What was the biggest reason for the drop off sales wise between Diddy’s 1st and 2nd albums?

[Street Knowledge]

Labels drag feet on RIAA certifications all the time. According to RIAA, The Chronic been stuck at 3x platinum since 1993 the label gotta pay for the certification and provide the proof, a lot of times they don't bother

That Saga Continues album sold 186,000 week one and stayed on the charts 19 weeks, no way it ain't go gold eventually. And there's not a bunch of big name guests on there. Let's Get It and Bad Boy For Life got a lot of play on the video stations and radio. It did about as well as it could given the artist lineup on there. The Remix album did better because they had a bunch of star guests on there

Like I said Puff was never seen as a serious solo artist who was gonna go multi platinum off his name alone, No Way Out was an all star album with great singles, elite production, unlimited sample budget, elite ghostwriters and multiple appearances from BIG, Mase and Lil Kim at the peak of their popularity, Lox and Jay both had a heavy buzz at the time and was on there

Puff had 1 real album run and flops/disappointments the rest of his career

 

[CHICAGO]

It always blows my mind how say, a song from 2018 wouldn't sound too out of place today...but a 1991 song might as well have been 50s NBA footage in 1996

THAT WAS SIMPILY DUE
TO THE ARTFORM BEING
SO YOUNG AT THE TIME.

RAPPERS DELIGHT WAS
ONLY 17 YRS OLD IN 96.

NOW THE PACE OF EVOLUTION
HAS SLOWED DOWN.


​

 

[Devil Plisken…CMS]

Not only did the music scene change so quickly as everyone has already stated, Back then nikkax were much slower to come back with new albums. Those were the days of 2 to 3 years in between albums so if you were able to take that much time and come back with shyt nikkax wanted to hear you were doing something

Also don’t sleep on the role technology played in defining eras too.

A video from 91 looked wayyy different from a video in 95 thus making it easier distinguish sounds by visuals.

Jiggy era felt the way it did because of the glossy colorful extravagant movie production Hype would present

Realistically how much different do videos that come out in 2023 look than videos from 2019?

Not much

 

[patscorpio]

really good thread.

 

[LauderdaleBoss]

A lot of nikkas copped that album for the Biggie features. I know I did.

Forever ain't had no Biggie nor did it have any fly joints like Can't Hold Me Down as a single.

 

[Red Money]

THAT WAS SIMPILY DUE
TO THE ARTFORM BEING
SO YOUNG AT THE TIME.

RAPPERS DELIGHT WAS
ONLY 17 YRS OLD IN 96.

NOW THE PACE OF EVOLUTION
HAS SLOWED DOWN.


​

1990 LL is not Mr Smith LL, lol. Flow change, slang change and swag change.

1995 it's word life son, wud up dun, lounging wid my men's, roof top Benz, lol.

 

[Mike Wins]

Puff had 1 real album run and flops/disappointments the rest of his career

OK? Context matter when calling something a flop or disappointment

Forever was a disappointment in quality and sales compared to No Way Out, for reasons that been detailed in the thread

His other "solo" projects don't really fall under that category if you had realistic expectations based on the circumstances and the climate. Who was expecting a Puff album with Black Rob as the biggest name cohost and ghostwriter to set the world on fire? Who thought a Puff album in 2006 was gonna sell multi millions? Dude never had a hardcore fanbase fiending for new material from him

 

[28 Gramz]

Unlike today, the popular sound in rap changed every year or two in the 90s. That glossy 80s sampling shyt was beyond dated in 99. And like someone said earlier, DMX dropped and NY rap went back to the street.

 

[DANJ!]

As someone who got into 90s rap after the fact even I can see the differences. Especially with how quickly artists would fall off then too. Nowadays guys can make the same shytbover and over but in the 90s it seemed like if your latest album sounded like your last shyt you were DONE. There were so many advancements in technique that it was easy to fall behind. The biggest shift I notice happens in 94/95, and then again in 97.

I think it's largely cuz it was stil new. 90s was the first full decade where hip hop was commercially viable so its like a kid growing up...10 and 15 year old you are WILDLY different, whereas 30 and 35 year old you it's more subtle

I'll say it like this...

in '92, damn near nobody was hotter than Das EFX. So much that every other new MF that dropped was imitating them in some way. By the time they dropped ther second album in late '93, nikkas were moving on and barely bothered with it. They kinda bounced back with the 3rd album in '95 but you wouldn't have thought that just 3 years earlier they had a platinum album.

