West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => West Coast Classics => Topic started by: Eihtball on January 11, 2006, 08:57:14 AM
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This is something I've talked about with other people I know before, but I figured maybe we should talk about this, since we are DubCNN, after all.
Don't get me wrong...I first heard "The Chronic" back in '93 and it's one of my favorite albums of all time, but I think it really had a negative impact on hip-hop culture and black youth for a bunch of reasons:
(1.) It is THE album that made "gangsta" rap into a form of pop music. Before "The Chronic" came out, artists like Ice Cube, Ice-T, and the Geto Boys were quite popular and could sell lots of records, but their followings consisted almost entirely of hardcore hip-hop heads (and some white kids), and major labels were still hesitant to put out gangsta records because they were considered unmarketable (they couldn't get radio play, BET wouldn't play the videos, conservative watchdog groups would give them shit, etc.) "The Chronic" pretty much allowed gangsta rap to become a genre of pop that mainstream audiences would embrace, and it was so popular that even the people who didn't want to play Dre's singles had no choice (if they wanted to keep their daytime audiences).
(2.) Building on the above, "The Chronic" pretty much watered down gangsta rap by substracting all of the socio-political sentiments that N.W.A. and Ice Cube and previous groups had shown - no more stuff about police brutality, no more anger at Uncle Sam, no attempts to show both the ups and downs of gang life, etc. Yeah, it had "The Day The Niggaz Took Over", but basically, the whole album was all about getting high, fucking, dipping around corners, shit like that. After that, "gangsta" went from being an offshoot of hardcore rap to being an offshoot of pop-rap (because let's face it - "The Chronic" is a party album). Every rapper that came out after "The Chronic" treated gangsta life the same way - like it was all fun and games. The days of songs like "Fuck The Police" and "Colors" were over.
(3.) It was after "The Chronic" came out that the association of hip-hop with the hedonistic gangsta lifestyle started - almost every new rapper that came out tried to claim they were a thug, a pimp, a hustler, whatever. And of course, they had to adopt the gangsta vocab to sound credible - lots of cursing, the use of the word "nigga", references to blunts and firearms, all that shit. The days when De La Soul, Das EFX, and Arrested Development could cross over with a positive message in their music were basically done and gone - "gangsta" and "hip-hop" became interchangable terms in the public eye. I remember how back then, you'd hear a lot of people who might say they hated "gangsta" rap but they were OK with "other" rap - "The Chronic" marked the point where detractors stopped making that distinction and would say, "I hate RAP, period." Ignorant as it sounds, it's easy to understand where they're coming from.
(4.) So basically, even though N.W.A. and other early groups first introduced audiences to gangsta chic, the fact that they were underground, not mainstream sensations, limited their exposure - N.W.A. lit the match, but Dre poured out a tank of gasoline and then tossed the match into it.
So those are my thoughts.
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nah i think "2001" had a more negative impact cuz it showed that if you keep the same formula over & over again, you will succeed. it also made gangsta rap even more acceptable in pop culture imo.
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nah i think "2001" had a more negative impact cuz it showed that if you keep the same formula over & over again, you will succeed. it also made gangsta rap even more acceptable in pop culture imo.
the same formula ? I assume you talk about the lyrics. 2001 is far from being the 1st album to show that. Plus the sound was ahead his time and nothing heard before. Plus if you talk about negative impact, I'm gonna say Bad Boy Records back in 98. Their watered crossover rap has been the beginning of the downfall of rap (with no limit too)
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You make some very strong points, but I still have to disagree. i dont think it changed rap as much as it changed the rap that was accessible. There were still artists that spoke on the things that you said were missing in The Chronic, but the big companies were no longer looking to release that type of music as much. It did introduce gangsta themes to a pop audience, but pop is pop regardless and will always be watered down regardless of the general themes it touches on.As a general rule I dont think the hardore and the realest shit ever gets to the public because thats not what they want. Pop audiences want feel good/party music, not tales of the downtrodden or disenfranchised. At first, the NWA's of the world were embraced, I think, mostly because white kids (save the hate mail white people, you know it at least partially true) enjoyed pissing their parents off.
