beenz
Rap Guerilla
amerie. I think she's better looking than beyonce and has comparable talent. also, I actually like her music.
Name an artist who had "it" in terms of star power but never took full advantage
- Thread starter Buckeye Fever
- Start date
Amo Husserl
Superstar
Neither Fish Nor Flesh came out the same year as Let Love Rule, Lenny dropped the previous month if Wikipedia is correct.
Listening to NFNF right now and truth be told, a lot of this sounds like Around the World in a Day and some other miscellaneous rock music I listened to growing up.
This wasn't a good follow up if he was supposed to keep playing to the black audience until the official crossover, listening to this as someone who listened to a lot of rock music growing up, I can see how Lenny slid into TTD's lane.
He was definitely going through a crisis on this one.
First four tracks of NFNF compared to the rest of the album are a dead giveaway.
Lenny had inside connections that ensured his success.
Ras Kass - best west coast freestyler
BmoreGorilla
Veteran
Surprised nobody said Beanie Sigel yet. I’ve never seen a rapper fumble the bag like him. He had everything you want in a rapper but couldn’t leave the streets alone. He shoulda been a superstar with that B Coming album but between the Jay and Dame beef and his own legal issues he didn’t/couldn’t take full advantage
Kingshango
Veteran
If we’re being real, most of the Bad Boy roster from 1993-2005
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Meth, for all his success, could've been even bigger. Seriously I always felt that he should've been at the Snoop/Jay kind of level. He can really rhyme on any kind of beat, have hardcore joints, party tracks, songs for the ladies, appeals to them AND to the streets, had massive connections within the industry very early in his career, etc. Flow one of the best. Yes he had a great career overall, including as an actor, but he doesn't really have that one indisputable classic (I love Tical, but let's be honest). I feel he should've been one of the guys you HAVE to mention when discussing GOATs. That's not saying he didn't have a great career, but I think it's fair to say he could've been even bigger.
To be honest D'Angelo is international, he's just niche. It was a pretty big deal when he did that European tour a couple years back. But I agree, he should've been bigger.
Mos Def is another obvious one.
Lootha VanDraws
'The Night I Fell in Love' is the GOAT R&B album
Greg Porn.
iykyk
iykyk
Mos was starring in movies before he retired so I think he did good, maybe coulda put out more albums but it is is what it is
Tenchi Ryu
Ashtray B!tch
He stay having me rolling on Instagram, he definitely should have been the next big thing, the talent was there. But I respect him and specifically his mom for seeing value in principles over fame….her being in the music business herself she wasn’t gonna let them do her kid dirty and those same principles are instilled into him now…..financially he straight, his mom was her on business shyt when he was a youning and he getting lion king royalty checks for life
Lootha VanDraws
'The Night I Fell in Love' is the GOAT R&B album
Not gonna lie, 'Neither Fish Nor Flesh' is the only CD I've ever thrown away, and I really dig TTD/Sananda. With the exception of the Roly Poly song, that shyt was tooo weird and unfocused for me, and certainly not a good follow up to the Hardline. But breh knocked it out of the park with 'Symphony or Damn', but it might have been too late by then...
Neither Fish Nor Flesh came out the same year as Let Love Rule, Lenny dropped the previous month if Wikipedia is correct.
Listening to NFNF right now and truth be told, a lot of this sounds like Around the World in a Day and some other miscellaneous rock music I listened to growing up.
This wasn't a good follow up if he was supposed to keep playing to the black audience until the official crossover, listening to this as someone who listened to a lot of rock music growing up, I can see how Lenny slid into TTD's lane.
He was definitely going through a crisis on this one.
First four tracks of NFNF compared to the rest of the album are a dead giveaway.
Lenny had inside connections that ensured his success.
