One thing we never speak on much is the fact that in 2001-2003, most L.A. rappers who weren't rapping on a gangsta tip ALL rapped like they were from the East Coast...especially when you went to battle type events. Game was one of many..and he also chose to Rap on East Coast and other mainstream beats. And that reminds me...even when I first met with his manager and two BWS artists...I only played them my East Coast sounding beats at first, but when I got to the L.A. soundin ones, they went wild...and I was like oh...maybe they do actually like West Coast beats too?

But I agree about the folks in his camp and who were connected...they were dope rappers, but not artists. And I think folks like Sly Boogy still didn't get a chance to shine, as for those who could Rap AND make songs. Sly was the perfect balance...vs Crooked I, who I rode the hardest for back then, who never learned to make songs.

>
>>Jerkin itself didn't create a positive perception exactly,
>>it's all about what it lead to, which sounds wild but I see
>>how it did..I don't think it was just a coincidence that
>right
>>after Jerkin died, people outside of L.A. were paying
>>attention to Dom Kennedy, TDE/Kendrick, Odd Future, and
>>everyone else. What it did was told L.A. rappers, "f'k being
>>local...whether you're dancing like us making BS records or
>>rapping...there's a whole WORLD out there that is available
>to
>>us!" Even though the internet has helped rappers become big
>>since the early 2000's...it had never worked for L.A.
>artists
>>until this point.
>
>See and I think it's because those artists had an interesting
>take on Hip Hop. I don't think Jerkin had anything to do with
>it. In fact if Odd Future, Dom and TDE had come out as full
>force as they later did I'd argue we may have never even had
>Jerkin.

Eh, I donno...they were all around before Jerkin, and I feel like it's hard to make the connection, but it makes sense that it all got big at one time. Almost like L.A. came back into the Hip Hop world with a variety pack, like "ok you hate the dancing gimmicky shit, well...check this. Oh, you just wanna party, well check this."

>>
>>I agree that "Hip Hop" fans weren't into Jerkin, but as
>said,
>>it was an age thing...there aren't many "Hip Hop" fans under
>>the age of 25, if you ask me....BUT, what I realized is that
>>these 15-25 year old kids tend to enjoy a bit of everything,
>>and aren't as divided on some commercial/underground because
>>technically, most of what they listen to is "Underground" in
>a
>>sense that it's not just pushed by major labels, and is
>heard
>>online before on local radio.
>
>I disagree that there aren't that many Hip Hop fans under 25.
>All you need to do is head out to Rock The Bells or any of
>those damn shows in the desert that are primarily geared
>towards Hip Hop and see how big (and young) the audience is.
>Now you could argue that there aren't as many BLACK fans but
>tons of kids that age were listening to Hip Hop just not shit
>from LA because there wasn't a lot for them to really get
>into.

I guess I could have re-worded...what I meant is that the kids now aren't ONLY "Hip Hop heads" in many cases, and they can enjoy all of the artists. The Black kids especially. Speaking of Rock The Bells, Paid Dues this year taught me a lot. I realized that the crowd basically remained the same for Joey Badass, Trinidad, Problem, Juicy J, Dom...and they loved it ALL. But for the songs I played inbetween, they basically liked the new club songs more than the 90's Hip Hop, even though they all loved Joey and Kendrick. So it feels like they just had balance...I thought they would boo a Trinidad, or even hate me for playing Bugatti type songs RIGHT AFTER Joey went off.

>>
>>>>
>>>>I'll even go as far as to say that it busted the door wide
>>>>open for Kendrick, Dom Kennedy, even Odd Future..because
>it
>>>>was like "Yeah, we Jerk (ha..), we dance, BUT....check
>this
>>>>out too!" and people were willing to listen. It's no
>>>>coincidence that all these different styles here came out
>>>>within the same few years...it was all connected.
>
>To me that's like arguing that the success of Tyrese had
>something to do with Kendrick. Again I think these are totally
>different fan bases. Jerkin mainly appealed to girls and girls
>(in general) aren't going to be all into lyrics and flow etc.
>They just want to party and have a good time. Of course the
>guys will go along with it to a certain degree because they
>want to hang out with the girls but anytime you have something
>in Hip Hop that is too dedicated to the non Hip Hop no male
>core audience you're gonna have a hard time surviving or
>leaving a lasting positive impression.

LOL @ Tyrese. Nah...Jerkin for suuuuure appealed to boys just as much...most of the videos had boys dancing just as much.

I think what made me respect the young kids was after doing an all Jerkin party. Packing up, some kids stayed around, and were playing songs on YouTube...and I was talking to them. I joked and said "you know y'all gon hate ALL of this BS in a few years" and one said "I mean, we know it sucks, it's just fun to dance to. We like more than this" and two were actually hype when I mentioned Murs. I was like whoa...y'all really like Murs AND this Pink Dollaz shit? And it made me realize that this generation wasn't built off radio...so they have a better chance of liking the dance bullshit AND some "real Hip Hop" than what's fed to them on TV..which was dope.


