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https://ambrosiaforheads.com/2022/09/nore-music-video-divided-hip-hop/
Today (September 9), Drink Champs released its long-awaited interview with Black Star and Dave Chappelle. Recorded at Dave Chappelle’s Yellow Springs, Ohio garage space, the interview covers the release of Black Star’s 2022 album No Fear Of Time, and more. In the last 15 minutes, N.O.R.E. brings up a November 1999 Source magazine cover that featured Mos Def, Black Thought, and Pharoahe Monch. The cover line was “The Over & Under ,” featuring two Rawkus Records artist who released Black On Both Sides and Internal Affairs that year, respectively. Black Thought and his band The Roots had dropped the Grammy-nominated Things Fall Apart that same year.
Referring to the Source cover, N.O.R.E. begins, “This is backpack…” Yasiin Bey, as Mos Def now goes by, reacts to the comment with audible skepticism. N.O.R.E. continues, “Let me tell you what the outsiders looking in were saying: ‘Backpack Hip-Hop is at the forefront now.'” Yasiin shrugs, “I guess.” Then, the Brooklyn, New Yorker clarifies, “It was that people came up with to try and like . I get where people are coming from, but it never stuck because it didn’t have any gravity to it.” Talib Kweli says that backpacks went beyond fashion statements or subculture identities. “It was a very practical New York City thing,” he says, recalls MTA treks from Flatbush, Brooklyn to parties in Manhattan. Yasiin quotes The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Party & Bullsh*t” to assert that stick-up kids and gangstas also sported nap-sacks. Kweli points to Grand Puba, the Brand Nubian MC who was among Hip-Hop’s most influential fashion figures during the early 1990s.
Here, Noreaga lays down a stronger opinion. “Let me tell you where backpacks became frowned upon. Backpacks and gangsta culture . It was one video.” N.O.R.E. begins singing The Roots’ 1996 Illadelph Halflife single “What They Do.” N.O.R.E. alleges that the video, directed by Charles Stone III (and embedded below), created a division line. “It separated and gangsta .” “That sounds personal,” responds Kweli, who worked with the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania band (as did Yasiin Bey) on 2008’s Rising Down.
N.O.R.E. continues, “You know what did? Everything that represented gangsta, The Roots had dissed at that moment. I feel mad Hip-Hop right now.” Dave Chappelle chimes in, “No, N.O.R.E. Let me play some outside-baseball: I’m not a rapper; I’m just guessing: whoever got the most b*tches wins. Gangsta ni**as had b*tches.” Chappelle adds that he loves The Roots video N.O.R.E. is referring to. “It was clever, but there was more b*tches at the Biggie show than there was at The Roots one.” Noreaga adds, “More particularly, there’s more b*tches at the Nas show.” The two men then debate the chronology of Illmatic and Illadelph Halflife.
20 Years Later, The Roots Continue to Do What They Do Best: Shine For Hip-Hop (Video)
N.O.R.E. adds that Nas took The Roots’ commentary personally. “I remember me and Nas having a meeting, and him saying, ‘That is about me.’ I’m saying, ‘You’re bugging, son; this is not about you at all!’ But remember , when they’re chasing the rapper through In the projects—not Queensbridge, any projects in America. Every projects looks the same. I remember that, that was the time…” N.O.R.E. is referencing Nas’ artwork on his first two albums, as well as imagery from his own early visuals. Chappelle interjects with a joke, “That was a long grudge, ni**a. I can’t believe that you still have trauma over that ‘What They Do’ video. F*ck them backpack ni**as; cut that out, N.O.R.E.'”
Notably, in a 2011 interview with Pitchfork‘s Ryan Dombal, The Roots’ Questlove confirmed that the music video upset Biggie Smalls. “Keep in mind that this is on the heels of Biggie telling The Source how he had been the biggest Roots fan and took offense to our ‘What They Do’ video, which mocked Biggie’s ‘One More Chance’ video. Listen, I hate videos. I’m meticulous on everything from cover art, fonts, productions, mixing. But when it comes to videos, I just feel so defeated. I don’t pay attention. I slept most of the time they filmed ‘What They Do.’ I really didn’t have a clue that we were mocking Biggie. And when we saw the final product, we thought, ‘Okay, that’s silly, go with it.’ didn’t like that one bit, boy. I felt horrible that he thought we were even coming at him like that.” Notably, The Roots were playing on a concept that De La Soul used three years earlier on “Ego Trippin’ (Part Two).”
N.O.R.E. and his guests then reference Kanye’s comments from 2021’s Drink Champs interview. “I’m sorry to all the backpack community, due to the fact that I was from the streets but I never killed anybody, it was just easier for me to pose like a backpacker, but I actually really love street ni**as,” West said in an interview that sent shots to Talib Kweli, Common, and John Legend, among others. The Drink Champs hosts reveal that members of Boot Camp Clik wanted to be on the platform to respond to disparaging remarks that they felt were aimed at them.
Kweli, who has worked with Duck Down Music, says ‘Ye was referring to him, not Black Moon’s Buckshot. Talib uses the point to mention that Black Moon sported backpacks in their 1993 “Who Got Da Props?” video, helping galvanize a trend—that was both Hip-Hop savvy, and street-savvy. “That’s why they felt that way,” adds DJ EFN.
IG: @illharmonic.orchestra
Youtube: www.youtube.com/theephantom
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