It was the last great year for Hip-Hop music…at least in my mind. Just look at six albums that dropped that year. The Fugees – The Score, Ghostface – Ironman, Nas – It Was Written (don’t care what you say – great album), Heltah Skeltah – Nocturnal and Outkast – ATLiens, The Roots – Illadelph Halflife. Some ya’ll are saying, “What about Resonable Doubt and All Eyez on Me (did you know that went 10 times Diamond)?” – Exactly…if you remember that year you know 1996 has a long list of good albums. When I talk about in my day…that’s the year I mean. It’s also when I graduated from high school so it’s steeped in nostalgia for me. As I sit back and declare that 98.5% of what’s on the radio today is craptastic, I wonder what I’m more influenced by - those great albums or nostalgia? Honestly…I don’t think anyone can point out a time, in the last 5 years, when as many great albums came out (especially if you don’t involve anyone out of that eight). That time period helped cement my vision of what Hip-Hop should be. I even came up with a formula:
Content + Lyricism + Overall Production = Great Song
I even subscribe to methods used by Staple Crops and Dallas Penn: Calculating the polysyllabic percentage of the total word count. It sounds nerdy as can be…but words with more syllables usually reflect a higher quality lyricist. Dr. Suess, for instance, didn’t use many polysyllabic words. As Dallas points out…Microphone is a polysyllabic word.
While I call out the music of today…I have to acknowledge that everything I have and do like isn’t positive, deep or “pure”. I can recite the lyrics to “How I Could Just Kill a Man” by Cypress Hill…it’s not a song I’m going to play for my kids. I’m pretty sure that “Push It”, “P.S.K” and “100 Miles and Running” aren’t building my character either. What troubles me about now is the lack of diversity. You can still find quality music…but the radio doesn’t have the same balance. I recall (proof of age coming up) taping the radio and having “Nuthin but a G Thang” -Dr. Dre/Snoop and ”Passing Me By” – Pharcyde played within three songs of each other. I realize it’s not that the music is bad, or that it’s all negative…it’s that lack of balance on the radio and in music videos. The true problem is the business and sad to say…1996 played a large role in what I now despise. The Fugees had what is considered the most successful group albums of all time going 6x Platinum. Then Tupac comes along and (partially due to his later death) goes 10x Diamond. That made record execs realize they could make money with this Hip-Hop thing. It was after 1996 when Hip-Hop really started going mainstream. Consider that in the early 90′s “mainstream” was synonymous with “sell-out”. The “coffee shop chicks and white dudes” Common lamented weren’t buying albums and going to concerts back then. MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice and Kriss Kross were pulling in the most money via attracting a white audience…and we remember what the majority of Hip-Hop thought of MC Hammer *cough* Pop Goes the Weasel *cough*. Once it was known that people would buy a Hip-Hop album exposure shot through the roof and where business comes in art starts to die. This is not why you get Soulja Boy, but it is why people would look for the “next” Soulja Boy. It’s also why it’s universally known that The Roots put on the best live show in Hip-Hop…but I can’t remember the last song they had on the radio.
In the movie Basquiat (about Jean Michel Basquiat) there is a quote about people wanting painters to operate like a factory and keep churning out new versions of old work. The growth of the artist and art is no longer important once it becomes a commodity. That’s why there’s debate over “It was Written”…most people wanted Illmatic pt. 2 and not getting it upset them. This imbalance has been going on forever. Most people don’t realize that Motown was, to a lot of people, the crossover label of that time…it’s whole design was to make a form of black music white people could get into. Don’t believe me? Take ”What’s Going On” , Berry Gordy was looking for commercial success and that song would have never been released if Marvin Gaye hadn’t stood his ground. Even after it was a hit and Gordy requested a whole album he didn’t like what he got because it wasn’t created with radio play in mind.
My question becomes this:
How do we balance between Hip-Hop as a business and an art-form?
If Soulja Boy or Lil’ Wayne came out with a modern day “What’s Going On” album would it ever be released?
Do I have a point or should I just go back to telling kids to get off my lawn and reminiscing about “back in my day”?
