Can everyone stop trying to rewrite history for Ja Rule

[Tribal Outkast]

This is why I say that era is so forgettable... People can’t even agree on who was hotter between Ja Rule, Nelly, Chingy, and Ludacris lol. There was no question about artists from the 80’s and 90’s. I never liked Ja much outside of his first album,.. I’ll say that he got a lot of play where I’m from(Georgia) so to me he did ok until he got super wack.

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

Ja was not the most impactful artist in those years. During that time, these artists had more impact than Ja:

Jay Z/Nas- on just a Hip Hop perspective. That beef/battle easily made them more impactful during that period. And you can't really use a sales metric here because, Jay was selling as much if not more.

Ludacris- he had his own solo career poppin' off and his hits were as impactful if not more impactful than Ja's. This The Coli though and most will argue "nobody listens to those Luda records now though". Well in 2000 and 2001, Luda was one of the biggest rappers in the game and was killing features

Nelly- don't even have to discuss how big the Country Grammar album was

Eminem- yeah we get it, "the music aged bad", "he had the biggest fall off of any rapper". In 2000 and 20001, Eminem was possibly the biggest rapper on the planet and not just to white people who could care less about Hip Hop outside of Eminem. Eminem actually was an impactful MC who had the ears of Hip Hop at the time.

Stoppppppppp it Lmaooooo

Luda’s music sold well but he was never taken serious hence why he got passed up by a TI that never sold as well as he did. To say Luda had the omnipresence of Ja in 2000 is misrepresentation of what it was.

Eminem played by his own rules and was an MTV darling. Eminem did NOT receive consistent airplay in cities with major black demographics. He had little to no impact on hip hop culture. He had the luxury of making silly Adam Sandler singles that would have maxed out at gold or plat Had he have been black (Busta & Red) His music had such a small influence on the direction of rap considering how much records he was selling its criminal. Em was truly Elvis and Dre was Fats Domino.

Nelly is a solid argument since he was outselling Ja but you have to also factor in the idea that rap was still a NY Cenric game at the time & Irv was beyond respected with his hands in many pots so the bias probably played apart. Country Grammar was the smash followed by his other singles that performed well but that combination of Put It On Me & I’m Real was the two headed monster.

Jay was Jay....Slow & Steady but not the hottest which was the story of his career. Give It To Me was an undeniable smash though

Did you really try to mention Nasir Jones in 2000 or the majority of 2001?? Please tell me that was a typo. Nas was so dead in the water people in the city was saying he was on his last leg of the next album, which ended up being Stillmatic, wasn’t fire. That was BEFORE the beef so I don’t understand what you’re referring to Oochie Wally did wayyyyy more harm than good

 

[Wacky D]

Lately I be seeing nikkas hyping up Ja like everyone was really rocking with him like that. I mean yeah, he had hits and was all over the hip hop stations, but it wasn't like he had the streets on lock. His career was similar to Chingy's in hindsight. Let's stop acting like Ja had bars or that nikkas was heavily anticipating his albums dropping and all that

the thing is, a lot of these guys are/were just mainstream rap fans.
a lot of these dudes were young at the time as well.

I'd say hes more similar to a Ludacris than a chingy, in the sense that jarule was still dope as an emcee, and could hold his own on a track with anybody. not a knock on chingy, btw. hes just not that type of rapper.

I see what you were trying to say tho. jarule was moreso grouped into that commercial lane with chingy, nelly, Ludacris, outkast, Eminem, etc. during that time. people who sold a lot of records and had big hits but weren't really checked for in the streets.

good thread, btw. long overdue - not just regarding jarule, but I see other rappers being put into perspective in this thread as well.

his career was like Chingy?

he literally had a street anthem in 1998 with Jay Z.. "Can I Get A" (which was Ja's song, Jay added his verse later)
had MAJOR hits on the charts (Chingy was basically a 1 hit wonder)
had a classic battle song in which he destroyed Eminem with 1 line
came back with a STREET ANTHEM even after the beef with "NEW YORK"

chingy wasn't no one-hit wonder. you buggin out.