Where I think the negative impact came from, is when people who were not from the streets jumped on the bandwagon and started to interpret their own version of the "hood lifestyle" without ever even seeing it anywhere other than gangsta flicks like Boys N The Hood and New Jack City, thereby removing any credibility or realness from the music. Thats why people in the streets almost never embrace the shit thats on the radio or BET, etc.
Like I said though, you make some strong arguments and you may be right, but I just disagree. Where I do agree with you though is it did create a bunch of fake ass bandwagoners who actually did have a negative impact, through no direct action of Dre, because while there may have been missing elements of the streets on The Chronic, at least everything was authentic. Thats just my pennies...
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This is something I've talked about with other people I know before, but I figured maybe we should talk about this, since we are DubCNN, after all.
(2.) Building on the above, "The Chronic" pretty much watered down gangsta rap by substracting all of the socio-political sentiments that N.W.A. and Ice Cube and previous groups had shown - no more stuff about police brutality, no more anger at Uncle Sam, no attempts to show both the ups and downs of gang life, etc.
i wouldn't blame this on the chronic. look at "efil4zaggin". all the socio-political sentiments left n.w.a. when ice cube left n.w.a. they went from "a bitch iz a bitch" and "i ain't the one", which, while not positive represented a level of playful struggly between men and women; to "to kill a hooker" and "one less bitch" where they are attempting to rape and kill women.
gangsta, gangsta
then we headed, back to the fort
sweatin' all the bitches in the biker shorts
we didn't get no play, from the ladies
with six niggaz in the car, are you crazy
she was scared, and it was showing
we all said "fuck you bitch" and kept going
compare that to "to kill a hooker", where the bitch they try to holla at turns out to be a hooker, and they decide to kidnap her and kill her. no more "fuck you bitch" and riding off.
firing indiscriminately into crowds in "protest". consciously, "the chronic" is a significant step up from "efil4zaggin".
"The Chronic" marked the point where detractors stopped making that distinction and would say, "I hate RAP, period." Ignorant as it sounds, it's easy to understand where they're coming from.
fuck the detractors. seriously, why bother worrying about what the distractors say? who are these detractors that their opinion matters anyway?
and you forget, "the chronic" marked the shift where hip hop moved towards being the top selling genre of music atleast in america. hip hop now defines everything that is hip and popular. hip hop is exploited by all sorts of huge corporations for advertising and marketting. "the chronic" paved the way for all of that. if anything it only shows the hypocrisy of the culture and the detractors as a whole. you look at a guy like eminem and you realize that "the detractors" simply wanted a guy rhyming about cornball shit like trailer parks and mushrooms to bring them to the table.
i don't think you've fully touched on your point. "the chronic" paved the way for guys like jay-z to be part owners of the nets. building office/business/shopping complexes in brooklyn and moving the team to brooklyn. that's insanely good. mind boggling. jay-z is a guy that rhymes about being an ex crack dealer. you have a guy like 50, a guy that i don't pay that much attention to, but a guy that seems to be doing alot.
"the chronic" opened the door to a lot of great things for hip-hop. expanded the amount of money hip-hop generated and the artists as well in some cases. we all know who makes the billions vs the millions. and the millions vs the thousands.
the only argument you have, that i see, is that gangsta shit has had a detrimental effect on black culture, black communities, and black consciousness. that is something i feel you didn't fully touch on.
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You make some very strong points, but I still have to disagree. i dont think it changed rap as much as it changed the rap that was accessible. There were still artists that spoke on the things that you said were missing in The Chronic, but the big companies were no longer looking to release that type of music as much. It did introduce gangsta themes to a pop audience, but pop is pop regardless and will always be watered down regardless of the general themes it touches on.As a general rule I dont think the hardore and the realest shit ever gets to the public because thats not what they want. Pop audiences want feel good/party music, not tales of the downtrodden or disenfranchised. At first, the NWA's of the world were embraced, I think, mostly because white kids (save the hate mail white people, you know it at least partially true) enjoyed pissing their parents off.
Where I think the negative impact came from, is when people who were not from the streets jumped on the bandwagon and started to interpret their own version of the "hood lifestyle" without ever even seeing it anywhere other than gangsta flicks like Boys N The Hood and New Jack City, thereby removing any credibility or realness from the music. Thats why people in the streets almost never embrace the shit thats on the radio or BET, etc.
