90's Rap misconceptions?

[DaveyDave]

Just looking at the record report I posted, they gave Hammer a 1!!! They the lowest I’ve ever seen in any Source mag.

 

[Atsym Sknyfs]

DAS second album was dope and different. they switched their style and that hurt them.

i had their demo from my bot Chico when i was in college

 

[Atsym Sknyfs]

Literally broke the play/record button off. Crazy glued that bytch back on like it was nothin. Real talk.

i had the technics double deck with dual auto reverse and dual record.. for stretch and bobbito i used put in 2 blank 90min cassettes hit rec and go to sleep..

 

[Atsym Sknyfs]

Yeah it's hard for people not from that era to actually understand how different it was. Like obviously people talked about if albums were dope but nikkas was really into singles, videos or random joints that dropped. An artist might be your favorite that summer off of 1 song and maybe a feature, not an entire album. Redman was my favorite rapper before I even got a chance to hear Whut Thee Album.

Common was my favorite before i even heard him rhyme. i remember was working in boston the summer of 91 or 92... cant remember but i used to buy the source religiously cause being from NY in a white town outside of Boston i was lost. in the quotable they had his line from soul by the pound remix with the give me a TO like chris webber line and i though tit so dope... then i found a station and they played the song and i lost my mind

 

[The_Hillsta]

i had the technics double deck with dual auto reverse and dual record.. for stretch and bobbito i used put in 2 blank 90min cassettes hit rec and go to sleep..

Had pops hand me down RCA from Montgomery Wards. Loose buttons, broke off tape doors, dull dusty needle...Still made them Wake Up Show tapes and caught singles...

Friday nights coming home hella late from football games exhausted, sore, still got it in making tapes, waiting for them to play certain cuts, tryna stay up listening, loved the shyt so much.

 

[god shamgod]

So when did illmatic start to get the classic mentions?

A few years later after iww dropped & both albums were compared , ready to die was poppin from jump

Edit I wasn’t talking bout the source biased 5 mic bullshyt ratings I was talking bout the actual streets nobody was callin illmatic that album at the time

doggystyle and aeom had mad buzz when they dropped

 

[shawntitan]

DAS second album was dope and different. they switched their style and that hurt them.

i had their demo from my bot Chico when i was in college

Wish they’d drop some new music... see them touring occasionally, but it’s mostly internationally

 

[shawntitan]

Straight Up Sewaside was one of my fav album as a young'n. At that age, Mum wouldn't let me get stuff if it had a parental advisory sticker on it and that one didn't have it for whatever reason this didn't have one. Homie around the corner had Doggystyle and all that so i got the dubs off him and just copped cds when i could.

I remember there being very few curse words on this album, but they DID still release a “clean” version, back when that was a thing.

 

[shawntitan]

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 always say, if you weren’t from the northeast in the mid 90’s, you’d NEVER believe the impact Meth had back then...Tical got MUCH more play in than “Me Against The World”

 

[FunkDoc1112]

A few years later after iww dropped & both albums were compared , ready to die was poppin from jump

Edit I wasn’t talking bout the source biased 5 mic bullshyt ratings I was talking bout the actual streets nobody was callin illmatic that album at the time

doggystyle and aeom had mad buzz when they dropped

Not really true in New York. A lot of people in that scene were already hailing Nas the GOAT and guys like Biggie, Raekwon, Ghostface, and Prodigy basically treated him like Jesus. Part of why It Was Written had blowback was because of all of the underground heads who were expecting another Illmatic

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

So when did illmatic start to get the classic mentions?

Illmatic was a classic before it even came out, to New York.

I agree that in the rest of the country, it didn't make huge ripples.

I was the only person I knew who had it when it came out and I was telling nikkaz "Yo, this nikka Nas is dope"

So, it was a slow burner in most of the country, but immediately classic all-time great in New York City.

Early 90s Rappers dressed to look “gangsta” but wasn’t really gangstaz. They took the real gangsta street look and exploited it for money. They where more in the line of actors and enjoyed being the very stereotypical mad ni66a on tv. About 99.5 % of rappers from the 90s is really Studio gamgstaz.

edit: It was the behind the scenes guys that you should have been afraid of!

That's an over simplification.

Some of them were really gangsta.

