Game Blackballed from MTV Music Awards

[Smackdog]

what happened was gangsta rap got out of control.......and then what happened....was it started to become a marketing machine.....then it took on a life of its own

[love33]

You make it sound like Mack 10 and the Luniz were all over fucking MTV and the radio then Pac and Biggie died and they dissapeared. Luniz had one major commericial hit. Saying that the East-West feud contributed to them not having more is like arguing that the L.A. Riots were responsible for the downfall of Hammer and Vanilla Ice. You've tried throwing out this theory before and it just doesn't hold water. Puffy and Bad Boy were all over MTV in 1994. They didn't pop up there after the fact.

maybe the public didn't want to listen to rappers talking about murdering each other after two of the rap game's biggest stars were killed than the industry just decided to blackball the shit out of L.A. for no good reason.

Music is no more powerful than an R-Rated movie.  How can you say there was a lack of interest? If anything everyone was talkin about it. Tons of people were fiending for more of it as there was a huge cult following for people trying to get unreleased death row and pac music in 1997-1999.  Mack 10 was huge with "Foe Life," "Only In California," "On Them Thangs," "Backyard Boogie," "Westside Slaughterhouse."  After B.I.G. was dropped all of a sudden he was faded out and you didn't hear tracks like "Westside Slaughterhouse."  Luniz were huge with "5 on It," "Playa Hata (Too Short diss)" and the "5 on it remix."  They went Platinum with that shit and then "Lunitik Musik" drops and they get no national airplay and still go Gold so people were lookin for it.  "Silver and Black" was their big huge supposed to be smash with "A Piece Of Me" and "Oakland Raiders" and they played it in Cali but didnt give it national play and it was a bomb album. 

Suge said in a 2000 interview that Jimmy and Interscope came to him and asked him to soften his lyrics and he said he wouldn't do it thus he left for Priority.  Suge said you'll notice Dr. Dre soften his content with "Dr. Dre presents The Aftermath" and then it didn't sell like they thought it would so he went back to a harder approach for "Dr. Dre 2001."

Also, do a google search and there are numerous topics about it.  Why would there be songs about it if it wasn't true?? To name a few that come to mind:
1. E-A Ski -- The Manuscript
2. Clyde Carson/Game -- California State of Mind (touches on how the media closed the door on the West)
3. Ice Cube -- I Rep That West (touches on what this topic talks about)

[Jimmy H.]

Music is no more powerful than an R-Rated movie. 

Fine. Let's go with that theory. Arnold Schwarzenegger had an R-Rated movie about terrorists blowing up a building and killing people that was supposed to come out in 2001 but then 9/11 happened so they pushed it back for quite a bit of time because the feeling was that nobody would find that entertaining in the wake of such a real-life tragedy. It's the same deal.

How can you say there was a lack of interest?

Well, let's see. If the majority of the public demands something, convential wisdom says that in a consumer-driven market, the record labels would feed that demand, no?

If anything everyone was talkin about it. Tons of people were fiending for more of it as there was a huge cult following for people trying to get unreleased death row and pac music in 1997-1999.   

A "cult following" actually implies a small but loyal fanbase that operates outside of the mainstream. Succesful indy acts have cult following. Major labels that go platinum and have videos on MTV have a mainstream following.

Mack 10 was huge with "Foe Life," "Only In California," "On Them Thangs," "Backyard Boogie," "Westside Slaughterhouse."  After B.I.G. was dropped all of a sudden he was faded out and you didn't hear tracks like "Westside Slaughterhouse." 

Uh, "Backyard Boogie" and "Only In California" both dropped AFTER Biggie got killed. They performed modestly on the charts but Mack 10 was far from HUGE. The reason they weren't playing tracks like "Westside Slaughterhouse" was because the song was on an album that had been on store shelves for close to two years at that point. Once again, you overplay how big a lot of these West Coast acts were.

Luniz were huge with "5 on It," "Playa Hata (Too Short diss)" and the "5 on it remix."  They went Platinum with that shit and then "Lunitik Musik" drops and they get no national airplay and still go Gold so people were lookin for it.  "Silver and Black" was their big huge supposed to be smash with "A Piece Of Me" and "Oakland Raiders" and they played it in Cali but didnt give it national play and it was a bomb album. 

The Luniz went platinum off the strength of "I Got A Five On It". They had one major hit. "Playa Hata" is a great song but it didn't make a massive impact on the charts. Same deal happened with Onyx after "Slam" or Sisqo after "The Thong Song". Just because people LOVE one song you make does not mean that everything you put out is guaranteed that same success.

Suge said in a 2000 interview that Jimmy and Interscope came to him and asked him to soften his lyrics and he said he wouldn't do it thus he left for Priority.  Suge said you'll notice Dr. Dre soften his content with "Dr. Dre presents The Aftermath" and then it didn't sell like they thought it would so he went back to a harder approach for "Dr. Dre 2001."

Maybe that's what Suge said but the timing is questionable. Priority was already moving in as a distributor in 1997. The last Interscope-distributed album was Lady Of Rage, which fail to get RIAA certification. 2Pac's music continued to sell well for Death Row, no matter who was distributing it. Death Row's decline, as I've mentioned before, was likely due to the fact that they had no established stars to fill in for the departures of Dre and Snoop and the death of Tupac.

[Styles1]

Regarding MTV Jams ..... It's not available on Dish Network or DirecTV ... and on Time Warner it's only available thru their former Adelphia systems.

That's A LOT of people missing out. So although MTV does play videos thru MTV Jams, it's really not the same as the main network or MTV2 playing it.

Just thought I'd throw that in there....

Continue on.... or actually don't. This topic has been going on for weeks now. lol