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"

[Stinky Diver]

Cats didn't buy Big L.
They didn't buy Lord Finesse.
They didn't buy Lord Tariq
They didn't buy Jay until he went pop.
They didn't buy Nas until he went pop.
They didn't buy anything with Black Thought.
They didn't buy Hiero, Alkaholiks, Ras Kass, Freestyle Fellowship, Chino XL.
They didn't buy Kurupt.
They didn't buy K-Rino.
They didn't buy Common Sense.

They didn't buy Joe Buddens, lol.

They stopped buying Kane.
They stopped buying Rakim.
They stopped buying KRS.

Chuck D? Kool Keith? LOL

If Pun didn't do the remix of I'm not a Player with Joe - they would not have bought him either.

They didn't buy KMD and sure as hell as not buying MF Doom.

TBH, that's okay.

Hip Hop is a party music, made for partying.

Sitting back and listening to an album, trying to understand what the artist is saying on a deeper level, the artist even trying to make some "art" - is how folks deal with rock music, and anything else that's album oriented.

Steve is in the business of selling the culture - and he's telling you what sells now and what sold then.
Yet cats don't want to a listen to a guy that got rich on selling hip hop, about selling hip hop....

Throw Black eyed peas in there too lol. Them nikkas went pop, got paid and never looked back.

 

[Tetris v2.0]

Throw Black eyed peas in there too lol. Them nikkas went pop, got paid and never looked back.

They made a hip-hop ass album a few years back after Fergie left. It was actually great but sold like shyt so they fully bushed that and made a World music album right after lol

 

[WIA20XX]

Throw Black eyed peas in there too lol. Them nikkas went pop, got paid and never looked back.

Dumb down and double your dollars!

 

[Amo Husserl]

The conversation more nuanced than what Stoute doin' with it.
It's not only history, the business wasn't really pushin' lyricists like that.
Super lyrical rappers wasn't marketable in an era when hip-hop was still thought to be a fad pre-99 by the public at large and record execs.
Labels wanted to cash in like they did with punk rock, sign up a bunch of acts and see what happens in the market.
If you was willin' to go pop and had the skills, that was the road.

To me the 90s was the best era for consistently balancing marketable appeal with content, it didn't need to be commercial but its impact is still felt.


Great works of art don't need to be validated by the establishment, but artists gotta eat. I get it.

 

[Tribal Outkast]

Cats didn't buy Big L.
They didn't buy Lord Finesse.
They didn't buy Lord Tariq
They didn't buy Jay until he went pop.
They didn't buy Nas until he went pop.
They didn't buy anything with Black Thought.
They didn't buy Hiero, Alkaholiks, Ras Kass, Freestyle Fellowship, Chino XL.
They didn't buy Kurupt.
They didn't buy K-Rino.
They didn't buy Common Sense.

They didn't buy Joe Buddens, lol.

They stopped buying Kane.
They stopped buying Rakim.
They stopped buying KRS.

Chuck D? Kool Keith? LOL

If Pun didn't do the remix of I'm not a Player with Joe - they would not have bought him either.

They didn't buy KMD and sure as hell as not buying MF Doom.

TBH, that's okay.

Hip Hop is a party music, made for partying.

Sitting back and listening to an album, trying to understand what the artist is saying on a deeper level, the artist even trying to make some "art" - is how folks deal with rock music, and anything else that's album oriented.

Steve is in the business of selling the culture - and he's telling you what sells now and what sold then.
Yet cats don't want to a listen to a guy that got rich on selling hip hop, about selling hip hop....

Thank God for Yo and Rap City.. that’s the shyt that put a little kid from Augusta Georgia onto hiphop. I bought or got my hands on most of the shyt you posted because of those outlets. These people get their music waaaaaaaay easier now than we did so they have no excuse. Bro little kids and teenagers were kicking goat worthy music back in the day. A lot of the shyt was being put out there for us to consume. There are guys who got lyrics NOW that don’t get noooooo love. Stoute just be talking

 

[WIA20XX]

For cat talking about the labels should have pushed your favorite lyricist...

Let's look at Illmatic

It's not like Columbia didn't try.

Illmatic has 4 singles - more than half the album if you include Half Time - which was also a single.

1) It ain't hard to tell - It had a damn Michael Jackson sample and a video


And it had dope a remix....that nobody played.

2) Life's a Beach - no video

But I've got the 12".

