in the early 90's if you weren't street/thug/calling women bytches, you weren't popping -Kid N Play

[spliz]

na...the hood can't make you platinum...more like gold, tops. You had R&B singers even complaining about this in the 70s/80's lol.

Yea I thought about it. It depends on the artist' reach imo.

 

[Wacky D]

all this time, i can't believe i just realize why kid n play fell off

they were teenage rappers that grew up & couldn't transition into making music for young adults

while in '92 hip hop introduced a new child rap duo
ironically, both rappers real name is Christopher... as well Christopher Reid & Christopher Martin aka kid n play

kid n play wasn't no teenagers. them dudes were in their mid-20s when they blew up, and in their mid & late 20s respectively when house party came out.

and they didn't make child rap. they made party rap music. a brand of music that got phased out. and new jack swing rap as well, which sorta ran its course.

besides, they were supposed to fall off when they did. they were like 30. plus, i feel like they already hit their peak and it didn't help that their music became too commercial.

It backs up my point about the way overstated and so-called engulfing of variety that people THINK Gangsta Rap had. What black people rocked with/was popping in the black community was totally different from what was popping in the higher ends of top 40 radio
.

i don't think anybody was arguing that.

i know i certainly wasn't.

A look at what made the billboard hot 100 (white chart) in a random week of 92



The top 15 rap songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the issue dated May 30, 1992.

theres always gonna be a lot of other stuff on the chart.

but most of these acts were like one-hit wonders. i don't even remember a couple of these at all. with this thread, we're mostly talking about rappers with real careers that got x'd out the game.

the artists with real careers in this video - their songs were mostly layovers from '91 album cycles. and they were all on their way out when they dropped their follow-up albums, except for luke Campbell(who often times made gangsta rap look family-friendly in comparison) and salt-n-pepa.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

That's false.

All of the forefathers of hip hop were conscious.

Most of the early champions of hip hop were either part of the 5% Nation, The Nuwabians, or the Zulu Nation once the 70s NYC gangs morphed into these organizations.

The whole spirit of hip hop was birthed in consciousness and community awareness.

while this is true in spirit...rap music was never suppose to be nothing more than party music which is why Melle Mel/Flash and them didn't want to "The Message" originally

Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher, who was a staff songwriter as Sugarhill Records, started writing this song on a piano in his mother's basement in 1980. He made a demo of the song with his own raps and took it to label boss Sylvia Robinson, who asked Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five to record it. Flash would later speak of the song as a landmark in the evolution of rap, but he and the group wanted nothing to do with the song, and even ridiculed it when he heard the demo. "The subject matter wasn't happy. It wasn't no party s--t. It wasn't even some real street s--t. We would laugh at it," said Flash.

With the band balking at recording the song, she decided to record it with the group's rapper Melle Mel trading verses with Fletcher. At this point, Flash asked Robinson to let the entire group perform on the track, but she refused. Melle added some additional lyrics to the song as well.

The Message by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five Songfacts

 

[Wacky D]

nah breh

you miss understood, my post was a replied to the dude that's arguing for kid n play
and YES these were some of the most successful acts during the 90's

again, i know your not a outkast fan but they sold roughly 10 million albums from their 90's catalog, so i only assume your not talking bout them & more about ATCQ
although, tribe never pushed major units isn't the issues the fact that they dropped 5 albums in the 90's 2 of them gold & the other 3 platinum IMO is more incredible then a nikka selling 3 or 4 million one time & his/her next album flopping
note: their 1st album going gold in 1990 when east coast acts couldn't sell shyt

as far as your other comment about them - i refuse to address - because you sounded ridiculous
you called their original clothing/style fakkit

they started out with the times if that late 80's early 90's afrocentric look
WTF is homo about this

how did outkast suddenly sell 10 million albums in the '90s, when in your last post you just admitted that they only sold half of that??? just 5 million off of 3 releases

its not about me not liking anyone. its about YOU obviously being a fan of tribe and outkast, and wanting them to be seen in a certain light.

all i said was that those groups simply were not amongst the most successful rap acts of the '90s, and you accidentally proved my point when you listed their album sales. either youre trying to boost these groups on the sly, or you really don't know who the top-sellers were back then. which one is it?

and for the record, outkast doesn't really cross my mind when I'm not on the internet. its really chit like this, that makes them a pet peeve of mines, when I'm posting on forums. you dudes be trying to plug their names in every discussion and try to boost them as some goats on the slick. and yall do this with no f*cks given. that chit is not cool mang.

and who are all these rappers that sold 4 mil off one album and flopped afterwards? not many. youre playing create-a-rapper now, just to make these groups look like they were more than they were.

i didn't say tribe's clothing style was gay. all i said was "WHEN THEY CAME OUT, i thought they were some fakkits."
now if you want to jump into a hot tub time machine, and argue with a young wacky d from 26 years ago, then be my guest. hopefully you don't get arrested for approaching me in the process.

they were kinda suss, and it aint just me. they were being criticized by many for being too soft.

this video was very.......gay.