Like I said though, you make some strong arguments and you may be right, but I just disagree. Where I do agree with you though is it did create a bunch of fake ass bandwagoners who actually did have a negative impact, through no direct action of Dre, because while there may have been missing elements of the streets on The Chronic, at least everything was authentic. Thats just my pennies...
^co-sign. Also I would blame today hiphop mostly on badboy in 1998 and No limit. That is when that bullshit bling bling era began to really take over.
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nah i think "2001" had a more negative impact cuz it showed that if you keep the same formula over & over again, you will succeed. it also made gangsta rap even more acceptable in pop culture imo.
the same formula ? I assume you talk about the lyrics.
well of course, beats dont really influence people..lol
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You people who are bringing Bad Boy and No Limit into this are missing the point. Those labels may have been bad because they were exploitative and put out product that was devoid of creativity, but when I talk about "The Chronic", I'm talking about the gangsta thang conquering all, the death of positivity in hip-hop. That's not just bad for the culture, that's bad for black youth as well. Bad Boy and No Limit made terrible music, but that's a bit of a different story. That's superficial compared to what "The Chronic" did.
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You make some very strong points, but I still have to disagree. i dont think it changed rap as much as it changed the rap that was accessible. There were still artists that spoke on the things that you said were missing in The Chronic, but the big companies were no longer looking to release that type of music as much. It did introduce gangsta themes to a pop audience, but pop is pop regardless and will always be watered down regardless of the general themes it touches on.As a general rule I dont think the hardore and the realest shit ever gets to the public because thats not what they want. Pop audiences want feel good/party music, not tales of the downtrodden or disenfranchised. At first, the NWA's of the world were embraced, I think, mostly because white kids (save the hate mail white people, you know it at least partially true) enjoyed pissing their parents off.
Where I think the negative impact came from, is when people who were not from the streets jumped on the bandwagon and started to interpret their own version of the "hood lifestyle" without ever even seeing it anywhere other than gangsta flicks like Boys N The Hood and New Jack City, thereby removing any credibility or realness from the music. Thats why people in the streets almost never embrace the shit thats on the radio or BET, etc.
Like I said though, you make some strong arguments and you may be right, but I just disagree. Where I do agree with you though is it did create a bunch of fake ass bandwagoners who actually did have a negative impact, through no direct action of Dre, because while there may have been missing elements of the streets on The Chronic, at least everything was authentic. Thats just my pennies...
The fact that "The Chronic" was "authentic" doesn't matter to me...I long ago stopped caring what's "real" and what's not. What matters is that it presented gangsta rap in a way that was packaged and adapted to mainstream tastes, and it made clear to other rappers that if they too talked about blunts, ho's, and guns, they could cross over, too. Yeah, pop is always watered-down, but the fact is, "The Chronic" is basically the album that did it first with gangsta rap (well, maybe you could argue that other groups had some effect, but since they weren't nearly as popular, the effect on the culture was minimal).
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^^^Well would you also say the same about artists like Curtis Mayfield who built their careers around the same exact themes?
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NO
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i wouldn't blame this on the chronic. look at "efil4zaggin". all the socio-political sentiments left n.w.a. when ice cube left n.w.a. they went from "a bitch iz a bitch" and "i ain't the one", which, while not positive represented a level of playful struggly between men and women; to "to kill a hooker" and "one less bitch" where they are attempting to rape and kill women.
Yeah, but as I've said before, that's not my only beef. "Efil4Zaggin" may have been less socio-political than "Straight Outta Compton", but the fact is, N.W.A. never really crossed over with that album. Yeah, it hit #1 on the charts, but its impact upon hip-hop was negligible (if any) - Native Tongues and Heavy D and shit like that was still popular. It was only after "The Chronic" that we started seeing the onslaught of gangstaism and the end of positivity. That's my big beef with "The Chronic".
fuck the detractors. seriously, why bother worrying about what the distractors say? who are these detractors that their opinion matters anyway?