>
>
>
>>
>>I kind of answered this in the previous response. And yeah,
>I
>>know L.A. has always, always been way more diverse than
>people
>>realize (part of what I showed on The Timeline)...but we
>>became EXTREMELY stagnant. In the 2000's, everyone here and
>>outside had the attitude that "to blow up from L.A., you
>HAVE
>>TO go through Dr. Dre." We mention Game, but think about the
>>failed L.A. artists who were supposed to come through Dre
>btwn
>>Snoop and The Game...and how many of them even got ONE album
>>out?
>
>Oh yeah this has been a problem for years so we agree there. I
>think many of those artists made a mistake in now branching
>out on their own and establishing their own style of Hip Hop
>instead of waiting for someone from the NWA family tree to
>blow them up.
>>
>>So as said before...the Jerkin era didn't directly lead to
>>Kendrick and all of them blowing up, but it did help break
>>doors down...and let folks know that L.A. still had A Hip
>Hop
>>scene. And I've even argued that Jerkin was as "true" to
>"Old
>>School Hip Hop" than a lot of the more Underground or "Real
>>Hip Hop" type music was...because it was dancing, and it's
>own
>>culture, and high energy. Even if most of the music was
>>horrid, cheap, made in bedrooms...it was a "do it yourself"
>>attitude that was for once absorbed by a large number of
>>people.
>
>Oh I agree that Jerkin was in line with plenty of songs like
>"The Wop" by B Fats and "Pee Wee's Dance" by Joeski Love so no
>argument there. But like those artists they end up being
>footnotes for lack of having more than 1 song to ride on.

I think the main difference comparing the late 80's dances and even a "Humpty dance" is that there were way more "Hip Hop" songs being played at clubs/parties back then. EPMD, De La, Tribe, even some Cube songs, Quik, etc for L.A....while by the late 2000's, the songs almost had to give you instructions on how to dance. And the club music was just THAT much different from what wasn't meant for the club.

>>
>>Mims to Joey Badass is a huge huge huge stretch, and you
>know
>>that. Mims was ONE artist with a South sounding hit in 2007.
>>What would make a bit more sense is saying the Get Lite/Toe
>>Wop style NY music lead to Joey Badass...which it didn't,
>but
>>that was a whole style and culture, and I think that was
>slept
>>on as well..it had potential.
>
>My point with Mims to Joey is just to show how different
>Jerkin was to what Dom or TDE were and are doing. They share
>nothing in common other than general location so I think it's
>unfair to give them any credit for Kendrick blowing up. They
>are in completely different lanes. I'd give more credit to
>someone like Lupe Fiasco for opening the door for Kendrick
>than Cali Swag Movement.

I don't wanna giev ALL the credit to a CSD or New Boyz, and I feel Kanye is for sure a bigger reason than Jerkin to lead to a Kendrick type act...that's for sure. I just think it tore down the Regionalism that had plagued L.A for so long, not that there was any direct connection to the music itself. It was almost the face of the new L.A. attitude, which was "yeah, we might be from the hood, but we're no longer just rapping about how hood we are, how hard we bang, etc" and all from the same tree.

>
>>Having the President's wife doing a dance that you made big
>>(yeah, Texas created it, but CSD MADE that dance big) is
>>pretty huge to me. Yeah, they were all one hit wonders, but
>as
>>said, it's about the impact that it had. You can't compare
>it
>>to individual songs...it's about what it grew into.
>
>But how is that helping Dom or Kendrick? Nobody looks at that
>and says oh they got something going on in Cali let's check
>out this kid Kendrick who sounds absolutely nothing like them.
>I think people are a lot more likely to go listen to the Texas
>and Atl snap stuff than search out Kendrick because those
>things are all similar.

I can for sure see what you mean with that, but I just feel that people in the South and even East were completely close minded to EVERYTHING we had at the time, regardless of if it was club music, legit lyricism from Blu, laid back smoker music from Dom, semi-gangsta from Jay Rock. I was no longer in the South after 08, but I still remember going back in 09 and 2010, and seeing that the young college kids from other places were into all of the L.A. music at once..and maybe it isn't a direct credit to Jerkin as I feel, but I just think it had to be some type of connection.

>>
>>L.A. for sure isn't a small town...but I lived in Florida
>from
>>2002-2008, and believe me, the perception of anything we
>made
>>was LOW, low, very low. Even when The Game came, it was
>>basically, "All y''all got is The Game." Even Hyphy and The
>>Bay got some love in 05-06. So it felt like L.A. was even
>less
>>important than places like Tampa Bay.
>>
>>DJ Mustard is now one of the top club producers out, Top 5
>I'd
>>say...and the West Coast sound is actually in the clubs now,
>>which hasn't happened since the mid 90's, when artists like
>>Adina Howard, Da Brat, and Biggie had songs with a West
>Coast
>>influence. And his sound is a direct, 100% descendant of
>>Jerkin.
>
>Mustard is definitely the bastard child of Jerkin so we agree
>there.
>>
>>Before Jerkin...you would go to L.A. clubs, and could
>>literally go 2-3 hours without hearing but 1-2 L.A. songs,
>IF
>>that! After Jerkin, you may got 30 min, even a hour, ONLY
>>hearing L.A. songs. That's a HUGE difference. And outside of
>>L.A., you used to never, ever ever hear anything that wasn't
>>90's Snoop/Dre/Pac in the club...now you may actually hear a
>>YG, Problem, for sure Tyga, Ty Dolla Sign, maybe even a Joe
>>Moses.
>
>It will be interesting to see how long that lasts. Of course
>you want music from your region playing in your local club but
>you (or maybe I should say I) also want it to be quality and
>not just the latest fad.

I mean...I'd say it's been 4 years and all with positive momentum. Seeing 2 Chainz, Jeezy, and now B.o.B and Ludacris really going to Mustard for their lead singles...and then League of Starz, or even P. Lo from the Bay producing tracks for Chris Brown, Yo Gotti, Wiz, that are club hits...I feel we have a strong sound now that has plenty room for growth. The recent Mustard tracks for TeeFlii already show another level of progression, incorporating actual musical chords and changes on top of the "Ratchet" type drums.