Most West Coastalicious thing on the record - zero airtime.

3) The World Is Yours



Even the remix had a video



4) One Love



And Columbia had 5 mics in the source.

So let's look at Columbia promoting a lyricist, because he was a lyricist

• Damn near 5 singles
• 4 Videos
• Instant Classic from The Source

What more could they have done?

How else could they have pushed it?

No one was buying lyrics for lyrics sake.

Meanwhile, Biggie a lyricist, had to take the Radio approach with Mtume's Juicy Fruit (an already uber popular song reworked into Juicy, much like Sugar Hill Gang reworked Chic's Good Times)

And he goes platinum in 2 months.

As much as this board likes to talk about "industry plants" and "manufacturing hits and artists", and all that type of stuff - the labels can't MAKE anything.

Believe me. I've been privy to those meetings. Been on the phone with reps, in person with A&R's, talked to hella artists.

You know they put 2 Million Dollars into Lil Zane



Stole Pac's flow
Got the industry writers and producers.

The album debuted at number 165 on the Billboard 200 chart with 7,000 copies sold in its first week and then peaked its second week at number 25 with 40,000 sold that week.

2 MILLION DOLLARS

 

[manyfaces]

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

Too short had like 4 or 5 platinum albums by the mid 90s. He was bigger than just the Bay. But your post is generally accurate.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Too short had like 4 or 5 platinum albums by the mid 90s. He was bigger than just the Bay. But your post is generally accurate.

Yeah I had meant to move him up once I remembered but got sidetracked by work shyt while I was editing the post

 

[NO-BadAzz]

IMO, The Source made that album the "classic" that it is now.

Cause I wouldn't have been at Tower Records that Tuesday Morning without it.

Also, I see a lot of cats from "Up North" talk about Gangstarr, Tribe, Nas, Wu Tang - like they was playing that on the radio everywhere in the country.

I can tell you they was not playing Jeru the Damaja in Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, etc for the Hot 7 at 7.

You wasn't gonna play the wall and have some chick grind on you to Mobb Deep.

All that stuff outside of the tri-state/Boston was UNDERGROUND.

Backpacks and Adidas.

Cats in hot ass Texas wearing Timbs and Fatigues, and couldn't tell you where the L train stopped.

Breh, I salute you, I used to go to war with cats on here, me against 100, a few homies helped chime in but I would tell them dudes, that shyt that they speak on as holy, that shyt got no play in black spaces or any space outside of the tri-state areas

Biggie
Mase
DMX
Even the Lox was not getting play
Lil Kim got play

Folks bumped LL cool J singles. Thats it
Who else, it may be 1 or 2 more cats im missing, but that was all that was being played outside of the tri state
Those were the dudes who got major play outside of the tri-state area

As a kid I traveled around the world and would be in black spaces, and those NY cats were not being played AT ALL

It was to the point where you had to actually be from NY and happened to move down here or outside that tri-state area to have that music heard and when you played it, it was you and ONLY you that played that shyt and we looked at yo ass crazy lol
Called you weird and shyt

That shyt was not being talked about in P.E. or at lunch hour etc.

Man breh. You hitting on all points.
Great posting

I been tried to tell these dudes how shyt went in real time

Real time, them NY cats couldn't break any market outside of their own.

 

[O.Red]

Did he sell records though?
Do people know his stuff?
Does the average 25 year old black dude in NYC/ATL know his stuff?
What about a black 25 year old anywhere else in the states?
What about a white one?

Can you play any of his "hits" at a typical hip hop club anywhere in the country like you can play 30 year old songs like Hail Mary/Juicy?

I love DOOM. I love underground hip hop.

But DOOM sells to the same people buying Griselda and The Clipse/Pusha T (which is me!)

If cats want to talk about

• He can make a living
• He can tour
• He's got a loyal base
• Big following online

They are purposefully avoiding what Steve is saying.

The fact that KMD had no appeal and their 2nd lp got shelved coupled with the death of his brother - gave us DOOM.

It's because he was everything Steve Stoute says doesn't sell - we got an artist you buy for his lyrics.

See the problem with these discussions is everyone judges hip hop with 1-3 of the same metrics

If it can't play in the club, it doesn't exist, and that makes y'all part of the problem. Hip hop has homes in places besides the club. What do nikkas listen to at home alone? When they drive? When they work or study?