Eazy-E & MC Ren were both Kelly Park Compton Crips
Ice-T was a Crip
Snoop & Warren G. were Crips

I would say the amount of street nikkas/studio gangstas in rap has always been the same. The only difference is, the real street nikkas that are rappers nowadays actually have more of a voice/name recognition because of social media, whereas back in the day the street nikkas who rapped rarely made it past their block.

Also another big difference is there were real life gangsters who didn't really rap about gangster shyt like Little Shawn for example. If you go listen to old DMX records from 1991-1993 he never talks about street shyt like that, and that's during the time he was in and out of prison all the time. A lot of real gangsters liked to keep it separate. Some was rapping what they was really doing though like M.O.P.

Hammer actually was gangsta as fukkeven though he didn't act like it.

3rd Bass almost got murdered for talking about his mother

A few years later after iww dropped & both albums were compared , ready to die was poppin from jump

Edit I wasn’t talking bout the source biased 5 mic bullshyt ratings I was talking bout the actual streets nobody was callin illmatic that album at the time

doggystyle and aeom had mad buzz when they dropped

Depends on where you were at.

Illmatic was a New York phenomenon that spread west.

Ready To Die was more of a mainstream album, that Puffy admitted that they made to try to appeal to the rest of the country.

 

[Wild self]

I’ve always thought that was mainly an early 90’s thing since it seemed like a lotta rappers after 1993 were either too cool or too gangsta to dance on record anymore.

By 93, you had LL and Run DMC making gangsta records. they were competing against Onyx and Wu Tang in the hardcore category, when it became the norm in NY.

 

[Wild self]

The biggest misconception of 90's hip hop is the internet myth of GANGSTA RAP was created from a secret meeting among label executives and the government to promote the music to build more prisons.

The truth of the matter is most MAJOR LABELS resisted the growing movement of gangsta rap. There were even Congressional hearings and an anti-movement spearheaded by C. Doloros Tucker and Dionne Warwick to end hip hop because of their views of Gangsta Rap. Warner Brothers in particular ended their deal with Ice-T over the song Cop Killer. Interscope lost their own distribution deal over the fear of Tha Dogg Pound debut album. For a whole DECADE there were federal investigations on J. Prince and Rap-A-Lot.

The music industry and the government did NOT want so-called Gangsta Rap to succeed because of fear it has a huge influenced to young white American. They thought it was poisoning. The only reason why it triumphed despite it all is the reason why America capitalism triumphs in general. Because controversy, sex, drugs and violence always SELLS.

I (kinda) disagree with that, but it was the same thing for southern Hip Hop in the early 00s. Back when The Source ans XXL were roasting non lyrical southern artists and practically blacklisted them. Then Jeezy blee up in the Summer of 2005, and they still was having the east coast bias of the lyrical paradigm. Wasnt until 2009 when they finally gave in and gave the 'OK' on east coast rappers on trap beats ans blasting Gucci Mane mixtapes.

 

[Wild self]

Idk as a kid of the 90’s when you compare it to today it was super lyrical

look at the Hot Boys and a young wayne, it wasn’t entendred/metaphored out but every song on those albums had 4 verses and none of them were tiring. Probably the worst from the mainstream 90’s in terms of lyrical quality came from No limit but even that today looks like Illmatic next to a playboy carti or 6ix9ine album.

Every album esp an anticipated one you were garunteed a love song, a story telling song, a super lyrical song (to the artists potential), a battle song, a radio hit type a song, a “reflection/coming of age” song, a super collab song, a “where I’m from” song, a smoke/drink song...etc and looking back compared to now, that wasn’t a bad thing....

A lot of rappers post 97 was trying to make their one-CD version of "Life After Death" with mad different producers and albums sound all over the place. No cohesive vision, just a formula that led to a lot of sub par albums in the early 00s, right when iPods became popular.

 

[Wild self]

Every single off this album, especially "Tennessee" crossed over big time on "Black radio" AND pop radio and MTV when that was a big deal... technically it was "rap" but it also had a lot of singing in it and was considered "different" from most rap, which helped them cross over like they did... the exposure they got wasn't like anything that other hip-hop of the time was getting. It was the kinda stuff they felt OK with playing around the clock, unlike the other hip-hop that was still being kept in a box by the mainstream outlets. It IS crazy... what's crazier is that after The Chronic impacted in '93 and then Doggystyle was even bigger, stuff like Arrested Development never got half the support/airplay they got the first time around.

The official takeover of gangsta rap outside of the west coast, in 1993.