At one Point DMX was considered better than Hov

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

Meth was a big deal in summer/fall too

I mean, his album sold well, but it was kinda just him cashing in on what was left of wutang's wave before it fizzled.

 

[10:31]

This thread lol

 

[Art Barr]

Hey joe,....


I have sat back long enough and have noticed
No one has interjected in large volume about how or why pun's drawing power.
never infiltrated in the fall in these convo's after ruling the summer afterward is a trip. As it emulates what happened back then. As pun dropped and ruled the summer with no challengers.
Yet by the spring to fall with both dmc dropping again after debut success that surpassed pun in sales, eventually.
Following a soon to drop in the fall with a supposed Lauren rap album.
which turned out to be rnb supremacy bait and switch. Out of that, it feels the general public never brings up pun in this period. Yet by actual feverish draw in the meat of the year.
Pun ruled and the I don't wanna be a player the remix ruled the summer with no question.
This convo of jayz and dmx is more a general gateway fan convo.

As I was hoping someone would mention pun who was cognitively there and old enough to actually be consistently in the night life or adult festival/concert.
Plus, pun could be viewed as the grassroots pop entryway rap record of that time period for any and every club fan base demographic as well. As it was one of the first credible cultural emceee club records. that was marketed to any racial/pop demographic without scrutiny, too.

So I am kinda wondering why in the scheme of things with regular fans why pun is not mentioned then. Or is this just an exposal of how revision lead.
the press and pr is of artist Iike jayz from this time period as well then, too.

As real talk,...
In this era as far as club dominance put ya hands where my eyes can see was still the top top draw for two years at this point in a cultural club sense till I am not a player. Put ya hands where ya eyes can see probably will have had no other challenger. Except, Busta's other record danger as well.

Records like master p and the soon to be released cash money never had cultural acceptance in that time period as well.

So a lot of this talk in this thread is one sided from a gateway fan perspective fan premise and ideal to most of the content too.

Hopefully people come to realize the artist like jayz duped and pandered to the culture and Mecca as a landscape sonically and in actual physical form as well. That I think the reason why new artist who do not have cultural acceptance. Or some firm pr to sway public general sentiment to be far from the real truth of what occurred in real time. Which was that jayz was not originally the largest draw at all.

Plus after the glass ceiling was shattered from the deaths of both big and Pac. Jay would have been at best a midcard gold to or assisted platinum drawing act because of big/badboy/puff association.
Yet I do credit for jay changing and showing some malleability to the sonic and non mecca based cultural difference and landscape.
in actual sonic and vocal deliberate and physical performances.
Couple it with the greatest pr run in rap history.
to falsely sway and erroneously keep aloft jay's self acclaimed lofty projections of dominance as the kony and also the goat.
While hiding behind a debut and first album pop rap superstar MCA way to island/universal style indie artist failure and a possible retirement.
To eventually and finally breaking through on the project that utilized the oversaturation method that busta used modeling his album release schedule after kiss style record album release times at their height allegedly. So for that time a lot was not spoke on in seven pages about other top drops before the conversation would switch to jayz and dmx at that time.

It just shows how many people in this thread were really adults and culturally apart of hip hop in this thread.


Art Barr


I was hoping to not have to interject and take up most of the commentary regarding this era and how quickly it changed in sonic landscape. As cultural based rap to ostracized cultural based rap of any kind of the southern variety became more marketable to a general audience.
As back then, I remember Iam not a player helping to launch hordes of different style venues back then as the sonic backdrop for that establishment. I am not player [don't wanna be a player] was the on loop record on establishment playlists as the rap record on loop back then..

I guess it maybe so big people try to forget it occurred in mass fan gateway exodus as well.


Art Barr

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

Hey joe,....

I have sat back long enough and have noticed
No one has interjected in large volume about how or why pun's drawing power.
never infiltrated in the fall in these convo's after ruling the summer afterward is a trip. As it emulates what happened back then. As pun dropped and ruled the summer with no challengers.
Yet by the spring to fall with both dmc dropping again after debut success that surpassed pun in sales, eventually.
Following a soon to drop in the fall with a supposed Lauren rap album.
which turned out to be rnb supremacy bait and switch. Out of that, it feels the general public never brings up pun in this period. Yet by actual feverish draw in the meat of the year.
Pun ruled and the I don't wanna be a player the remix ruled the summer with no question.
This convo of jayz and dmx is more a general gateway fan convo.

because "still not a player" was more popular than big punisher himself.

also, "you came up" was out in the fall and that was the 4th video to that album. they were promoting it since the previous fall. CP's promo run was simply on its last legs.

he just was never on that level wit X & jigg.
CP wasn't even getting as much burn as Nore's tape.

