Things About 90's Hip Hop You Didn't Like?
- Thread starter bogey_j
- Start date
Ghpstface
Kanye West fan
Awesome Wells
The Bobby Womack of Crack
The thing I didn't like was how separate and unoriginal everything became.
Hip Hop was just Hip Hop before. Diverse. Then around like '93, a lot of artists started trying to fit into boxes. Before that, you'd be a PE, Heavy D, Ice Cube, De La Soul, Rakim, Kool G Rap and Digital Underground fan and see them all get love and respect equally. And different kinds of artists would work together too. There was no "sound". People had their own crews, but there was more unity as a whole. It wasn't weird to see a G Rap album pretty much entirely produced by a West Coast producer. Or vice versa, like with Cube. If you had good shyt you'd be embraced.
Then things changed, and it started becoming more about who did your album, or who co-signed you. Onyx blew up, and then you saw mad Onyx clones. Even established artists started trying to make tracks like them. If something worked for one artist, you'd see a bunch of other artists changing to jump on whatever that was. Biting used to be the worst thing you could do, but it became accepted because everyone just wanted to succeed. When Bad Boy got hot, artists started thinking they needed to copy that to be heard. And then after awhile, everything started sounding the same. The underground artists started getting pushed aside because they weren't conforming. No matter how dope they were. So major labels stopped signing them. You wouldn't see a group like The Artifacts or Souls of Mischief being pushed by a major anymore. They got scared to put money behind artists that didn't sound like whatever was working at the time. But back in the day, groups like X-Clan, EPMD and PE would get the same push and airtime with videos, as a popular artist.
We just lost a lot of originality in the 90's. A lot of people became followers. Instead of making what felt right, everyone started making what they thought would be a hit. You'd feel like you found gold, if you found an artist that was original and doing their own thing. And that wasn't always an issue before. It's something that still kinda makes the culture wack today.
Hip Hop was just Hip Hop before. Diverse. Then around like '93, a lot of artists started trying to fit into boxes. Before that, you'd be a PE, Heavy D, Ice Cube, De La Soul, Rakim, Kool G Rap and Digital Underground fan and see them all get love and respect equally. And different kinds of artists would work together too. There was no "sound". People had their own crews, but there was more unity as a whole. It wasn't weird to see a G Rap album pretty much entirely produced by a West Coast producer. Or vice versa, like with Cube. If you had good shyt you'd be embraced.
Then things changed, and it started becoming more about who did your album, or who co-signed you. Onyx blew up, and then you saw mad Onyx clones. Even established artists started trying to make tracks like them. If something worked for one artist, you'd see a bunch of other artists changing to jump on whatever that was. Biting used to be the worst thing you could do, but it became accepted because everyone just wanted to succeed. When Bad Boy got hot, artists started thinking they needed to copy that to be heard. And then after awhile, everything started sounding the same. The underground artists started getting pushed aside because they weren't conforming. No matter how dope they were. So major labels stopped signing them. You wouldn't see a group like The Artifacts or Souls of Mischief being pushed by a major anymore. They got scared to put money behind artists that didn't sound like whatever was working at the time. But back in the day, groups like X-Clan, EPMD and PE would get the same push and airtime with videos, as a popular artist.
We just lost a lot of originality in the 90's. A lot of people became followers. Instead of making what felt right, everyone started making what they thought would be a hit. You'd feel like you found gold, if you found an artist that was original and doing their own thing. And that wasn't always an issue before. It's something that still kinda makes the culture wack today.
at least there were still 'regional' sounds.
I find it absolutely mindblowing that for the last 5 years or so, ALL hip hop, no matter where you go in the world, has a Southern trap sound. I never imagined it would get like this. That is homogeneity at an unprecedented level. Can it get any more clonish than where we are now?
I didn't like the whole "Real Hip Hop vs Hater Player" thing that started going on.
Rappers taking pride in being "underground" complaining about rappers pretending to be rich....
Rappers taking pride in being "underground" complaining about rappers pretending to be rich....