I don't agree with them entirely, but that doesn't mean they don't make SOME valid points. Whether we want to accept it or not, gangsta rap is having a negative impact upon black youth right now, and it's understandable that they would be upset over that.
and you forget, "the chronic" marked the shift where hip hop moved towards being the top selling genre of music atleast in america. hip hop now defines everything that is hip and popular. hip hop is exploited by all sorts of huge corporations for advertising and marketting. "the chronic" paved the way for all of that. if anything it only shows the hypocrisy of the culture and the detractors as a whole. you look at a guy like eminem and you realize that "the detractors" simply wanted a guy rhyming about cornball shit like trailer parks and mushrooms to bring them to the table.
i don't think you've fully touched on your point. "the chronic" paved the way for guys like jay-z to be part owners of the nets. building office/business/shopping complexes in brooklyn and moving the team to brooklyn. that's insanely good. mind boggling. jay-z is a guy that rhymes about being an ex crack dealer. you have a guy like 50, a guy that i don't pay that much attention to, but a guy that seems to be doing alot.
"the chronic" opened the door to a lot of great things for hip-hop. expanded the amount of money hip-hop generated and the artists as well in some cases. we all know who makes the billions vs the millions. and the millions vs the thousands.
the only argument you have, that i see, is that gangsta shit has had a detrimental effect on black culture, black communities, and black consciousness. that is something i feel you didn't fully touch on.
I'm not saying there was no positivity, but I think "The Chronic"'s overall impact was negative. The fact that hip-hop became the top-selling genre of music in America (largely because of "The Chronic") is NOT a good thing, IMO. Almost anything and everything that's ever been wrong with the culture has been fucked up with that exact reason - and almost always, you can trace it back to the "The Chronic".
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^^^Well would you also say the same about artists like Curtis Mayfield who built their careers around the same exact themes?
Huh? Ambiguous statement. Please get that straight.
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What I mean is that these topics have been prevalent long before Dre, and Dre grew up on the Curtis Mayfields of his era, so if Dre indirectly had a negative impact like you say, then wouldnt Curtis mayfield also been indirectly responsible for these same problems?
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What I mean is that these topics have been prevalent long before Dre, and Dre grew up on the Curtis Mayfields of his era, so if Dre indirectly had a negative impact like you say, then wouldnt Curtis mayfield also been indirectly responsible for these same problems?
Yeah, but you can't say Curtis Mayfield made it "hip" or "cool" to be thuggish in the mainstream. Not to mention words like "nigga" and "muthafucka". There's a difference between selling lots of records and having an impact upon society and an entire genre of music.
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Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.
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I don't agree with them entirely, but that doesn't mean they don't make SOME valid points.
the detractors are irrelevant, i don't think you need to rely on the detractors to make your point.
Whether we want to accept it or not, gangsta rap is having a negative impact upon black youth right now
i agree with you 106% that gangsta rap has had a negative impact on black youth; and continues to do so.
I'm not saying there was no positivity, but I think "The Chronic"'s overall impact was negative. The fact that hip-hop became the top-selling genre of music in America (largely because of "The Chronic") is NOT a good thing, IMO.
hip hop is an artform and a business. anything that expands that artform and it's popularity is good. hip hop itself is neither good nor bad. gangsta rap has had a positive impact on hip hop, and a negative impact on black youths. what is good for the artform is not necessarily good for the culture that spawned it. hip hop has no duty, no responsibility to the black community or black youths to do good.
i think you could argue that individuals that used gangsta rap, that created music that had a detrimental effect on their own community in order to make money and get ahead in a way betrayed their own community in order to realize that success. much like a crack dealer.
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Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.
Maybe Dre is not responsible for it, but he can certainly be accused of helping to perpetuate it (and perhaps make things a bit worse) - making the gangsta lifestyle acceptable in pop culture.
And I've always been a lot less concerned with gangsta rap's impact on white youth than black youth. With white kids, the worst they do is act stupid (dressing like thugs, trying to talk street, playing their gangsta CDs' too loud in their neighborhoods, etc.) - with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates, there's no epidemic of white-on-white violence in suburban neighborhoods. It's not at all the same for black youth - they live in an environment where it seems like being a gangsta is the only way to survive and where brothers are willing to shoot each other over stupid shit, and with gangsta albums making it seem cool, they're bound to think of it as more acceptable.
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I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.
