People definitely cared and tbh hes the reason why Nas starting going pop
Steve Stoute: "The older generation didn't care about lyrics. That's why Illmatic took 5 years to go Gold. G Rap never got rewarded for lyrics"
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Breh, One In A Million was the slower selling album. Look up the first week numbers and compare them. Aaliyah selling 189K in the first week was her biggest opening. It was also her highest debut on the charts.
Tribal Outkast
Veteran
It’s funny cause stoute’s argument is the polar opposite of people saying they don’t want “lyrical mystical” rappers. I mean Jay had a knock on Nas saying is he trying to kick knowledge. I don’t get where Stoute is coming from
not a fan of steve stout but i get it. people talk about it like its not music. and all that, hip hop gotta be this and that, and self appointed purity keeper shyt came about in the 90s. and a lot of it aged poorly because of it. prime example kid n play, rob base...not lyrical, still throw my peers into a frenzy at events. lyricist lounge and gza not so much
That was a feature, and not produced by Dre. Bad cash in. It was also Ras trying to make club/radio records. He would have been much better off trying to get Dre to EP the album instead of rapping on it. That's the last thing he needed help with.
Awesome Wells
The Ghost of Jack Tripper
Truth.
Stoute didn't like Illmatic and felt it was too "street and dark". So his whole thing with Nas, was always to make him more commercial and he wanted him to make records that Nas wasn't that comfortable with making back then. So when Nas was trying to get in the studio with dudes like Premier and Large Professor, Stoute was telling him to limit the songs with "guys like that". Which is why we only got one Primo beat on IWW and NONE from Large Professor. He was managing Trackmasters and since they had just done sh*t with Biggie, he wanted them to spearhead the production for IWW, so Nas could get away from what he felt was "too hardcore" on Illmatic, and move more into radio-friendly type sh*t because that's where the money was. He was getting 20% of what Trackmasters was charging, so he's putting in his own people, so he can make more money off of Nas. And then also managing Nas too, so he's multiplying his own check in the process.
This is why on The Firm album, there's all this trash from Trackmasters and really wack tracks like "Firm Biz". It was right back to trying to get sh*t on the radio and having Nas abandon what Stoute felt was too "boom bap" to make any money. That's why Dre was so annoyed with making the album. He said Stoute was trying too hard to be like Puff, and making all these cheesy R&B sounding tracks, with producers he was managing, like TM and L.E.S.. That wasn't supposed to be the plan going in, so that's why the album disappointed so many people. Stoute just cares about exploiting artists for the biggest check. Dude literally said "People wanted Nas to be like Kool G Rap, but f*ck them, we're getting all of this money". He's a parasite.
Yeah, the tiers for rap in the mid-90s
Tier 1: Snoop and Bone Thugs (white people and hispanics LOVED Bone Thugs and all that melodic shyt). Also Fugees in '96. Quadruple platinum+, even dorky white people know their shyt
Tier 1.5: Biggie, Pac. This was tough
Tier 2: Ice Cube, LL, Dogg Pound, Wu-Tang as a collective, '96 Nas. Double platinum level
Tier 3: Outkast, Busta, Warren G, AZ, Scarface, A Tribe Called Quest - Platinum artists, but still firmly below the glass ceiling. Their region does a lil bit of lifting, but not as much as tier 4
Tier 4: Redman, Mobb Deep, 94-95 Nas, '96 Jay, Goodie Mob, Too Short, DJ Quik, Spice 1, Kool G Rap, etc...basically all of the acts that were big in their region but not really nationally outside of a hit or 2. Gold
Tier 5/Lords of the Underground: Boot Cam Clik, UGK, DITC, Jeru, Gang Starr, etc.
Edit: Actually might have to
Warren G sold triple or quadruple. He should be alot higher.
You forgot coolio, who should be at least tier 1.5
You also left off Onyx, da brat & eazy-e. They should be up there on the 2nd tier at least.
Once again, it's a broad term. There are 2 types of people that buy hip-hop records. There's the type that love hip-hop, and there's everyone else. Everyone else is the mainstream, general music buying audience. You aren't getting those fans without mainstream media, radio spinning your singles all day.
Stoute is generalizing something that shouldn't be generalized. It's not the "older generation" because if that was the case, they wouldn't have embraced the next gen. It's casual music buying audience.
DontEemTry
Superstar
What do you consider a hit?
Hafltime and the world is yours both charted high on the hip hop/r&b charts and the rap charts in the early 90s
It ain't hard to tell was 91 on the billboard 100 in the US and also charted high on the rap chart
It's 2024 and Do Or Die hasn't gone gold yet.
AZ :: Doe or Die – RapReviews
www.rapreviews.com
Sugar Hill went gold, and it appeared that AZ was on his way to stardom. But unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. The album dropped too long after the buzz for the single had died, sales were somewhat disappointing, and the album failed to spawn another hit.
but i personally feel like if a song charts it's a hit
Completely agree except Firm Biz was dope for a radio record. The remix, though
Plus alot of those guys went gold and Gold was seen as a major achievement at the time because it was supported by the grass roots... Platinum meant the grassroots including white people.
Chino XL, Ras Kass, Hiero were also signed to small indie labels or had label issues so they couldn't get the push in different markets like that of majors.
Nah we not doing this.
Nas was very much a mainstream artist and did a ton of pandering in hopes of becoming a bigger mainstream artist.