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

[NO-BadAzz]

This here. rap had moved on. Biggie would’ve not had helped.

I love threads like this because It’s a reminder of how fast rap use to move and how much it has slowed down

I would chalk it up to the quality that was out in 97, 98, 99.

I was listening to an YoungBleed interview two days ago and he was saying 4 months after Biggie died he was shooting the remix video on the boat to How You Do That There with Master P in Calli and that song took off in the summer of 97.

No Limit was coming hard in the South in 97

 

[DANJ!]

This can be its own thread. How fast hip hop moved during the 90’s.

Yup, this is why it's hard to put the '90s (or realy any decade) in one box and say this or that is the sound, because the sound and interests were constantly changing. There was like three different parts of the '90s- the early pre-Chronic period, the post-Chronic period that I'd say rolls until '96/'97, then the part after the deaths of Pac & BIG where it went in a more mainstream direction but reached huge heights... tastes changed fast tho'. What might work in '95 wasn't hitting in '97, some stuff that was hot in '97 was out by '99. Bad Boy never really jumped on that Swizz Beats/Ruff Ryders type wave sound-wise, so in '99 they weren't the hot sound anymore. People would've 100% been into the Puff records like "PE 2000" if it had come out in '97 or even '98 but it wasn't the focal sound by the time it dropped.

 

[Mac Ten]

This is spot on especially the Stoute part...the Hate me Now video and aftermath was in the news and papers a lot and ever since the Godzilla song his shyt wasn't hitting the same. He did bounce back in the new millennium though with Born Again, Black Rob's album and his albums in 01 and 02.

Mark Curry said that in his book too..

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Yup, this is why it's hard to put the '90s (or realy any decade) in one box and say this or that is the sound, because the sound and interests were constantly changing. There was like three different parts of the '90s- the early pre-Chronic period, the post-Chronic period that I'd say rolls until '96/'97, then the part after the deaths of Pac & BIG where it went in a more mainstream direction but reached huge heights... tastes changed fast tho'. What might work in '95 wasn't hitting in '97, some stuff that was hot in '97 was out by '99. Bad Boy never really jumped on that Swizz Beats/Ruff Ryders type wave sound-wise, so in '99 they weren't the hot sound anymore. People would've 100% been into the Puff records like "PE 2000" if it had come out in '97 or even '98 but it wasn't the focal sound by the time it dropped.

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

 

[JustCKing]

No Limit and Cash Money...



Lets be honest but the shiny suit thing was getting old.

Lets not act Diddy wanted his artists to be thugged out. It didnt help that Diddy was starting to be wild himself. Dude ran up in the offices and smacked Steve Stoute right on the head.

Plus...

the South needed their own folks to rally behind in the mainstream(Master P/No Limit/Baby & Slim/Cash Money)plus the streets on the East needed someone who was like Pac who could relate to them which is where DMX came in.

It's a blessing that Diddy didnt sign DMX or he would have ended up with the Bad Boy makeover wearing shiny suits like with Ma$e.

I wouldn't include No Limit. No Limit was red hot at the same time Puff was with No Way Out. In 1999, No Limit was struggling with the change in sound too. If you look at where Master P was in 1997 and 1998 and compare it to 1999, he was in the same boat as Puff. The sound changed and P put out an album in 1999 that was nowhere near as successful as his previous album.

 

[DANJ!]

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

Right! Like, in '95 I would watch Rap City and "Old School Wednesday" wasn't always necessarily OLD videos, but it'd be vids that dropped maybe 3-4 years prior... watching vids from '91-'92 in '95 felt like a LOOOONG ass time ago. And I don't know if that was just from being young or whatever, but it really seemed like it was from a different lifetime. Nobody was making records as fast as "Treat Em Right" or "Know the Ledge" by the mid-90s. And then by '99, it felt like the stuff from '95 was a long time ago- so much had changed in just that short ass span.

Nowadays, there ain't much incredibly different from what was out 5 years ago- it's most of the same people, same type beats, same flows... it's really just now starting to switch up some. To a 15 year old, something from 2018 might feel old AF, I don't know. But it's definitely not in a state of constant change.

 

[YourMumsRoom]

it got nothing to do with everything everyone said. He could've still done the sampling he was doing and gotten a hot album. The thing is the production was stale af for the most part, the sampling just didn't have the same MIXING that the 97 albums had. The song writing wasn't there, because like i previous stated, the sampling wasn't the problem, he still got a hit out of the R.Kelly joint, it was the fact that most of the sampling on here was lazy af. You gotta realize this project came out the year a sh*t load of pop singles we're charting. Back street boys and n'sync we're on FIRE, so nah he still had that window open from 97 to still do the same formula. He had TRL by the ear and could drop by anytime. The overall downfall of that album was just being on auto pilot, that's all, simple. It don't gotta do nothing with BIG, Mase leaving, LOX bailing, none of that, it was the simplicity of being on auto pilot.

Lets expand that. Lyricism as a whole went out the window around 99; which was quite shocking wit the bar Jay, BIG, Nas, Wu-Tang and others had set only a year before.
Puff's on that album were nursery-rhymish & predictable. But I think it was a sign of the era; anyone around then could tell you hip-hop was MASSIVE since BIG and Pac died, completely mainstream, played everywhere and therefore was catering to the yt mainstream in content and videos more than it had done before, and to the detriment to the Black communities that had made it popular in the first place!
Puff WAS the commercial/acceptable face of the genre regardless of what the album did.