>>
>>So as a whole, on top of everything already said...I think
>it
>>finally represented a change in L.A. culture. Think about
>how
>>The Game came in 2005, but was wearing shit that nobody in
>>L.A. was REALLY wearing since the early 90's...even bangers
>>weren't all chucks and khakis by 98. Kids here were more
>into
>>dancing than banging for once, and it was represented. In
>>2001-2004, the Clown/Krump culture was HUGE, and luckily we
>>had Rize to document it...but there was ZERO music to go
>along
>>with it that really got play, aside from J-Squad's tracks
>and
>>those that you would hear in like "Stomp the yard." All of
>it
>>was done to Just Blaze, Timbaland, Neptunes, and Lil Jon
>type
>>beats...never to our own music, because that was only about
>>bangin, and never about having fun.
>
>This is true. I looked at Game and thought "damn you just
>stepped right out of Death Row in 96". It was so manufactured
>and had such a time stamp on it that's the other reason I
>don't think any of his artists caught on. When I would drive
>by Dorsey and Crenshaw NOBODY looked like that. None of my
>little cousins looked like that. Clown and Krump culture was
>bigger in my opinion and it was definitely a shame that there
>were no artists to break out of that to really blow up because
>that's the type of thing that I'm talking about as far as
>having a longer and more national impact than just a couple of
>one offs. If Tight Eyes or some of those cats could actually
>rhyme and make some good music? That shit would have been huge
>and respected at the same time because that felt more organic
>to me and more in lines with Hip Hop culture instead of just
>your typical disposable pop/rap song that disappears in a
>couple of years. In the end I hear where you're coming from
>especially since you're a DJ I just think it's a huge stretch
>to say that Jerkin was the most important thing to come from
>LA since The Chronic.

Yeah, Game's shit was manufactured, and EVERYBODY who knew him before 04 said he dressed just like regular L.A "Pretty boys"...Enyce, Pelle Pelle, etc etc. Yea, Clown/Krump culture as a whole was much bigger, more dynamic, more complicated, and lasted longer...but not having any music behind it made it almost pointless for L.A Rap. Now, mentioning Tight Eyes is hilarious. If you know who TeeFlii is right now...that's actually Baby Tight Eyes from Rize! Funny that he didn't make music until now.

Once again, I still think it's a huge diff in saying most important vs best thing. And musically, it was far from the best, for sure. But I saw the potential from day one...and knew that the kids who made the music in 09 that would take it serious may have some gold in their hands. Most of them were really recording and making beats on free software, so it made sense why it sucked. I did think more of the artists would have got big from the era, especially the girls...some actually had some decent little teenage flows.

>as well..
>
>To say "most important" would be a huge huge stretch. And I
>know that even saying "it's the best thing that's happened" is
>still a shocker, but it is a difference from saying it's that
>important.
I mean even saying it's the best thing in 20 years would mean better than a lot of great stuff that I'm still bumping and very proud of (Project Blowed, the Likwit crew, Murs/Living Legends, Stones Throw, TDE).

>I for sure agree that Jerkin burnt out extremely fast...but
>the way I see it, I feel that the sound it created just
>immediately said "all right, eff the gimmicks, and lets at
>least make regular club music" which is what happened.

Now this I would say is more about what was going on in the rest of the world than Jerkin. These kids wanted their shit to bang in the clubs like say Luda but the difference is Luda could really spit. So I don't know that I would give those artists credit for LA artists wanting to be in the club because I just don't think they were looking at it like ok we have to get in the club like Cali Swag Movement. More like they want club bangers like Luda or Rick Ross. I don't think they narrowed it down to region like that as much as looking at who had club songs.
>
>I can agree that I am looking at it as a DJ...and that's why I
>probably see it as more important to overall L.A. culture and
>the Rap. For example...in early 2008, if I happened to DJ a HS
>party, you saw the dudes posted around, maybe hopping on girls
>as usual, but still just standing, looking hard, etc etc. Just
>a year later, ALL of them were dancing, even the ones who
>couldn't dance. Even the super tall dude, the fat dude, etc
>etc...and I don't think we ever saw a shift that happened
>overnight in that way that also had music behind it.

>
>Yea good point, it did influence the South and Midwest to feel
>like "maybe we don't have to dickride NY or even cater to them
>to get big"...and it may have even lead to the South's future
>dominance at that time. And yeah, Westside Connection and not
>Pac was the reason that everybody screamed and still screams
>"Westside" for sure.

>
>Even though I was in the camp, I always felt he was too much
>of an East Coast artist that just happened to be from here.
>One thing we never speak on much is the fact that in
>2001-2003, most L.A. rappers who weren't rapping on a gangsta
>tip ALL rapped like they were from the East Coast...especially
>when you went to battle type events. Game was one of many..and
>he also chose to Rap on East Coast and other mainstream beats.
>And that reminds me...even when I first met with his manager
>and two BWS artists...I only played them my East Coast
>sounding beats at first, but when I got to the L.A. soundin
>ones, they went wild...and I was like oh...maybe they do
>actually like West Coast beats too?

That's funny you say that because that's how I would exactly describe Game. He sounded like an LA rapper trying to sound like an East Coast rapper to me. I never got that feeling with say Ras Kass or Aceyalone. Like obviously they were influenced by the East Coast but they did a better job of making sure they put their own flavor on it.
>
>But I agree about the folks in his camp and who were
>connected...they were dope rappers, but not artists. And I
>think folks like Sly Boogy still didn't get a chance to shine,
>as for those who could Rap AND make songs. Sly was the perfect
>balance...vs Crooked I, who I rode the hardest for back then,
>who never learned to make songs.