Actually, I have to take that statement back, becuase now that I think about it, I cant even count how many black kids seems to be trying to emulate the lifestyle of their favorite rappers. Trying to fit in to some thug fantasy, where these same kids would have been wearing shiny gold suits and dancing around like Earth Wind & Fire back then.
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Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.
gangsta rap clearly made things worse for black communities by reinforcing and perpetuating and distributing negative values and attitudes. if you belive in judaic mythology you might remember the story of that dude and chick in the garden that ate the forbidden apple. clearly those guys ate the forbidden fruit of their own free will, but it was the serpent that tempted them and set the whole thing off. the serpent clearly made things worse.
similarly, gangsta rap teaches youths that women are bitches, and violence against each other and within the community, and selling drugs within the community is acceptable for self improvement. now again, individuals make their own decisions, but the gangsta rap is presenting these individuals with negative and selfish alternatives and portraying them as valid and good. and clearly this is bad.
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Where I do agree with you though is it did create a bunch of fake ass bandwagoners who actually did have a negative impact, through no direct action of Dre, because while there may have been missing elements of the streets on The Chronic, at least everything was authentic. Thats just my pennies...
Also I would blame today hiphop mostly on badboy in 1998 and No limit. That is when that bullshit bling bling era began to really take over.
That's pretty much my opinion right there...
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with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates
those kids were listening to marilyn manson.
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the detractors are irrelevant, i don't think you need to rely on the detractors to make your point.
You don't think they make SOME valid points? They be wrong to say "rap is not music" or "rap is crap", but they aren't wrong for being afraid of the harm it's causing.
hip hop is an artform and a business. anything that expands that artform and it's popularity is good. hip hop itself is neither good nor bad. gangsta rap has had a positive impact on hip hop, and a negative impact on black youths. what is good for the artform is not necessarily good for the culture that spawned it. hip hop has no duty, no responsibility to the black community or black youths to do good.
i think you could argue that individuals that used gangsta rap, that created music that had a detrimental effect on their own community in order to make money and get ahead in a way betrayed their own community in order to realize that success. much like a crack dealer.
I don't see how you can say "The Chronic" had a positive effect on hip-hop and still agree it had a negative impact on black youth. Considering how closely tied hip-hop culture is to black youth, there's really no distinction you can make there. Hip-hop may not have a responsibility to the black youth, but it still has to acknowledge that black youth are influenced by it. I agree with the last part, tho.
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with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates
those kids were listening to marilyn manson.
The Columbine high school kids, yeah. The junior high kids in Jonesboro, Arksansas were listening to Pac and Bone. Bizzy Bone addresses this on his first solo album.
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damn,a lot of long ass opinons but it´s hard to blame this on 1 album coz allthough this was the first huge gangsta rap album with no real positive messages it certainly wasn´t the first album of it´s kind. and if you´re gonna blame things on The Chronic you need to put some of the blame on the albums that made The Chronic possible(Criminal Minded and a bunch of others). and fuck the detractors coz when was hip hop ever been about caring about what the white estabilshment thought of you and your people? i´ll come back with a longer response later coz i´m hungry now so i can´t think clearly.
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Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.
gangsta rap clearly made things worse for black communities by reinforcing and perpetuating and distributing negative values and attitudes. if you belive in judaic mythology you might remember the story of that dude and chick in the garden that ate the forbidden apple. clearly those guys ate the forbidden fruit of their own free will, but it was the serpent that tempted them and set the whole thing off. the serpent clearly made things worse.
similarly, gangsta rap teaches youths that women are bitches, and violence against each other and within the community, and selling drugs within the community is acceptable for self improvement. now again, individuals make their own decisions, but the gangsta rap is presenting these individuals with negative and selfish alternatives and portraying them as valid and good. and clearly this is bad.
See above. I agree with that and I corrected that statement.
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It had a negative effect on the idiots who listen to to it and try and reenact it, not on hip-hop, the album is probably in the top 10 favourite albums of the majority of real hip hop listeners.
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damn,a lot of long ass opinons but it´s hard to blame this on 1 album coz allthough this was the first huge gangsta rap album with no real positive messages it certainly wasn´t the first album of it´s kind.