 

[Art Barr]

because "still not a player" was more popular than big punisher himself.

also, "you came up" was out in the fall and that was the 4th video to that album. they were promoting it since the previous fall. CP's promo run was simply on its last legs.

he just was never on that level wit X & jigg.
CP wasn't even getting as much burn as Nore's tape.

this is one, because universal had come to own defjam and launched a new pr driven.
almost monopoly with the other universal umbrella vanity shelf labels and artist.
of which pun did not fit into.
even when if i remember right loud was also bought out but i would have to look it up to know the full dates and how it all syncs.
yet we watched the remnants of all this corporate change take place as consumers unbeknowingly in the general pop ideal or fandom.

also couple this with pun's look and his actual failing and mortally declining health factor.
that also hampered his ability to perform at any level near what would be optimal.
i feel that is why the drawing legs into the later fall of 1998 did not aid pun.
plus, pun was a commercial based personality.
alternatively, pun was not a-typically what would be deemed a commercial artist in basic premise or concept sonically from the prision industrial economy ideals marketed then as well.
pun was not a jiggy artist. he may have had a mca style remix appeal to i don't wanna be a player. yet that was a latin/urban pop reworking of a beat juggle style culturally produced lead album radio single.
that endured as long a delay as jeru or big l for that time and era as well.
so, he was more or less a call back to a previous sonic landscape and a hold over because of those delays as well.
it worked out in his favor as far as remixing the single for the pop market.
to signify the ability to be malleable in the delay.
yet, that ability to signify the ability to be malleable to the sonic changes in the market place.
make a lot of the pun album commercial attempts in that time.
coupled with the changing of the sonic landscape and also pun's long term delay.
making it an album that feels like it was remade on the fly, with current but soon to be dated parts at times to the then changing landscape.
the industry distributor wise was being taken over by the vanity label defjam/island label industry wise because of universals near monopolistic style ownership of the entire industry as well.
big pun was the victim of the sonic landscape change being driven to a more horrorcore bare bones base, sonically.
hence the more atmospheric angelic to native instrument and keyboard based production.
while, pun's now newly changed but almost what would be deemed a sonic cultural callback production based landscape direction.
combined with a remixed commercial grassroots latin pop mix style was not really a great mix with the pop ideals down the universal pipeline.
that would match what would be pun's sweetspot at that exact time.
added on to and given his health and the changes in direction in the industry.
not to mention, pun was a hardcore bboy and complete underground culture technical skill legacy based artist.
that struck platinum and pop direction based label signed artist gold.
dmx and jay were flagship hold overs from horrorcore and styles eras that passed in the two to previous sonic landscapes.
while jay was in two sonic failing landscapes.
as puff was also dead as a draw with his pe 2000 take.
signaling the end of the puff is the artistic remnant legacy flagship of badboy era artist as well.
which also later resulted in mca and arista being swallowed by universal if i remember right as well.
which resulted in even more failure for the former mca way pop based direction ideals.
as puff faltered in the universal model and pun was basically a what if there was a male latin lisa lisa cultural era skill call over and hold over artist.
that re-misappropriated the former mca way misappropriation of hiphop meets lisa and shannon grassroots rnb turned pop direction based era.


so, jay, p and x originally were the new all flagship intended artist.
eventually admin wise p would clash with this model.
as p was now outside his comfort zone of payola operation and soon had issue and fell by the wayside from outside ventures.
eventually, master p gained his cultural cred in the typical southern way and lines of too live crew to the ghetto boys.
by exposing the internal corruption of his own businesses, himself and his practices and also the industry and how they melded together.
that he eventually became so large eventually the only option was eventually corporate industrial take over of his properties in some form of control.
especially since instead of pooling resources with other entrepreneurs in a private sector.
p chose to take the large industry based distribution out instead.

so, that entire action blackballed him from previously and currently being the go to pr'd head of those past eras in legacy in commercial outlets.

hence why jay is the go to legacy guy in pr, and not the other guys from that era.

it had nuffin to do with pun actually cooling off.
it had to do with a changing of the whole model of the industry finally admitting defeat.
then, amalgamating and drawing from a discovery zone.
while still micromanaging the type of stars.
the industry wants to create and how they were fully presented or marketed.
if, said artist did not fit into their model or box.
you were not able or capable of being what they a-typically marketed as the go to imagery of what was marketed in the pop realm then.

pun was more a throwback to the mca way based discovery zone.
of trying to amalgamate the draw of shannon and lisa lisa from lisa lisa and shannon.
then rolling it over and into the modernized prison industrial economy marketed change of heavy d into biggie.
except in this instance it appeals to a latin gateway marketed crowd.