Sly Boogie SHOULD have blown up. With him I often wonder was it because he was just too far from LA? I remember hearing him on the Wake Up Show and when he said he was from the Inland Empire some kids I knew were like next! I was with you riding for Crooked for a long time...going back to his days at Noo Tybe Records. I was just so sure that he was gonna be the next Snoop or Cube. I do have to give him credit for at least finding a lane with Slaughterhouse and doing his thing that way.

>
>Eh, I donno...they were all around before Jerkin, and I feel
>like it's hard to make the connection, but it makes sense that
>it all got big at one time. Almost like L.A. came back into
>the Hip Hop world with a variety pack, like "ok you hate the
>dancing gimmicky shit, well...check this. Oh, you just wanna
>party, well check this."

But I think we can never underestimate timing. You're right they were all around but K Dot was super talented he really hadn't perfected how to write songs like he has now. I still think WB Records dropped the ball with Jay Rock and if they had put his album out back then he could have had some success. Not platinum or gold but definitely something to build on.

>I guess I could have re-worded...what I meant is that the kids
>now aren't ONLY "Hip Hop heads" in many cases, and they can
>enjoy all of the artists. The Black kids especially. Speaking
>of Rock The Bells, Paid Dues this year taught me a lot. I
>realized that the crowd basically remained the same for Joey
>Badass, Trinidad, Problem, Juicy J, Dom...and they loved it
>ALL. But for the songs I played inbetween, they basically
>liked the new club songs more than the 90's Hip Hop, even
>though they all loved Joey and Kendrick. So it feels like they
>just had balance...I thought they would boo a Trinidad, or
>even hate me for playing Bugatti type songs RIGHT AFTER Joey
>went off.

I noticed that too. I had a couple of young artists with me at the time last year and I asked them about Trinidad James and they didn't immediately dismiss him. More like "well this shit is catchy and funny to me". They kind of saw it for what it was.

>LOL @ Tyrese. Nah...Jerkin for suuuuure appealed to boys just
>as much...most of the videos had boys dancing just as much.

No love for Black Ty huh??
>
>I think what made me respect the young kids was after doing an
>all Jerkin party. Packing up, some kids stayed around, and
>were playing songs on YouTube...and I was talking to them. I
>joked and said "you know y'all gon hate ALL of this BS in a
>few years" and one said "I mean, we know it sucks, it's just
>fun to dance to. We like more than this" and two were actually
>hype when I mentioned Murs. I was like whoa...y'all really
>like Murs AND this Pink Dollaz shit? And it made me realize
>that this generation wasn't built off radio...so they have a
>better chance of liking the dance bullshit AND some "real Hip
>Hop" than what's fed to them on TV..which was dope.

I think that's kind of a return to the early days of Hip Hop. I think people hate the dance shit so much when it takes over and it's the dominant voice that you hear. But thrown in the mix? I think most kids look at it no differently than any other pop song.

>I think the main difference comparing the late 80's dances and
>even a "Humpty dance" is that there were way more "Hip Hop"
>songs being played at clubs/parties back then. EPMD, De La,
>Tribe, even some Cube songs, Quik, etc for L.A....while by the
>late 2000's, the songs almost had to give you instructions on
>how to dance. And the club music was just THAT much different
>from what wasn't meant for the club.

But going back to like Joeski Love and World Class Wrecking Crew with "The Fly"...those records were basically pop dance records with some rapping on them so at least for me it did remind me of the early to mid 80's scene in LA.

>I don't wanna giev ALL the credit to a CSD or New Boyz, and I
>feel Kanye is for sure a bigger reason than Jerkin to lead to
>a Kendrick type act...that's for sure. I just think it tore
>down the Regionalism that had plagued L.A for so long, not
>that there was any direct connection to the music itself. It
>was almost the face of the new L.A. attitude, which was "yeah,
>we might be from the hood, but we're no longer just rapping
>about how hood we are, how hard we bang, etc" and all from the
>same tree.

I think LA has been more than ready for new voices...they just haven't had the songs behind them for the most part. I thought Bishop Lamont was going to be where Kendrick is years ago but obviously that shit didn't work out. He was a lot more in lines with your average young Black male than say Game's image was.
>
>I can for sure see what you mean with that, but I just feel
>that people in the South and even East were completely close
>minded to EVERYTHING we had at the time, regardless of if it
>was club music, legit lyricism from Blu, laid back smoker
>music from Dom, semi-gangsta from Jay Rock. I was no longer in
>the South after 08, but I still remember going back in 09 and
>2010, and seeing that the young college kids from other places
>were into all of the L.A. music at once..and maybe it isn't a
>direct credit to Jerkin as I feel, but I just think it had to
>be some type of connection.

I just think it was a lot of the dudes in the scene saying fuck it I'm not waiting for Snoop, Dre or Cube to come "save me" and they just did it on their own. The built up their teams, built up fan bases, toured, made quality mixtapes and established their own identity. It makes perfect sense to me that Dom is getting love down in Atlanta and other parts of the South. He's a legit artist with his own conversational style that's not too complicated or too gangster. Regarding Blu I think he has kind of missed his boat as well. For a good long minute he was my personal favorite of any of the young up and coming dudes and I thought he had the best chance to blow up and crossover for more mainstream success in a Lupe/Common kind of way. I think he made a big mistake by signing up with the Black music black hole that is Warner Bros.

