Little Brother would have had more successful if they weren't so unlikeable

[Piff Perkins]

Pooh is wack and they're fat nikkas. The music was pretty good at its best and uninspired for too many tracks. 9th's production got repetitive fast. They put out an album with a provocative title then failed to have the courage to execute the theme. They're a kinda good group that has one gifted, versatile artists in the duo, who makes for a great feature and an enjoyable one-off here and there. I say that as an early fan, and a forever fan of Phonte. Nobody ever cared about these guy enough to find them unlikeable - if anything the word was 9th was the a$$hole.

Pooh slander aside lol....Slum Village had a mixture of ugly and fat nikkas yet still had hits. LB simply didn't make music with any mainstream or casual appeal. They don't have a single song you could play at a function of any form, or around women. That's the main difference between them and the groups people identified them with - Tribe, De La, Slum Village, etc. And a lot of that is due to 9th who is/was a fukking nerd. How do you base your entire image/sound around Pete Rock (with Fisher Price drums) but don't make smooth tracks for hoes lol. Or was he skipping thru half of those CL Smooth albums. Same way Griselda dudes talk about Jay all day but across a decade haven't displayed any ability to shift directions or make songs for chicks like he did.

This is not me slandering LB. I'm a big fan, they have multiple classics etc. I'm just saying for all the gripes they have about their lack of popularity to this day, at no point did they try to make music for normal people who aren't "real rap" nerds.

 

[Abstract83]

I don't follow the social media shyt. Just know about the falling out with 9th and the break up and them reuniting. I just know they came out at the wrong time but their music is timeless.

 

[Iverson_64]

The music is dope thats all that matters.

I follow Pooh and he can come off a little prickly at times but hey thats what happens when interacting with REAL human beings, sometimes they can be gracious, sometimes they can be a$$holes.

Phonte doesn’t come off as that all bad in his interviews in my opinion.

I still remember when Phonte used to blog about hip hop albums and hip hop discourse back in the 2000's.

Dude is a huge rap fan and comes across very likeable. I honestly can't recall any instant of him coming across poorly.

And Big Pooh was open about being an Uber driver when his solo rap career didn't work out much. He openly rapped about his experinces juggling rap and juggling work on May The Lord Watch.

9th Wonder admittingly comes across as a bit of a snob but his role in teaching about hip hop production in a university is commendable and shows how passionate he is.

I don't know. I just don't think "unlikeable" when it comes to Little Brother.

 

[Zero]

OP isn't off-base for once



This is a whiny ass song covered up by a dope beat and dudes that can rap.

Aint the only one they've got either



The writing was on the wall as far back as the MySpace days when they bombed at a BET concert and got mad at fans for not reacting at a concert THEY were out of place in

 

[Zero]

I never really liked them coming into the game on some, " We're junior versions of actual dope groups." Was wacky to me. And then I really hated how they blogged and were speaking on artists superior to them. They were mad Mobb Deep signed with G Unit. I'm no 50 fan but don't fukkin' crap on artists for business decisions. It's like they would rather Hav and P sit home broke or something. And to do it in blog form is even worse. Get on the mic and say that shyt, but you won't because you don't want that kind of smoke. They just came off as toys as @Art Barr would say. lol

I never saw thus but I believe it. Phone was twitter-fingers before Twitter

 

[FunkDoc1112]

They weren't unlikeable at all, but you had to buy-in to their brand and message, and the vehicle to do that wasn't mapped out yet

They literally blew up on forums like this. Imagine if Twitter/IG existed, and YouTube and podcast media/streamers to help amplify them? They could do skits and content, and were already doing that on smaller platforms

The average consumer did not care about that at all in 2005. And theyre supposedly wagging the finger at them? A lot of folks didn't even realize it was satire, but suddenly everyone loves Dreamville and the Tyler aesthetic...

Phonte is a hilarious dude and very intelligent as are 9th and Pooh. They had a whole team and movement, but the labels were only willing to do the bare minimum and they were trying to jam a round shape into a square hole... Magazines like The Source were too caught up in their own bullshyt to even review the project in good faith

They didn't have any real traction with legacy media, and new media hadn't truly emerged yet. They had a sound that was unpopular (and swimming upstream) back then, but has a whole lane now of folks doing it

They were truly before their time

Yup, they popped at the absolute worst possible time to not be a commercial rap act

 

[Morose Polymath]

Its simple, this Cover did them in. It was a giant "fukk You" to The South, the region they were from (if you consider NC, The South).

 

[Lonj]

First heard them on a Drake song funny enough

 

[MurderToCassette]

They had some good songs but they were just corny. Phonte's blogging antics didn't help. I remember back in the myspace days he wrote some big rant about buying It Was Written on the same day as Stakes Is High and feeling like hip hop was in a battle for its soul or some dumb shyt like that

 

[MrRDU]

OP has an argument but I think having Joe Scudda on their lead single was the curtain call

And I fux with LB hard but hey, lets be real, they are kinda corny

Rapsody too

 

[Pressure]

meeting pooh in person a couple of times, he don't seem dikkish, i seen phonte a couple times in commerical, he seem funny and likeable. that finian nikka they be having around, the dj was a lowkey a$$hole tho.

Finian running around with Shamegang now

 

[Yayo Toure]

OP has an argument but I think having Joe Scudda on their lead single was the curtain call

And I fux with LB hard but hey, lets be real, they are kinda corny

Rapsody too

Rapsody is a nobody. 9th spent a decade trying to build her and got nowhere.

 

[Tommy Gibbs]

Phonte and 9th are both divas whose egos are not in line with their actual accomplishments and pooh is also a prick to fans online when he is a third wheel and very average artist.

Its not a surprise they broke up and couldn't get along with all of their violatile personalities and that documentary they made them look worse with their pettiness.

I can't even really listen to their music anymore after following them on social media for over a decade and seeing how they move.

Have you ever watched a Slick Rick interview or listened to his music? He would call you a peasant and crumb to your face and you can tell he wasn't playing. Definitely not a likable person..

 

[Urbanmiracle]

What does them being fat have to do with… never mind it’s the coli. Anyways they were dope but came out in a time before you can use the internet to build a sustainable fan base to eat from. I mean 9th is still dropping dope beats with newer rappers, Phonte still out raps and sings most acts, and Pooh solo joint is solid.

But yall want in shape sexy flexy nikkas lol

 

[Formerly known as...]

Their music is dope and I love their choice of topic. They just made music and didn't try and act a certain way in order to sell themselves. They were less successful commercially because they came across as boring personality wise but in the end if you continued to listen to them you grow with their music. Drake for example is near 40 still rapping about the same things he was in his 20's. Sometimes it becomes disconnecting specially when some of your fans are your age and cant relate to the shyt you're talking about.