Settle this debate for me. Was Cam'ron ever a superstar?

[The Devil's Advocate]

alot of people in the hood had computers by the time wu-tang forever was out. middle-class hoods at least. AOL was big business by then and they werent even the 2nd company to blow.

thats why i dont understand this internet-age argument that yall are pushing here, seeing that wutang was the biggest thing on the internet rap-wise back in those wu-forever days. they benefited from the pros of the internet and didnt have to deal with the cons(downloading). yet yall are acting like they were at some sort of disadvantage. no offense but this doesnt make sense.

Middle class hoods

That's why lol.

And that was 97. Are you really comparing 93 when 36 chambers dropped to the amount of computers, internet access, internet speeds, and the availability of CD burners and torrents and boards like this.......

Are you really comparing that in 93 to when the dips dropped their first album in 2003?? And gonna tell me accessing the world a whole decade later wasn't 10000000 times easier??

And again. Wu still out did them. So even if I took your argument as truth. Wu still sold and reached more during BOTH eras

What more can I say on the subject y'all

 

[CashmereThoughts]

white kids had the internet in '93.

i guess i missed when the wutang/dipset argument took a turn, but when i was following it, they were saying that dipset was bigger than wutang on a HOOD national level. and i would have to agree with that. also, i didnt see anybody prove them wrong. just cuz they hustled in ohio and signed rappers from there, it doesnt mean that their music was huge in the streets of ohio. and i didnt see anybody call their bluff on that.

i didnt see anybody say that dipset were bigger superstars than wutang, but hey i mustve missed that one.

I don't even think I heard of the internet in 93. And my house was years ahead of society. My father was In IT. We had DSL before they were even advertising it. Pops installed a burner before nikkas knew u could copy CDs.

Thinking back I think my first awareness of what Internet was probobly late 94

 

[Wacky D]

I don't even think I heard of the internet in 93. And my house was years ahead of society. My father was In IT. We had DSL before they were even advertising it. Pops installed a burner before nikkas knew u could copy CDs.
Thinking back I think my first awareness of what Internet was probobly late 94

i wanted a computer because Prodigy had those classic commercials running heavy during sporting events by the end of '93 AT THE LATEST.

they were buzzin dog.

and my grandpop had somewhat of a hook-up so i finally got a computer less than a year later, and then less than a year later, i had the internet off & on. then by '96-97, it became somewhat commonplace.

Middle class hoods

That's why lol.

And that was 97. Are you really comparing 93 when 36 chambers dropped to the amount of computers, internet access, internet speeds, and the availability of CD burners and torrents and boards like this.......

Are you really comparing that in 93 to when the dips dropped their first album in 2003?? And gonna tell me accessing the world a whole decade later wasn't 10000000 times easier??

And again. Wu still out did them. So even if I took your argument as truth. Wu still sold and reached more during BOTH eras

What more can I say on the subject y'all

middle class hoods have alot of low-incomes families too.

middle class hoods = black neighborhoods that arent the slums

i was never comparing '93 to '03. but i know wutang had a helluva lot more exposure than dipset, as far back as 36 chambers when they were given their own primetime mtv special back when their album still wasnt selling chit. DOG, you really dont want to go there.

the point is, youre over-hyping the internet, as well as acting as if it wasnt around as long as it actually was.

 

[MaNu Minu]

nop

 

[mobbinfms]

i wanted a computer because Prodigy had those classic commercials running heavy during sporting events by the end of '93 AT THE LATEST.

they were buzzin dog.

and my grandpop had somewhat of a hook-up so i finally got a computer less than a year later, and then less than a year later, i had the internet off & on. then by '96-97, it became somewhat commonplace.


middle class hoods have alot of low-incomes families too.

middle class hoods = black neighborhoods that arent the slums

i was never comparing '93 to '03. but i know wutang had a helluva lot more exposure than dipset, as far back as 36 chambers when they were given their own primetime mtv special back when their album still wasnt selling chit. DOG, you really dont want to go there.

the point is, youre over-hyping the internet, as well as acting as if it wasnt around as long as it actually was.

This is well beyond what we were originally talking about. In 93 - a hip hop fan couldn't hop online and stream 36 chambers - then download it and burn it to a cd for the car. There was no social networking, if there was, it wasn't widespread. So you wouldn't find out about Wu from Twitter/Myspace. No way to see the videos other than TV.

One other thing you mentioned - what was the pro of having an internet presence in 97? You mentioned that with Wu. What did that mean?

 

[Wacky D]

Yeah but that was all dial up. The point remains whether file sharing was widespread. In 93 - it wasn't. MP3 wasn't even invented until 95. I just looked it up. And CD burners weren't standard when I bought my computer in 99 - so they certainly weren't in 93.

People weren't online getting every hip hop release free and immediately back in 93.

im not even arguing about the downloading thing. and that argument really makes no sense, because wutang benefited from that not being rampant during their heyday. not the other way around.

this downloading argument is ass-backwards.

This is well beyond what we were originally talking about. In 93 - a hip hop fan couldn't hop online and stream 36 chambers - then download it and burn it to a cd for the car. There was no social networking, if there was, it wasn't widespread. So you wouldn't find out about Wu from Twitter/Myspace. No way to see the videos other than TV.

One other thing you mentioned - what was the pro of having an internet presence in 97? You mentioned that with Wu. What did that mean?

actually, you could listen to music online. mostly samples but iirc, there were places where you could get full tracks.

who cares if you couldnt find out about wutang thru twitter(which wasnt around during the dipset days either) or myspace. who cares? THEY WERE ALL OVER TV. and lets be reality about these social media rappers. half of their "buzzes" are either niche or fictitious. social media is so overrated.

and yes, the internet was very beneficial in '97 homie. it gets ignored in hindsight by newer users, but it was very strong and much more respectable than it is now.

 

[mobbinfms]

im not even arguing about the downloading thing. and that argument really makes no sense, because wutang benefited from that not being rampant during their heyday. not the other way around.

this downloading argument is ass-backwards.



actually, you could listen to music online. mostly samples but iirc, there were places where you could get full tracks.

who cares if you couldnt find out about wutang thru twitter(which wasnt around during the dipset days either) or myspace. who cares? THEY WERE ALL OVER TV. and lets be reality about these social media rappers. half of their "buzzes" are either niche or fictitious. social media is so overrated.

and yes, the internet was very beneficial in '97 homie. it gets ignored in hindsight by newer users, but it was very strong and much more respectable than it is now.

Downloads hurt sales - but more people are gonna hear the album if they don't have to pay for it. Thus your reach could be much larger.

I'll take your word for listening to music online from 93-97. In 98 I remember there being a lot of shytty real audio quality songs. By early 99 when I got a computer (and had high speed internet because I was in college) I remember searching for albums song by song (slick ricks album, things fall apart, inspectah deck, the Nas bootleg, a ball and G album were some of the first) and downloading mp3s.

There's a big difference between having everything at your fingertips whenever you want it and hoping that you would catch a Wu video on TV.

Agree about social media rappers.

How was the internet beneficial in 97? That's the question.

 

[Wacky D]

Downloads hurt sales - but more people are gonna hear the album if they don't have to pay for it. Thus your reach could be much larger.

I'll take your word for listening to music online from 93-97. In 98 I remember there being a lot of shytty real audio quality songs. By early 99 when I got a computer (and had high speed internet because I was in college) I remember searching for albums song by song (slick ricks album, things fall apart, inspectah deck, the Nas bootleg, a ball and G album were some of the first) and downloading mp3s.

There's a big difference between having everything at your fingertips whenever you want it and hoping that you would catch a Wu video on TV.

Agree about social media rappers.

How was the internet beneficial in 97? That's the question.

@ the bolded, being on tv will always be better than being on the internet. when youre on television, the world is forced to know who you are and take note, whether theyre interested in you or not.

you act as if people didnt just borrow and dub tapes before downloading existed? not to mention bootlegging, but i'll play nice and not mention that since middle america wasnt exposed to bootlegs.

i cant speak on '93-95 like that cuz i didnt get access until late '94 and i had it off & on until '96 - which is when i became a regular surfer, and by then, the internet rap community was definitely poppin already. maybe not so much with the downloading, but thats actually a good thing. at the very least, you could still sample the music, which brought all the exposure that was needed. downloading wasnt needed. its just piracy and helps no one.

the internet was just as beneficial to an artist in '97 as it is now. only difference is the internet gets bigger every year, so theres more people tuned in, but overall its still the same chit. before dipset, there was duck-down. before the jay/nas stan wars, you had bone/wu and big/pac. hell, i remember AOL had like 50 different rap forums dedicated to particular rappers/rap groups. i became somewhat of a fan of artists like 3-6 mafia thanks to the internet and of course me checking them out because of the bone feud. i discovered cats like brotha lynch hung. and man, most of the biggest rappers had popular official and/or unofficial websites. not to mention all those underground rappers that were off the internet.

 

[mobbinfms]

@ the bolded, being on tv will always be better than being on the internet. when youre on television, the world is forced to know who you are and take note, whether theyre interested in you or not.

you act as if people didnt just borrow and dub tapes before downloading existed? not to mention bootlegging, but i'll play nice and not mention that since middle america wasnt exposed to bootlegs.

i cant speak on '93-95 like that cuz i didnt get access until late '94 and i had it off & on until '96 - which is when i became a regular surfer, and by then, the internet rap community was definitely poppin already. maybe not so much with the downloading, but thats actually a good thing. at the very least, you could still sample the music, which brought all the exposure that was needed. downloading wasnt needed. its just piracy and helps no one.

the internet was just as beneficial to an artist in '97 as it is now. only difference is the internet gets bigger every year, so theres more people tuned in, but overall its still the same chit. before dipset, there was duck-down. before the jay/nas stan wars, you had bone/wu and big/pac. hell, i remember AOL had like 50 different rap forums dedicated to particular rappers/rap groups. i became somewhat of a fan of artists like 3-6 mafia thanks to the internet and of course me checking them out because of the bone feud. i discovered cats like brotha lynch hung. and man, most of the biggest rappers had popular official and/or unofficial websites. not to mention all those underground rappers that were off the internet.

There is something to be said for forced consumption from TV/radio. That's a good point. But my point was more the immediacy of everything. Back in the days you would hear some new shyt on the radio and then camp by the tape deck hoping to hear it again and hit record. That kind of forced anticipation is what makes people buy albums. Nowadays - if I hear a song I like on the radio I can have the whole album downloading and the video pulled up in a minute. It's too easy. It's counterintuitive, but the harder it is to hear some shyt the more you want it and the more willing you are to pay for it.

Of course people were dubbing/borrowing. I was on the west coast so bootlegging wasn't as big - but I grew up in what you would describe as a middle class hood - so maybe things were different in the slums. Also, not mentionin something you just mentioned isn't playing nice

Now that you mention it I remember going on the duck down forums at school in like 97-98. I remember threads about Hell on Earth vs Infamous. I remember fan sites too. I guess that served a fan club type purpose, but do you think it had a serious dent in sales around 97?

Your point about 36 and Lynch supports my point about the internet furthering your reach (of course - maybe you actually copped in the store too). Which would help with sales.

You think underground rappers were eating solely off the internet in 97? 99 yes.

 

[Wacky D]

There is something to be said for forced consumption from TV/radio. That's a good point. But my point was more the immediacy of everything. Back in the days you would hear some new shyt on the radio and then camp by the tape deck hoping to hear it again and hit record. That kind of forced anticipation is what makes people buy albums. Nowadays - if I hear a song I like on the radio I can have the whole album downloading and the video pulled up in a minute. It's too easy. It's counterintuitive, but the harder it is to hear some shyt the more you want it and the more willing you are to pay for it.

Of course people were dubbing/borrowing. I was on the west coast so bootlegging wasn't as big - but I grew up in what you would describe as a middle class hood - so maybe things were different in the slums. Also, not mentionin something you just mentioned isn't playing nice

Now that you mention it I remember going on the duck down forums at school in like 97-98. I remember threads about Hell on Earth vs Infamous. I remember fan sites too. I guess that served a fan club type purpose, but do you think it had a serious dent in sales around 97?

Your point about 36 and Lynch supports my point about the internet furthering your reach (of course - maybe you actually copped in the store too). Which would help with sales.

You think underground rappers were eating solely off the internet in 97? 99 yes.

@ the 1st paragraph: yea but my thing is, how is this a credit to wutang when they didnt have to deal with that stuff? it should be something that the dipset supporters bring up. not the other way around.

and while you have a point about the anticipation factor, which does play a role in the decline of sales; i think the fact that the music has generally gone to chit is the main reason why nobody is selling anymore. somebody put it best in a previous thread, when they said that the music industry has lost the trust of the record buyers.

haha @ . i did go on and mention it anyway, didnt i?

yep. most of the stuff happening now on these forums is the same chit, just a different toilet.

 

[mrken12]

On his own? Nope.

 

[Omar Little]

Most Definitely

 

[ThaRealness]

No. Everyone had mainstream exposure in his era


shyt Chingy and Paul Wall were bigger names then Camron

 

[FromBillionsCameOne]

No. Cam was a platinum singlest a cult figure.

 

[Black_Panther_JS]

I’m 18 from Maryland, growing up I remember hearing more Cam/Dipset than anybody that wasn’t Fif/G-Unit an Wayne