I didnt say any of that though. One For All is not only a recognized classic but a PERSONAL classic. one of my favorite albums of all time. I am a Brand Nubian fan but even Jamar said himself that they had so much pushback from the labels because of their content. Their topics would never reach mainstream. I am not sure how you got from my post that they didnt have classics. The OP was about Puba and I think this is part of his legacy. At the same time maybe he made some misteps in his solo career but i would have to attribute his lack of mainstream popularity to his subject matter. I also think Treach and Ja Rule are very underrated MC's but it was because of the TYPES of songs they made.
Oh ok. The core hip hop audience then represented a certain number. A good number of classic albums came out in that time period. But only the well marketed acts topped out in terms of sales within that core group.
A good number of rappers followed the 5% NGE in that era, so many of them were saying and promoting a lot of the same content. I maybe misread your first post as saying that Puba was not compromising and Lord J and Sadat X were .
I've heard interviews over the years with Puba and Dante Ross. Brand Nubian was a made up group. Puba was separately shopping Lord J and Derek X demos and put the group together as best shot of getting a deal. I used to see that as the reason why he didn't do promo legwork for the group. Dante who I believe was their A&R said that Puba just didn't have the work ethic to record and promote music. Group or solo.
I've heard unedited and edited version of their group and solo songs, so I don't think content played that much of a role in that era. Again, many of the other groups had controversial lyrics and content, but to the core hop hop audience, none of that was a problem.
That would have been a problem for Hip hop acts that crossed over to mainstream audience, MTV play and pop station airplay.