But it was arguably the most influential ever upon pop culture.
and if you´re gonna blame things on The Chronic you need to put some of the blame on the albums that made The Chronic possible(Criminal Minded and a bunch of others). and fuck the detractors coz when was hip hop ever been about caring about what the white estabilshment thought of you and your people? i´ll come back with a longer response later coz i´m hungry now so i can´t think clearly.
Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that "The Chronic" still took what KRS-One and Ice-T did and made it far more negative (at least BDP talked objectively about the criminal lifestyle), so no, those albums don't share the blame. And since when are all of hip-hop's detractors white? At this point, many blacks are also quite concerned - just look at the "Take Back The Music" campiagn. I'm black (mostly), and I agree with SOME of what they say (except that unlike them, I still respect hip-hop as an art form).
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^Dre might´ve made it more negative but it can´t be aiight for someone to do something negative and then be bad for someone else to do basically the same thing(i agree that Dre might´ve been more negative but guns on your cover aint extremely negative?). and have you seen the Lil Ghetto Boy video? if so you´ll know that Dre and them also showed what´ll happen to your ass if you fuck around in the streets.
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Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.
Maybe Dre is not responsible for it, but he can certainly be accused of helping to perpetuate it (and perhaps make things a bit worse) - making the gangsta lifestyle acceptable in pop culture.
And I've always been a lot less concerned with gangsta rap's impact on white youth than black youth. With white kids, the worst they do is act stupid (dressing like thugs, trying to talk street, playing their gangsta CDs' too loud in their neighborhoods, etc.) - with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates, there's no epidemic of white-on-white violence in suburban neighborhoods. It's not at all the same for black youth - they live in an environment where it seems like being a gangsta is the only way to survive and where brothers are willing to shoot each other over stupid shit, and with gangsta albums making it seem cool, they're bound to think of it as more acceptable.
Cant argue with that, but the negatives you are speaking on existed in music before Dre. There were artists before him doing the same types of records and its through the progress that those records made, it opened the door wide open for someone like Dre to really get huge off of it. If it wasnt for the progress that similar artists before him made, then it wouldnt have happened. I think as much as you can blame Dre, you can also blame the mainstream pop (white) audience that bought into it and the white machine behind it that made it as big as it was. If not for them, The images portrayed on albums like the Chronic would not have existed in the proportion that they did. There wouldnt have been the videos on MTV or the spins on pop radio. I dont think there is an artist in the business that can get that big with just a black youth audience.
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Great topic, by the way. Sparked some good discussion in here.
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I don't see how you can say "The Chronic" had a positive effect on hip-hop and still agree it had a negative impact on black youth. Considering how closely tied hip-hop culture is to black youth, there's really no distinction you can make there.
hip hop is not black culture. it's separate. it's thriving. you have pointed out on more than one occasion that it isn't black youths or the black community that controls or directs hip hop. i think it's clear that hip hop and black culture are separate yet intertwined entities. maybe it's a symbiotic relationship; maybe it's a parasitic relationship. i think we would agree that if anything it's a parasitic relationship because as the popularity and wealth of hip hop grows, it continues to undermine and caricature black culture in many ways.
Hip-hop may not have a responsibility to the black youth, but it still has to acknowledge that black youth are influenced by it.
why does hip hop have to acknowledge that black youth are influenced by it? and furthermore, why should it act responsibly or caringly with that knowledge? you have already established in this and other threads that it isn't black youths, or black adults, or the black community, that govern hip hop; that direct it's popularity. i'd argue that many of the forces that mold and shape hip hop clearly have a hostile attitude towards the black community as it continues to promote hip hop that portrays the black community in a negative light.
if anything, hip hop has been turned into a weapon against the black community, rather than a tool to uplift and strengthen the black community, which it once was.
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Great topic, by the way. Sparked some good discussion in here.
yeam but it´s hard to argue with all of the points in this thread coz you´ll fuck around and come up with an essay :)
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Great topic, by the way. Sparked some good discussion in here.
yeam but it´s hard to argue with all of the points in this thread coz you´ll fuck around and come up with an essay :)
Yea, but what I like about it is its making me think of valid points on both sides and its making it hard to just stick to one side so if you say something it better carry some weight.