>I mean...I'd say it's been 4 years and all with positive
>momentum. Seeing 2 Chainz, Jeezy, and now B.o.B and Ludacris
>really going to Mustard for their lead singles...and then
>League of Starz, or even P. Lo from the Bay producing tracks
>for Chris Brown, Yo Gotti, Wiz, that are club hits...I feel we
>have a strong sound now that has plenty room for growth. The
>recent Mustard tracks for TeeFlii already show another level
>of progression, incorporating actual musical chords and
>changes on top of the "Ratchet" type drums.

Did I also hear that Mustard is now with Roc Nation? That could take him to a whole other level if that's true.

>Yeah, Game's shit was manufactured, and EVERYBODY who knew him
>before 04 said he dressed just like regular L.A "Pretty
>boys"...Enyce, Pelle Pelle, etc etc. Yea, Clown/Krump culture
>as a whole was much bigger, more dynamic, more complicated,
>and lasted longer...but not having any music behind it made it
>almost pointless for L.A Rap. Now, mentioning Tight Eyes is
>hilarious. If you know who TeeFlii is right now...that's
>actually Baby Tight Eyes from Rize! Funny that he didn't make
>music until now.

No I didn't know that was Tight Eyes! That is strange that he took so long to make some music. His story and everything about him I feel like could have made him a real star. I mean when is the last time Hip Hop had a star that was actually lyrical and danced? Big Daddy Kane? Moe Dee? I wonder how much bigger Game could have been and could be if he was just on some regular street MC shit and not so super duper gang banged out. I always felt he missed an opportunity to be bigger and more successful because he was so deadset on banging and dissing. If he had come out as say a dope storyteller MC with a street edge to him I've always said he would have been bigger and more respected. Now he's close to 10 years into his career and I feel like nobody takes him serious at all because of all of his shenanigans.
>
>Once again, I still think it's a huge diff in saying most
>important vs best thing. And musically, it was far from the
>best, for sure. But I saw the potential from day one...and
>knew that the kids who made the music in 09 that would take it
>serious may have some gold in their hands. Most of them were
>really recording and making beats on free software, so it made
>sense why it sucked. I did think more of the artists would
>have got big from the era, especially the girls...some
>actually had some decent little teenage flows.

For me it just seemed like there was no substance or bottom to a lot of what I heard. I met with some of the artists during that time and some of their managers and they all seemed to be on some "we know this shit ain't gonna last" type of vibe and they were right. It's hard to build anything if that's the mindset of the people creating it.

>>as well..
>>
>>To say "most important" would be a huge huge stretch. And I
>>know that even saying "it's the best thing that's happened"
>is
>>still a shocker, but it is a difference from saying it's
>that
>>important.
>I mean even saying it's the best thing in 20 years would mean
>better than a lot of great stuff that I'm still bumping and
>very proud of (Project Blowed, the Likwit crew, Murs/Living
>Legends, Stones Throw, TDE).

I wasn't at all saying the music that came from it was the best at all, just the movement and what it lead to, since it was open ended. It's noooooowhere near as good as all that you mentioned there, or even the Gangsta Rap, musically, or lyrically...only the energy was higher, which is important on it's own. I think it sounds like I'm saying the music was the best thing, or even that the music it lead to was the best thing we had...that's for sure not the case. I just think it was the biggest change in momentum we'd seen inside and outside of music at one time, since the 90's, that affected the city...and doesn't get credit.

>
>>I for sure agree that Jerkin burnt out extremely fast...but
>>the way I see it, I feel that the sound it created just
>>immediately said "all right, eff the gimmicks, and lets at
>>least make regular club music" which is what happened.
>
>Now this I would say is more about what was going on in the
>rest of the world than Jerkin. These kids wanted their shit to
>bang in the clubs like say Luda but the difference is Luda
>could really spit. So I don't know that I would give those
>artists credit for LA artists wanting to be in the club
>because I just don't think they were looking at it like ok we
>have to get in the club like Cali Swag Movement. More like
>they want club bangers like Luda or Rick Ross. I don't think
>they narrowed it down to region like that as much as looking
>at who had club songs.

I get that, but what it did was gave artists a completely different direction to go...and it finally worked.

We mentioned G. Malone, and I'll also mention Problem. Before Jerkin, both of them had club attempts...Malone's were always trying to sound like the South, which is what almost all L.A. rappers did before Jerkin. Problem was the oooonly L.A. rapper that wasn't at Snoop/Game/Quik's level to have a club hit in that dead period in 2008, with "I'm fucked/toe up"...and this song was almost a pre-Jerkin club song. I'd even throw in Pac Div "Fat boys 08" as being a pre-Jerkin song that got a lil play. But aside from that, he didn't have anything that worked. And almost ALL L.A. rappers were making club songs that had Lil Jon, Scott Storch, and Dre sounding beats.

After Jerkin, when the sound evolved to what Mustard and the rest had by 2010-2011? L.A. rappers finally had a sound to use...which lead to G. Malone having "That good"...Ty Dolla "All star"...everything YG had such as "Bitches ain't shit" and "I'm good"...Problem having "Like whaaat (even though it's a No Limit sample)"...even E-40 having "Function"...and L.O.S. doing tracks like Wiz "Bout me." They were able to merge the energy from Jerkin, evolve the drums and overall polish, add a few instruments, and keep it danceable while not getting too smooth or laid back as we always did.

I think this was huge, because L.A. rappers had NO luck making club songs that sounded like they came from other Regions. And once again, that's me seeing it as a DJ...even though I feel club songs don't really help you sell records, honestly.