"can I get a" was more of a club banger than a street anthem.

yea, jarule served Eminem, but unfortunately, most people weren't paying attention. 50 cent was the focal point. nobody really cared about Eminem jumping in trying to siphon a street buzz. and most people weren't even trying to give jarule a fair listen at that point. it was really just US forum posters that were up on it, and to our credit, we never let it die down on our end.

 

[DaveyDave]

Ja was doing records with LL Cool J, Method Man, Nas, and people comparing him to Chingy man this entire thread is a joke

I'm no fan of Ja, NEVER have been ever since I first heard Holla Holla but to say Chingy was bigger than him or even better than him in living in another dimension.

 

[Ineedmoney504]

Ja was huge. Im 28 and remember him being huh around my age range when I was in like 2000.

We use be throwing up the M for murder and all that

“How many wanna die” was a classic song on a great movie

 

[QuintessentialMan]

Ja Rule (with Ashanti) had a great run dude.
Outside of ''Always on Time'' I dont personally play ANY of their hits regularly but im 33 fam. I remember Ja was like DMX's hype man in 96/97/98 or some shyt, next thing he bit pac's style and never looked back. After Holla Holla(which was pretty big) he slowly became a beast.
Ja had a crazy run from 00' to 03' that song he did with Case to the hits he put out with Ashanti and all that ''Put it on me'', ''I cry'' ''Happy'' ''Mesmerize''
They were shytting out hits...4get murder inc, ja and Ashanti were a force in hiphop.....remember ja and jlo? That shyt was huge they made a couple of radio killing tracks.......then 50 came along and ruined everything.

 

[Zero]

What people really need to stop lying about is how Eminem killed Ja.

50 and Ja himself did Ja Rule in.

2 bars killed that cac's whole family and he had nothing but some fake tough guy adlibs hiding behind his Shady attack dogs.

Ya'll can't tell me biting Hail Mary was hot even if they paid out the ass to get that played on radio

 

[Illmagic]

What people really need to stop lying about is how Eminem killed Ja.

50 and Ja himself did Ja Rule in.

2 bars killed that cac's whole family and he had nothing but some fake tough guy adlibs hiding behind his Shady attack dogs.

Ya'll can't tell me biting Hail Mary was hot even if they paid out the ass to get that played on radio

It wasn't about the bars. Your right Em didnt spit no real fire at Ja. 50 didnt either if we being real. No great diss songs came out of that war. It was about how huge Em was back then. Once he involved him it was a wrap. Alot of Ja fans were Em fans but they were gonna ride with Em.

 

[Ian1362]

never really had an interest in checking for his album cuts, now that i think about it. if i wanted that, theres pac and dmx

 

[AJaRuleStan]

Nah..when be first came out, he got lit up for being this odd voiced sounding Tupac wannabe. He just was overly blatant with it like No Limit and almost every down south artist claiming a revised version of "THUG LIFE" at the time.

I have never seen one person who argues that Ja was fragrantly biting pac when he came out cite a SINGLE example to backup said claim outside of how he rocked his bandana this one time back in 99. And trust me, I challenge people on this talking point constantly and nothing even close to the word convincing can EVER be found and presented.

Proponents of this bullshyt view have to grasp so hard to come with anything that I've legit come across people who cite Ja rule having a pac verse on his THIRD album as evidence of Ja being a Pac clone. My jaw literally hit the floor when I first saw someone say that.

 

[Wacky D]

It means Ja was good enough to rap with the 2 top rappers of that era, not because he was a label mate (Bleek, Drag-On, Chingy).
Wow you walked right into that one.

its basically the same situation bro.

dmx, jay-z & jarule were all down with irv gotti, and the fact that they were all landed on def jam, made it easy for them to follow thru with the group idea.

same umbrella.

except Ja was going triple platinum

so no...its not even

chingy's 1st album sold just under triple.

