from the top of the year where we were still feeling the effects of '97. bad boy, bone thugs, wutang, etc. no limit snatches the crown from bad boy as the new royal family of hip-hop. eat your hearts out east coast. LL's 4,3,2,1 video with method man, redman & DMX hits the tube and introduces DMX to the masses. I could go on & on. meanwhile, on the r&b tip, i discover destinys child's "no no no part 2" video. my 1st thought is "wheres part 1". my 2nd thought is that theyre the next big thing even tho nobody is talking about them yet.
by the time the weather breaks, no limit is on a rampage droppin an album every 2 weeks, including the "i got the hook-up" soundtrack & movie. plus, theres like 4 other urban movies in theaters, all with dope soundtracks. one thing i notice is that despite "volume 1" being considered a sophomore slump, jay's career is progressing on def jam, he easily outsold "reasonable doubt", performed at mtv's spring break, and "streets is watching" was a success and he was droppin heat on other soundtracks with bleek and sauce money........then comes the feature on Jermaine dupri's huge record. also, on spring break is destinys child. they sure as hell blew up. and it seemed like they dropped part 1 AFTER part 2. i never got to the bottom of that. speaking of blowing up, theres a whole slew of artists about to blow in a major way. i didn't notice, but we were witnessing the changing of the guard right before our eyes. dmx, lox, big pun, noreaga, camron, etc etc were droppin in may/june/july. it was an overload. oh, and 3-6 mafia's "tear da club up" was strong on BET. i was watching their rise via the internet before the world domination album dropped in '97.
one name i left out purposely was cannibus. the remix video to 4,3,2,1 had dropped in the winter with cannibus' verse, along with master p. by spring-time, the beef with LL boils over. then cannibus takes the world by storm with "2nd round knockout" and had mike Tyson in the video. then LL responded with "the ripper strikes back" and this battle was looking goat-like. wyclef came correct with his diss record as well. he was out of his league but he dropped a hot one. then LL dropped "rasta imposta" and deaded that. im not exactly sure when that joint dropped but he chitted on the whole fugees crew.
i could go on but again, just trying to keep it short. sorry if i rambled but this is fresh on the brain right now and im feelin it.
