Educate a late stage Millennial on why the "Shiny Suit Era" was the beginning of the end for rap

dora_da_destroyer

dora_da_destroyer

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The only wack artist of the shiny suit era was diddy himself. Mase could rap, lox could rap, Kim could rap (deliver her rhymes), who else y’all put in that era? Busta could rap, Missy was dope. nikkas ODing on that era supposedly opening a door for subpar acts. The door for wack rap got opened in 05
 
DANJ!

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I guess some people looked at it as a deviation, and like with anything that comes along, it tends to get looked at as an unwelcome change by the people who were out beforehand. It was really just a return to party vibes that had largely disappeared from East Coast hip-hop around the early-90s. I saw an interview one time with Puff, where he was saying there was so much hip-hop by the mid-90s that was so grimy and street, everybody was just in the clubs holding up the wall and mean-muggin' each other :russ: Him bein' a party guy from the late-80s/early-90s Uptown era wanted to go another route.

I didn't really hate the shiny/party shyt as much as some other 'heads' did, and I was a big underground hip-hop type but I liked the fun shyt too... in '97 it was like I was "supposed" to hate it, but I was fkin with it. The only thing I thought was corny was the bandwagonning that took place after Bad Boy and some others blew up with it. Next thing you know, everybody's video started looking the same, everybody was just jacking any old hit they could get their hands on, it got oversaturated to a point. It definitely kickstarted the trend of artists making these paint-by-numbers albums where you had to make a club song, your street song, your down south song, your West coast song, your girl song, etc... so there's some negatives in it as well but it was nowhere near as bad as people sometimes made it out to be. Because even though it was dominating and selling millions, you still had the option to fk with the underground shyt or street shyt if you wanted to. It wasn't like it was preventing that stuff from coming out, it's just that a lot of people are lazy and only want to like things if it's being shoved in their face 24/7. Nobody was making nikkas buy a Ma$e album- they could've just as easily bought a GangStarr album, M.O.P., Organized Konfusion or whoever. It was the popular sound of that time period, and like any trend, it eventually got overdone. But it didn't really end or kill anything. Matter fact, it ran its course and set a stage for something else to happen that shifted the sound another way, which is when DMX came around and was nothing like what was out there. And that's generally how rap (and other forms of music) goes in different time periods. You get so much of one thing and enjoy it, it becomes the biggest thing, then it's time for something else to come along,,, just like right now, it's been slowly transitioning out of "trap/do drugs/kill nikkas" in every popular song. People been gettin' tons of low-vibe music for years and now it's run as far as it can until next time around.
 
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UnQuantized

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Shiny Suit era was necessary but damaging, the variety and individuality in hip hop never recovered.

One of the fascinating things about the shiny suit era is that some of the stuff bad boy was sampling was also being sampled by the underground backpack rap cats. So you had MF DOOM's operation doomsday and Puff's No Way Out sharing some of the same samples with completely different results.
 
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WIA20XX

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UnQuantized said:
Shiny Suit era was necessary but damaging, the variety and individuality in hip hop never recovered.

One of the fascinating things about the shiny suit era is that some of the stuff bad boy was sampling was also being sampled by the underground backrap cats. So you had MF DOOM's operation doomsday and Puff's No Way Out sharing some of the same samples with completely different results.
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Along those lines

Pretty sure this came out first, but didn't get any play. (Trying to remember who Columbia was trying to push back then, but it certainly wasn't Big L.)



Whereas this was a hit.



Obviously there are a bunch of these out there (UGK vs Showbiz and AG's use of the same break at the same time), but I remember at the time that there was no way that a punchline/tough guy rapper like Big L could compete with Biggie or anyone that was going for mainstream appeal. Being lyrically clever, and only lyrically clever, doesn't pay. The market was not big enough then. (Yet in 2023, there are multiple battle rapper leagues....who'd a thunk it in 93?)

This song in particular, I think lead to the Ashanti's and Ja Rule's. (or Mariah's and ODB's). I don't have the musical language to really describe it, but there's something really different about One More Chance that's not like the typical R&B chick + Rapper verse/Rapper with R&B Chorus - which was done over and over.

On another angle, Mary J Blige's particular blending of hip hop and R&B was the blueprint for SWV and a lot of other similar artists - which was the end for that 80's style of R&B that dominated. Puffy strikes again.
 
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WIA20XX said:
Along those lines

Pretty sure this came out first, but didn't get any play. (Trying to remember who Columbia was trying to push back then, but it certainly wasn't Big L.)



Whereas this was a hit.



Obviously there are a bunch of these out there (UGK vs Showbiz and AG's use of the same break at the same time), but I remember at the time that there was no way that a punchline/tough guy rapper like Big L could compete with Biggie or anyone that was going for mainstream appeal. Being lyrically clever, and only lyrically clever, doesn't pay. The market was not big enough then. (Yet in 2023, there are multiple battle rapper leagues....who'd a thunk it in 93?)

This song in particular, I think lead to the Ashanti's and Ja Rule's. (or Mariah's and ODB's). I don't have the musical language to really describe it, but there's something really different about One More Chance that's not like the typical R&B chick + Rapper verse/Rapper with R&B Chorus - which was done over and over.

On another angle, Mary J Blige's particular blending of hip hop and R&B was the blueprint for SWV and a lot of other similar artists - which was the end for that 80's style of R&B that dominated. Puffy strikes again.
Click to expand...

I was very young so the exact timelines are unclear to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if Big L was first and Puff have to give him credit is a cat you can tell listens to EVERYTHING. Puff by 1995 already had a reputation, Pete Rock tells a story of flipping the Mtume sample for Juice with Puff watching him make the beat then hearing Juicy months later, interestingly Biggie was at The Main Ingredients sessions and watched Pete make "In The Flesh". The underground and mainstream were in constant dialogue.




I think Big L never found the right single when he was signed to Columbia. Even though Illmatic didn't sell as well as anticipated, singles like The World Is Yours and One Love suggested songs like If I Ruled The World. Big L didn't have that single to suggest that there is something to him more than a great Street rapper.

In terms of One More Chance I never though of it in that way but it makes sense. I think was Puff was very focused on competing with the west coast commercially. The west had p-funk to pull from, new york couldn't do that so he pulled from RnB. Irv Gotti is already working by the mid 90s with Mic Geronimo "shyt Is Real" listen to the way the vocal part of the sample is played as a hook and then look at what Irv would begin going with Ja Rule just 4/5 years later.


Mary J Blige 411 was definetly very different than everything that came before. Then SWV emerged and The Neptunes who would begin dominating the next era got their break.
 
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Absolut da poet ®

Absolut da poet ®

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WIA20XX said:
How I remember it.
.

The real problem,, if there is even a problem, was 1996 communications act letting Clear Channel buy up all these radio stations, and play the same songs from coast to coast. 1) Only Playing "national" hits and 2) stopping regional sounds from getting on - that was the real thing that changed hip hop, imo.
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Now yall really getting to it
Let's not forget they tried to ban Hiphop and when that didn't work they decided to buy it instead. Now they control the messages

No more uplifting Sounds of Blackness.. Or political, thought provoking choices
They only thing getting push is destructive music



I would also add these to your list:

In 1989, Sony Corporation acquired CBS Records Group, which included Columbia Records, Epic Records, and other labels. The new company was named Sony Music Entertainment (SME)

In 1995, PolyGram acquired A&M Records and Island Records from their founders. PolyGram was already the owner of Mercury Records, Motown Records, and other labels 3.

In 1998, Seagram bought PolyGram and merged it with its own music division, MCA Music Entertainment Group, creating Universal Music Group (UMG). UMG became the largest music company in the world, with labels such as Interscope Geffen A&M, Island Def Jam Music Group, and Universal Music Group Nashville 3

In 2004, Sony Music Entertainment and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) merged their music businesses, forming Sony BMG Music Entertainment. The joint venture lasted until 2008, when Sony bought out Bertelsmann’s stake and renamed the company Sony Music Entertainment 1.

In 2012, Universal Music Group acquired EMI’s recorded music division for $1.9 billion

In 2012, Sony Corporation bought EMI’s music publishing division for $2.2 billion, forming Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Sony/ATV became the largest music publisher in the world.

I believe in all those years following a major buyout, the music changed

All that consolidation irreparably damaged hip hop & R&B artists
Killed all diversity and created this cookie cutter mold of today's no soul and no substance music



We were warned pretty soon hiphop won't be so nice.. no Ice Cubes just vanilla Ice
 
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Wild self

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Street Knowledge said:
It’s crazy how bad boy essential ran NYC and hip hop in general in 97 and shortly after they was washed :wow:
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They got six years in post 97.

By 2003, everyone wanted to move south, numb their brains of 16 bar verses, and dance like hoes to attract hoes
 
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