>>
>>I can agree that I am looking at it as a DJ...and that's why
>I
>>probably see it as more important to overall L.A. culture
>and
>>the Rap. For example...in early 2008, if I happened to DJ a
>HS
>>party, you saw the dudes posted around, maybe hopping on
>girls
>>as usual, but still just standing, looking hard, etc etc.
>Just
>>a year later, ALL of them were dancing, even the ones who
>>couldn't dance. Even the super tall dude, the fat dude, etc
>>etc...and I don't think we ever saw a shift that happened
>>overnight in that way that also had music behind it.
>
>>
>>Yea good point, it did influence the South and Midwest to
>feel
>>like "maybe we don't have to dickride NY or even cater to
>them
>>to get big"...and it may have even lead to the South's
>future
>>dominance at that time. And yeah, Westside Connection and
>not
>>Pac was the reason that everybody screamed and still screams
>>"Westside" for sure.
>
>>
>>Even though I was in the camp, I always felt he was too much
>>of an East Coast artist that just happened to be from here.
>>One thing we never speak on much is the fact that in
>>2001-2003, most L.A. rappers who weren't rapping on a
>gangsta
>>tip ALL rapped like they were from the East
>Coast...especially
>>when you went to battle type events. Game was one of
>many..and
>>he also chose to Rap on East Coast and other mainstream
>beats.
>>And that reminds me...even when I first met with his manager
>>and two BWS artists...I only played them my East Coast
>>sounding beats at first, but when I got to the L.A. soundin
>>ones, they went wild...and I was like oh...maybe they do
>>actually like West Coast beats too?
>
>That's funny you say that because that's how I would exactly
>describe Game. He sounded like an LA rapper trying to sound
>like an East Coast rapper to me. I never got that feeling with
>say Ras Kass or Aceyalone. Like obviously they were influenced
>by the East Coast but they did a better job of making sure
>they put their own flavor on it.

Yeah, and I honestly wasn't a fan of him early on because of this. I felt like...if I wanna hear an East Coast rapper, I'll listen to one.

>>
>>But I agree about the folks in his camp and who were
>>connected...they were dope rappers, but not artists. And I
>>think folks like Sly Boogy still didn't get a chance to
>shine,
>>as for those who could Rap AND make songs. Sly was the
>perfect
>>balance...vs Crooked I, who I rode the hardest for back
>then,
>>who never learned to make songs.
>
>Sly Boogie SHOULD have blown up. With him I often wonder was
>it because he was just too far from LA? I remember hearing him
>on the Wake Up Show and when he said he was from the Inland
>Empire some kids I knew were like next! I was with you riding
>for Crooked for a long time...going back to his days at Noo
>Tybe Records. I was just so sure that he was gonna be the next
>Snoop or Cube. I do have to give him credit for at least
>finding a lane with Slaughterhouse and doing his thing that
>way.

I don't even know if it had to do with him not being from L.A., because L.A. loved Suga Free. And he had BANGERS that got play in L.A. We went hard for "That's my name" for sure, and "California" got major play in 03.

Crooked did find a lane there, but man, their music is ehhhhh! It's like...you take four rappers who are the same, as in they can RAP Rap, but never made great music, and...you end up with the same not-great music.

>
>>
>>Eh, I donno...they were all around before Jerkin, and I feel
>>like it's hard to make the connection, but it makes sense
>that
>>it all got big at one time. Almost like L.A. came back into
>>the Hip Hop world with a variety pack, like "ok you hate the
>>dancing gimmicky shit, well...check this. Oh, you just wanna
>>party, well check this."
>
>But I think we can never underestimate timing. You're right
>they were all around but K Dot was super talented he really
>hadn't perfected how to write songs like he has now. I still
>think WB Records dropped the ball with Jay Rock and if they
>had put his album out back then he could have had some
>success. Not platinum or gold but definitely something to
>build on.

Yea, K. Dot didn't get polished until Section 80, or arguably O.D. to me. And I actually wasn't a big fan of Jay Rock back then, either...shit, he did sound like a "fake Game" to me a lot back then.

>
>>I guess I could have re-worded...what I meant is that the
>kids
>>now aren't ONLY "Hip Hop heads" in many cases, and they can
>>enjoy all of the artists. The Black kids especially.
>Speaking
>>of Rock The Bells, Paid Dues this year taught me a lot. I
>>realized that the crowd basically remained the same for Joey
>>Badass, Trinidad, Problem, Juicy J, Dom...and they loved it
>>ALL. But for the songs I played inbetween, they basically
>>liked the new club songs more than the 90's Hip Hop, even
>>though they all loved Joey and Kendrick. So it feels like
>they
>>just had balance...I thought they would boo a Trinidad, or
>>even hate me for playing Bugatti type songs RIGHT AFTER Joey
>>went off.
>
>I noticed that too. I had a couple of young artists with me at
>the time last year and I asked them about Trinidad James and
>they didn't immediately dismiss him. More like "well this shit
>is catchy and funny to me". They kind of saw it for what it
>was.

