90's Rap misconceptions?

[JustCKing]

Snoop was not a star on no limit

everyone thought he was washed when he signed there

Master P was the biggest independent star in rap history

Snoop was still a star when he signed to No Limit. He may have been a waning star, but a star nonetheless. Him signing to No Limit was a big deal.

 

[_genocidecutter_]

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.

This describes Tommy Wright III perfectly.

 

[Sankofa Alwayz]

In the words of Prodigy on what Nas/Illmatic did for Mobb Deep:

Is that from P’s autobiography?

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Is that from P’s autobiography?

yup

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

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

Dude, Straight Outta Compton, nikkaz4Life, Amerikkka's Most Wanted, Death Certificate, The Chronic, Doggystyle, Original Gangster, & Cypress Hill isn't killing it?

And yeah, gimmick is a "trick" meaning fake to attract attention.

There's a difference between something being your style, and a gimmick which is a fake tactic to gain attention, which is what I said.

Das EFX just were that way. That's who they were. They didn't just do it to get on the pop charts or something. It was their style.

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.

The Beastie Boys weren't even played on Rap radio after "License To Ill"

How old are you?

Like The Beasties were for the Lollapalooza crowds moreso than for rap crowds after License To Ill

And still, I'd say that as prankster rappers, not to be taken too seriously, they weren't bad.

Would you say Ol' Dirty b*stard or somebody like old school Busta Rhymes who had a crazy style that was non linear were mediocre or wack?

Not if you know Hip-Hop.

Ask Chuck D, or Run-DMC, or KRS about The Beasties.

The Beasties had their party lane for the first record, then they became the Alternative Rock darlings for the rest of their careers.

I've never heard them on a Black radio station in my lifeand I'm almost 40 years old.

And MC Hammer & Fresh Prince are a lot better than some cats today that I've heard going back to Souljah Boy being popular and shyt

I'd take either of them over mumble rappers.

DEFINITELY

THE 90S SEEMS LIKE IT HAD WAYYYY MORE ERAS THAN THE 10S, ITS WEIRD

AND IN 2000 WE WERE LOOKIN AT SHIIT FROM 1989 LIKE IT WAS ANCIENT

NOWADAYS, SHIIT FROM 2009 DOESNT SEEM THAT FAR IN THE PAST TBH

This is so true.

If you break down the 90s it's basically like this

'89-'91 The Transition Era:

The end of the '80s rappers like Run-DMC, PE, Eric B. & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, etc as top sellers, the beginning of West Coast gangsta rap dominance, and Vanilla Ice, Hammer, Salt-N-Pepa, and Heavy D doing versions of pop rap.

'92-94 West Coast Dominance

Dre, Snoop, Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, Too Short, and the emergence of 2pac had the West selling insane records, while the East Coast was kind of finding itself with Boom Bap, while Wu-Tang, Nas, Biggie, and Boot Camp are leading the reemergence.

'95-96 East vs. West

Just both coasts kicking all kinds of ass, while The South & The Midwest emerge as real contenders.

'97-99 The End

2pac & Biggie die, gangsta rap dies with them, the emergence of Puffy, Jay, Master P & "Businessman Rap", the bling bling era, & the emergence of South dominance, oh & Eminem & Nelly seize the pop charts.

 

[Sankofa Alwayz]

yup

I need to re-read it. shyt’s a classic. I used to thought P was talking crazy on some things but now that I’m older and started looking at “reality” totally different, I finally understand where he was coming from

 

[daze23]

Or Fu-Schnickens jacking their whole style.

I think Chip-Fu's style was different, and other dudes in Fu-Schnickens didn't even rap fast

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

Man... some people just don't know. It was nothing to turn on BET during the day and see a Mobb Deep video. Rap City during the day playin Mobb Deep and then on the weekend they'd do their top ten.

See MTV used to play hip-hop videos during the day too but only the most popular shyt and Yo! MTV Raps was on later at night...

but then I think because of BET success and the genre as a whole skyrocketing they started to play more videos and then MTV started having this show that was just called YO! and it was on in primetime..

