Old heads who lived in the 90s, what was the exact year hiphop/rap became mainstream and blew up?

[Waterproof]

Look here I'm 43 I say this 1990 is when Hip Hop went Commerical and hit the Pop Chart's. When MC Hammer went Diamond. Hip Hop went mainstream in 1985 with the Fresh Tour with LL Cool J, Run DMC, The Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow

 

[DANJ!]

The number of wrong answers in this thread But everyone has their own answers I guess... but yeah, rap went mainstream before the 90s, spearheaded by the popularity of Run-DMC. It INCREASED during the 90s.

 

[Pegasus Jackson]

I used to make rap cassette mixtapes and sell them to white boys in my high school. We would meet under dark ass stairwells because they were afraid to let anyone know they listened to rap. This was around 1992. shyt done changed.

 

[Unknown Poster]

1990-1993

 

[Mr swag]

95 to 96

 

[Mr swag]

it really depends on what you view as mainstream

I view it as grandma using the sling "diss"

grandma from Iowa knowing what a blood and crip is

 

[Ayo]

Naughty By Nature's OPP and Dr Dre's The Chronic started knocking on the door. Momentum built with Snoop's What's My Name and Biggie's Ready to Die (Juicy specifically). A bunch of shyt happened in between that (Tupac had a bunch of certifiable radio friendly'ish hits).

But if we're being real real Hypnotized kicked open the door and Hard Knock Life is the single song that turned 'Rap/Hip Hop' mainstream. It was EVERYWHERE all of the stations. Even those that traditionally stayed clear of rap/hiphop.

 

[Rhyme n Tekniq]

Wasnt around like that in the 80's being that I was just being born, but Clearly the presence of LL Cool J, and Run DMC shows that Hip Hop had already hit the mainstream, these wasnt just some regular ass acts; these were the 1st true superstars of hip hop on that level

there was also a brief period were black militancy was becoming mainstream off the strength of Public Enemy and a few other, That shifted the energy of hip hop from 'let's talk about these sucka MCs' type shyt to some revolutionary type shyt

NWA created a whole new aura around hip hop that scared, yet intrigued white america. even if it wasnt for them
NWA was definitely a catalyst for hip hop as we know it today complete with all the familiar trappings and aestethics. The word of mouth shyt gave them this crazy ass mystique like they were practically straight off the prison bus; this dangerous thing that needed to be censored and banned out of fear that it may corrupt their children.

But it was the transition from NWA and ruthless to Death Row that truly shot hip hop to the absolute apex of pop culture indefinitely. Between Snoop, Dre, and all the fukkery surrounding Death Row, IT was a perfect storm that shifted the paradigm in hip hop on the mainstream level.

Everything in hip hop that followed immediately afterwards benefitted from early DeathRow's foot print on pop culture. So many different interpetations of street music or gangster rap was born out of that shyt because the world all saw how lucrative it was....

After Pac and Biggie passed, Hip hop was gradually building towards another boom period in hip hop starting in 97 until around 2003/04, Migh even be the biggest boom period in Hip Hop history, nikkas was going platinum left and right; East, West and Down South; Speaking of which, No Limit and Cash Money had a HUGE, HUGE, influence on the mainstream appeal of hiphop even though certain nikkas from certain parts of the US like to write that shyt out of the history books. Judge it all you want, But those labels killing shyt the way that they did was the precursor the the 10+ years of the south Dominating mainstream hip hop, whose influence stills continues to this day even if the artist themselves arent from the south.

and it was starting to cannibalize R&B after a while too, that's how big hiphop became in the 2000's

 

[Trot LaRoc]

Actually if we're keeping it real, it was Hammer in 90

I grew up in a mostly white suburb of Chicago and Hammer had them cacs hooked. I remember they would play his shyt during assemblies when I was in elementary school. Even the old yt folk were loving it.

Nikka had a fukking Saturday morning cartoon....major endorsements

Maybe he was super pop and corny but that was when Rap went super mainstream....ice ice baby played a part too

Run DMC were popular sure but rap was still niche overall and still seen as a fad by many ppl. Pop and rock was still the main thing

Once the early 90s hit, then rap was the predominant music culture of America

 

[Wild self]

1997, when Pac and BIG were gone and left for Puffy to conquer. That was when the (old) VH1 was playing popular rap videos and started the shiny suit era where 'the album formula' was originated for random rappers to go platinum.

 

[Man On Fire]

Hammer

 

[JadeB]

Rappers Delight was too early but late 80's/early 90's hip-hop was officially mainstream

Bart Simpson did the Bartman in 1990.


corny or not; it was MC'ing.

Agreed

 

[bigde09]

93 because of The Chronic. It was the first hard core rap album to be played on pop radio stations.

Puff took Dre’s formula for that album and pushed Rap even further in the mid to late 90s with RnB samples instead of funk samples.

 

[Digital Omen]

Yo! MTV Raps and Rap City brought Hip Hop to damn near every household in America and beyond
Suburbs went wild over those 2 shows
Run DMC and the Beastie Boys paved the way (I think Licensed to Ill was the first platinum Hip Hop album? Raising Hell gotta be up there too)
But when the videos started airing regularly (remember MTV was on some racist shyt until the head of CBS called and threatened to pull every CBS artist video unless they played MJ and BET was on some straight R&B shyt)
That's when Hip Hop crossed over and started taking over the world