Old heads, what was big and pac's presence in the music scene like when they were alive?

[Votti]

Its been 16 years and folks still can't let go of the negative perceptions they have for these two

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

I mean they were big, but it was a very competitive environment at that time. I mean Bone Thugs and Crucial conflict were out selling Pac and Big. The Fugees were way bigger in terms of sales.

crucial conflict tho? did "final tic" even crack a millie yet? how the hell were they outselling pac & big?



im in agreement that pac & big were immortalized after death, but some of yall just in here boosting yall favorites.

He would struggle to get in a top 5 popularity on the WEST ALONE without attention whoring gimmicks

snoop, dre, eazy e, cube, cypress hill all bigger in 93 and all without having to resort to making commercial singles ''for the bytches''.... that reminds me i ain't even include too short

Real talk, Tupac shoulda wrote a letter to Henchmen & Haitian Jack for making him a star

i'll let you have that regionally. but nationally, eazy is debatable, but pac was bigger than cypress hill.

from the east, all you have is onyx and maybe naughty by nature.

Even with all the quality artists of that time, big and Pac stood out from the rest...
Plus y'all gotta understand, those dudes were only 24 and 25 when they died, I believe that given another year of life, they would've made up and Pac I really think he was headed into that early Ye, fukk the establishment lets tear some shyt up zone. The government is glad he's gone.

meh, lets not disrespect 2pac by comparing him to kanye west.

they stood out as the 2 figureheads on the east & west, but they weren't the flat-out faces of hip-hop.
-bone thugs, wutang, snoop, dre and nas. they were all in the same boat as pac & biggie.
-east coast-wise, you also had acts like BCC & mobb deep that were on the same tier as biggie regionally. jay-z was on the rise. AZ was too.
-commercially, the fugees & coolio were up there as well.
-LL cool j had a huge run off mr smith. he kinda fits into all 3 of the previous categories.

 

[Homeboy Runny-Ray]

cats are going too far on both ends of the spectrum. BIG & Pac weren't the be all and end all of Hip Hop but they were far from local like some people are saying. there were bigger acts like Wu, Bone, Snoop, Cube, there were a lot of MC's we were listening to besides just Pac or BIG.

that's what im saying chief.

its like im arguing against both sides here.

Thread title says music scene.Pacs biggest hit was dear mama that's when he became a "superstar" musically before that he was known as the loudmouth controversial nikka always getting in trouble and was typecasted in them straight to dvd ass movies

He wasn't no superstar in 93 musically

str8 to dvd movies?

pac didn't become a superstar until "dear mama" now?

I would say a little before that. I would say that period between Poetic Justice and Thug Life were when he started to accelerate then Me Against the World was like the culmination of all that. But in comparison, Biggie was an instant star. While Wu-Tang and Nas sort of set the stage, Biggie, smartly used West Coast sensibilities in his music and cadence to make crossover hits especially in the case of 'Big Poppa' furthermore, Bad Boy marketed the dude very smartly, mobilizing a street team and getting Biggies freesstyles and stage performances and stuff on the radio. This is not to take away from Biggies, talent, but the marketing blitz was groundbreaking at the time, and he moved up very quickly through a crowded east coast music scene. Snoop also belongs in this conversation as well, because he too was an instant star.

basically.

pac was a household name by the end of '93. people are trippin in here, acting like he wasn't.

yea, biggie went to the top-tier on his 1st album, but big was around, doing guest verses and dropping tracks for like 2 years leading up to that. more importantly, the game was wide-open for biggie. he benefited from the east coast being in a transition period, and him being the one to come out with the most accessible music, mostly thanks to puff.

 

[Bxblaze]

I remember everybody thought PAC was still alive ... When he died I think the news covered it more but both were holdin it down for each sides ... Biggie had one more chance n PAC had California love both were smash hits in hip hop

 

[NvrCMyNut]

i'll let you have that regionally. but nationally, eazy is debatable, but pac was bigger than cypress hill.

from the east, all you have is onyx and maybe naughty by nature.