Amo Husserl
Superstar
That Soulquarian camp didn't really take off outside of The Roots, Q-Tip already had his run with ATCQ, everybody else kinda went one way or the other. Erykah had a good run, but not as good as it could have been. Common, after Be, lost steam and he started focusing on acting. Mos Def and Talib Kweli already dropped Black Star. If anyone was supposed to take off, it was supposed to be D'Angelo with how much impact Voodoo had at the time. Remembering that era, you would have thought D'Angelo would have had a Stevie run. As a matter of fact, I think that was the end of organic R&B development from the 60s. That thirty year push was pretty much ended after Y2K, black music hit such a mainstream that it killed whatever credible artistic momentum D'Angelo could have had going forward.
Voodoo came out in '00, next thing I remember the crunk era took off then Soulja Boy came out, wink, and Thank Me Later dropped and Kendrick started getting his buzz when I was leaving high school. Of course there was Kanye's run during all this, but there wasn't a strong continuation of neo-soul. I stopped listening to a lot of hip-hop and R&B of that time because the shift was so sudden. Outkast split up when I was in middle school.
I remember right as neo-soul started declining, The Strokes really took off and the mainstream started focusing on rock music again. Only the crossover artists had staying power, The Neptunes/Pharrell took off and Jay-Z hit his stride. Snoop was still relevant to some degree. Alicia Keys was taking off. Beyonce left Destiny's Child...
As a matter of fact, this came out in '02:
Eve had that sitcom on UPN, Girlfriends was still running at the time. How quick the transitions in black culture were from '98 to '07 was enough to cause multiple whiplash. You saw the money come into the culture and on hindsight, it did serious damage. Even the texture of the music changed, production became more polished and pop-oriented for crossover appeal and the content became more club oriented than usual. This came out in '01:
You had more white artists getting into R&B and hip-hop from '00 onward.
Britney Spears, Pink, Christina Aguilera, J-Lo, Justin Timberlake, Bubba Sparkz, Paul Wall, Gwen Stefani and number of others.
Actually, that was when American Idol came out.
D'Angelo couldn't have survived that era, he would have been washed out by the sea change. Neo-soul disappeared for a time, so this resurgence is what it is: nostalgia. A lot of what neo soul came back is on the backs of hipsters who had black friends that put them on in high school because I remember the white kids where I was around that time weren't aware of neo-soul in the slightest, they were barely into hip-hop.
The embrace of black music on their part that started back in the '10s (?), especially Dilla, is on some discovery vibe.
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Chris FN Brown
Last 10 years beenafter
Velvet_Ace
Pro
My first instinct was to say Jay Electronica.
Too bad he didn't have the work ethic and was too busy chasing that Rothschild p*ssy.
But with the benefit of hindsight I don't know if he could have really made it. That style was embodied by two mainstream rappers in the 10's: Kendrick and Cole. They managed to make hits and evolve their styles but I don't think that Jay Elec would have been able to do that. No wonder that he felt jealous towards Kendrick and tried to throw shots at him.
Too bad he didn't have the work ethic and was too busy chasing that Rothschild p*ssy.
But with the benefit of hindsight I don't know if he could have really made it. That style was embodied by two mainstream rappers in the 10's: Kendrick and Cole. They managed to make hits and evolve their styles but I don't think that Jay Elec would have been able to do that. No wonder that he felt jealous towards Kendrick and tried to throw shots at him.
Amo Husserl
Superstar
It was definitely too late, he dropped NFNF in '89, if he didn't do something by '91 he wasn't going to make it. Mariah Carey dropped her debut in '90, Jodeci dropped in '91, The Chronic dropped, then you had Tribe, De La, Nas, the rest of Uptown, East Coast West Coast beef. The tone of the 90s wasn't for TTD. Even if he dropped in '91, those rock undertones weren't on anybody's radar, his audience was gone. Everybody that hit in the 80s, if they weren't already in the stratosphere, fell off or did something outside of music. Even Prince got drowned out and he had a godly run in the 80s. The 90s was just a different beast.
