The NIGHT That Changed Hop Hop Forever: 1995 Source Awards.....

[Rapmastermind]

The year was 1995 and the East/West beef was starting to gain traction. On that day in New York. The 1995 Source Awards become one of the most important moments in the History of Hip Hop. Biggie was crowned King. NaS was inspired to get a more mainstream sound. Death Row calls out Puff. Snoop calls out the crowd. Dr. Dre wins video of the year. You got Mobb, You got Wu.

Pac was in jail at the time and Suge was thinking of signing him. The beef was crazy but it was a legendary show. No lie, this was probably the biggest and most important rap awards show ever. Bigger than winning a Grammy or other award, at the time Winner a Source Award for Hip Hop was Big. I can't find the entire show but here's most of the Clips. Classic and Historic moment in Hip Hop History:

(Biggie was the Night's Biggest winner winning a record breaking 4 awards. Including Album, Lyricist, Video and Performer of the year)

(Suge's infamous and funny "All In The Videos" Puffy diss was seen as one of the origins of the Death Row, Bad Boy Beef)



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4jSxp561z4"]The 1995 Source Hip-Hop Music Awards (Part 1) [RARE VIDEO] - YouTube[/ame]




[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngD5sV6f6ns"]The 1995 Source Hip-Hop Music Awards (Part 2) [RARE VIDEO] - YouTube[/ame]




[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iEj5y71aYA"]The 1995 Source Hip-Hop Music Awards (Part 3) [RARE VIDEO] - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Rapmastermind]

Full Winners List for the 1995 Source Awards:

Artist of the Year, Solo: Snoop Doggy Dogg
Artist of the Year, Group: Wu-Tang Clan
New Artist of the Year, Solo: Notorious B.I.G.
New Artist of the Year, Group: Outkast
Single of the Year: "Flava In Ya Ear" -- Craig Mack
Album of the Year: Ready To Die -- Notorious B.I.G.
Lyricist of the Year: Notorious B.I.G.
Producer of the Year: Dr. Dre
R&B Artist of the Year: Mary J. Blige
Reggae/Hip-Hop Artist of the Year: Mad Lion
Video of the Year: "Murder Was The Case" -- Snoop Doggy Dogg
Live Performer of the Year: Notorious B.I.G.
Soundtrack of the Year: "Above the Rim"
Best Acting Performance: Ice Cube -- "Higher Learning"
Lifetime Achievement Award: Eazy-E
Pioneer Award: Run DMC


They really spread love from East to West on the winner list. Most people were mad NaS didn't win Lyricist. Even Biggie admitted he thought he'd lose to NaS:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OW2xF6CnZY[/ame]

 

[Bugsmoran]

Dj Quik set trippin on Mc Eiht

[ame=http://youtu.be/hwCRPA0GBr4]Dj Quik dollaz and sense live - YouTube[/ame]

 

[EducatedBrothaFromTheBank]

wtf i been lookin for this for years.... props breh

 

[KplusK]

this was a major part but real talk after pac got shot that what changed hip hop...well in my eyes first major artist with a major persona that was able to get touched and funny thing it didnt have anything to do with music thats what changed alot of things matter of fact pac change the game point blank i could bring up more ways but yall know the history

 

[Rapmastermind]

this was a major part but real talk after pac got shot that what changed hip hop...well in my eyes first major artist with a major persona that was able to get touched and funny thing it didnt have anything to do with music thats what changed alot of things matter of fact pac change the game point blank i could bring up more ways but yall know the history

The 10 Most Important moments of that beef were:

1993 Pac let Biggie open for him and help him early in his career
1994 Biggie's Debut Blew
1994 Quad Studio Shooting and Pac went to Jail
1995 Who Shot Ya Released
1995 Biggie Blew Up and Me Against The World was a hit
1995 The Source Awards
1996 Pac released from Jail, Signed Death Row and All Eyes On Me Blew Up
1996 Hit Em Up Released
1996 Pac Died and Makavli was released
1997 Biggie Died and Life After Death was released

Then End.