Smh...Melle had recorded that verse previously for Enjoy records and regardless of intent, it's conscious like a mfer. Duke Bootee came up with The Message concept and hook plus the other verses and it's one of the greatest of all time. I don't even remember Brand Nubian rocking daishikis hard body...But why would they still be rocking Africa medallions when that style had left? BN looked liked nikkas I saw in the street everyday...before Punks Jump up. 3 years later styles changed. Some of you nikkas on here are consistently contrarian.

he may have already did the verse but the fact remains that the group didn't want to do the song,

there were no "punks jump up" type of records on their first album.

In order for the hood to make you plat you had to make records that reached all aspects of the hood.

shyt your granny could listen to, the girls playing double dutch, the d boys on the corner, the schoolboys, and the working men. (i.e. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Kid N Play, MC Hammer, Salt N Papa, Naughty By Nature, Heavy D.)

Big Daddy Kane is the only one you named that made songs that touched all those people, and he came out before anybody was going platinum in rap.

ehh.

kane had reach but youre overrating the strength of his reach. he had a few joints that touched all angles, plus the collabo with patti, but he wasn't doing it on THAT level like the names you mentioned except kid n play, but he wasn't marketable to everybody like they were.

and there were rappers going platinum & multi-platinum before kane even came out breh. and they had that reach.

That's false.

All of the forefathers of hip hop were conscious.

Most of the early champions of hip hop were either part of the 5% Nation, The Nuwabians, or the Zulu Nation once the 70s NYC gangs morphed into these organizations.

The whole spirit of hip hop was birthed in consciousness and community awareness.


I challenge you to name me one hip hop album made between the late 70s to the early 90s that didn't contain at least one black empowerment, save the children, the police is killing us, the hood is fukked up, the government ain't shyt, or black history type song.

Those messages were woven deeply in the fabric of the culture.


The reason "conscious" rappers today don't touch the masses is because they forgot to include one of the most important tenants of the Zulu Nation... "having fun."

You can get your message across without coming off as an aggy, boring, brainiac, know it all. (i.e. Talib Kweli)

yea, but the music itself wasn't aimed at being conscious.

it was all about partying, having fun, and seeing who could rock the crowd the most.

i agree tho. that conscious rappers of today, and the past 20-25 years in general, lack the entertainment value.

as for naming hip-hop albums pre-90s with no conscious tracks. i can name PLENTY. and i can name a ton that only had THAT ONE customary conscious track and thats it.

but i'll just drop 5 off the top of the head, and all of them are classic LPs.

That kinda talk lets me know you in fact wasn't there.

There are no "credible sources" to pull that type of info from, only word of mouth from the memories of the people that actually lived it.

I remember when the artists I named were hot, how their songs touched the whole community, and how when they first came out the only people that were fukking with them were their people.

Their people pushed them to gold or platinum status, then once the rest of the world caught on, the double, triple platinum plaques started coming.

I don't have anything to prove to you breh, the folks in the know, already know I'm speaking pure facts.

black people weren't pushing rappers to platinum status.

we pushed them to popularity amongst white folks, and then they got their plaques.

off-topic but i gotta vent it: nowadays, white fans get their rappers from the blogs instead. that's why chit is dead now.

You can't say that for the early 90's. From 94 and up, yea.

that's what Kwame really meant.

he himself peaked in the early '90s.

but you know how it is, some people don't believe in the use of the term "mid".

yes..a combination of the two

I Know You Got Soul: The Trouble With Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Chart




I Know You Got Soul: The Trouble With Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Chart | Pitchfork

yea. NWA was one of the groups that benefited from this the most.

but they still never counted ALL the mom-n-pop retailers tho.

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

White kids had already been listening to violent music for 20 years via heavy metal. Since R&B music isn't really conducive to tales of murder, black people usually sang about love, sex, injustice, etc.

Once hip hop came around and street cats used it as an outlet to portray their life, white kids gravitated to that same desire to hear about violence.

Violence and sex will always sell, it's just a matter people figure out how to incorporate it into their product.

Exactly, White kids were always listening to Sex Pistols, Megadeth, Guns & Roses, and Ozzy Osbourne.

That's why I always laugh at these "Hip-Hop Conspiracy" ass nikkaz, who act like White people's music is so tame and nice and Black people are saturated with crazy shyt on purpose.

Hell, them nikkaz was biting the heads off of chickens on stage.

Let's also not forget that a lot of bodies were dropping in the nineties. And the newer rappers were direct products of the crack era. So of course hip hop would take on a more street persona, it reflected life. And lol at nikkas acting like Brand Nubian were some weirdo daishiki wearing group. The were regular god body nikkas, so why would they been in a time warp still wearing what they rocked in 89?! I mean Lord Jamar had gold fronts in the slow down video.

Exactly, dudes forget that styles used to change so drastically back then.

A nikka couldn't walk around in 1992 dressed like he was dressed in 1989.

It'd be like me walking around today with a Jheri Curl or something.

The whole culture was modified, especially after 1992, to cater to the main consumers
of sex, money, murder, drugs Hip Hop, which were young white males.

That's why Kid N Play, Whodini, Run-DMC, MC Shan, PE, X-Clan, Superlover Cee and Casanova Rudd, UTFO
and so many who came from a different mentality and mindset, could not thrive, or for some, even survive.

I can't agree with that.

Hammer & Vanilla Ice had sales that DWARFED even the highest selling gangsta rappers in the early '90s. For many years the 2 best selling rap albums of all-time were "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'EM" & "To The Extreme".

If it was merely about White consumers, then Hip-Hop would be like Hammer today.

Those rappers couldn't compete because they weren't designed to. Whodini was old by '88. By the time Eric B & Rakim & Public Enemy came out, people weren't tryiing to hear them or UTFO.

Shan, Superlover, Kid N pLay, and them just weren't built to last.

Public Enemy just weren't the same group after those sample laws came out and they had to completely change their sound.

Because Moe Dee is a pioneer from the outset. He knows what he speaks from.

It is difficult to analyze the totality of the cultural swings and shifts if you're not of Kid's, or Moe Dee's, or Chuck D's generation
or credibility.

Guys like that might be the worst examples to hold up, because they can't be objective about themselves. Kool Moe Dee & Chuck D. are never gonna say, "I just fell off." It's always gonna be everybody else's fault, but their own. LL Cool j found a way to survive. The Beastie Boys found a way to survive. Even Run-DMC had a monster hit in '93 at the peak of gangsta rap.

that's the best you can come up with? those aren't huge numbers breh.

I didn't say they weren't successful. I was responding to you claiming that they were 2 of the most successful acts of the '90s.

going 1 or 2x plat isn't chit compared to the big dogs of the '90s. that's all I was saying.....along with the fact that both groups conformed in the mid-90s, which I guess you agree with since you didn't argue.

That's actually wrong.

You see, a lot of the rap numbers of the early '90s are inflated because of the catalog sales. A lot of those records like The Chronic were only 2 or 3 times platinum by the end of the '90s, but once rap went mainstream in the late '90s and some of these records reputations grew, they sold more.

It's like "Illmatic" only went gold in it's initial run, but now is over platinum in the 21st century because of all the magazines and rappers claiming it was the greatest rap album of all-time.

Selling 2 million is pretty much a huge success unless your standard is Vanilla Ice & Hammer or maybe the the outliers in gangsta rap in Snoop & 2pac.

 

[A Tribe Called Quest ™]

nah breh

you miss understood, my post was a replied to the dude that's arguing for kid n play
and YES these were some of the most successful acts during the 90's

again, i know your not a outkast fan but they sold roughly 10 million albums from their 90's catalog, so i only assume your not talking bout them & more about ATCQ
although, tribe never pushed major units isn't the issues the fact that they dropped 5 albums in the 90's 2 of them gold & the other 3 platinum IMO is more incredible then a nikka selling 3 or 4 million one time & his/her next album flopping
note: their 1st album going gold in 1990 when east coast acts couldn't sell shyt

as far as your other comment about them - i refuse to address - because you sounded ridiculous
you called their original clothing/style fakkit

they started out with the times if that late 80's early 90's afrocentric look
WTF is homo about this

That shyt Q-Tip is wearing is homo breh lmao, if a rapper from today wore that you would mock them

 

[A Tribe Called Quest ™]

I actually was listening to the radio in Florida and there was a good amount of diversity , I think the mid 2000's had the worst diversity in terms on the radio and shyt . When I was in Florida I heard songs like "Redbone" , " Unforgottable" , "Pull up with the Stick" ...

 

[Wear My Dawg's Hat]

Hammer & Vanilla Ice had sales that DWARFED even the highest selling gangsta rappers in the early '90s. For many years the 2 best selling rap albums of all-time were "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'EM" & "To The Extreme".

If it was merely about White consumers, then Hip-Hop would be like Hammer today.

Nope.

Hammer and Vanilla Ice were pop music anomalies. Their one-off mega-successes were no different than Alanis Morissette's ("Jagged Little Pill" sold over 30 million) or Hootie and the Blowfish I"Cracked Rear View" sold 16 million copies).

Charles Koppleman put out Vanilla Ice. He didn't care one bit about any other rappers or movements. He was just trying to make a killing in publishing with SBK.

Hammer didn't want to wind up like Kid, so he puts out "Pumps and a Bump" and even himself joins Death Row.

Russell Simmons, Puffy Combs, Jimmy Iovine, Steve Rifkind and Lyor Cohen will all tell you that they weren't in the music business -- they were in the LIFESTYLE business. Rock "N Roll was also a lifestyle business, which is why you could sell music, merchandise, tours, etc.

The reason why we see rappers, as opposed to R&B artists, inducted into the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame is because of the perceived "rebellion" relationship between the two genres. "Rebellion" is what sells to the white kids ("No really mom, I'm not listening to black drug dealers on my new iPhone 7").

 

[Booker T Garvey]

That shyt Q-Tip is wearing is homo breh lmao, if a rapper from today wore that you would mock them

 

[Wear My Dawg's Hat]

they started out with the times if that late 80's early 90's afrocentric look
WTF is homo about this

There is nothing "homo" about what they're wearing, ESPECIALLY given the time period.

That was one of the common looks you would see '88-'92 then if you on the corner of Fulton and Nostrand in the BK, or browsing through the 125th Street Mart.

When Mandela came to NYC in '90 after his release, he spoke outside at Boys & Girls HS. Almost everyone on the field that day was dressed like this.

There was more variety and openness of expression in this era. It was before MTV, BET, "Hip Hop radio," VIBE,The Source, XXL, Felon, FEDS, Don Diva set in stone the sex/money/murder/drug dealing identity rulebook that became suffocating.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

theres always gonna be a lot of other stuff on the chart.

true but its very telling with how much people think Gangtsa Rap was dominating, it actually wasn't

but most of these acts were like one-hit wonders. i don't even remember a couple of these at all. with this thread, we're mostly talking about rappers with real careers that got x'd out the game.

yea, those were from the top 40 (white charts) which is very telling considering that's the chart/demographic where Gangsta Rap was most popular but even then, a ton of party-rap was doing better.

the artists with real careers in this video - their songs were mostly layovers from '91 album cycles. and they were all on their way out when they dropped their follow-up albums, except for luke Campbell(who often times made gangsta rap look family-friendly in comparison) and salt-n-pepa.

the majority of gangsta rappers outside of Dre/Deathrow associates didn't actually have huge careers either.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Exactly, White kids were always listening to Sex Pistols, Megadeth, Guns & Roses, and Ozzy Osbourne.

That's why I always laugh at these "Hip-Hop Conspiracy" ass nikkaz, who act like White people's music is so tame and nice and Black people are saturated with crazy shyt on purpose.

Hell, them nikkaz was biting the heads off of chickens on stage.

facts lol

Those rappers couldn't compete because they weren't designed to. Whodini was old by '88. By the time Eric B & Rakim & Public Enemy came out, people weren't tryiing to hear them or UTFO.

Shan, Superlover, Kid N pLay, and them just weren't built to last.

Public Enemy just weren't the same group after those sample laws came out and they had to completely change their sound.



Guys like that might be the worst examples to hold up, because they can't be objective about themselves. Kool Moe Dee & Chuck D. are never gonna say, "I just fell off." It's always gonna be everybody else's fault, but their own. LL Cool j found a way to survive. The Beastie Boys found a way to survive. Even Run-DMC had a monster hit in '93 at the peak of gangsta rap.

100% truth

That's actually wrong.

You see, a lot of the rap numbers of the early '90s are inflated because of the catalog sales. A lot of those records like The Chronic were only 2 or 3 times platinum by the end of the '90s, but once rap went mainstream in the late '90s and some of these records reputations grew, they sold more.

It's like "Illmatic" only went gold in it's initial run, but now is over platinum in the 21st century because of all the magazines and rappers claiming it was the greatest rap album of all-time.

Selling 2 million is pretty much a huge success unless your standard is Vanilla Ice & Hammer or maybe the the outliers in gangsta rap in Snoop & 2pac.

yup

 

[Wacky D]

That's actually wrong.

You see, a lot of the rap numbers of the early '90s are inflated because of the catalog sales. A lot of those records like The Chronic were only 2 or 3 times platinum by the end of the '90s, but once rap went mainstream in the late '90s and some of these records reputations grew, they sold more.

It's like "Illmatic" only went gold in it's initial run, but now is over platinum in the 21st century because of all the magazines and rappers claiming it was the greatest rap album of all-time.

Selling 2 million is pretty much a huge success unless your standard is Vanilla Ice & Hammer or maybe the the outliers in gangsta rap in Snoop & 2pac.

lesbianest. youre an outkast fanatic.

so instead of you simply correcting the guy that was wrong, you instead attempt to shift the narrative and argue with me about stuff that I didn't even say.

I didn't say outkast or even tribe weren't successful. I simply said that they weren't among the top-sellers of the decade, like homie was trying to make it seem. he even came back and tried to lie about their sales in the next post. but for some reason, you didn't say anything to him about that either, and chose to argue with me about stuff that didn't even come off my keyboard.

and I never mentioned the chronic. I know how much it sold. I know it wasn't a top-seller of the decade. BUT since you want to bring it up, it still outsold everything outkast dropped in the '90s, and it wasn't even dr dre' highest-selling album. so what are you really talking about?

you even reached for illmatic.

I know about catalog sales homie. and for the record, I also know that theres more to sales than just albums - which you also conveniently skipped over. but I'm not even arguing about the guys that you brought up or anyone in particular. I'm not even trying to argue about this at all. I dropped a quick reply to a one-off post that was tryna push an agenda. that would've been the end of it, if I was talking about 95% of other rappers, but outkast seems to be royalty on this board.

Guys like that might be the worst examples to hold up, because they can't be objective about themselves. Kool Moe Dee & Chuck D. are never gonna say, "I just fell off." It's always gonna be everybody else's fault, but their own. LL Cool j found a way to survive. The Beastie Boys found a way to survive. Even Run-DMC had a monster hit in '93 at the peak of gangsta rap.

the beastie boys didn't survive anything. they simply went back to rock.

ll cool j is basically the exception.

true but telling this is that with how much people think Gangtsa Rap was dominating, it actually wasn't



yea, those were from the top 40 (white charts) which is very telling considering that'sthe chart/demographic where Gangsta Rap was most popular but even then, a ton of party-rap was going better.

the majority of gangsta rappers outside of Dre/Deathrow associates didn't actually have huge careers either.

I'm saying, theres always gonna be pop-rap, jock jams and fluke hits.

I'm talking about the artists actually moving the needle within the genre/culture.

most of those gangsta acts outside of the death row/ruthless tree, may not have been superstars but they still kept steady successful careers going,

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

Bdk came out before and ruined his career selling out before the sales spike era.

He tried to go the 'LL Cool J - Mr. Lover-Man' route, but it ain't work and he lost most of his fan-base trying to gain another one............

The revisionists are NOT gon' win with you here, breh.

​

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

All of the forefathers of hip hop were conscious.

Most of the early champions of hip hop were either part of the 5% Nation, The Nuwabians, or the Zulu Nation once the 70s NYC gangs morphed into these organizations.

The whole spirit of hip hop was birthed in consciousness and community awareness.

Fam, this is utter nonsense. Hip-hop wasn't even a 'culture' until the late 70's as sort of a 'backlash' against disco culture, and 95% of the early artists had nothing to do with Zulu Nation, Nation of Gods and Earths, etc. It wasn't until the mid 80's that all that stuff started getting spun into the records that were being played heavily thanks to Rakim, Big Daddy Kane and the 'Juice Crew'. Also, The Zulu Nation didn't do as much as people think they did. The credit for making hip-hop what it is today should be going to The Black Spades.
​

I challenge you to name me one hip hop album made between the late 70s to the early 90s that didn't contain at least one black empowerment, save the children, the police is killing us, the hood is fukked up, the government ain't shyt, or black history type song.

Here ya' go......

That was easy.​