Alright I had to do it....Pac was NOT the reason the West fell off...

[R-Tistic]

Well, after hearin for the last few years from damn near everybody that Pac's death was the reason for the demise of the west coast, I had to create a post that will explain my opinion to why his death definitely was not the reason the west "fell off." For many of you on here, you will say that the west never did fall off, especially since this is a west coast site. For some, they will say "I know Pac's death wasn't why the west fell off" but I am just givin my reasons to why I believe his death wasn't the main reason. I might be preachin to the choir because everybody on here is still a fan of the west, but if you know people who are not as big of fans of the west as we are, link them to this thread. Also remember, this is coming from a Pac fan who would say that Pac is the best ever.

1. I don't think people realize how big the west coast was in the rap scene in the 90s. Not only did the west create and run the gangsta rap scene, we had rappers doin every different style of rap that was around. We had the Coolios who did what may have been considered gangsta/commercial...we had the Souls of Mischiefs and Pharcydes that were considered to be underground. We had the Ahmads and the Skee-Los that were considered commercial one-hit wonders. We had the MC Hammers that were just completely commercial and were big in their day. We had the Too shorts that were all about pimpin but could still spit a message. We had the Cypress Hills who did psychotic shit. We had the Dominos who were sorta gangsta and commercial but just had their own unique style. We had many types of rappers that covered all fields of rap, just that gangsta rap was what we were best known for. Now with that..the fact that there are virtually NO rappers that are big in these various genres shows that there must be some obvious bias against the west that has nothing to do with the death of Pac. Why is there J-Kwons and Nellys who do watery shit, Fat Joes and D Blocks who do thug shit, Lil scrappys and all else that just do commercial shit, but yet NONE seem to be from the west? After all that the west gave to the game, and knowing that there are obviously many talented rappers on the west, do you think it's any possible way that we could just "fall off" because of Pac's death?

2. Many people may argue against this, but mark my words......PAC WAS NOT THE BIGGEST WEST COAST ARTIST WHEN HE DIED. Maybe it's because I was in L.A. and grew up there and saw who was biggest, mainly from 93 and on. But when he died, he was big, but I will argue that Ice Cube, Dre, and Snoop were still the biggest and most influential west coast artists at the time. Pac wasn't really reppin the west hard until Death Row. I think if one of the three I listed had died, it would have been a bigger deal than Pac's death. People didn't even start sayin the west fell off until 98-99, and the west was still decent at the time.

3. There were many reasons to why the west really did suffer a major decline that I think added up and did more than Pac's death alone.
-The fact that Snoop suffered the sophomore slump that really made people lose a lot of hope in the west. Doggstyle was seen as the best album in rap history to many, and people anticipated the sequel like hell, especially seein that Snoop had the court case. But due to the circumstances, such as the politics in death row, and that Dre did not do any work on it, the album was considered a helluva dissapointment, despite the fact that it was a solid album.
-Dre's "conversion" to being a positive rapper and leaving the gangsta rap scene was a serious backbreaker. Not only was his new music not as hot, but people just weren't buyin it and it didn't work. He was considered the best producer at the time, and when people figured he had fallen off, as well as Snoop havin a weak debut, as well as Pac's death, this really made things look worst for the west.
-Pac's death was one of the many reasons that Death Row collapsed, but Death Row's demise as a whole took a major toll on the west. Not only were they the powerhouse that was the biggest label in rap, but the fact that they died made other companies say "hmm, well it's no more west coast rap to compete with, so it's no need for west coast artists. Next..." and this in turn made things a lot worst for the west.
-Overall, L.A. was just a helluva exciting place that created much interest in the 90s. At first, people saw gangsta rap like "damn, are these cats really as hard as they are supposed to be?" but when the 92 riots happened, it let people know that L.A. really was no joke. This caused a helluva lot of interest in L.A., just like the influx of hood movies that were based in L.A. All the hood movies not only made people interested in LA culture and lifestyle, but these movies came with soundtracks that helped west coast rap as a whole. After a while, the movie industry must have got tired with hood movies, or either ran out of ideas and all, so the decline of hood movies which caused must interest in LA culture was another reason that west coast rap declined.
-Just as Snoop and Dre, Ice Cube's next album wasn't as good as many people had hoped. This here made the critics say damn....Snoop, Dre, and Cube, who were 3 of the biggest west coast artists, came with albums that were below average. Pac, who was another one of the biggest, has died. To add to that, The Dogg Pound who had a very successful debut album did two solo albums, and these definitely did not have a big effect on the west coast, and the people who hoped these albums were going to be good were disappointed, so this is when many people really lost hope and said the west was dead.
-Along with these albums and the chaos that went on during this time, the east came with a completely new sound, which was highly influenced by the west, and the south went on a helluva rise. With this, we all know that people like what they hear. When they turned on the radio, they weren't hearin the west, so they just grew out of the west coast sound. Now even though there were some west coast albums that were real good that came out after Pac's death, many people outside the west felt that the west was dead, and they just weren't feelin the sound of the west anymore. I didn't realize this until I came down south for college, and I would play songs that were great to the west coast, but that they never heard and therefore did not think were that good. Since the west isn't what they heard on TV, they just don't get the same feeling from west coast music that us fans do.