I've had this Doom discussion a lot(I would make a thread but I'm too lazy to make threads) about this strange amount of insulated gatekeeping from boom bap head Doom fans. I've noticed that y'all really ain't aware how popular MF Doom is

For one there is no more "underground". The internet deaded that. And if there was still an underground, doom wouldn't be in it

I know people from all walks of life. I know multiple women that listen to Doom. I know a tech Indian that has Doom's entire discography on his phone, I can go on and on. Also again we know a good amount of current popular rappers love and are inspired by Doom. Nikkas gotta stop acting like Doom is some local rapper

Doom has almost 9 million listens a month. That is a popular nikka breh For comparison Wu Tang has about half of Doom's listens. Any nikka not named Drake/Kendrick/Cole/Future would kill to have the amount of monthly listeners that MF Doom has


This shyt is hilarious because the Doom gatekeepers are the only one's that still think they're gatekeeping some shyt Again I think y'all really underestimate how popular Doom became during peak Adult Swim years

There are more Doom fans that look like this than y'all are aware of or willing to admit

 

[NO-BadAzz]

I typed a bunch of sh*t out then just erased it. I wasn't even sure how to address this thread.

The conversation is silly because people are using rappers with lyrics to argue Stoute's point....against other rappers with lyrics.

Using Nas 2nd album as some kinda gotcha moment, like it doesn't have "The Message", "I Gave You Power", etc.

One of the best concept songs in history....and cats are talking like "It Was Written" was 95 South or something.

Damn near every 90's rapper (BONE, Wu, Death Row, Outkast, Nas, Jay, etc.) that was selling millions of records had lyrics.

"Wu-Tang Forever" went 4x plat and the lead single was "Triumph", a nearly 6 minute song with NO HOOK and this clown is talking about "the older generation didn't care about lyrics."

"b bu but what about this specific example (Ras Kass, Chino XL, Common Sense, Killah Priest, etc.)"....who cares? Not everyone was selling, no. Mick Jenkins isn't selling as well as J Cole or Kendrick now, either. What is your point?

Fred.

Breh
Them folks got no play outside of that tri state area

Wasn't that Wu Tang a double CD? Or did it just have alot of songs?

But, that Nas song, in real time, was not big outside of that tri-state area

It made no countdown, in real time, nobody bumped it at any clubs, homecoming, parties etc.

Them songs did not fit our culture down here or anywhere else outside of the tri-state area.

Them singles over time got praise, but in real time, that shyt wasn't played

Crucial Conflict- Hay got more burn them both of Nas singles combined.

 

[DaHNIC82]

Nas figured it out with album #2 - but if you need Puffy on the beat and Lauryn Hill on a chorus to sell a record - were folks buying it because of your lyrics?

Ras Kass got Dr Dre, arguably IN HIS PRIME - and that still failed, horribly.

Wrong. Dre was in his slump from 1996-1998.. He was dropping considered "duds". Ras was a victim of bad timing because of what was going on with Priority. It wasn't until Chronic 2001 came out that he got the ball rolling.

 

[alpo]

Cats didn't buy Big L.
They didn't buy Lord Finesse.
They didn't buy Lord Tariq
They didn't buy Jay until he went pop.
They didn't buy Nas until he went pop.
They didn't buy anything with Black Thought.
They didn't buy Hiero, Alkaholiks, Ras Kass, Freestyle Fellowship, Chino XL.
They didn't buy Kurupt.
They didn't buy K-Rino.
They didn't buy Common Sense.

They didn't buy Joe Buddens, lol.

They stopped buying Kane.
They stopped buying Rakim.
They stopped buying KRS.

Chuck D? Kool Keith? LOL

If Pun didn't do the remix of I'm not a Player with Joe - they would not have bought him either.

They didn't buy KMD and sure as hell as not buying MF Doom.

TBH, that's okay.

Hip Hop is a party music, made for partying.

Sitting back and listening to an album, trying to understand what the artist is saying on a deeper level, the artist even trying to make some "art" - is how folks deal with rock music, and anything else that's album oriented.

Steve is in the business of selling the culture - and he's telling you what sells now and what sold then.
Yet cats don't want to a listen to a guy that got rich on selling hip hop, about selling hip hop....

Yea he right! These nikkas mad stoute told the truth. The older generation steady lying

 

[alpo]

Steve always throwing shots!

He needs to keep throwing shots.

 

[Left.A1]