Yeah, this is for sure interesting about them. Much more open minded

>
>>LOL @ Tyrese. Nah...Jerkin for suuuuure appealed to boys
>just
>>as much...most of the videos had boys dancing just as much.
>
>No love for Black Ty huh??
>>
>>I think what made me respect the young kids was after doing
>an
>>all Jerkin party. Packing up, some kids stayed around, and
>>were playing songs on YouTube...and I was talking to them. I
>>joked and said "you know y'all gon hate ALL of this BS in a
>>few years" and one said "I mean, we know it sucks, it's just
>>fun to dance to. We like more than this" and two were
>actually
>>hype when I mentioned Murs. I was like whoa...y'all really
>>like Murs AND this Pink Dollaz shit? And it made me realize
>>that this generation wasn't built off radio...so they have a
>>better chance of liking the dance bullshit AND some "real
>Hip
>>Hop" than what's fed to them on TV..which was dope.
>
>I think that's kind of a return to the early days of Hip Hop.
>I think people hate the dance shit so much when it takes over
>and it's the dominant voice that you hear. But thrown in the
>mix? I think most kids look at it no differently than any
>other pop song.
>
>>I think the main difference comparing the late 80's dances
>and
>>even a "Humpty dance" is that there were way more "Hip Hop"
>>songs being played at clubs/parties back then. EPMD, De La,
>>Tribe, even some Cube songs, Quik, etc for L.A....while by
>the
>>late 2000's, the songs almost had to give you instructions
>on
>>how to dance. And the club music was just THAT much
>different
>>from what wasn't meant for the club.
>
>But going back to like Joeski Love and World Class Wrecking
>Crew with "The Fly"...those records were basically pop dance
>records with some rapping on them so at least for me it did
>remind me of the early to mid 80's scene in LA.
>
>>I don't wanna giev ALL the credit to a CSD or New Boyz, and
>I
>>feel Kanye is for sure a bigger reason than Jerkin to lead
>to
>>a Kendrick type act...that's for sure. I just think it tore
>>down the Regionalism that had plagued L.A for so long, not
>>that there was any direct connection to the music itself. It
>>was almost the face of the new L.A. attitude, which was
>"yeah,
>>we might be from the hood, but we're no longer just rapping
>>about how hood we are, how hard we bang, etc" and all from
>the
>>same tree.
>
>I think LA has been more than ready for new voices...they just
>haven't had the songs behind them for the most part. I thought
>Bishop Lamont was going to be where Kendrick is years ago but
>obviously that shit didn't work out. He was a lot more in
>lines with your average young Black male than say Game's image
>was.

Yeah, I still can't say what went wrong with Bishop...maybe the Dre curse which almost affected Game too? I can say his radio attempts were decent, but not like THAT...such as "Do it" that Scott Storch did.

>>
>>I can for sure see what you mean with that, but I just feel
>>that people in the South and even East were completely close
>>minded to EVERYTHING we had at the time, regardless of if it
>>was club music, legit lyricism from Blu, laid back smoker
>>music from Dom, semi-gangsta from Jay Rock. I was no longer
>in
>>the South after 08, but I still remember going back in 09
>and
>>2010, and seeing that the young college kids from other
>places
>>were into all of the L.A. music at once..and maybe it isn't
>a
>>direct credit to Jerkin as I feel, but I just think it had
>to
>>be some type of connection.
>
>I just think it was a lot of the dudes in the scene saying
>fuck it I'm not waiting for Snoop, Dre or Cube to come "save
>me" and they just did it on their own. The built up their
>teams, built up fan bases, toured, made quality mixtapes and
>established their own identity. It makes perfect sense to me
>that Dom is getting love down in Atlanta and other parts of
>the South. He's a legit artist with his own conversational
>style that's not too complicated or too gangster. Regarding
>Blu I think he has kind of missed his boat as well. For a good
>long minute he was my personal favorite of any of the young up
>and coming dudes and I thought he had the best chance to blow
>up and crossover for more mainstream success in a Lupe/Common
>kind of way. I think he made a big mistake by signing up with
>the Black music black hole that is Warner Bros.

Yea, and I think the main shift that happened around 09-2010, is that the Underground cats like Blu had always been "Underground" in sound, but also in the way they pushed their own music, so that wasn't new...but by this time, artists who were slightly commercial, or weren't really rapping like "Underground" rappers, or over those type beats, took that same blueprint, along with the Internet and social media push, and became big. It happened nationwide, as well, with the folks like Wiz, Drake, and ASAP, getting huge without label push. With Blu, I just know he needs to stay away from liquor (and drugs?).

>
>>I mean...I'd say it's been 4 years and all with positive
>>momentum. Seeing 2 Chainz, Jeezy, and now B.o.B and Ludacris
>>really going to Mustard for their lead singles...and then
>>League of Starz, or even P. Lo from the Bay producing tracks
>>for Chris Brown, Yo Gotti, Wiz, that are club hits...I feel
>we
>>have a strong sound now that has plenty room for growth. The
>>recent Mustard tracks for TeeFlii already show another level
>>of progression, incorporating actual musical chords and
>>changes on top of the "Ratchet" type drums.
>
>Did I also hear that Mustard is now with Roc Nation? That
>could take him to a whole other level if that's true.

Yea, it is true.

>
>>Yeah, Game's shit was manufactured, and EVERYBODY who knew
>him
>>before 04 said he dressed just like regular L.A "Pretty
>>boys"...Enyce, Pelle Pelle, etc etc. Yea, Clown/Krump
>culture
>>as a whole was much bigger, more dynamic, more complicated,
>>and lasted longer...but not having any music behind it made
>it
>>almost pointless for L.A Rap. Now, mentioning Tight Eyes is
>>hilarious. If you know who TeeFlii is right now...that's
>>actually Baby Tight Eyes from Rize! Funny that he didn't
>make
>>music until now.
>
>No I didn't know that was Tight Eyes! That is strange that he
>took so long to make some music. His story and everything
>about him I feel like could have made him a real star. I mean
>when is the last time Hip Hop had a star that was actually
>lyrical and danced? Big Daddy Kane? Moe Dee? I wonder how much
>bigger Game could have been and could be if he was just on
>some regular street MC shit and not so super duper gang banged
>out. I always felt he missed an opportunity to be bigger and
>more successful because he was so deadset on banging and
>dissing. If he had come out as say a dope storyteller MC with
>a street edge to him I've always said he would have been
>bigger and more respected. Now he's close to 10 years into his
>career and I feel like nobody takes him serious at all because
>of all of his shenanigans.