 

[Rapmastermind]

Meth was a great performer. Wu had the crowd going crazy.

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

I see why will smith called the 92-95 the dark ages in rap. everyone was on some frontin shyt. A lot of dope music and classic records but looking back on it now its like everyone was acting hard on some street/frontin shyt.

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

ANd Nas should've won an award for either album of the year or lyricist.

 

[Dog Based Gremlin]

All about the East-West rivalry in hip hop music.


by the way, the Bone Thugs n Harmony performance back in the day was crazy wack

 

[Rapmastermind]

I see why will smith called the 92-95 the dark ages in rap. everyone was on some frontin shyt. A lot of dope music and classic records but looking back on it now its like everyone was acting hard on some street/frontin shyt.

Will didn't call it the dark ages to my knowledge but more like there was too much cussing. This is why Em dissed Will cause Will said at the MTV awards, "I got up here without cussing on my records" it was like a diss to more hardcore albums. I always took it as Will saying there was another Way.

But it was ironic he said that considering NaS wrote on his album and NaS was spitting all those hard raps back then. Also they weren't "Trying" to be hard. You confusing today's rappers. They were Hard back then. Mike Tyson touched on this recently. There were real dudes in Hip Hop back then.

 

[intilectual recipricol]

Niccaz was booin Outkast... NY niccaz disgust me, and they wanna blame all this shyt on Pac

 

[Wild self]

I see why will smith called the 92-95 the dark ages in rap. everyone was on some frontin shyt. A lot of dope music and classic records but looking back on it now its like everyone was acting hard on some street/frontin shyt.

Yup and it eventually took the lives of Pac and BIG. That night exposed the best and worst out of Hip Hop. That being super gangsta and hard headed don't mean shyt.

 

[Big Mel]

I see why will smith called the 92-95 the dark ages in rap. everyone was on some frontin shyt. A lot of dope music and classic records but looking back on it now its like everyone was acting hard on some street/frontin shyt.

son, try LIVING through that shyt. I broke out in hives 4 times back then from stress randomly. in my head, everyone wanted to kill me. blunt after blunt, beer after beer. i remember one time at the spot we had gone through a few fifths of easy jesus and smoked no joke like 22 phillies....i went to pee and my vision closed up. straight up went blind and sat on the bathroom floor for 20 minutes losing my mind, thinking i had to learn braille and shyt. the my sight came back the reverse way it closed.

that same night i saw a man flipped upside down so ferociously in a living room his sneaker scuffed the ceiling and left a mark. Jet beauty of the month's all on the walls as posters. my homies sister hanging condoms on the wall on some TLC shyt.

shyt was RAW back then.


spend your teens in a crackhouse and then try and come back to the world seamlessly. impossible.

 

[Ethnic Vagina Finder]

Will didn't call it the dark ages to my knowledge but more like there was too much cussing. This is why Em dissed Will cause Will said at the MTV awards, "I got up here without cussing on my records" it was like a diss to more hardcore albums. I always took it as Will saying there was another Way.

But it was ironic he said that considering NaS wrote on his album and NaS was spitting all those hard raps back then. Also they weren't "Trying" to be hard. You confusing today's rappers. They were Hard back then. Mike Tyson touched on this recently. There were real dudes in Hip Hop back then.

he spoke on the cursing but that was only a piece of the bigger picture. And by acting hard and frontin, it stopped being all about the music. that awards show gave a glimpse of it. You can tell Dr Dre was all about the music and Puff was all about the music for example but the whole vibe was on some other shyt. And if you look at how rapped evolved from the mid/late 80's (85-91) to the early mid 90's you can see that the gansta/hood side of rap became the rule and not the exception. When NWA came out they were the only ones doing it, then you had the ghetto boys but they were not in the majority. by 1995 everyone was one some hardcore hood shyt.



And looking back on that awards show I kinda understood why Suge Knight was mad because it was basically a Bad Boy lovefest with Death Row coming in a close second. Overall it was obviously biased towards new york rappers and the crowd was biased so they felt some kind of way. Can't blame them.