So overall....I think Pac's death was part of why the west coast suffered a major decline, but definitely not THE reason as many people may say. Pac definitely wasn't the only west coast rapper who was big, and as I said, he wasn't the biggest in my eyes. Many people may agree with some of what I wrote and disagree with some of it, and I am sure that I am not 100% correct. But I have been following rap since 93, back when I didn't know or care what coast rappers were from.

Will the west coast ever make a return? Although time can only tell, I will say that in my opinion, we will eventually come back to the major scene, but it will not be as big as we were in the 90s. Believe me, down south crunk rap will die out, and even thug rap will die out. We are already makin some progress just from havin R&B commercial singers who are pretty big. But on the real, I think the media seriously does have something strong against the west coast....I'll leave that to another thread.

[Machiavelli]

because of pacs death things led to the west coast falling off

[R-Tistic]

because of pacs death things led to the west coast falling off

Well I said some of that, I won't say Pac's death alone led to it. As I said in there, his death along with many other things caused the west to fall off, but I don't think his death was the first domino in the rally that got knocked down.

[M Dogg™]

I'd agree, 'Pac's death was not the sole reason. You forgot, I think another thing was the fact that by 1998, the east was bringing more radio friendly music, with a new generation of rappers. Before Big's death, he was one of only like 5 people from NY on the radio, at least on the radio, along with Wu Tang, Nas, Gangstarr, and Craig Mack. Other eastcoast artist got radio play, but those guys actually were on the radio in a regular basis. After Biggie died, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Ma$e, Foxy Brown, Lil' Kim, Big Pun and others came out and took over the air waves. No one in the west really came out. You had dream colabos, like DPG and Mack 10, Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube with Mack 10, Dr. Dre doing his Aftermath thing with B-Real, KRS-One, Nas and RBX, but in the end, people just were turned off for one reason or another. Laid back westcoast rap was out, and even hardcore rap seemed to have little affect on the rotation. West coast rap just kind of faded, as people didn't seem to be feeling Snoop anymore, Dr. Dre dissappeared until 1999 when Eminem came out, and Ice Cube failed to release an album. Coolio had some party hits, and was like the Naughty By Nature of the west with 1,2,3,4 (Something New) and other hits, but he faded out too. Young artist like the Dogg Pound were held down, DPG by the falling Death Row, Ras Kass by Priority, Xzibit was never really catching any heat except on the streets, so in the end no young artist where there to replace the older artist who were falling off. Dre 2001 brought back the west for a little bit, but in the end, it was too little too late, as the other artist never capitalized, and no one released Hittman on time, they might have been able to released King Tee after that, it took Knoc-Turn'al 5 years to release his album, Shade Sheist 4 years after his This Is Where I Wanna Be hit radios, Soopafly finally released an album 4 years after Like It Or Not was big on the radio. For some reason the west took forever releasing albums after the buzz, and by then the buzz died down. It wasn't just 2Pac. 'Pac had a lot to do with it, I think his death hurt the Bay most, because after his death the Bay didn't get as much respect as it did with Hammer, Digitial Underground, the Luniz, Rappin 4-Tay and others who got huge radio play. After 'Pac's death, it was like the Bay went into shock, and no one released any commercial music, and eventually everyone decided to fuck mainstream lables, and just released their own damn stuff, making way more money than if they had a commercial lable. I think the future of the game honestly is independent lables, more money, more freedom, and if everyone does it, then it tells radio stations to decide what they like. If we can get more stations like Wild 96.1 here in the I.E. that is not part of a huge chain of stations, and they're trying to find the best radio that people like, and seem to get better by the day, if more stations like that pop up across the nation, it would not only help the west, but rap in general, get away from commercial money. You'll still have Nelly, Chingy and J-Kwon like we had Hammer, Vanilla Ice and what not, but real rap back then was what was always on the radio. It's all a pipe dream though off of some good crack.