Yeah it's wild, I didn't even realize it til a month ago when I got both TeeFlii mixtapes. His style is straight Ratchet & Blues, basically like Ty Dolla Sign but he has more of that MJ type light voice. I think Game did do TOO much to kill his own image...I got tired of defending him after a year or two. Plus the name dropping, and he never really evolved as a rapper. His previous album was good too, but nobody cared anymore!

>>
>>Once again, I still think it's a huge diff in saying most
>>important vs best thing. And musically, it was far from the
>>best, for sure. But I saw the potential from day one...and
>>knew that the kids who made the music in 09 that would take
>it
>>serious may have some gold in their hands. Most of them were
>>really recording and making beats on free software, so it
>made
>>sense why it sucked. I did think more of the artists would
>>have got big from the era, especially the girls...some
>>actually had some decent little teenage flows.
>
>For me it just seemed like there was no substance or bottom to
>a lot of what I heard. I met with some of the artists during
>that time and some of their managers and they all seemed to be
>on some "we know this shit ain't gonna last" type of vibe and
>they were right. It's hard to build anything if that's the
>mindset of the people creating it.

Yeah I mean it had absolutely no substance. And I knew the kids would hate most of it when it burnt out. But I was still happy it was happening when it did. Coming straight from the South, I saw that literally every major city/state had their own dance music/culture, except us. New Orleans Bounce, Go-Go, B-More Club, House, Get Lite, the Miami music that ONLY they know, ATL's scene, Dallas' scene which came up at the same time...so I was like here we go...it's our BPM/tempo at 95-102, and it's ALL about partying. It sucks now, but let's watch it grow into something else...and it did. But because the title of it died in 2009, people don't give it credit for what it grew into. I thought Snoop or someone would have had to make it nationwide, as E-40 did with Hyphy, but that didn't happen, which may have been good.

this is why i got love for dj r. one of the few LA dudes that genuinely gives Bay Area rap it's props.

always listened to Bay artists, going back to forever. And both sides have fed off each other, musically, and culturally. Not sure why some folks up there feel like we don't respect them. I honestly NEVER heard anybody growing up diss the Bay...aside from a few who thought the Hyphy thing got a bit out of hand!

A LOT of the accolades that was given to certain hip-hop styles/eras/regions was simply due to great record stores in high population areas that nobody else really had access to.

The birth of the file-sharing era killed ALL THAT. Personally, I think that's awesome, but I can see how somebody could disagree.

I also like how wide the net of hip-hop became during the era. The end of the 90s in the mainstream was astoundingly horrible and narrow as hell.

Also, reading the replies in this thread makes me feel old, lol.

surely it would have to be at the top and the bottom
for it to be truly democratised.

but the top end is more constricted than ever

bad, but I didn't like some things about it.

Mainly, I hated that you had to have a Scott Storch, Lil Jon, Neptunes, Just Blaze, Jazze Pha beat just to get club play. But, I did enjoy MOST of their work, and they made hits for folks that wouldn't have had hits in that era.

It's a milli examples of when it worked, and when it didn't. I wasn't the biggest fan of Tha Liks "Best you can" but I was just happy to see them getting play on BET/MTV. Jazze Pha gave a LOT of people some bangers, and I enjoyed a lot of them. Tracks like "Choosin" from Too Short, "The one" for Cee-Lo and T.I., he had a lot and doesn't get the credit he deserves.

I'd even say Lil Jon was DOPE at what he did as a producer, and wasn't the one trick pony people think. He had three different sounds that all used similar elements, but served different purposes. The slower crunk sound we knew him most for, In Bia Bia, Git crunk, Damn, and all that...then, the upbeat Twerk type tracks such as Get low, U and dat, Shake that monkey....and then, the Hyphy work such as Blow the whistle, Muscle cars, and Tell me when to go. I loved all three sounds and still do. But, I felt tracks like the Mobb Deep one were hella forced.

Scott Storch laced a lot of folks...his cross regional style was dope as hell when it worked, but he burnt out too fast. Even lesser known tracks like Sly Boogy "That's my name" were dope as hell to me. He could make hits for artists that tailored a bit more to their style than how Jon and Neptunes did.

I didn't have a problem with the producers at all, but it made everything on radio sound the same, and true fans of the artists rarely enjoyed the tracks as much as commercial heads. Too Short was one of the exceptions, E-40 as well...we ALL loved what they did with them.

is that it marked the END of the "super producer" as we knew it.

Even in the 90's, we had a Premier who'd produce for different artists, along with Timbaland, but it wasn't nearly as severe as it was by 2005, where you HAD TO have a song produced by a Top 20 producer just to get on radio. Then, by 2009, that was a wrap!

it blew up and then burnt out.

http://www.nme.com/news/public-enemy/71690


"I think the element of hip-hop left when rap music started being created on a slow tempo," claimed Flavor Flav. "It's just stayed there for years. Right now, a lot of rap music today is being created at very low tempos.

"There's no more of that 'Wave your hands in the air like you just don't care' - you know, something that makes you wanna get out there and breakdance," he added. "Rap music has lost that element right now, mainly over in America. There's not too many great hip-hop records out there, but there are some great rap records. Lil Wayne is making some great rap records, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Ludacris, Jay Z, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent, Snoop - everybody is making great rap records, but it's not hip-hop."



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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." © Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz