Reebok Jones
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The common story everyone loves to tell is that Kanye basically made everyone get bored with gangsta rap after he came out with his Jay-Z squared, super-bragadoccio style, plus the chipmunk soul movement. Everyone was fukking with Ye's sentimental type shyt and 50 Cent and The Game were the last two great gangsta rappers to come out before the end.
Lets go back in time. G-Unit is on top of the world, 50 came with a 2nd great album, Candy Shop absolutely fukking everywhere that year. And he's the only rapper in the world who is more popular in the moment than the young cocky roc-a-fella prodigy Kanye.
So wtf happened when they both decided to compete for sales the same day with their albums Curtis and Graduation, and Kanye absolutely blew him out with US sales? It must've just been the changing climate, right? People stopped caring about being "hard", that barely mattered anymore, it was just a nice bonus if you were. People cared more about dope altogether tracks. Songs, melodies, hooks. In a funny way, 50 really was the best rapper to help make this transition because we all know what party bangers he made. In a lot of ways on some tracks he was more club rap without much gangsta rap at all.
So what made this climate shift? Why did people stop caring about being hard? What killed gangsta rap? Can we credit it to Kanye? Nah... someone else is responsible.
4 months before Curtis and Graduation are released, Atlanta rapper Soulja Boy releases Crank Dat, which becomes what is probably the biggest and most popular hip hop song of the entire decade, if not top 3. Soulja perfected the formula of ATL dance music in ways that his crunk predecessors couldn't even imagine. With just one song, he changed the entire climate of the rap game, and he should be credited as THE one who started Atlanta's 10 year reign as the most popular hip hop city in the world.
Think about it, why wasn't anyone really influenced by Kanye after Graduation came out? Most of the chipmunk soul songs from other artists came out 2003-2006 before Grad came out, and after it dropped the only new rapper at the time who sounded anything like it was Big Sean (but he was a ghostwriter for Grad so does this even count?). Yes, Kanye beat 50 in that competition, and people say he killed gangsta rap. BUT! It was really a completely separate movement, the ringtone rap era, that not only knocked NYC out of any contention for the throne, but made Kanye's sound seem irrelevant and boring as well.
Who knows what would happen if Ye's life didn't take that downfall after Grad, and he never released 808s but a 4th album of that sound? Would he have fallen off just like 50? I think he might've. Atlanta was just too strong, so strong that the WHOLE GAME needed to change up their styles again to something new.
Thank god for fukking Soulja Boy man...
Lets go back in time. G-Unit is on top of the world, 50 came with a 2nd great album, Candy Shop absolutely fukking everywhere that year. And he's the only rapper in the world who is more popular in the moment than the young cocky roc-a-fella prodigy Kanye.
So wtf happened when they both decided to compete for sales the same day with their albums Curtis and Graduation, and Kanye absolutely blew him out with US sales? It must've just been the changing climate, right? People stopped caring about being "hard", that barely mattered anymore, it was just a nice bonus if you were. People cared more about dope altogether tracks. Songs, melodies, hooks. In a funny way, 50 really was the best rapper to help make this transition because we all know what party bangers he made. In a lot of ways on some tracks he was more club rap without much gangsta rap at all.
So what made this climate shift? Why did people stop caring about being hard? What killed gangsta rap? Can we credit it to Kanye? Nah... someone else is responsible.
4 months before Curtis and Graduation are released, Atlanta rapper Soulja Boy releases Crank Dat, which becomes what is probably the biggest and most popular hip hop song of the entire decade, if not top 3. Soulja perfected the formula of ATL dance music in ways that his crunk predecessors couldn't even imagine. With just one song, he changed the entire climate of the rap game, and he should be credited as THE one who started Atlanta's 10 year reign as the most popular hip hop city in the world.
Think about it, why wasn't anyone really influenced by Kanye after Graduation came out? Most of the chipmunk soul songs from other artists came out 2003-2006 before Grad came out, and after it dropped the only new rapper at the time who sounded anything like it was Big Sean (but he was a ghostwriter for Grad so does this even count?). Yes, Kanye beat 50 in that competition, and people say he killed gangsta rap. BUT! It was really a completely separate movement, the ringtone rap era, that not only knocked NYC out of any contention for the throne, but made Kanye's sound seem irrelevant and boring as well.
Who knows what would happen if Ye's life didn't take that downfall after Grad, and he never released 808s but a 4th album of that sound? Would he have fallen off just like 50? I think he might've. Atlanta was just too strong, so strong that the WHOLE GAME needed to change up their styles again to something new.
Thank god for fukking Soulja Boy man...