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^Dre might´ve made it more negative but it can´t be aiight for someone to do something negative and then be bad for someone else to do basically the same thing(i agree that Dre might´ve been more negative but guns on your cover aint extremely negative?). and have you seen the Lil Ghetto Boy video? if so you´ll know that Dre and them also showed what´ll happen to your ass if you fuck around in the streets.
Look, I've already said this before: Yeah, "The Chronic" was NOT the only excessively hedonistic rap album out, nor the first. What makes "The Chronic" significant is the fact that, as I've said before, it was the most popular and the most influential. Avoid semantics, blood.
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Cant argue with that, but the negatives you are speaking on existed in music before Dre. There were artists before him doing the same types of records and its through the progress that those records made, it opened the door wide open for someone like Dre to really get huge off of it. If it wasnt for the progress that similar artists before him made, then it wouldnt have happened. I think as much as you can blame Dre, you can also blame the mainstream pop (white) audience that bought into it and the white machine behind it that made it as big as it was. If not for them, The images portrayed on albums like the Chronic would not have existed in the proportion that they did. There wouldnt have been the videos on MTV or the spins on pop radio. I dont think there is an artist in the business that can get that big with just a black youth audience.
Oh, I have little doubt. I've often spoken at length about how I consider white mainstream culture's collision with hip-hop to be a bad thing. Not that I think white people can't or shouldn't like hip-hop, but they only thrive on the most negative images of black folk (akin to the Minstrel Show), but since they have the largest numbers (and thus, all of the money), the corporations listen to them and give them what they want - too much gangsta shit.
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hip hop is not black culture. it's separate. it's thriving. you have pointed out on more than one occasion that it isn't black youths or the black community that controls or directs hip hop. i think it's clear that hip hop and black culture are separate yet intertwined entities. maybe it's a symbiotic relationship; maybe it's a parasitic relationship. i think we would agree that if anything it's a parasitic relationship because as the popularity and wealth of hip hop grows, it continues to undermine and caricature black culture in many ways.
I wouldn't say they're completely separate, but I will agree that hip-hop is not immune to outside influences - in this case, the corporate machine pumping money into the culture in exchange for negative, stereotyped images.
why does hip hop have to acknowledge that black youth are influenced by it? and furthermore, why should it act responsibly or caringly with that knowledge? you have already established in this and other threads that it isn't black youths, or black adults, or the black community, that govern hip hop; that direct it's popularity. i'd argue that many of the forces that mold and shape hip hop clearly have a hostile attitude towards the black community as it continues to promote hip hop that portrays the black community in a negative light.
if anything, hip hop has been turned into a weapon against the black community, rather than a tool to uplift and strengthen the black community, which it once was.
I agree with the last part completely. That said, however, we do have to acknowledge that white folks aren't gonna change and step up - we can't let them take all responsibility, because if we play the victims, we will keep getting victimized. The people like Kanye (yeah, I know some of ya'll groan), Common, and Little Brother are examples of artists who refuse to play by the corporate executives' rulebook and are helping to change things around. Even if rich white record executives have fucked up hip-hop, that doesn't mean we're powerless to change things, and the sooner we do, the better.
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^of course it was the most influental but it doesn´t change the fact that The Chronic would never ever existed if those albums hadn´t been fairly successful by the standars of those days. and there certaily was albums that had nothing positive on them before The Chronic that were damn near as successful. Eazy Duz It went 2x platinum and try to find more positive songs on that album, The Chronic went 3x platinum just in case anyone didn´t know. now if you would´ve said that Dr.Dre´s influence on hip hop then it would´ve been another thing IMO coz he was apart of some most of the super negative albums of the late 80´s and early 90´s. hmmm now i´m gonna go and make a Kool G Rap bashing thread for bein the first real gangsta rapper.
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I think I am going to have to concede that overall it probably did have a negative effect, but I have a problem with singling out The Chronic and Dr Dre as the root of the problem.
