West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => West Coast Classics => Topic started by: TraceOneInfinite on April 13, 2013, 02:29:24 PM
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I really don't get it. I tried to find any interviews of MC Hammer talking about his time at Death Row but I couldn't find anything. Something to make sense of it all. I mean, what did this dude have on Suge? Was Suge just trying to help out another black man who was down on his luck after going bankrupt?
His music he recorded at Death Row was aweful. I mean, 2pac even tried to hook him up with "Unconditional Love" and he totally bastardized it. Thank God, it ended up being released on 2pac's Greatest Hit as a 2pac record and the Hammer version never got released.
But this guy Hammer ended up appearing on magazine covers with the heavy hitters like Snoop and 2pac. They were really trying to make this dude "legit".
Can anybody make sense of the Hammer connection with Death Row?
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MC Hammer is a rap legend
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infinite u can diss hammer all u want but i don't ever recall him standin' on no corners freestylin' for change.
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I think some of the reason, was Death Rows ego at the time. They thought they could make anyone they put out sell albums. Suge thought he could resserect Hammers career.
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They wanted to clean up the image of death row records.
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(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iPQEs4XmANg/USnKcfpzbBI/AAAAAAAAXT0/NtzUJvmUPoY/s1600/mc+hammer.jpg)
aint nobody call this man a snitch or lie in his raps about shit he never did. he a real nigga to me!
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Somewhere I remember reading that Hammer helped out Suge back in the day, and Suge was repaying him by helping him out by putting him on Death row. I want to say he lent Suge a decent amount of money.
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mc hammer was harder then alot of rappers back then...he would send some oakland hitters at you back in the turn this mutha out days.
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mc hammer was harder then alot of rappers back then...he would send some oakland hitters at you back in the turn this mutha out days.
he even put a hit out on MC Serch for 60 grand
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infinite u can diss hammer all u want but i don't ever recall him standin' on no corners freestylin' for change.
I'd give him a lot more props if he had done it.
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Somewhere I remember reading that Hammer helped out Suge back in the day, and Suge was repaying him by helping him out by putting him on Death row. I want to say he lent Suge a decent amount of money.
That's interesting. Would like to get more info on that connection. One of the reasons Hammer went broke was from giving away so much money to friends and associates, Suge must of been one of those thousands of people he gave money to. Certainly says something about Suge's loyalty.
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According to Daz,
ThaFormula.com - But I mean what were your thoughts when you found out Suge wanted to get Hammer? Were you trippin' on that?
Daz Dillinger - I asked Suge about that and he was like, "Hammer is for political reasons as far as getting us into doing benefits and shit like that." So that's what Hammer was there for, to get that charity and back-taxes off of muthafuckas and shit like that. But as far as puttin' an album out, no record ever came out. (Laughs)
ThaFormula.com - So there never was gonna be a Hammer album?
Daz Dillinger - Hell nah, he made one though. I did something on it but Hammer ran off with the reel. I think Suge and them was looking for them.
http://dformula.bizland.com/daz_dillinger_ambitionz_of_a_ridah_thaformula_music.html
mc hammer was harder then alot of rappers back then...he would send some oakland hitters at you back in the turn this mutha out days.
yes hammer was also known to be a good fighter. hammer is definitely a legend.
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i think if pac never died, hammer woulda came out in 97....he was never a horrible rapper, just a victim of fads
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'Pac and Hammer were good friends, and Snoop was actually cool with Hammer too. I agree with Sccit, Hammer would have been out in 1997, and it would have bombed. I have the album it was pretty bad, but it was Death Row and at the time Death Row was still untouchable as long as 'Pac was alive.
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'Pac and Hammer were good friends, and Snoop was actually cool with Hammer too. I agree with Sccit, Hammer would have been out in 1997, and it would have bombed. I have the album it was pretty bad, but it was Death Row and at the time Death Row was still untouchable as long as 'Pac was alive.
I liked the joint on his album with Kurupt, Storm and a few others, I think it was one of the last tracks...
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'Pac and Hammer were good friends, and Snoop was actually cool with Hammer too. I agree with Sccit, Hammer would have been out in 1997, and it would have bombed. I have the album it was pretty bad, but it was Death Row and at the time Death Row was still untouchable as long as 'Pac was alive.
still woulda gone gold, i bet
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'Pac and Hammer were good friends, and Snoop was actually cool with Hammer too. I agree with Sccit, Hammer would have been out in 1997, and it would have bombed. I have the album it was pretty bad, but it was Death Row and at the time Death Row was still untouchable as long as 'Pac was alive.
still woulda gone gold, i bet
I think gold in those times for a deathrow artist would be considered a flop.