I think it might've shipped triple actually.

C'mon breh... shyt would've been trash if it was a straight Ja record.

ehh

jarule's verse was the only one I liked on "can I get a".

even on my old VHS from 20 years ago, I just recorded jarule's verse.

Ja was nothing like Chingy
He had the streets . He was backed by murder inc and was considered a gangsta rapper until 2002

lol

what streets did jarule have on deck?

I have never seen one person who argues that Ja was fragrantly biting pac when he came out cite a SINGLE example to backup said claim outside of how he rocked his bandana this one time back in 99. And trust me, I challenge people on this talking point constantly and nothing even close to the word convincing can EVER be found and presented.

Proponents of this bullshyt view have to grasp so hard to come with anything that I've legit come across people who cite Ja rule having a pac verse on his THIRD album as evidence of Ja being a Pac clone. My jaw literally hit the floor when I first saw someone say that.

ehh. im not gonna say he bit pac, but the influence was definitely there.

he had his own style but there was a lot of 2pac, DMX, bone thug & ONYX seasoning.

 

[boskey]

One of hips hops strangest moments is at the height of Ja popularity, 50 cent told people to stop fukking with ja rule...and they did it for reasons i will never know...and then 50 spent the next 2 or 3 years making ja rules music...

Even stranger people who did this now act like they never did it and they never fukked with Ja like that and they didn't like ja before 50...meanwhile his music was everywhere at the time...

Cuz as has been mentioned already, in the early 2000s your music being "everywhere" didn't actually mean shyt. This was the peak of pop music... Shaggy sold 10 million fukkin records. And nobody will ever admit to being a Shaggy fan either...

In 10 years ya'll will be talking about the Silento era "That song was everywhere, they had Hillary Clinton doing the dance "

 

[AJaRuleStan]

he had his own style but there was a lot of 2pac, DMX, bone thug & ONYX seasoning.

I'm not really invested in touching the Bone Thug and Onyx influence, though I'd argue bones were more hood-harmony while Ja's lane was more female-callback type of records. Point is, whatever influence that is there, is so general its irrelevant.

However, the DMX thing is a talking point that I actually do think has very little merit. You can go back and listen to Mic Geronimo's Time To Build from 95 which features Ja rule and DMX on the same record and see that his gruff, high energy style which we saw from Ja when he first came out existed prior to DMX releasing his first album.

Unfortunately, when Ja came out in 98, most people did not know he had put out records earlier, even his CMC stuff, so the perception was that he was a brand-new artist trying to mimic DMX's popular style.

 

[darealvelle]

Ja Rule had a huge run from 99-02. Dude had hits after hits, plus was going multi platinum in record sales.

 

[Wacky D]

I'm not really invested in touching the Bone Thug and Onyx influence, though I'd argue bones were more hood-harmony while Ja's lane was more female-callback type of records. Point is, whatever influence that is there, is so general its irrelevant.

However, the DMX thing is a talking point that I actually do think has very little merit. You can go back and listen to Mic Geronimo's Time To Build from 95 which features Ja rule and DMX on the same record and see that his gruff, high energy style which we saw from Ja when he first came out existed prior to DMX releasing his first album.

Unfortunately, when Ja came out in 98, most people did not know he had put out records earlier, even his CMC stuff, so the perception was that he was a brand-new artist trying to mimic DMX's popular style.

the bone thug stuff was moreso the 1st album. and he had all the onyx mannerisms down-pact. I just realized he was in one of their old videos too, years before he blew up.
and its not irrelevant, those are hugely popular groups who still draw to this day. stuff like that strengthens your appeal.

good point on the latter. but AGAIN, dmx & jarule both came AFTER onyx.
also, jarule took a lot of the look & demeanor from DMX.