They also started doing a lot of hip-hop related specials and Bill Bellamy started hosting MTV Jams and he'd have artists on again in primetime television hours promoting their albums it was all part of their album roll out..

Point is.. while yes Mobb Deep as the example could be seen as "New York big" and regional.. it became much more than that pretty quickly. All of a sudden you got these regional artists that are having their videos played nationwide during the day right there on TV..

 

[daze23]

Biggest misconception I see some of the younger users have is they look at the 90's as one long era.

as far as rap and fashion etc you have early nineties, mid 90's.. and then up to like 97 was cool and then it slowly went to trash the last few years which turned into the early 2000's. They were all pretty different.

I always try to explain how fast shyt was moving from like 87-95. every year that shyt from last year was "wack"

for instance at one point Big Daddy Kane was the king of shyt. a year later it was "you still listening to Kane?"

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

I always try to explain how fast shyt was moving from like 87-95. every year that shyt from last year was "wack"

for instance at one point Big Daddy Kane was the king of shyt. a year later it was "you still listening to Kane?"

Pac doin Brenda's Got a Baby and he's on his own... fast-forward through everything that happened with the shooting and his court cases and then his time on Death Row.... it's all the span of like 5 years.

It felt like it was a decade or more.

 

[wizworld]

I always try to explain how fast shyt was moving from like 87-95. every year that shyt from last year was "wack"

for instance at one point Big Daddy Kane was the king of shyt. a year later it was "you still listening to Kane?"

This is a big one. KRS was calling Run DMC "old school" & "played out" in 1988.

 

[DANJ!]

That rappity rap style of theirs?

That year, it was crazy how many people jumped on that shyt... from Ice Cube, Kool G Rap, Common's first album, Lords of the Underground, numerous other MFs... people may say it sounds silly today but when they came out, it was a very original sound/style/image in '92. nikkas definitely rode that wave until Das EFX themselves moved away from it. Lotta dudes suddenly either doin' the diggity-iggity shyt or throwing references to cartoons/commercials/etc in their lyrics... lot of that goin' on.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Even Jay Z and Jaz O bit that shyt. I might be wrong but I think Das Efx was the precursor to rhyming fast in hip hop. Early Twista when he had Tung in the front was biting off Das Efx heavy. Now that I think about it they changed hip hop and barely get credit

Nah Jaz was rappin like that in 89, before Das EFX.

 

[DANJ!]

DEFINITELY

THE 90S SEEMS LIKE IT HAD WAYYYY MORE ERAS THAN THE 10S, ITS WEIRD

AND IN 2000 WE WERE LOOKIN AT SHIIT FROM 1989 LIKE IT WAS ANCIENT

NOWADAYS, SHIIT FROM 2009 DOESNT SEEM THAT FAR IN THE PAST TBH

Yeap... the music changed a lot... that's why sometimes when people wonder how some groups fizzled out so quickly, cause shyt changed all the time. '92 didn't sound like '90, '94 didn't sound like '92, '97 didn't sound like '94,'99 didn't sound like '97... it was always something new comin' along and nikkas had to keep up.

I look at it like three parts- you got '90-'92 where the new sound of the decade was gradually coming in and a lot of good shyt came out (even if something didn't sell much, most core hip-hop fans didn't give a fukk, they just loved whatever was dope- sales and radio play was like the least important things to listeners)

then '93-'96 when shyt got highly competitive and hella diverse (a lot of people didn't make it out of this time period), lotta definitive classics and things that helped hip-hop's mainstream growth...

then the '97-'99 era which is where shyt went EXTRA big and mainstream, you couldn't get away from rap at this point (a great era as well but VERY different from the early-90s, this was the beginning of people caring about what sold and whatnot)

 

[DANJ!]

Nah Jaz was rappin like that in 89, before Das EFX.

Yeap... which is another random misconception when people talk about Jay "rapping like the Fu-Schnickens" when Jaz & Jay were doing that fast shyt a good two years before Fu-Schnickens came out... the fast rapping style in general was a thing that a lot of rappers were doing- Wise Intelligent from Poor Righteous Teachers, Treach, Tung Twista, Zhigge, etc...