 

[JustCKing]

Lets expand that. Lyricism as a whole went out the window around 99; which was quite shocking wit the bar Jay, BIG, Nas, Wu-Tang and others had set only a year before.
Puff's on that album were nursery-rhymish & predictable. But I think it was a sign of the era; anyone around then could tell you hip-hop was MASSIVE since BIG and Pac died, completely mainstream, played everywhere and therefore was catering to the yt mainstream in content and videos more than it had done before, and to the detriment to the Black communities that had made it popular in the first place!
Puff WAS the commercial/acceptable face of the genre regardless of what the album did.

I don't know if lyricism as a whole went out the window in 1999. I mean, Eminem was definitely a lyricist at this time. There was Mos Def. Nas was still Nas. Kast was still Kast. Eightball & MJG was still Eightball & MJG. You could turn on the radio and even hear Pharoahe Monch's "Simon Says" and the remix. Slick Rick had a comeback. Mobb Deep released their biggest album commercially. Lyricism still shined in 1999.

 

[YourMumsRoom]

I don't know if lyricism as a whole went out the window in 1999. I mean, Eminem was definitely a lyricist at this time. There was Mos Def. Nas was still Nas. Kast was still Kast. Eightball & MJG was still Eightball & MJG. You could turn on the radio and even hear Pharoahe Monch's "Simon Says" and the remix. Slick Rick had a comeback. Mobb Deep released their biggest album commercially. Lyricism still shined in 1999.

Definitely agree to a degree, the point I was making was that it weren't aimed at the Black communities anymore so the balance of perspectives was wavering. Artists had massive budgets and had to sell to recoup. (I.e Busta and Janet Jackson). In the way the Lyor era at Def Jam eclipsed the way hip-hop labels had worked in the past...until Iovine got busy.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Right! Like, in '95 I would watch Rap City and "Old School Wednesday" wasn't always necessarily OLD videos, but it'd be vids that dropped maybe 3-4 years prior... watching vids from '91-'92 in '95 felt like a LOOOONG ass time ago. And I don't know if that was just from being young or whatever, but it really seemed like it was from a different lifetime. Nobody was making records as fast as "Treat Em Right" or "Know the Ledge" by the mid-90s. And then by '99, it felt like the stuff from '95 was a long time ago- so much had changed in just that short ass span.

Nowadays, there ain't much incredibly different from what was out 5 years ago- it's most of the same people, same type beats, same flows... it's really just now starting to switch up some. To a 15 year old, something from 2018 might feel old AF, I don't know. But it's definitely not in a state of constant change.

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

 

[Rasille]

I feel like 97 was like when two different oceans meet

There was still some of the remnants of that 95/96 sound but the game was transitioning to that late 90’s sound at the same time.

 

[Zero]

that public enemy song

RIP Hurricane G but

 

[Piff Perkins]

I don't understand how ya'll are attributing the failure of this album on "Biggie death stimulus" running out. Posthumous Biggie verses are on Forever. A posthumous Biggie album dropped months after Forever and sold double what Forever sold.

No Way Out was successful beyond Biggie dying. Ya'll do realize "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" dropped BEFORE Biggie died and was like a #1 smash.

Forever was BEHIND the times. Puff even had a red hot Jay Z on a single "Do You Like It", but the song was DOA. It went nowhere. Didn't even get a video.

The point is that Biggie died months before the album came out, everyone knew he had worked on the album, and the community was still in mourning. Clearly that's a vastly different type of Biggie connection than Forever had.

The smash singles were the main reason for its success but it's undeniable that his death had a major impact on the album.

 

[CrimsonTider]

Right! Like, in '95 I would watch Rap City and "Old School Wednesday" wasn't always necessarily OLD videos, but it'd be vids that dropped maybe 3-4 years prior... watching vids from '91-'92 in '95 felt like a LOOOONG ass time ago. And I don't know if that was just from being young or whatever, but it really seemed like it was from a different lifetime. Nobody was making records as fast as "Treat Em Right" or "Know the Ledge" by the mid-90s. And then by '99, it felt like the stuff from '95 was a long time ago- so much had changed in just that short ass span.

Nowadays, there ain't much incredibly different from what was out 5 years ago- it's most of the same people, same type beats, same flows... it's really just now starting to switch up some. To a 15 year old, something from 2018 might feel old AF, I don't know. But it's definitely not in a state of constant change.

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

Take an artist like Roddy Rich. He had one of the biggest albums in music in 2019. Multiple hit records and featured everywhere. His next album 2 years later was a massive flop

Looking back now or even in the future no one is going to say Roddy flopped and fell off because the sound of music changed and passed him by but that would totally be what happened for an artist with Roddy’s trajectory in the 90s

 

[bigde09]

This can be its own thread. How fast hip hop moved during the 90’s.

Would be a dope thread. Went from g-funk to glossy bad boy to swizz/ timbo takeover all in the span of a few years.

80s rappers were considered washed by 1993 and they were all still In their 20s