in 95, nobody was bigger than mobb deep culturally.
they were the it thing group of 95, period.
only person rivaling was the ramped up raekwon.
plus, it was to the point.....
when both of their respective albums were slated to drop.
everyone wrote mobb deep and rae/gf as going to be wack releases.
as, both rae/gf, and mobb deep were thought of as a non-factor.
on top of not being celebrated as members of their collective worth a damn.
i still remember nikkaz who were not into the culture.
who would come up to me in college,...
like, yo,....you that dude into rap, right...
man, you listen to mobb deep?
then it turned into,....do you listen to raekwon and wu-tang.
where it was like, i had to literally think i was in bizzarro world
for just a civilian rap fan to know anything about a darkhorse artist like that.
pac, was getting burn from pr, from his incidents.
he had black and huge whiteboi fanboy fare, unlike anyone for those incidents......
he was not thuglife pac just yet,...where his stanbase started to overprocess him.
he was emotionally gripping pac, at that time.
he was taken more as introspective and unique.
especially for how unorthodox, unique and heartfelt dear mama was.
which was completely different from anything at the time.
plus, a feat because of the subject matter.
it was not until the spitting incident.
coupled with the dr release counting money and all the shyt he was on in that mtv publicized special about him getting out,..
did pac, become the pac that had fans who would become the pac clone war stans.
nas, was nas culturally, in 1994.
yet, by 95, when mobb dropped and nas always noshowed and awol'd shows.
with the crowd that embraced mobb deep and pac, originally.
that mainstream rap fan crowd did not even know who nas was.
nas, became a staple with the mainstream pop gateway rap fan in 1996.
as a matter of fact,..the nas stan base from iww in 1996.
did not even know about illmatic.
just like people did not know about mobb deep's first album because if you were not a bboy you were not in the know.
being a fan of rap music, a general civilian that was not just attached to a movie.
had just began in 1995...i remember it like it was yesterday.
as i had people who i know for a fact, never listened and did not know shyt about rap.
let alone, hiphop and were black from the innercity, and ghettos.
after mobb deep, permeated and brought the pop gateway gangsta rap fan to qb.
originally, nas was a culturized fixture with us bboys.
mobb deep was like the first non-mca rap group.
that was a staple with just regular gangsta rap fans who listened and only knew westcoast.
before that,...no westcoast gangsta rap fan could tell you an eastcoat artist with confidence.
you guys who are young got it good.
plus, you got lied to when mtv revisioned and lied about a lot of shyt, too.
to capitalize on formerly not being a hub for urban music.
so, to save face...they just tried to fake like they gave a damn more than before.
before that,..there was no rap really on mtv besides yo, which did not really have a slot anymore, at all.
it was totally different from the leo burnett marketing of 1996.
that made hiphop the go to culture of the world.
before that,..i guarantee, a lot of nikkaz, would have never owned a rap record.
art barr