How was Pac bigger than cypress hill when they had a monster hit & were on rock tours being straight gangsta rappers and going triple plat pac couldn't even go plat with his struggle commercial singles. stop it. fucc you mean regionally? Only the biggest WC artists got play nationally people across the nation back then were into their own regions music, i was doing you a favor without bringing up the east, when you factor in wu-tang & tribe pac would not even get into the top 10.

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

the thing is that both of these dudes right not too long after their most visible and commercially successful albums, so it's hard to distinguish between the sales/notoriety due to their premature deaths and how much of it was due to their status and popularity before they died.


i think it's hard to try and make comparisons because the other cats people mention (snoop, ice cube, nas, bone thugs, wu tang, etc) all had their own movements and following. that's what made rap so great back then - it was like a whole gang of heavyweights going at it. it's only in retrospect that people try to make it seem like it was just tupac and biggie on top, with everyone else as irrelevant side shows.

 

[Danie84]

Pac was larger than life

Although I loved Wu, Nas, BCC, and a slew of other East Coast rappers at the time, it was no denying Big had the crown of the city

 

[Techniec]

These loser pac haters are putting in work heavy for the cause

From my perspective in Toronto, Biggie was the biggest act on the East Coast. Toronto was and to some extent still is heavily NY influenced, so the NY scene was big here. Wu, BCC, Bad Boy etc.

Wu as a body was probably the biggest, but in terms of a solo Artist Big was the biggest. Method Man, Cool J, Nas was the 2nd tier, Mobb Deep was big in the streets, BCC got lot of under ground love. Fugees blew up in 96.

I wasnt in California, but I can say from a mainstream rap perspective by the mid 90s, Snoop was still one of the biggest if not the biggest name in Rap but since 93 all he released was a few cameo appearances on Dogg Food and soundtracks. He had the murder trial. Dre was MIA since 93 except for Keep their heads ringing. Cube was doing movies, Bow Down brought him back a bit but he was past his prime. Coolio scored big was Gangstas Paradise but no one was considering him the biggest or best by any means.

By the time 96 rolled around the biggest names making noise was Pac, Coolio, Bone and Fugees. Bone was a group and Fugees/Coolio scored big off one huge single each

Pacs rise was a transition, it was a growth that happened organically man. These fukking loser ass haters will make it seem like he just popped up after his death.

His debut made noise, got media coverage and went gold. Second album had 2 hits, went platinum. Third album was a group album, went gold. He starred in three movies during this time. He was getting hella coverage, He was a KNOWN entity and moderately successful rapper. He was NOT an elite upper echelon MC yet

In 1995 he went to Jail, was shot, and dropped MATW which nudged him towards the upper elite, not in the undisputed TOP DOGG contention, but he was entering that sector. 1996 made him a super star, his death made him an undisputed legend.

Do NOT let these faccot ass (mostly NY based- no disrespect to NY) haters who have an agenda and/or lived in an absolute bubble define Tupac. Listen to the cats from the South, MidWest, West Coast, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa who will tell you that Pac reigned supreme as the top rapper when he died.

Cormega: A lot of people think that it was about Biggie on the East Coast and ‘Pac on the West Coast. It wasn’t like that. Big ran New York. ‘Pac ran America I was in a club with Mobb Deep in North Carolina and n***as in the crowd were shouting “Makaveli!” This is on the East Coast! That shows you how powerful his influence was.

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11149

Music is subjective and you can be a fan or not a fan, thats on you. But to deny that Pac was the fukking undisputed King of Rap before he died is straight faccotism.

 

[Techniec]

and one more thing, no body was on that GOAT shiit till Cool J started feeling himself, and hip hop media started these discussions. Biggie Smalls called himself the illest, Pac was the realest but there was no GOAT discussion

if anything it was known that Rakim was the best rapper just on GP

 

[Nomad1]

Even with all the movies & publicity Tupac was irrelevant until he got shot in 94 #fact