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'Pac and Hammer were good friends, and Snoop was actually cool with Hammer too. I agree with Sccit, Hammer would have been out in 1997, and it would have bombed. I have the album it was pretty bad, but it was Death Row and at the time Death Row was still untouchable as long as 'Pac was alive.
still woulda gone gold, i bet
I think gold in those times for a deathrow artist would be considered a flop.
yea, but woulda been good enough for hammer's career.. the fail wit death row was the end of him
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....he was never a horrible rapper
You sure? Listen to the Hammer version of "Unconditional Love" and see if you still feel that way.
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....he was never a horrible rapper
You sure? Listen to the Hammer version of "Unconditional Love" and see if you still feel that way.
lol, just cuz he made a horrible song dont mean he's a horrible rapper. he's not the greatest, but there's much, much worse.
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i think Hammer woulda sold 49% of his soul to go gold on death row
Hammer was a serious dude though...he tried to kill 3rd Bass because they had a line about his mother on a song
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hammer was an uptempo rapper he sounded kinda shitty on down tempo beats.
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Didnt Hammer also donate a shit load of cash that ended up buying Police choppers for the Oakland Task force? I've heard rappers from Oakland mention this quite a few times, I think Yukmouth even raps about it in a song or two.
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Didnt Hammer also donate a shit load of cash that ended up buying Police choppers for the Oakland Task force? I've heard rappers from Oakland mention this quite a few times, I think Yukmouth even raps about it in a song or two.
lmao no way...
after looking int othis it might have been a rumor:
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2006/06/06/breakdown-fm-mc-hammer-the-vindication-interview/
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Could have been just a nasty rumor, or perhaps he donated money to help his community, and the money could have been latter used or said to be used to purchase shit for the police.
Wouldn't seem likely that Suge would want someone like that on his label if it were true with all the shady shit his label was supposedly involved in.
Also couldnt really see Tupac having love for someone who donated money to the Oakland Police.
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MC Hammer woulda been a nice pick up for D.R. based on the fact that he had good producers behind him
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Yukmouth City Of Dope verse 2
Them task folks can't stop us
High school niggas get caught with a hundred g's
Stashed in his locker along with a chopper
Niggas be ballin like a doctor, or a surgeon
M.c. hammer splurgin'
He bought up countless brand new helicopters
And suburbans, now he hurtin
Wonder why Hammer never responded to this considering he went at Jay Z for making fun of him going broke.
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'Pac and Hammer were good friends, and Snoop was actually cool with Hammer too. I agree with Sccit, Hammer would have been out in 1997, and it would have bombed. I have the album it was pretty bad, but it was Death Row and at the time Death Row was still untouchable as long as 'Pac was alive.
If he was coming out in 1997, it would've been LATE 1997 and no earlier. Makaveli was rushed to capitalize on buzz (i.e. Makaveli) and may not have come out as soon as it did if Pac survived and Suge not gone to prison. I think that the next Dogg Pound album (West Coast Aftershock?) was slated for release too, and maybe Rage's album would've been greenlighted earlier (as Necessary Roughness came out eventually not too much after). Hammer had a name but I don't see his stuff getting prioritized ahead of them. And maybe even OFTB would've been pushed ahead of him too. Maybe not, but it's possible, since they were putting in work for Death Row and getting their name mentioned in To Live & Die in L.A.
But yeah, I don't see a Death Row Hammer album being very successful either. But the Pac feature alone would've made it sell.
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They wanted to clean up the image of death row records.
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I think they did it for sales...
you gotta remember how big Hammer was in the early 90s.
His album Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em sold more than
any 2Pac album, and any Dre or Snoop album -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_hip_hop_albums_in_the_United_States
Only Eminem, Biggie, and Outkast have particular albums that sold more, and the Biggie and Outkast
albums were double albums!!
So really only Eminem has had albums that sold more than that Hammer album...
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But at that time, Hammer's albums didn't have too many competitors on that level, and mainstream hip-hop was a new thing. Similarly, that's part of why Vanilla Ice's album was also very successful.
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1. He was a big name sure to draw attention. Any publicity is good publicity.
2. He was their attempt at the alternative crowd. For the rap fans that liked the radio / Puffy sound and not the gangsta shit.
3. Reread number 1.
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I think they did it for sales...
you gotta remember how big Hammer was in the early 90s.
His album Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em sold more than
any 2Pac album, and any Dre or Snoop album -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_hip_hop_albums_in_the_United_States
Only Eminem, Biggie, and Outkast have particular albums that sold more, and the Biggie and Outkast
albums were double albums!!
So really only Eminem has had albums that sold more than that Hammer album...
yes and no
death row stopped paying to keep track of sales around 2000 ish so they stopped counting at 9 million
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Officially Eminem has outsold 2Pac, but 2Pac has sold so many re-releases and post death albums that it's very hard to imagine him being number 2 if anyone ever paid for his album sales to be counted. Plus I can't even imagine the digital copies 2Pac has sold as every high school kid I ever worked with had at least Me Against the World or his Greatest Hits on their iPods and smart phone. And they usually buy their music legally. But 2Pac's numbers have not been accurate since 2001, so who knows.
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Officially Eminem has outsold 2Pac, but 2Pac has sold so many re-releases and post death albums that it's very hard to imagine him being number 2 if anyone ever paid for his album sales to be counted. Plus I can't even imagine the digital copies 2Pac has sold as every high school kid I ever worked with had at least Me Against the World or his Greatest Hits on their iPods and smart phone. And they usually buy their music legally. But 2Pac's numbers have not been accurate since 2001, so who knows.
Yup. I think the only album that was released before 2000-2001 that has been updated as far as RIAA certifications go was the Greatest Hits album. But Amaru likely doesn't care much about AEOM or Makaveli being certified, but it's hard to believe that AEOM isn't at least diamond by now or that Makaveli isn't at least 5X or 6X platinum.
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nice to see Illmatic is listed at 3x plat now
i remember when that shit was still gold
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I Never Understood The Logic Behind Suge´s Moves, Like Signing 1000 People To The Label And NOT Release Their Stuff.
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Officially Eminem has outsold 2Pac, but 2Pac has sold so many re-releases and post death albums that it's very hard to imagine him being number 2 if anyone ever paid for his album sales to be counted. Plus I can't even imagine the digital copies 2Pac has sold as every high school kid I ever worked with had at least Me Against the World or his Greatest Hits on their iPods and smart phone. And they usually buy their music legally. But 2Pac's numbers have not been accurate since 2001, so who knows.
Yup. I think the only album that was released before 2000-2001 that has been updated as far as RIAA certifications go was the Greatest Hits album. But Amaru likely doesn't care much about AEOM or Makaveli being certified, but it's hard to believe that AEOM isn't at least diamond by now or that Makaveli isn't at least 5X or 6X platinum.
With 2 re-releases since 2001, AEOM should be at least 15 million. They wouldn't re-release AEOM unless they make money.
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With 2 re-releases since 2001, AEOM should be at least 15 million. They wouldn't re-release AEOM unless they make money.
I strongly disagree. Re-releases hardly cost any money, especially since the marketing for them wasn't a huge effort anyway. That's why Death Row probably did them, because it causes a slight spike in sales, especially if there's some slight difference in them (i.e. remastered audio, enhanced CD with music videos), yet it's something that they could put together in a couple of days. If it was selling that quantity, it would at least consistently be in the top 100 albums on Billboard, which it hasn't been for some time. Even the ones at the very bottom of that are moving at least a few thousand records a week, which it would need to be doing to have sold that much more over what it's been certified. But let's be honest, most people who wanted All Eyez on Me probably bought it within the first few years, and it's not like another six million sales would've occurred between that time frame without it having re-entered the Billboard charts, even at the bottom. And people who wanted it over the past ten years very well may have either downloaded it through filesharing or a legit internet purchase, which is counted but not necessarily toward the same certification (as some releases have separate digital certifications).
I have no problem believing that it's at 10 or 11 million by now, maybe even 12. But saying it's "at least" 15 million is overestimating Pac's popularity when even the brand new stuff released since then (SIR, UTEOT, BD in particular since everything else after that didn't move a lot of units) doesn't sell anything close to what AEOM would've had to have done to be at 15, yet the newer stuff charted, debuting with however many sales, and stayed on the charts for however long while AEOM wasn't registering on the charts, so there's no way it would've outsold everything else.
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With 2 re-releases since 2001, AEOM should be at least 15 million. They wouldn't re-release AEOM unless they make money.
I strongly disagree. Re-releases hardly cost any money, especially since the marketing for them wasn't a huge effort anyway. That's why Death Row probably did them, because it causes a slight spike in sales, especially if there's some slight difference in them (i.e. remastered audio, enhanced CD with music videos), yet it's something that they could put together in a couple of days. If it was selling that quantity, it would at least consistently be in the top 100 albums on Billboard, which it hasn't been for some time. Even the ones at the very bottom of that are moving at least a few thousand records a week, which it would need to be doing to have sold that much more over what it's been certified. But let's be honest, most people who wanted All Eyez on Me probably bought it within the first few years, and it's not like another six million sales would've occurred between that time frame without it having re-entered the Billboard charts, even at the bottom. And people who wanted it over the past ten years very well may have either downloaded it through filesharing or a legit internet purchase, which is counted but not necessarily toward the same certification (as some releases have separate digital certifications).
I have no problem believing that it's at 10 or 11 million by now, maybe even 12. But saying it's "at least" 15 million is overestimating Pac's popularity when even the brand new stuff released since then (SIR, UTEOT, BD in particular since everything else after that didn't move a lot of units) doesn't sell anything close to what AEOM would've had to have done to be at 15, yet the newer stuff charted, debuting with however many sales, and stayed on the charts for however long while AEOM wasn't registering on the charts, so there's no way it would've outsold everything else.
Only thing is it's a double disc, meaning sales are double. So at 9 million in 2001, means 4.5 million sold until 2001. You figure about 1-1.5 million sales on a re-release and that's about 2-3 million a piece. So if you go with 1.5 million each re-release (which is not unheard of as 'Pac's albums have been about 1-3 million a release since UTEOT) then you double that, and you get 3+3=6, 6+6=15. And I think I'm being conservative in that estimate.
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Only thing is it's a double disc, meaning sales are double. So at 9 million in 2001, means 4.5 million sold until 2001. You figure about 1-1.5 million sales on a re-release and that's about 2-3 million a piece. So if you go with 1.5 million each re-release (which is not unheard of as 'Pac's albums have been about 1-3 million a release since UTEOT) then you double that, and you get 3+3=6, 6+6=15. And I think I'm being conservative in that estimate.
I know that, and the fact it was a double album was already factored in my thoughts but doesn't change the numbers. But the way SoundScan and RIAA work, they already count a double album as two, so let's not make it confusing and just go with the total end count. But to think that each (half-assed) re-release is selling that quantity is just unreasonable. The main stuff after that point -- basically UTEOT and BD -- were both double albums, so their numbers get duplicated the same way. UTEOT was certified 3X platinum, BD was certified 2X platinum. Both albums debuted right around the top of the charts (as I don't think BD was #1) and more or less fell off the charts. Those are albums with all new material, music videos, marketing, etc. And all while they were on the charts, AEOM wasn't ever in the top 100.
To be fair, those two Amaru/Death Row double albums haven't been re-certified in a while and may not reflect its most accurate numbers, but again, it's not likely to be too far beyond that since sales obviously taper off after initial release, especially not with the way file sharing impacted album sales at that point along with the digital download age popularized by iTunes and such.
Think about it -- with each re-release, did they ever appear back on the Billboard charts? No. Those are based on SoundScan sales, which are what cause albums to be ordered and stocked for sale, which count toward RIAA certifications when they happened. People weren't rushing to Best Buy or wherever to get the newest Pac re-release the way they bought the new 50 Cent or Eminem CD. Seriously, no one was really excited about any of the re-releases (and even on the forums, most people didn't really care), which again are the 99.99% same shit, just repackaged, and not even really issued because of demand either, just a lame effort to re-sell you the same thing you already own. At least the various Death Row "best of" albums re-arranged songs and may have given access to a song that some people didn't have (unless they owned every Death Row album) and sometimes put on new material, both of which were legit reasons for people to buy something with mostly old stuff. It's just unbelievable to think that that has fueled another few MILLION sales.
We're just not going to see eye to eye on this, but I just have a hard time believing that there are another three million physical units (meaning another six platinum certifications) that have been sold at stores since then, when its previous certification meant that there have been at least four and a half million physical purchases of the album from its release until that point (and you figure most people who really wanted it already bought it, especially after Pac's death). I just don't see the physical purchases/orders of it having increased at least 66.7% (in order to mean that it would be 15X platinum) given the data.