90's Rap misconceptions?

[OHSNAP!]

No Limit definitely had some talent but the music overall was wack and they lacked star power. Props to P tho for pulling off the biggest hustle ever becuz most of that roster didn’t even deserve a deal. The best move they ever made was signing Snoop and that goes both ways

You obviously never listened to those albums, so stfu on this matter. Name some bad songs off the folowing: Give It 2 Em Raw, Shell Shocked, World War 3, Tru 2 Da Game, Unpredictable, Unlady Like, Life Or Death, There's One In Every Family, Top Dogg, Last Meal, Crime Family, Street Life, Life Insurance, Ice Cream Man, The Shocker, Am I My Brothers Keeper, 7 Sins, Hoodlum Fo Life, Skys The Limit, Trapped In Crime, Streets Raised Me, My Balls And My Word, Bout It OST, I Got The Hookup OST, Westcoast Badd Boyz 1 & 2, Down South Hustlers, True...receipts bytch ass nikka

 

[Mr. Negative]

Yes he was. Specifically from 93-95, he 100% was. He was actually a bigger deal than Biggie when Ready to Die dropped. Biggie didn't fully surpass Meth in popularity until like late 95 going into 96. Between C.R.E.A.M., Bring the Pain, Ice Cream and All I Need Remix, Meth was as popular as any solo act on the East Coast during that 2 year period.

Why you think Big went out his way to get Method Man (the only feature) on his debut?

I remember Meth saying he was so popular that he didn't like the attention, so he started "disfiguring" himself to make himself ugly. (the cataract contact lens, taking photos with stuff hanging out of his nose)

and being mad that it only made him MORE popular

 

[BulletProof]

And the thing is having a gimmick really isn’t a bad thing if it isn’t corny and sets you apart from the competition. Even the Wu had a gimmick with the king fu shyt

I think there's a difference between having a gimmick and having a unique style/sound.

If it's just a crutch then it's just a gimmick, has no staying power, and the artist doesn't realize it until it's too late.

It's like an actor being type casted.

 

[BulletProof]

P outsmarted y'all lyrical miracle elitist dumb smart nikkas

Outsmarted the people who wasted money on it.

Where are they now?

 

[BulletProof]

I remember Meth saying he was so popular that he didn't like the attention, so he started "disfiguring" himself to make himself ugly. (the cataract contact lens, taking photos with stuff hanging out of his nose)

and being mad that it only made him MORE popular

I believe it.

 

[patscorpio]

I remember Meth saying he was so popular that he didn't like the attention, so he started "disfiguring" himself to make himself ugly. (the cataract contact lens, taking photos with stuff hanging out of his nose)

and being mad that it only made him MORE popular

Meth kept it super real..nikka used to stay looking dusted out back in the day lol

 

[BulletProof]

You obviously never listened to those albums, so stfu on this matter. Name some bad songs off the folowing: Give It 2 Em Raw, Shell Shocked, World War 3, Tru 2 Da Game, Unpredictable, Unlady Like, Life Or Death, There's One In Every Family, Top Dogg, Last Meal, Crime Family, Street Life, Life Insurance, Ice Cream Man, The Shocker, Am I My Brothers Keeper, 7 Sins, Hoodlum Fo Life, Skys The Limit, Trapped In Crime, Streets Raised Me, My Balls And My Word, Bout It OST, I Got The Hookup OST, Westcoast Badd Boyz 1 & 2, Down South Hustlers, True...receipts bytch ass nikka

And this children, is a recipe for one of the leading causes of having your ears bleeding, IQ lowered, and brain aneurysms.

 

[BmoreGorilla]

I gotta disagree.

It was a brief takeover '91-94, but while it was going on, it was a WASH

Snoop was selling 8 million, while guys like LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, and De La Soul were happy to sell a million.

Ice Cube double platinum, NWA double platinum, Too Short platinum, Spice 1 gold, E-40 gold

MC Hammer DIAMOND

East Coast guys were getting wore the fukk out in the early '90s.

Even Nas' Illmatic took 10 years to go platinum.

Biggie's Ready To Die kind of ended the West Coast dominance, but even that sold ike 1.5 million in the first year.

Snoop sold 800,000 in a week.






I wouldn't call those gimmicks, just a style.

What's wrong with having a unique style?

A gimmick is something that isn't real.

Don’t get me wrong I know the West was killing it with the sales at the time. But that’s why I made a point to say the West wasn’t killing it musically. It’s not like the West was putting out music that had a superior quality. shyt was right on par which is also why I said much of the popularity from the West had to do with the image and the controversy. White kids ate it up

Also a gimmick isn’t necessarily something that is fake


gim·mick
/ˈɡimik/
Learn to pronounce

noun

1.
a trick or device intended to attract attention, publicity, or business

Coming up with a particular style to separate yourself from the competition isn’t necessarily a bad thing

 

[BmoreGorilla]

You obviously never listened to those albums, so stfu on this matter. Name some bad songs off the folowing: Give It 2 Em Raw, Shell Shocked, World War 3, Tru 2 Da Game, Unpredictable, Unlady Like, Life Or Death, There's One In Every Family, Top Dogg, Last Meal, Crime Family, Street Life, Life Insurance, Ice Cream Man, The Shocker, Am I My Brothers Keeper, 7 Sins, Hoodlum Fo Life, Skys The Limit, Trapped In Crime, Streets Raised Me, My Balls And My Word, Bout It OST, I Got The Hookup OST, Westcoast Badd Boyz 1 & 2, Down South Hustlers, True...receipts bytch ass nikka

I did. I heard alot of that shyt. I also own all three of those Snoop albums. But for me to name every wack song on all those wack albums would take way too much time and I don’t feel like it

 

[FunkDoc1112]

I remember Meth saying he was so popular that he didn't like the attention, so he started "disfiguring" himself to make himself ugly. (the cataract contact lens, taking photos with stuff hanging out of his nose)

and being mad that it only made him MORE popular

Yeah, RZA said the same shyt. He had to talk him into shyt like Ice Cream and the All I Need remix because Method Man just wanted to be on that street shyt.

