Why did Pro Black/Conscious hip hop take a decline in the mid '90s ?

[KravenMorehead™]

Gangsta rap.

 

[PhonZhi]

Once "they" saw how powerful and influential the new genre called "hip-hop" was becoming, they decided to manipulate its messages to benefit white supremacy:

 

[Greenhornet]

Those videos were smoke screen to cover up the content in a lot of those songs. Puff gets a lot of flack for being soft or whatever, but when you listen to the lyrics in a lot of the singles, the music was far from soft. It was mafiosos rap with over the top violence over '80's Pop and R&B loops. Nobody was editing out Biggie leaving notes for the plaintiff that read "your daughter's tied up in a Brooklyn basement" or "squeeze first, ask questions last". Then there's Lil' Kim telling people to deep throat German rugers on "It's All About The Benjamins". There's also Biggie's verse on "Mo Money, Mo Problems".

the video is what made the money though .... rent a hanger ... buy some fireworks ... use some hollywood lights and 200x profit is rolling in ... missy elliot did it with a trash bag and a bicycle helmet. Alot of the G shyt was just block videos and everyone had equal opportunity. When everyone got fireworks and rented cars shyt got wild corny... shyt even if they own the cars its corny... im trying to see rap not a indycar race

 

[Atsym Sknyfs]

 

[King Sun]

People forget that the pro black/conscience rap could be gangsta rap (ice cube,etc) but what really happened is the introduction to the major corporations in hip hop

 

[Y2Dre]

Simple answer: Jews.

 

[JustCKing]

the video is what made the money though .... rent a hanger ... buy some fireworks ... use some hollywood lights and 200x profit is rolling in ... missy elliot did it with a trash bag and a bicycle helmet. Alot of the G shyt was just block videos and everyone had equal opportunity. When everyone got fireworks and rented cars shyt got wild corny... shyt even if they own the cars its corny... im trying to see rap not a indycar race

Million Dollar videos didn't kill the consciousness though. Hype Williams' videos were becoming more cinematic i.e. Nas' "If I Ruled The World".

 

[SAJ!!]

Because such artists became lowkey haters, and were more worried about the next rappers' message instead of their own.

/thread

 

[How Sway?]

Alot of so called conscious rappers make music. They think the fact that they have a message that automatically exempts them from criticism

Talib kweli lupe and the roots are one of the few conscious rappers that also make good music. Common ad well but he's made his share of yawn prone albums.

Anyway, Id assume the rise of death row caused the shift to ignorant street rap. I was gonna say the west coast but most west coast artists in the late 80s and very early 90s still had pro black and conscious elements in their music.

 

[Art Barr]

It was still alive and well in the late 90s and early 2000s with the de la souls, mos defs, kwelis, pharoah monche's, the roots, and common sense's of the world. Matter of fact they were the go to rappers for your average "hotep nikka" like myself.

And on top of that you had jill scott, badu, floetry, and ton of others making noise in the neo soul scene and it was a great time to be a black college kid


Then two things happened. First alot of cac rappers started emulating the rappers I previously mentioned but they left out the message of black empowerment. Because of that they (mos, common, etc...) got seen as rappers with cac fanbases (which was kinda unfair imo)

secondly, they then they got drowned out by the god awful 2000s rap scene and just didn't fit in with the new wave of the crunk snap era.



@Art Barr

What's your take

prison industrial complex happened and brought in a large influx of non-culturally minded fans and fanbases.


art barr

 

[Big Mark]

Gangsta rap.

Exactly! Mindless gangsta rap came in and kids gravitated to it. I too, listened to it but was not influenced by it enough to be swayed. Funny that people think conscious gangsta rap was a suitable replacement. lol The true uplifting of young blacks cannot be coupled with factitious ghetto stories and the narrow minded code of the streets.

 

[Art Barr]

Pdiddy ruined shyt with his soft shoe shyt

Alot of g shyt was conscious ... just in a very aggressive way ... it still had roots and didnt jump out of helicopters in tin foil suits landing on porsches and camels and shyt ... mango dancing with south american women

once puff ruined the protection mechanism by parodying the message.
rap had no real protection mechanism after that.
also include in the fact krs was playing mr infallible back then as well.
all because puff duped him into making a remix of step into the world.
so, puff got to desecrate the culture and its protection mechanism and rap the last profitable pillar of the culture of rap never recovered.
not to mention the main protection back then would not act in the manner in which he normally would have because he was on bullshyt as well.
even if he offered an apology.


art barr

 

[JordanwiththeWiz]

Well damn what happen that gangster shyt ain't selling like it use too when Drake, J Cole,Kendrick and Big Sean selling the most now

 

[John Hull]

There was definitely a backlash to conscious shyt by the time NWA had their run and Death Row, Geto Boys, Scarface etc started to get popular. The problem was a lot of those conscious acts were fighting amongst themselves too (X-Clan going at KRS/ KRS going at Poor Righteous Teachers) and it began to weaken the message.

Why should I bother hearing pro-black cats trying to sound hard when I can just throw on some Mobb Deep? A lot of traditional cats like LL Cool J and Big Daddy Kane were having identity crisis too putting out try hard releases like Looks Like A Job For and 14 Shots To The Dome. although LL shyt still tough tho

 

[Wacky D]

not many people keepin it a buck in here.