Article by Rahsaan Goldsboro
Amadeo is a Baltimore native who's spent almost 3 decades pissing into the wind and teaching children to do things that amuse him. He works as a vocational counselor until that big break as a lounge singer comes through.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
great read. 96-98 were my favorite years in hip hop. I didn’t graduate HS until 99, but those years were the most fun and I was the most excited about the music and about life! Even though I was heavy in the early 90s with Wu Tang, Black Moon, etc, and even before that with Big Daddy Kane, Run DMC, etc from listening to collections of older fam– 96-98 are the years when I really started to appreciate hip hop for myself and fall in love with it.
Good article. Being a wee bit older, for me the golden era of hip hop started in 87-88. Nowadays there is no balance between hip hop being a business and an art form; it is all based on the almighty dollar. The best hip hop currently is underground or independent. There is no way in hell Soulja Boy or Lil Wayne could drop an album comparable to Marvin’s “What’s Going On” because quite frankly their raps are valueless. Just keep on reminiscing of the good ole days and let the lost generation continue to live their lives with the wool over their eyes.
hiphop years are all relative cuz in 96 hiphop heads was sayin that was a wack year and nothing compared to 1993 lol… i think the best years of hiphop are just what ever year’s you were in high school lol
i loved 96 it was a DOPE year, one of the best ever, but def not the last year of stellar releases… for example 1998; the ROC solidified, when new orleans rap gained national attention, ruff ryders was killin, 2 DMX albums, Big Pun, pete rock soul survivor, NORE, Redman’s last dope record, LOX…
or 2002: gods son, lord willin, the fix, in search of, eminem show, gangster and a gentleman, lost tapes…
shit 2009 is a dope year… fab, jay, em, 50, cudi, wale, clipse, drake, ross, game, twista, jay electronica
its diversity in the music and mass great works… just turn the radio off. that is an old and archaic measure of music lol
funny thing is me and my homie were talking about this over a L last week…there have been a bunch of dope albums since ’96…but probably THEE most important year for MODERN hip-hop.
I wanted that cd sooo bad my momsw bought it for me then saw the PR label and keep it for herself…. love=96
Great article, though I was only 12 in 96, I clung to reasonable doubt, the score, and it was written so tightly that I still have all three albums in regular rotation today as if they just came out. I do get mad when I think about how a commercially successfull year for black music turned into a bunch of money for white record exec’s and that same commercial success forced so much pressure on some artists that the art began to die down. What we are witnessing now is not art, its smart young rappers who found a formula (hot beat, dumb down lyrics, girls, chain, replicated swagg=ringtone hit). When a poet does poetry for the audience the authenticity of the poem dies down, when a song writer writes for the radio the same thing happens. Art is a form of expression from within. Yea, I miss 96 as well. I try to say that there is room in hip-hop for the commercial as well as the true art, but until we control our own genre of music and quit letting white exec’s push all the buttons in hip-hop, we’ll continue to see that inbalance…
Hip-Hop was birthed out of pain, out of the lack of having our voices heard because of the conditions we were put in…now the people who put us in the very condition that birthed hip-hop, control hip-hop and profit of our pain that they caused…crazy
My music life would be BEYOND great if a whole slew of artists came out with lyrically and musically great records a la 1996. I remember EVERYBODY killing that All Eyez on Me and me & my sisters knew ALL of the lyrics to every song on Refugee. I was 14 … I couldn’t imagine the change to teenagers lives if artists came out with something worthwhile rather than the barrage of coonery that they’re currently subjected to.
Class of 1996 in the HOUSE!!!! Great Post.. and I totally agree with you.
To answer your questions
How do we balance between Hip-Hop as a business and an art-form?
Artists have to stand firm and create music they want to listen to, and we have to support them. I also think there should be sub genres of hip hop.. because the bottom line is mainstream hip hop targets 15-25 year olds in my opinion and thats what gets radio play, but hip hop is not a one size fit all type of music and if we had more genres i mean at least an adult contemporary hip hop category, it allows those artists room to do them without having to necessarily compete with the pop/mainstream hip hop artists.
If Soulja Boy or Lil’ Wayne came out with a modern day “What’s Going On” album would it ever be released?
Yes, soulja boy or lil wayne can produce those style albums and get it done, they would have to stand firm but they have enough support now that if they wanted to they could. The newer artists are the ones that wont be allowed to make that type of album. A big artist would have to do it and it sell well and then they would be looking for the next one….right now, as you stated above, they are looking for the next soulja boy, or the next gucci mane cause thats whats selling.
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