Where do I start
I didn't like that two of my favorite rappers died in the span of 6 months
South didn' t get enough recognition
From Outkast's phenomenal classics to Face/Geto Boys originality and grittiness to No Limit's/Cash Money's hunger and hustle plus being real gangsters (unlike tons of ducktales east coast guys)...they had it was harder than many east/west coast rappers
From Outkast's phenomenal classics to Face/Geto Boys originality and grittiness to No Limit's/Cash Money's hunger and hustle plus being real gangsters (unlike tons of ducktales east coast guys)...they had it was harder than many east/west coast rappers
Inspect Her Deck
Skins of all colours come together as brothers
Inspectah Deck's album ruined by a flood 
That scooby doo boom shaka laka das efx lords of underground annoying flow. shyt was corny as hell but bunch of hipsters will tell you that's hip hop at it's finest 
Also 90s cliche movie hip hop version themes. When the game got commercial those shytty ass movies started using corniest rap song ideas ever to their movies, shyt was embarrassing even vanilla ice could outrap some of the shyt they had in those lame ass movies
Also I don't like how a lot of fans assume that 90s were about east vs west shyt when south had a lot of brehs influencing game heavily. Like Three 6 Mafia, DJ Screw, No Limit gang with their ideas (though they were popular in 90s) but yeah ordinary fans will tell you oh east vs west.
Also 90s cliche movie hip hop version themes. When the game got commercial those shytty ass movies started using corniest rap song ideas ever to their movies, shyt was embarrassing even vanilla ice could outrap some of the shyt they had in those lame ass movies
Also I don't like how a lot of fans assume that 90s were about east vs west shyt when south had a lot of brehs influencing game heavily. Like Three 6 Mafia, DJ Screw, No Limit gang with their ideas (though they were popular in 90s) but yeah ordinary fans will tell you oh east vs west.
About 1993-1995 where the gangster rap thing just went over the top. Like literally every artist that came out was a gangster rapper some rappers even changed their image to become gangster rappers. And some of content was just over the top with gimmicky voices. Some nikkas would purposely try to sound like Onyx and it was corny.
Ultramagnetic MC's, Brand Nubian, Run DMC, LL Cool J are all examples of what you're talking about. Then nikkas became "gangster" out of nowhere in that two year era
nikkas re-write history about the 90s. nikkas got called out just as much back then for trend following, and at times it was accurate.
Many examples of that of that. Speaking of your boy 2pac, he got called out for dikk riding Death Row when they got poppin. So it goes both ways, but i feel what you saying.
Rae & Ghost put the purple tape out and all of a sudden everybody had the mafioso style.
Dre came with Chronic and all of a sudden everybody was on some "blunted" shyt rapping over funk beats. Even Redman got called out for it during the Dare Iz A Darkside era, accurate or not and i love Reggie.
Biggie & Puff got called out for dikkriding Death Rows sound. When they came out 1992-93 their style was typical eastcoast timbo boots and hardcore style raps. By 1994 all of a sudden they looped funk samples & Biggies flow basically got called for riding Snoop's wave with the playa/pimp shyt & the smooth flow. Puff was Dre, and Big like Snoop.
LL got called out twice actually. 1993 when they felt he tried to switch up to that hardcore shyt like Wu-Tang, Onyx etc. Then, like you said; once Wu had more shyt out & with Rae & Ghost purple tape? He sounded like he tried to make up cool lingo when he rapped like they did.
Remember when Run DMC came back in 1993 and were lookin and sounding just like Onyx? I know JMJ was involved with Onyx but they got called out for it too.
The same shyt happened then. But nikkas is like 18 tryna talk about the 90s just based on what they heard AFTERWARDS. Ask them now and they think 2pac and Biggie were literally gods
and seen as larger than life when they were around like they werent just 2 popular artists like others who caught heat, love & everything in-between too.
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That scooby doo boom shaka laka das efx lords of underground annoying flow. shyt was corny as hell but bunch of hipsters will tell you that's hip hop at it's finest
Also 90s cliche movie hip hop version themes. When the game got commercial those shytty ass movies started using corniest rap song ideas ever to their movies, shyt was embarrassing even vanilla ice could outrap some of the shyt they had in those lame ass movies
Also I don't like how a lot of fans assume that 90s were about east vs west shyt when south had a lot of brehs influencing game heavily. Like Three 6 Mafia, DJ Screw, No Limit gang with their ideas (though they were popular in 90s) but yeah ordinary fans will tell you oh east vs west.
I never liked the market based favoritism that northerners (fans, artists, critics) were indoctrinated into. It really laid a foundation for the hip hop elitist mentality that indirectly throws shade at other forms of the art that are just as vital.
Other regions really made great music in the 90s but were unfairly overshadowed by northern artists just because the market was bigger.