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^of course it was the most influental but it doesn´t change the fact that The Chronic would never ever existed if those albums hadn´t been fairly successful by the standars of those days. and there certaily was albums that had nothing positive on them before The Chronic that were damn near as successful. Eazy Duz It went 2x platinum and try to find more positive songs on that album, The Chronic went 3x platinum just in case anyone didn´t know. now if you would´ve said that Dr.Dre´s influence on hip hop then it would´ve been another thing IMO coz he was apart of some most of the super negative albums of the late 80´s and early 90´s. hmmm now i´m gonna go and make a Kool G Rap bashing thread for bein the first real gangsta rapper.
Homie, you still ain't hearing me out.
Records sales and influence are two mutually exclusive concepts. In case you haven't read my first post, I acknowledged that there were gangsta rappers selling lots of records before "The Chronic" (N.W.A. went 2x Platinum, so did Eazy, The D.O.C. went Gold, Ice-T sold a bunch of Gold albums, etc.) But the difference between those albums and "The Chronic" is that they didn't have as much impact upon hip-hop or pop culture as a whole - they were still basically on the margin, not the center, of what hip-hop was about. "The Chronic" marked the point where basically all new rap that came out was gangsta rap - because Dre was the first gangsta rapper to successfully break down the barriers preventing gangsta shit from getting on MTV and BET and crossing over completely.
So in that sense, "The Chronic" marked the end of positivity in hip-hop - no more Das EFX, no more Public Enemies, no more Fu-Schnickens, etc. Trust me, I was alive and listening to hip-hop back then, and I can fully remember just what happened after "The Chronic" came out. Maybe you can't appreciate it because you weren't around then, but I sure as fuck can.
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You acting like niggaz wasn't bangin or smokin weed before 91-92 what country are you from? And it didn't make a mockery of Krs or any of them cats they was on some eastcoast black pride shit. I think it turned the eastcoast into the fake pink bangin pussies they are now, but what harm did it do anywhere else. Remember the Truce was in 93.
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^of course it was the most influental but it doesn´t change the fact that The Chronic would never ever existed if those albums hadn´t been fairly successful by the standars of those days. and there certaily was albums that had nothing positive on them before The Chronic that were damn near as successful. Eazy Duz It went 2x platinum and try to find more positive songs on that album, The Chronic went 3x platinum just in case anyone didn´t know. now if you would´ve said that Dr.Dre´s influence on hip hop then it would´ve been another thing IMO coz he was apart of some most of the super negative albums of the late 80´s and early 90´s. hmmm now i´m gonna go and make a Kool G Rap bashing thread for bein the first real gangsta rapper.
Homie, you still ain't hearing me out.
Records sales and influence are two mutually exclusive concepts. In case you haven't read my first post, I acknowledged that there were gangsta rappers selling lots of records before "The Chronic" (N.W.A. went 2x Platinum, so did Eazy, The D.O.C. went Gold, Ice-T sold a bunch of Gold albums, etc.) But the difference between those albums and "The Chronic" is that they didn't have as much impact upon hip-hop or pop culture as a whole - they were still basically on the margin, not the center, of what hip-hop was about. "The Chronic" marked the point where basically all new rap that came out was gangsta rap - because Dre was the first gangsta rapper to successfully break down the barriers preventing gangsta shit from getting on MTV and BET and crossing over completely.
So in that sense, "The Chronic" marked the end of positivity in hip-hop - no more Das EFX, no more Public Enemies, no more Fu-Schnickens, etc. Trust me, I was alive and listening to hip-hop back then, and I can fully remember just what happened after "The Chronic" came out. Maybe you can't appreciate it because you weren't around then, but I sure as fuck can.
I've been listening and hearing everything said thus far, and I'd have to say that this is pretty on point. I was about 13 when the Chronic came out (92') and I remember the change as well. And Biggie was the first east coast rapper to really figure out how to take that west coast attitude and make it work for an east coast dude.
The only other thing I have to add is that if you're gonna talk about the Chronic, you have to throw in Cypress Hill as well, because their first album came out right around the same time and it had a huge effect on culture as well.
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You acting like niggaz wasn't bangin or smokin weed before 91-92 what country are you from? And it didn't make a mockery of Krs or any of them cats they was on some eastcoast black pride shit. I think it turned the eastcoast into the fake pink bangin pussies they are now, but what harm did it do anywhere else. Remember the Truce was in 93.
Another muh'fucka that obviously didn't read carefully enough. I don't even have to respond to this BS.