[OmNIsCiUs]

God post... full agreement... people often don't feel what they aint used to... you can slowly get people liking the west if there's more "transition" songs but yeh... shit's hard

[Darksider]

yeah good post rtistic and mdogg

[DAYUM]

yeah good post rtistic and mdogg

[.:DayGoStyLz:.]

yah i feel u for real homie. Before Pac died, he definetely wasnt the biggest thing out the west in this area. Snoop and tha Dogg Pound were ontop of things out here. They were bringin real gangsta shit. Pac brought that thug shit that people liked, but he wasnt a gangsta. He didnt claim a set, and at that time EVERYbody was bangin. Like you said, Pac's death was only ONE thing that hurt the west. One persons death wouldnt bring down a whole coast IMO. Especially considering u had Biggiie dyin for the other side as well. One thing thats hurt the west, is they arent unified at all. Ive been sayin this for yearrrrrrrrrrrrs. We have a ton of people tryin to be the man...and nobody who wants to be part of somthin bigger. We have radio stations that dont support westcoast artists, and instead play watered down, radio friendly eastcoast/down south music (alot of which copy and bite westcoast style, etc). Another thing that hurt us is, even while we were on top of the game...our stations out here gave props to Eastcoast shit. Even during the Pac/Biggie and Eastcoast/Westcoast rivalries....we still played their shit. At the same time, they kept our stuff off the radio out in NY leaving New Yorkers to only hear eastcoast artists. people tend to buy, what they hear on the radio except for those artist they already know. For the east, that was only Snoop, Dre, Pac, Cube...etc. Any new cats, bringin new heat...werent heard out there. Meanwhile their artist could copy ours, and get airplay bout in NY...and in Kali. Now, whos gonna sell more records? Whos gonna make it onto MTV/BET?! I dont believe in hatin on one side or the otha....but if we get hated on, and our shit doesnt get played...wouldnt the logical thing to do be to not play theirs? But our media in the west wont stand up and grow some balls. Bottom line, IMO...its known what the west can do. Its known how we can take over hip hop, dominate, influence it, and completely change the game. But thats a major fear for other sides. So, instead of compete on level playing fields...they cheat, hate, bite, and manipulate the game to their advantage. Maybe the West should quit bein the Martin Luther King type...and start bein the Malcolm X type, and run this shit again.

[teecee]

You can argue whether pac was a true westocoast artist, but the fact remains he was the ONLY westcoast artist at the time (and still would be today) who could sell major units without Dre!!! Do you guys not see this???   I mean, his whole Makeveli album was produced by lesser knowns, and some of his biggest hits were done by guys like Johnny J and Soulshock and Karlin, peeps noone else really fucked with.   Add to the fact that Pac rep'd LA and the Bay, and you can see what he meant to the west.  He put artists like E-40 and Dru Down on a major release, got them major shine.  NOone else could do this......  You can say Snoop was bigger, but fact is Snoop couldnt (Cant) create hits without the most popular producers ...

Right now, noone WEstcoast will blow up unless they have the touch of Dre;  pac wouldnt need Dre, he could make hits with freakin Darryl D and guys like that...... 



The other reason the west fell off is it quit making quality commercial music.......everyone went independant, put less effort and time into the albums, and as a result the result suffered the majority of the time.     

I am a huge westcoast fan to this day, but i dont really think the media has shit against the westcoast.  People for the most part do not want to hear about gangbanging, and want some catchy ass music.   BEP (while not my favourite) have blown up, b/c they did something different from the majority of westcaost acts..........  All these other guys are straight praying the public becomes fascinated with gangster shit again, or praying Dre sends them In Da CLub part 2............

[Ras Kass' Toothpick]

The main reason the west fell off is simply cause there is hardly any good music.
Last year's best album, (according to this board) Westside Connection, was a good album but certainly should not have been good enough for album of the year.  I've only heard one good album this year from the west and it was produced by someone from North Carolina.
There aren't many good MCs either, when people name the best westcoast MCs they come up with names likes Ras Kass or Crooked I neither of them have even released an album in the last six years or any good singles.  
Let's be honest, lack of talent is the real problem.

[PLANT]

yeah good post rtistic and mdogg

[R-Tistic]

The main reason the west fell off is simply cause there is hardly any good music.
Last year's best album, (according to this board) Westside Connection, was a good album but certainly should not have been good enough for album of the year.  I've only heard one good album this year from the west and it was produced by someone from North Carolina.
There aren't many good MCs either, when people name the best westcoast MCs they come up with names likes Ras Kass or Crooked I neither of them have even released an album in the last six years or any good singles.  
Let's be honest, lack of talent is the real problem.

I IMMEDIATELY had to reply to this one. Lack of talent?!?? You REALLY think the west coast, meaning an entire coast, although it may be the smallest, really has a lack of talent? Where are you from? Bein in L.A., I know many rappers that have talent, just that their talent hasn't met opportunity for various reasons. We all know how bullshit commercial rap is, and how much is based on image. Believe me, if we had talent in the 90s, you think we ALL just lost it?? It's all types of rappers in L.A. that can spit all different types of styles, and its the same way in other cities. The big issue has nothing at all to do with the west having a lack of talent. As I said in my first post...looking at the commercial rappers, do you really think that the west doesn't have rappers that have this much talent? Why the hell would we not, seein what we did in the past? It's rappers on the west who can do super commercial, semi commercial, thug, party music, underground, straight lyrical, commercial but lyrical, battle rap......etc etc etc etc etc. And my cousin definitely would be as big or bigger than 95% of the rappers you see on TV and hear on radio, and if you don't believe me, the album he did "with somebody from Carolina" is proof of that.

Once again..I'll leave the whole west coast bias thing to another long post. It will take some minor research and all for me to really make a solid arguement.

[R-Tistic]

You can argue whether pac was a true westocoast artist, but the fact remains he was the ONLY westcoast artist at the time (and still would be today) who could sell major units without Dre!!! Do you guys not see this???   I mean, his whole Makeveli album was produced by lesser knowns, and some of his biggest hits were done by guys like Johnny J and Soulshock and Karlin, peeps noone else really fucked with.   Add to the fact that Pac rep'd LA and the Bay, and you can see what he meant to the west.  He put artists like E-40 and Dru Down on a major release, got them major shine.  NOone else could do this......  You can say Snoop was bigger, but fact is Snoop couldnt (Cant) create hits without the most popular producers ...

Right now, noone WEstcoast will blow up unless they have the touch of Dre;  pac wouldnt need Dre, he could make hits with freakin Darryl D and guys like that...... 



The other reason the west fell off is it quit making quality commercial music.......everyone went independant, put less effort and time into the albums, and as a result the result suffered the majority of the time.     

I am a huge westcoast fan to this day, but i dont really think the media has shit against the westcoast.  People for the most part do not want to hear about gangbanging, and want some catchy ass music.   BEP (while not my favourite) have blown up, b/c they did something different from the majority of westcaost acts..........  All these other guys are straight praying the public becomes fascinated with gangster shit again, or praying Dre sends them In Da CLub part 2............

Interesting.....
"You can argue whether pac was a true westocoast artist, but the fact remains he was the ONLY westcoast artist at the time (and still would be today) who could sell major units without Dre!!! Do you guys not see this???"
This is true to extent, but lets look at that. It's arguable, but California Love, which was one of Pac's 3 biggest hits if not biggest, was done with Dre. Before this song, he definitely wasn't at the level of Cube, Snoop, Eazy, and I'll even say Too Short. Also, if you want to say the ONLY to sell major, to what level of major units do you mean? Corny as he is now when we look back on him, MC Hammer sold a helluva lot. Cube sold a lot after Dre, and Westside Connection barely did anything with Dre.

"The other reason the west fell off is it quit making quality commercial music.......everyone went independant, put less effort and time into the albums, and as a result the result suffered the majority of the time."
I agree for the most part.

"I am a huge westcoast fan to this day, but i dont really think the media has shit against the westcoast.  People for the most part do not want to hear about gangbanging, and want some catchy ass music.   BEP (while not my favourite) have blown up, b/c they did something different from the majority of westcaost acts..........  All these other guys are straight praying the public becomes fascinated with gangster shit again, or praying Dre sends them In Da CLub part 2............"
I somewhat agree with that, but you gotta look at it from a different view. Not every rapper on the west coast raps about gangbangin, and at the same time, most of the east coast rappers are rappin all this thug shit, which basically became big because of gangsta shit and Pac. The west may seem to be dependent on Dre to bring hits, but that is only in a mainstream view, and I have realized how fucked up that is. Here's a perfect example...Truth Hurts song was pretty damn big, and most of her interest came because they saw that she was workin with Dre. However, most people who aren't really up on west coast rap thought Dre did the beat. When I tell them DJ Quik did, they are like "for real?? he still makes music?" and shit like that. I say this because people outside of the west think Dre is the only producer with talent, and they aren't always  open to hearin new producers. There are some that realize Quik is no joke, but most of them don't even know Rick Rock is west coast or who he is. Basically, people like what they hear as I said, and whenever a west coast song does get big, they all like it. I don't know 100% why the media would have something against the west, but believe me, if they played all the west coast shit that was great but never heard, such as Suga Free and DJ Quiks music, people outside of california would love it just as much as Lil Jon and them now.

[R-Tistic]

yah i feel u for real homie. Before Pac died, he definetely wasnt the biggest thing out the west in this area. Snoop and tha Dogg Pound were ontop of things out here. They were bringin real gangsta shit. Pac brought that thug shit that people liked, but he wasnt a gangsta. He didnt claim a set, and at that time EVERYbody was bangin. Like you said, Pac's death was only ONE thing that hurt the west. One persons death wouldnt bring down a whole coast IMO. Especially considering u had Biggiie dyin for the other side as well. One thing thats hurt the west, is they arent unified at all. Ive been sayin this for yearrrrrrrrrrrrs. We have a ton of people tryin to be the man...and nobody who wants to be part of somthin bigger. We have radio stations that dont support westcoast artists, and instead play watered down, radio friendly eastcoast/down south music (alot of which copy and bite westcoast style, etc). Another thing that hurt us is, even while we were on top of the game...our stations out here gave props to Eastcoast shit. Even during the Pac/Biggie and Eastcoast/Westcoast rivalries....we still played their shit. At the same time, they kept our stuff off the radio out in NY leaving New Yorkers to only hear eastcoast artists. people tend to buy, what they hear on the radio except for those artist they already know. For the east, that was only Snoop, Dre, Pac, Cube...etc. Any new cats, bringin new heat...werent heard out there. Meanwhile their artist could copy ours, and get airplay bout in NY...and in Kali. Now, whos gonna sell more records? Whos gonna make it onto MTV/BET?! I dont believe in hatin on one side or the otha....but if we get hated on, and our shit doesnt get played...wouldnt the logical thing to do be to not play theirs? But our media in the west wont stand up and grow some balls. Bottom line, IMO...its known what the west can do. Its known how we can take over hip hop, dominate, influence it, and completely change the game. But thats a major fear for other sides. So, instead of compete on level playing fields...they cheat, hate, bite, and manipulate the game to their advantage. Maybe the West should quit bein the Martin Luther King type...and start bein the Malcolm X type, and run this shit again.

I agree with basically everything you said. That is just a lot of the bullshit that goes on. See, the west coast radio stations are all ran by clear channel, who I think is based in NY, and they make their stations play whatever is on the top 25 or 40 playlist. If it's not on there, they can play it, but it isn't guaranteed into rotation. That's why you only hear some songs on Power 106 and some songs on the beat, then you only hear some songs after 9 o clock on so and sos show.

I think the west has good enough reason to revolt, but I donno if it would be a good idea. If we had enough decent backup, meaning the crookeds and ras kass and top level rappers came thru with straight heat, people couldn't deny we have talent. But how are they gonna hear about them? Hopefully Game can break through big enough to have people interested in the west, but I don't want us to have to be dependent on him to "bring us back" and all else. A lot of people are already hatin on him like "well shit, he might be from LA but he sounds NY, so what is that sayin?"

[R-Tistic]

I'd agree, 'Pac's death was not the sole reason. You forgot, I think another thing was the fact that by 1998, the east was bringing more radio friendly music, with a new generation of rappers. Before Big's death, he was one of only like 5 people from NY on the radio, at least on the radio, along with Wu Tang, Nas, Gangstarr, and Craig Mack. Other eastcoast artist got radio play, but those guys actually were on the radio in a regular basis. After Biggie died, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Ma$e, Foxy Brown, Lil' Kim, Big Pun and others came out and took over the air waves. No one in the west really came out. You had dream colabos, like DPG and Mack 10, Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube with Mack 10, Dr. Dre doing his Aftermath thing with B-Real, KRS-One, Nas and RBX, but in the end, people just were turned off for one reason or another. Laid back westcoast rap was out, and even hardcore rap seemed to have little affect on the rotation. West coast rap just kind of faded, as people didn't seem to be feeling Snoop anymore, Dr. Dre dissappeared until 1999 when Eminem came out, and Ice Cube failed to release an album. Coolio had some party hits, and was like the Naughty By Nature of the west with 1,2,3,4 (Something New) and other hits, but he faded out too. Young artist like the Dogg Pound were held down, DPG by the falling Death Row, Ras Kass by Priority, Xzibit was never really catching any heat except on the streets, so in the end no young artist where there to replace the older artist who were falling off. Dre 2001 brought back the west for a little bit, but in the end, it was too little too late, as the other artist never capitalized, and no one released Hittman on time, they might have been able to released King Tee after that, it took Knoc-Turn'al 5 years to release his album, Shade Sheist 4 years after his This Is Where I Wanna Be hit radios, Soopafly finally released an album 4 years after Like It Or Not was big on the radio. For some reason the west took forever releasing albums after the buzz, and by then the buzz died down. It wasn't just 2Pac. 'Pac had a lot to do with it, I think his death hurt the Bay most, because after his death the Bay didn't get as much respect as it did with Hammer, Digitial Underground, the Luniz, Rappin 4-Tay and others who got huge radio play. After 'Pac's death, it was like the Bay went into shock, and no one released any commercial music, and eventually everyone decided to fuck mainstream lables, and just released their own damn stuff, making way more money than if they had a commercial lable. I think the future of the game honestly is independent lables, more money, more freedom, and if everyone does it, then it tells radio stations to decide what they like. If we can get more stations like Wild 96.1 here in the I.E. that is not part of a huge chain of stations, and they're trying to find the best radio that people like, and seem to get better by the day, if more stations like that pop up across the nation, it would not only help the west, but rap in general, get away from commercial money. You'll still have Nelly, Chingy and J-Kwon like we had Hammer, Vanilla Ice and what not, but real rap back then was what was always on the radio. It's all a pipe dream though off of some good crack.

Yeah that is all real talk. Most of what I was talkin about is what happened around the time of Pac's death, and the time period that people say the west fell off. But even now, there are many reasons to why we are not in the big scene, such as how it takes forever for albums to come out.