Why did Blunted on Reality flop?

[Street Knowledge]

Blunted on Reality - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Fugees first album famously bombed, the Question is why? A lot of people say it was bad but plenty of bad albums did numbers. What’s the most fascinating thing about this thought is even after the score dropped and became a worldwide phenomenon it still didn’t push numbers. Like we’ve seen debut albums not do great, artist becomes superstars and people go back and cop the debut. That didn’t happen here, people bought the score in droves(it’s diamond for Christ sakes) and said nah we are good on the debut

 

[Amestafuu (Emeritus)]

fukking terrible. i'm a fugees fan like that was my childhood but before the nappy heads remix they were just throwing misses all day. the wild animated rap style only worked on that joint cuz of the production.

 

[315]

That shyt was pretty wack. Salaam Remi came in like Superman and saved them with the Nappy Heads remix

 

[Lil Bape the PostGod]

No bops

 

[Doin2Much Williams]

I'm going to catch a lot of flack for this, but The Score and Miseducation were very average albums.



I'd put The Carnival and Poly Sci over them.



Never heard Pras's album though.




How was Ghetto Superstar?





.

 

[NYK Loyalist]

The Nappy Heads Remix was huge in NY, not sure how it big it was outside of the East Coast. The album wasn’t good though, Some Seek Stardom was fire though

 

[get these nets]

Trash

Were signed when Onyx was big, as were many other acts and you can hear the record company suggested "yelling" and Fredro Starr imitations.

No famous guest appearances, rappers that NOBODY had ever heard of, not cosigned by any name artist , trash songs, weird logo

There was no hook for people to buy it.

 

[Ziggiy]

Similar to Juvenile Hell. They needed time to find their identity and “sound”


I think we forget that most of these rappers were both young and breaking lots of new ground as artists. They were 18-19 when Blunted On Reality came out. For every Nas, who was a wunderkind coming into the game knowing EXACTLY who he was and represented there were other artists who needed time to find what made them special.

Hell Reasonable Doubt didn’t set the world on fire when it dropped and Jay-Z was 26 with years and years of harnessing his skills beforehand.

Thats why proper A&Ring was extremely important back then.


I’m just glad artists like Fugees, Mobb Deep, etc were able to get second chances. The Score proved they had what it took they just needed to find themselves and when they did not only did we get The Score, but The Carnival and Miseducation. Hell even Pras gave us Ghetto Superstar which is a classic single.

 

[WIA20XX]

They didn't have anything nearly as strong as Killing Me Softly on the first lp. The Nappy Heads RMX is the only thing even decent from that era. Additionally, Clef and Praz could not really compete lyrically with 93-95 NYC.

Also, unbeknownst to them, hip hop was transitioning away from that classic sound as well. That album dropped at the beginning of 94, about 4 months after DoggyStyle dropped. NYC was not changing their sound up that much because the Chronic/Doggystyle - but the rest of the country was gravitating away from boom bap/jazzy raps.

But low key - those NYC A&Rs and influential Dj's will never admit this

1) Being from Jersey
2) Proudly Haitian
3) Lauryn being in Sister Act as a singer

NYC industry support can't necessarily make an artist, but it can definitely break one.

 

[Yehuda]

This would've been the only thing close to decent on it but the version that's on the album is worse. Is the "Nappy Roots" remix part of the tracklist?

 

[get these nets]

 

[TripleAgent]

That shyt was pretty wack. Salaam Remi came in like Superman and saved them with the Nappy Heads remix

/thread

 

[FreshAIG]

This would've been the only thing close to decent on it but the version that's on the album is worse. Is the "Nappy Roots" remix part of the tracklist?

This version of Vocab was the first joint I fukked with from them. Lauryn had a dope verse. But I always turned it off after she rapped.

 

[get these nets]

The Source |Today in Hip Hop History: The Fugees Released Their Debut 'Blunted On Reality' LP 29 Years Ago

Today in Hip Hop History: The Fugees Released Their Debut 'Blunted On Reality' LP 29 Years Ago Fugees 'Blunted On Reality' LP 29 Years Ago

thesource.com

Today in Hip Hop History: The Fugees Released Their Debut ‘Blunted On Reality’ LP 29 Years Ago​

February 1, 2023

On this date in 1994, crew members Wyclef Jean, Pras, and a young, talented Lauryn Hill otherwise known as The Fugees formulated their first album entitled Blunted On Reality on Hip Hop indie imprint Ruffhouse Records.
Not as familiar to Hip Hop heads as their follow-up smash sophomore album The Score, Blunted On Reality did not receive the commercial success their first go around, yielding only 12,000 copies sold in the first two years. After the release of The Score, that number jumped to 125K.
With Clef’s hands in every aspect of production, there were very few times when the Haitian national wasn’t behind the boards during the production of this album. Other producers include Salaam Remi, Brand X, Khallis Bayyan and even Pras.

 

[Tribal Outkast]

I remember only liking the singles