Biggie is/was the real blueprint for sellout/commercial rap that is still being made today

[IllmaticDelta]

The Message, Street Dreams, Nas is Coming, Watch dem nikkas, Affirmative action, Black Girl Lost, and If I ruled the world all had commercial sounding beats.

LMAO @ those songs outside of IIRTW sounding commercial. This song would have never got mainstream play back then and wouldn't now.
Listen to the lyrics

I don't know what these nikkas talking bout. They try to give passes to sell out shyt all day on here, than complain about how rap is today when they made it this way by co signing shyt that's not acceptable.

Biggie paved the way for the content that would plague mainstream rap from 96 on

 

[H.J.Duck]

He did but Nas wasn't even on that fly/playa vibe. Nas was on the mafioso vibe on IWW and that album is less commercial in sound/lyrics than even Read To Die.

True RTD had more commercial moments. But compared to Illmatic, IWW had those moments too. I mean "Street Dreams" and obviously "If I Ruled the World" had that more "commercial" sound. And definitely Street Dreams remix music video.

Dont get me wrong though, I like IWW as much, if not more than Illmatic and consider it a classic too. And to me the way Nas and Big (and to a certain extent Hov and maybe Pac with especially AEOM) perfected the way to make dope balanced albums with hits (which were dope enough to multiple crowds) and more traditional hip hop.

Somewhere between late90s/early00s artists (labels probably deserve the blame more) lost that though, and too many mainstream albums are like a few singles and the rest is failed singles or fillers. Or more "traditional" or "underground" artists make albums where they try to do what Big and Nas were able to do but alienate their fanbases with too blatant crossover attempts.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

True RTD had more commercial moments. But compared to Illmatic, IWW had those moments too.

because Illmatic was rawness to the bone.

I mean "Street Dreams" and obviously "If I Ruled the World" had that more "commercial" sound. And definitely Street Dreams remix music video.

Nothing commercial about Streat Dream rmx...video or lyrically

Only the gods can watch the earth twist
I'm physically trapped down on the surface
With all the crack merchants
Snakes and serpents
Foul jakes that search us
Clowns with four pounds this ain't a circus


The black clouds over the hood, I'm on the corner with the thugs
Late night under the moon as they assume I'm slanging drugs
Cause I'm hooded up, thought a G a night wasn't good enough

Sort of wild, since a child, hope was all we had
Dreamt of plush out pads
Complaning the mental straining
How many in my crew is into gaining
Subtract the weak links up out the chaining
Rise and start reigning
Blasphemy usin Nas name in vien
Some claim supreme bein yet they lied in his name
I tried to learn the game
And the only thing I found incredible
Everything I tried to learn see I already knew

And R.Kelly stellar chorus and background vocals

Nas was spitting gems in damn near every line shyt blew the original street dreams right out the water, personal top 10 nas song IMO .

 

[H.J.Duck]

If u r acting like Street Dreams didnt have a commercial sound u r bugging. They borrowed the hook from a #1 hit and the production compared to rest of the album is more commercial too. The fact that lyrically it's still a street record is what made Nas and Big and ppl I mentioned so great.

 

[Cheech&Chong]

He did but Nas wasn't even on that fly/playa vibe. Nas was on the mafioso vibe on IWW and that album is less commercial in sound/lyrics than even Read To Die.

wait....what???


and how come no one has brought up the chronic??? Hip Hop to me was mc hammer and vanilla ice untill Snoop Dog came around. Dre n Snoop where ALL over my tv, every day. They really pushed hip hop to a global forefront.

 

[Art Barr]

The Message, Street Dreams, Nas is Coming, Watch dem nikkas, Affirmative action, Black Girl Lost, and If I ruled the world all had commercial sounding beats.

I don't know what these nikkas talking bout. They try to give passes to sell out shyt all day on here, than complain about how rap is today when they made it this way by co signing shyt that's not acceptable.

This explains exactly the problem.
Non-cultured rap fans trying to dictate a culture to its ruin

Then, complain about the ruin they singlehandedly cause to occur.


Art Barr

 

[Art Barr]

I blame Nas. Puff led the charge with biggie. But Nas was newly crowned as some form of messiah and had many drinking the kool aid from ny,then he turned coated his supporters and Became a Mafioso rapper. If you saw big' s success and wanted it but was on the fence,Nas the new false profit convinced many that it was a hip hop thing to do

Exactly,....
none of the bullshyt now.
was possible of happening, in the manner it occurs in now.
till nas sold out the last culturally protected drawing business sector of the pillars in rap music.

Before, that there was no sustaining drawing power culturally.
in making pop and rnb afflicted rap.