it just so happened loud was then an rca based universal product signee.
that was viewed further down the totem pole and in different admin based realm of ideas at the then loud run by rifkind at that time.

if i remember right rifkind was in the middle of administratively things changing for loud then as well.
so, that also with pun's health attributed to why pun's draw blipped off the radar as drastically as it had as well.


as everything pun was, was an older model based triumph but outside the legacy based lexicon of how the distributor was being re-structured in heirarchy and direction.


so, when it became apparent island defjam was the vanity label in the universal umbrella for that time in the marketplace.
plus, given the distinct almost different color and attitude change in direction industry wise.
with then dmx and the older horror core failed lyor cohen based model archetype.
now modernized for an urban audience in a pop realm was ready to be worked into the entire pop market and landscape.
to revenue grab off of anything black first and then call it urban in that time period.
it just so happened pun, fit into an old marketed archetype.
that was a triumph in the old mca way [bad boy] based ideal.
yet,did not fit into the industry, racial, archetype, structure, heirarchy.
of what universal had ideal wise as far as vanity top shelf labels were concerned in their take over and reconstruction at the time.

it is why a guy like common and az on mca were never marketed as the top draw.
although all under the universal umbrella.
they were thought of as underground now turned mainstream credible label style drawing artist.
not fringe prospective hopeful drawing indie style label artist like on their current past labels.
it was how the corporate structure was created model wise to display top shelf vanity pop acts to fringe grassroots partnership label artist.

with any and every style of artist from any past style of drawing era reconstructed.

it is why mary j became a pop top shelf artist.
when previously on mca she was a production house flagship two step lisa lisa meets dark horse black rnb discovery zone based artist.

it was all in how the reconstructured universal was managing itself in levels of grade and importance.
as to who, was where in perception in the pop realm.
since rap was now,..
the top drawing corporate pop entity,
rap, was no longer a fringe discovery zone based industry profit hopefuls.
now the artist in rap on the these labels formerly in a grassroost discovery zone based mode.
were now, in a large corporate based direction lead discovery zone with its brand of culture stripped based rap and jingle based rnb leading the way.


with that the former pop discovery zone triumph of pun with fatjoe from outside the box from a relativity fringe outside label.
that was bought out because it failed now, had figured out and resecured the draw from lisa lisa.
that was misappropriated in the early days of lisa lisa and shannon in the market.
then rolled over in the uptown is kickin it reconstructuring and lead production house based model of rnb meets rap hybrid based music.
which was all then misappropriated in the very early years of sugar hill to now.

with that pun was not included by simple changes by universal and their vanity label top shelf constructed ideals and semantics.

pun, was an industry outsider art based artist that figured it out.
that took over and also perfectly fit into the old sugar hill/uptown/mca/badboy heavy d mca model ideal and that was phased out.
for the more pop prison chiseled fitness specimen type of drawing rap ideal to become the flagship drawing ideal.
in that is how pun was phased out and not exactly from his actual draw really dwindling from an actual grassroots or cultural level of appeal or an ideal.







art barr

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

this is one, because universal had come to own defjam and launched a new pr driven.
almost monopoly with the other universal umbrella vanity shelf labels and artist.
of which pun did not fit into.
even when if i remember right loud was also bought out but i would have to look it up to know the full dates and how it all syncs.
yet we watched the remnants of all this corporate change take place as consumers unbeknowingly in the general pop ideal or fandom.

also couple this with pun's look and his actual failing and mortally declining health factor.
that also hampered his ability to perform at any level near what would be optimal.
i feel that is why the drawing legs into the later fall of 1998 did not aid pun.
plus, pun was a commercial based personality.
alternatively, pun was not a-typically what would be deemed a commercial artist in basic premise or concept sonically from the prision industrial economy ideals marketed then as well.
pun was not a jiggy artist. he may have had a mca style remix appeal to i don't wanna be a player. yet that was a latin/urban pop reworking of a beat juggle style culturally produced lead album radio single.

DMX wasn't a jiggy artist either.

when was CP originally supposed to drop tho?
aside from that, Pun wasn't hurting for any promotion or exposure. he just didn't have the juice to sit in the same class as X & Jig.
his album wasn't as good. and commercially, he didn't follow-up on "still not a player" the way X & Jig followed up to their hits. and they did it repeatedly.

then on the next album, he had the dead rapper promotion rollout on full throttle with the works, and only went gold.
he simply wasn't as popular as "still not a player", which was just as much joe's hit, as it was his.

 

[FreshAIG]

From 1998-2003

DMX was my number 1 rapper, bar none. If he had 1 more classic, he would be solidly a consensus top 10 rapper all-time.