"Is there an example of an artist starting conscious and ending up hard?"
There are artists who started hard and ended up conscious. KRS One comes to mind. Jay Z to a degree. In rock, maybe The Beatles would qualify. Although they never went 'hard' or explicit just more serious from their bubblegum pop beginnings. I'm sure there are others.
But I can't think of any groups or MC's that started conscious or reflective and transitioned into a gangsta or hardcore image.
I wondered about this after listening to Oddisee's Yeezus Was a Mortal Man. Oddisee drops some harsh language (for him) in the song. That whole album was 'harder' than his previous albums (and following ones) so it's clear his audience didn't like the direction his music was headed.
And Das EFX comes to mind too. They started out a novelty or gimmicky act and went street and I don't remember them having nearly the success post-Dead Serious.
4. "To an extent, Dr. Dre" In response to Reply # 0 Fri Oct-02-20 07:53 PM by DJR
I wouldn’t ever use “conscious” if I needed to label him, but there was a clear difference in content from Straight Outta Compton to what he was rapping about from 91-94ish.
Then he tried to go away from that type of content when he first started Aftermath but it didn’t sell the same.....so he went back to it.
15. "'Conscious' doesn't quite fit, yeah." In response to Reply # 4 Sun Oct-04-20 05:50 PM by obsidianchrysalis
Reflective might be the best way to describe that first Aftermath album.
But yeah, he left that style with the quickness. Kind of sad because I don't think the content was really the problem with that album. The production was the issue to me with '... Presents the Aftermath'.
16. "I never knew Hammer 'was bout that life'." In response to Reply # 6
Talk about putting up an image cause those early albums were about as far from gangsta you could get. My mother who went to church three times a week loved Hammer. But I don't think she would have liked Pumps and a Bump if she heard it.