Art Barr

 

[Lord_Chief_Rocka]

Thecoli is literally the only place where I have ever heard that biggie is overrated

 

[Art Barr]

wait....what???


and how come no one has brought up the chronic??? Hip Hop to me was mc hammer and vanilla ice untill Snoop Dog came around. Dre n Snoop where ALL over my tv, every day. They really pushed hip hop to a global forefront.

At the time, dre and snoop were ostracized as cultural draws and were not repaired as cultural draws.
till, Eminem resurrected their cultural ability to draw, single handedly.
In the time, dre and snoop were in oversaturated mode on MTV.
That is when they were culturally on the outs and falsely complaining.
While, showcasing Mecca envy, because they had destroyed their ability to draw culturally from people in and about the Mecca.

That is why all the dr, I hate ny feud from their standpoint is misguided.


It comes from a place of not understanding the actual culture of hip hop.
Plus, thinking any type of rap resonated and directly influenced people of and about the culture of hip hop
It was not until the degradative sellout slope nas placed the actual culture on as well.
That eventually created this wack toy pass system.
that has eroded the culture by gateway rap fans.
In to large of a oversaturated population.
Signaled, by when nas got production credit from dre, as well.
Yet, the time it took dre to fully be repaired as a cultural draw was not complete till Eminem.
Even throughout the firm years till eminem.
Dre was not a cultural draw.

Dre was the sellout failed to leave dr guy who made beats or produced sellout gangsta records.
Who continually aoded other sellout rappers.
During the height of when they sold out.
to oversaturate MTV and overpopulate the culture by noob.
em is when gateway rap fans, got a cultural connection to hip hop from dre.

Art Barr

 

[H.J.Duck]

I gotta make it clear though, I don't blame Biggie or Nas alone because they did the crossover thing so well and still 'kept it hip hop' when they started doing it.

If we need to blame one person I'd probably blame Puffy. Then again there's more to it than that. Labels & even the fans deserve the blame more.

 

[Indiglow Meta (R$G)]

Funky drummer funk not, synth-electro funk. This is evident in the music bboys (east) and funkstylers (west) prefer to dance to





The way the west crafted it was distinct




EPMD doesn't sound G-Funkish though

No it wasn't, they copied the whole Ohio Players and damn near stole Dayton x Columbus x Cleveland's sound to make that. Along with other midwestern staples like "factory worker clothes (dikkies)" "Dayton rims" and "Dayton pigtail braids"...LA was ATL before ATL...a place full of brehs from other places. Even their gang culture comes from the midwest and south.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

If u r acting like Street Dreams didnt have a commercial sound u r bugging. They borrowed the hook from a #1 hit and the production compared to rest of the album is more commercial too.

It was accessible but it wasn't mainstream in the sense of a club banger

The fact that lyrically it's still a street record is what made Nas and Big and ppl I mentioned so great.

When Biggie did commercial joints his content was also commercial/playa/flossing related. When nas went commercial in the same period he was dropping jewels.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

wait....what???


and how come no one has brought up the chronic??? Hip Hop to me was mc hammer and vanilla ice untill Snoop Dog came around. Dre n Snoop where ALL over my tv, every day. They really pushed hip hop to a global forefront.

The Chronic/G Funk/Gangsta Rap going back to NWA is what made HipHop even bigger but they weren't considered "real" hiphop or lyrical types.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

No it wasn't, they copied the whole Ohio Players and damn near stole Dayton x Columbus x .

Im talking within hiphop..

G-funk (which uses funk with an artificially altered tempo) incorporates multi-layered and melodic synthesizers, slow hypnotic grooves, a deep bass, background female vocals, the extensive sampling of P-Funk tunes, and a high-pitched portamento saw wave synthesizer lead. The lyrical content depended on the artist and could consist of sex, drugs, violence, vandalism and women, but also of love for a city, love for friends and relaxing words. There was also a slurred “lazy” or "smooth" way of rapping in order to clarify words and stay in rhythmic cadence.

Unlike other earlier rap acts that also utilized funk samples (such as EPMD and The Bomb Squad), G-funk often utilized fewer, unaltered samples per song.[1] Music theorist Adam Krims has described G-funk as "a style of generally West Coast rap whose musical tracks tend to deploy live instrumentation, heavy on bass and keyboards, with minimal (sometimes no) sampling and often highly conventional harmonic progressions and harmonies"

 

[spliz]

Only thing I say is this. If u criticize Nas for any commercial shyt on IWW. I better not hear u praising Biggie who did the same thing the same year Nas dropped raw ass Illmatic. Just be consistent. If Nas sold out. Biggie sold out out the gate.