In early-'93, Lords of the Underground and Digable Planets were two new dope groups that weren't super-huge but were in the atmosphere of rap and making notable singles, album sales decent. Digable even won a Grammy for "Cool Like Dat". Their second albums come out in late-'94, shyt was like... "who?"

In '94, MC Eiht was coming off a hit on the Menace soundtrack the year before, then finally hit gold/platinum status with the We Come Strapped album. Comes out with an album in '96, and it's like '93-'94 never happened.

I ain't even gonna get into how huge Wu was by '97, and then how they flooded '98/'99 with a bunch of albums that got no burn. Just a few years earlier, we woulda LOVED to get Meth, RZA, ODB, Deck, GZA, and Rae within the space of 12 months... by '98/'99, it was like "eh".

It was a lot to keep up with but I had a good ass time! It was always interesting to see what was gonna happen next and what new shyt was coming up on the scene because every couple years you knew it wasn't just gonna stay in one place.

 

[re'up]

That video for PE 2000 looks so preposterous today LOL

No one fukked with that when it dropped, was in 7th grade

you can see him trying to recreate the 1997 era, with the video, it was formulaic by that point, and Puff had largely dropped the facade of peace and prosperity, and was spitting Cristal and wearing minks, way more brash and arrogant, defiant, it's all over that video and lyrics, even says "fukk court testifiers"

Think I even read that his second album was going to be a gospel album, and that's where Forever Best Friends originated

but for the second singles he went the softer route

 

[re'up]

The grandiosity and meglomania of talking about Jesus Christ as his own personal best friend in the first person singular is hilarious

The very next track, is actually a pretty raw record with BIG and Kim, and Puff detailing torturing a murdering a man for kilos lol

 

[DANJ!]

That video for PE 2000 looks so preposterous today LOL

No one fukked with that when it dropped, was in 7th grade

you can see him trying to recreate the 1997 era, with the video, it was formulaic by that point, and Puff had largely dropped the facade of peace and prosperity, and was spitting Cristal and wearing minks, way more brash and arrogant, defiant, it's all over that video and lyrics, even says "fukk court testifiers"

Think I even read that his second album was going to be a gospel album, and that's where Forever Best Friends originated

but for the second singles he went the softer route

And just a couple months prior, you could kinda see where this was headed with Mase's 2nd album... packed with the type of beats that absolutely would've been right up radio's alley in late-'97, here we were in mid-'99 and that shyt sounded so out of place. That single/video "Get Ready" with the Shalamar sample is 100% a hit IF it was '97 but in '99 it was like "this nikka serious?" It's like Bad Boy was ahead of the curve and setting trends for a while, and then they got so big, Puff ended up stuck in that trend and forgot to keep doing new shyt.

 

[Mike Wins]

And just a couple months prior, you could kinda see where this was headed with Mase's 2nd album... packed with the type of beats that absolutely would've been right up radio's alley in late-'97, here we were in mid-'99 and that shyt sounded so out of place. That single/video "Get Ready" with the Shalamar sample is 100% a hit IF it was '97 but in '99 it was like "this nikka serious?" It's like Bad Boy was ahead of the curve and setting trends for a while, and then they got so big, Puff ended up stuck in that trend and forgot to keep doing new shyt.

I listened to that Mase Double Up not too long ago. I remember thinking it was trash at the time but it's a solid album. shyt was just so out of step with what was hot in 1999, it never stood a chance.

If Mase had dropped a street oriented album that year it would have killed. Also think Puff buried the album due to the retirement announcement. It got absolutely no push after the release

 

[ThirdAct]

This wasn't on it

 

[DANJ!]

I listened to that Mase Double Up not too long ago. I remember thinking it was trash at the time but it's a solid album. shyt was just so out of step with what was hot in 1999, it never stood a chance.

If Mase had dropped a street oriented album that year it would have killed. Also think Puff buried the album due to the retirement announcement. It got absolutely no push after the release

He did have a few deep cuts on there that went... but man was that nikka tired of rappin' by then

I remember him doin' an article with the Source earlier that year where he was saying the new album was gonna be more street, and he wanted to call it "Game Over", he wanted the cover to be him in a locker room with the shiny suit behind him being hung up... I guess all that shyt got shot down by Puff, cause when it came out, it was still '97 Mase.