 

[BmoreGorilla]

I think there's a difference between having a gimmick and having a unique style/sound.

If it's just a crutch than it's just a gimmick, has no staying power, and the artist doesn't realize it until it's too late.

It's like an actor being type casted.

I remember when Keith Murray first came out he was asked why he didn’t have an MC name and used his government. He said it was becuz he had no gimmicks. A gimmick is only a crutch if you lack talent. Other than that having a particular style is a gimmick. Das Efx saying iggity all the time was most certainly a gimmick. But it wasn’t corny and it worked becuz they had mad clones and people biting that shyt. Now there are times when people use a gimmick as a crutch and it’s really not them which is why I brought up Onyx

But the music was dope tho

 

[Professor Emeritus]

The Beastie Boys were '80s and were pranksters

And Kriss Kross were a hell of a lot better than a lot of dudes today, lyrically

Insane Clown Posse were not ever a respected Hip-Hop group in the '90s

Vanilla Ice was a pop star that no one in Hip-Hop respected

Puff Daddy was a producer and record label owner, who wasn't seen as an MC, kind of like Eazy-E

And what's wrong with Twista? Dude can spit

Beastie Boys had 3 of their 4 biggest albums in the 90s, with #1 albums in '94 and '98. You call them "pranksters", that's the point. They were awful rappers with a gimmick and yet they were one of the biggest names in hip hop.

Notice you didn't say anything about MC Hammer or Fresh Prince.

Talking about all the other guys I listed not being respected....it's not like the shytty gimmick rappers today are respected either. They just sell.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

They sold units but weren't seen as the best in the game. They had the popularity but not the respect. You know there's a difference between then and now.

And Fresh Prince and Twista was wack?

So there is an untalented, wack rapper who is seen as the best in the game right now? Whose skills are inferior to Hammer and Will?

It took tremendous hustle to be an independent rapper in the 90's. You either had to pay like $100-200+ an hour to use a professional studio or have all your own studio recording equipment which was hella more expensive in the 90's, buy blank tapes and CDs in bulk like weight, sell your tapes hand to hand or out the back of your trunk or convince mom and pop record stores to carry your music. You can't discount the hustle of independent underground rap because that's what the careers of Master P, No Limit and Cash Money were based on.

Nowadays, you have more rappers than fans because anyone with a laptop and camera can produce their own music, videos and upload them to YouTube and Soundcloud and start getting views and streams. Back in the day, an early 90's No Limit tape literally had to make its way from Richmond, CA all the way to Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Kansas City or New Orleans. And independent rappers had little to no professional promotion or consistent major radio play. No album reviews in major magazines to generate hype either.

Even becoming a local rap legend was a feat back in the 90's. So when you see independent rappers from the 90's getting millions of views on old songs on Youtube, especially when their songs haven't been referenced by a recent rapper or new school source, it really means something.

On top of that, independent rappers from the 90's tended to be knee deep in the street life or living in the depths of the hood back when the crime rates in the cities were at an all time high, so they juggled the street life and trying to make music on a unimaginable level. They weren't signed to major record labels getting fat advance checks or getting flown out to Manhattan or Hollywood to record their albums and most didn't enjoy nationwide tours to escape the hood after their albums dropped either. For instance, Totally Insane recorded and released their debut album back when their hometown of East Palo Alto was the murder capital of the country back in 1992.
It meant something to be a struggle rapper in the 90's.

Yeah man, I ain't had someone run up to my car with his mixtape on a CD in a loooong minute.

 

[Greenhornet]

that pac and biggie not being super hot argument is wild
from your standpoint yeah, alot of people were passing the crown and torch alot

but like RUN DMC took hiphop out of rollerskating rinks to actual clubs and bigger shows

2pac and Biggie beef (mostly Pacs wild shyt and albums) took hiphop into multi million dollar area
same time Michael Jordan changed the NBA and way players broke through to more money

So I mean while people were passing the torch in hiphop quicker .... that singular point in 96 completely opened the door to people being Mega Stars
Snoop was in and out as a megastar since the jump ... but his career turned left right then ... Cube had his amazing run as a legend etc ... 2pac and Biggie were pivotal in blasting hiphop off in general
nikkas were still getting jerked before then, at that point it became very profitable even with a bad deal. If they lived they would have been even bigger with the wave and connections (Pac with TLC connection) (Biggie just being plugged in, in general)

here's my wild take : Redman was the king of the underground for early to mid 90s ... what I mean by that is, people knew him... he was regional eastcoast known more, and his albums were hidden gems that not many "commercial" fans knew about
around the docs the name transition he really blew crazy ... but those first 3 to muddy waters in 1996 were cult classics. I know you can say he got more looks than a good amount of emcees...but he always teetered right on the line until that docs the name album then broke all the way through with the following stuff.

 

[Shadow King]

So there is an untalented, wack rapper who is seen as the best in the game right now? Whose skills are inferior to Hammer and Will?



Yeah man, I ain't had someone run up to my car with his mixtape on a CD in a loooong minute.

Who do you think most listeners in the age bracket that determines the best/hottest in the game (16-25) have determined as such? They're past the Drake*/Kendrick/Cole era

I've heard Will be called corny but never wack