Stay re-writing history.
imma keep this short and simple for you Pac haters that relentlessly try to go on a smear campaign against Pac. Before joining Death Row he was a popular artist in the West Coast that had record sales to be backed up for proof for the non-believers. He went gold and plat with S4MN, 2pacalyspe Now, and Thug Live vol.1. So, Nvrcmynut, how can that person be an irrelevant artist? This was before joining DR. He was relevant. Yes there was talked about people in the rap scene more than Pac and some on a lesser note, but that doesn't change anything.
After Pac joined DR he was on a completely new tier. I personally like his albums before DR because they were raw, political, and socially conscious. I also find it funny that you Pac haters are trying to prove he was "irrelevant", "a nobody" etc and you're trying to use record sales PRIOR to DR or Quad incident as well as his troubles in the court. The only big incidents he had that is actual MEDIA ATTENTION was with the Dan Quarl issue (he didn't even bring that to himself), Rape case, and Shooting in 94'

Also, Biggie had a better rookie debut because East Coast were struggling with the commercial competition with the West Coast. He put NY on his back with Ready to Die. Pac was competing with nikkas that already went plat and a huge following.

Apples and oranges, you can't compare them.

 

[Techniec]

on a side note could yall imagine what rap wouldve looked like had pacs vision come to fruition?

When he called me for Makaveli he just told me he needed tracks, we went through the usual beat selection over the phone, he picked like 8 tracks, a few days later I showed up in the studio to record them and he started breaking down what his vision was for the Makaveli album.
He told me he would continue to drop single after single from All Eyes On Me for the next two year and that Makaveli was an album that was only intended for the swapmeets and underground shops to let people know that he still could make grimy street records, he said it would not be available to the masses, no single, no video. Up until this point I prided myself on being well known for coming through with radio singles for Cats and I was looking forward to doing that for Pac this time too so when I heard that this album was only for the swapmeets I was at first a bit disappointed only because I had brought what I felt where radio and club heaters. - QDIII

http://www.tupacnation.net/forum/tu...akaveli-7-days-theory-[tn-exclusive]2008.html

 

[Rapmastermind]

For those saying Biggie wasn't the Biggest Rapper on the East. Then why did he win 2 Billboard Awards for Best Rap Artist of the Year and Single of Year. Billboard deals directly with chart success. "Ready To Die" had a huge impact on Hip Hop:

 

[beenz]

them ninjaz was local. really. a lot of west coast like snoop, ice cube, coolio was bigger than them.

Local????? Biggie was HUGE everywhere in the 90s.

 

[Rapmastermind]

Local????? Biggie was HUGE everywhere in the 90s.

I can't believe he said Biggie was Local when Michael Jackson put him on the biggest double LP in the music HISTORY:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Time_Around_(Michael_Jackson_song)

 

[NvrCMyNut]

Stay re-writing history.
imma keep this short and simple for you Pac haters that relentlessly try to go on a smear campaign against Pac. Before joining Death Row he was a popular artist in the West Coast that had record sales to be backed up for proof for the non-believers. He went gold and plat with S4MN, 2pacalyspe Now, and Thug Live vol.1. So, Nvrcmynut, how can that person be an irrelevant artist? This was before joining DR. He was relevant. Yes there was talked about people in the rap scene more than Pac and some on a lesser note, but that doesn't change anything.
After Pac joined DR he was on a completely new tier. I personally like his albums before DR because they were raw, political, and socially conscious. I also find it funny that you Pac haters are trying to prove he was "irrelevant", "a nobody" etc and you're trying to use record sales PRIOR to DR or Quad incident as well as his troubles in the court. The only big incidents he had that is actual MEDIA ATTENTION was with the Dan Quarl issue (he didn't even bring that to himself), Rape case, and Shooting in 94'

Also, Biggie had a better rookie debut because East Coast were struggling with the commercial competition with the West Coast. He put NY on his back with Ready to Die. Pac was competing with nikkas that already went plat and a huge following.

Apples and oranges, you can't compare them.

Sure he was popular on the westcoast...If you consider like #7 hottest popular hell of a difference than what you Pac stans would have us believe, just read some of the posts in this thread about pac running the country when the only thing Pac was running before getting shot was his Jewelz None of his albums went plat when they were supposed to, he picked up sales after the fact, shout out to jimmy, afeni should send the S4MN plaque to his cell , YOU stop re-writing history with your selective bullshyt.