When did artists start collaborating with artists outside of their camps?

[R-Tistic]

A few weeks ago, me and my homeboy were talkin about how T-Pain blew up so quick, and he was sayin that he blew up and was wanted on everybody's hook a whole lot earlier in his career than Nate Dogg was. Now I don't want this to turn into a T-Pain bashing/Nate Dogg praising session...but the whole point I made was that regardless of who's been "hot" for guest appearances on hooks, from Nate, to Wayne, to Pain, to Akon...the fact is that collaborations didn't start happening a whole lot in rap until 96-98 from what I can remember.

In the 80's and first half of 90's, rap seemed to be much more crew and label based...and you didn't see too many producers or artists working outside of their camps. I mentioned that Snoop and Cube were two of the biggest artists in the West during the 90's, but they never hooked up until 96-97 on "Only in California", and that was for Mack 10's project. During that same time, at least for West Coast artists, you started seeing more collabs between crews...such as "Nothin but the Cavi". In the first half of the 90's, the only guest appearances you really saw were between the same label, and the producers would rarely work with other artists unless it was just for a remix or a soundtrack.

It wasn't until this decade that I feel producers were seen as artists, and their name/sound sold more than having a guest feature. Cats like DJ Premier may have worked with a lot of artists, but most major producers still stayed within their camps. Mannie Fresh did ALL of Cash Money's beats, and didn't start doing anything else until this decade. In R&B, it was different when Teddy Riley and Quincy Jones would work with others...but in rap, it seemed as if the producer's tone and sound really set the whole sound for the camp they worked with. Nowadays, everything is scattered, and a major producer will send the same beat to T.I., Jay-Z, Snoop, and Twista.

Basically...does anyone know if my observations are at all true? Does anybody know more about the business side to it that lead to these collaborations and how they generated more money for companies and artists?

[D-e-f-]

nice observation ... I've been thinking about this, too

I think most artists just wanted to explore other areas out of their "neighborhood" to widen their musical horizons ..that was at least partly the reason for all these collaborations...

the sad side effect, I think, was that this led to those "producer compilation"-albums we are now used to with the same 10 producers on almost every mainstream record and hardly any "one rapper/group + one (or two) producer" (usually = great results)

[TraceOneInfinite]

It started with Puffy in 97. 

Snoop even mentioned in an interview that Death Row had always been against overexposure, and Dr. Dre was in a 96' interview calling producers "industry hoes" that worked with artists outside their camps. 

But that all went out the window in 97'.  Snoop even said he was influenced by Puffy, and Snoop really sold himself out gettin on every bodies record since then, now he's even been on record with Pussycat Dolls and nobody even turns their head no more.

[R-Tistic]

nice observation ... I've been thinking about this, too

I think most artists just wanted to explore other areas out of their "neighborhood" to widen their musical horizons ..that was at least partly the reason for all these collaborations...

the sad side effect, I think, was that this led to those "producer compilation"-albums we are now used to with the same 10 producers on almost every mainstream record and hardly any "one rapper/group + one (or two) producer" (usually = great results)

I think it had a lot to do with money, and trying to appeal to other artists fanbases. Snoop and Dogg Pound in the 90's virtually had the same exact fanbase, but Snoop and JD or even Ice Cube and DMX would have much different target audiences. The original rap collab that was made to crossover was "Walk this way" as most people know, but that barely even appealed to true rap fans.

Yeah, that side effect definitely happened, and I hate it. Only a few artists, such as Jay-Z and Biggie, have made classic albums while having a mixture of producers...and they probably had 3-4. Now, people will use 5-8 producers, just because their names sell...and they'll end up picking a Neptunes or Timbaland track that isn't as good as the song the unknown producer made that ended up as an unreleased song. It's so much politics involved. I know for fact that many songs will only make an album because the company paid a major producer or guest artist a lot of money to be on it...so it's like "even though the song isn't as good as this one, it'll help the sales".

The first West Coast album I can remember that was really promoted hard by mentioning the featured artists was Mack 10's "The Recipe" in 98. I remember the commercial....it was like "Mack 10: The Recipe! Featuring Fat Joe, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Master P, Mystikal, Foxy Brown, Big Pun, Jayo Felony, Gerald Levert etc etc" and the songs they showed for the commercial were the ones with Fat Joe/Big Pun and Master P/Mystikal...so it showed how hard they were trying to make it appeal to the rest of the country. Before this, you would NEVER see a west coast album commercial using all type of guests artists to promote it...you would have thought it was a compilation.

[kuruptDPG]

gd obvservation. if u stay together all the time i think that can cuz friction with othr rappers. if u look at deathrow vs badboy (even b4 pac came), ice cube & snoop dogg etc.

im sure artists startd to rap with othr raprs outside in 94/95, eg got my mind made up (w method man, redman), dont stop (w nas). natural born killaz (w ice cube)

[R-Tistic]

It started with Puffy in 97. 

Snoop even mentioned in an interview that Death Row had always been against overexposure, and Dr. Dre was in a 96' interview calling producers "industry hoes" that worked with artists outside their camps. 

But that all went out the window in 97'.  Snoop even said he was influenced by Puffy, and Snoop really sold himself out gettin on every bodies record since then, now he's even been on record with Pussycat Dolls and nobody even turns their head no more.

Damm, I was thinkin Puff had somethin to do with it...but even with him, the albums he put out for his artists wouldn't have a whole lot of random people from other labels and coasts at that time. All of their singles had their family on it, and that was it. 112's single had Biggie...Mase's singles had him on it, his singles had Biggie, Mase, Lox on it...Lox's singles had Kim on it with DMX, who was cool with that camp. Funny thing is, Neptunes did do Mase's "Why you over there lookin at me", but that was their first breakthrough single with their name on it, and nobody knew who they were at the time.

[R-Tistic]

gd obvservation. if u stay together all the time i think that can cuz friction with othr rappers. if u look at deathrow vs badboy (even b4 pac came), ice cube & snoop dogg etc.

im sure artists startd to rap with othr raprs outside in 94/95, eg got my mind made up (w method man, redman), dont stop (w nas). natural born killaz (w ice cube)

I think friction in camps is just a natural thing. It's only terrible when it hits the fan...and with the internet and all the media around nowadays, it's a lot easier for that to happen. Even with Jazz and Gospel, friction, politics, and money issues are a major problem.

Yeah, that was definitely somethin "new" or different when Pac had tracks with cats like them. Before that, all of the Wu-Tang artists seemed to just roll with each other. For Cube and Dre, that was more of a NWA reunion and "f'k Eazy" motivated song than anything else.

I think the New Jack Swing era influenced a lot of things, with one producer (Teddy Riley) being the main one who was over it, and producing for so many different artists, and then having R&B artists and Rappers on the same songs, which was unheard of in the 80's when rap n r&b were so much different. Puffy took it a step further, and he takes credit for "inventing the remix", but that was happening before he started doing it.

[K.Dub]

Good thread R-Tistic, +1

[lost_assassin]

when it wasnt bout reppin ur hood or coast , then all came together but needless to say artists now adays OVER do it , havin features in almost everysong of ur album can work in two ways. can show ur versatility or it can just steal the spotlike from the artist for the whole album

[acgrundy]

pac rapped with a lot of different people, such as cube and ice T back in the early 90's.  Spice 1 and mc eiht.  Spice 1 and redman.  too short and ice cube.  e-a-ski was a producer who worked with a pretty wide spectrum of rappers.

[Philip1123]

Bay Area rappers were collaborating with artists outside their camps long before 96-98. So did Pac.