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1.3 Bad Boy Records and the East Coast
Meanwhile, East Coast rappers like Busta Rhymes ( The Coming , 1996), The Wu-Tang Clan ( Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), 1993), Nas ( Illmatic, 1994) and the Notorious B.I.G. ( Ready to Die, 1994) pioneered a grittier sound in gangsta rap. Led by Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records empire and spokesperson Notorious B.I.G., New York City took back chart dominance from the West Coast as hip hop continued to explode into the mainstream, with the additional dollars intensifying the stakes between the rivals (see rap feuds). Soon enough, the situation had exploded; Shakur and Biggie were dead, victims of still-unsolved drive-by shootings; Ruthless Records sank quickly as multiple lawsuits, the incarceration of labelhead Suge Knight and the departure of Snoop, Dr. Dre and most of the label's other acts sank the company financially. Dr. Dre, at the MTV Video Music Awards, claimed that "gangsta rap was dead", which proved untrue. Bad Boy Records survived, though not untarnished as Puff Daddy's commercial empire continue to lose critics with a mainstream sound aimed at middle-class America, and challenges from Atlanta and, especially, Master P's No Limit stable of popular rappers.
2 Stylisic Changes
The rise of Bad Boy Records, and Jay-Z signaled a major stylistic change in rap which hasn't been given a name yet, but is arguably as big as the division between the preceding rap styles and the rise of gangsta rap of the early '90's. This included:
- Lyrical content, which shifted from the majority of songs portraying the rapper as being poor, or dependant on crime to make money while living in the ghetto, to being wealthy and having lots of posessions. Compare Ice Cube's "Today was a good day", to Cash Money Millionaires: "Bling-Bling". Some critics say that this shift is worse then the earlier shift into violent lyrics because it encourages materialism.
- Musical content, which shifted from the G-Funk West Coast and contemporary East Coast styles of the time to a new style most famously pioneered by Timbaland, which in general focused on custom creating the beat instead of sampling whole loops of music and adding a break-beat. The decay on snare drums during this period became extremely short, as part of the style (called "the short snare"). Almost all songs featured some rythmic instruments in the very high end of the frequency spectrum, such as a synthesized triangle sound.
- Lyrical Presentation: The production values when recording lyrics went ever increasingly higher during this period and have not returned from that level. Almost all singles featured many recorded layers of the rapper saying the same words, creating a dense sound. Often albums were recorded with basic vocal tracks laid down, and when a song was choosen for a single later, the rappers would go back and add more layers to the vocal tracks to create the disctinct sound.
3 Post-Coast rivalry
After the deaths of Biggie and Tupac, hip hop remained a major commercial force, though there was no clear victory from either coast. Most of the industry's major labels were in turmoil, or bankrupt, and new locations sprang up.
Goodie Mob ( Soul Food , 1995) and OutKast ( Aquemini, 1998) established Atlanta as a hip hop center early on, drawing on the pioneering Christian hip hop group Arrested Development ( 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of..., 1992), the earliest successful southern group. Later, Ludacris ( Word of Mouf, 2001) would become a huge southern rap star.
Master P's No Limit label, based out of New Orleans, also became quite popular, though critical success was scarce, with the exceptions of some later additions like Mystikal ( Let's Get Ready , 2000) and Juvenile ( 400 Degreez, 1998). No Limit had begun its rise to fame with Master P's The Ghetto Is Trying to Kill Me! (1994, 1994 in music), and subsequent hits by Rappin- 4-Tay ( Don't Fight the Feeling , 1994), Silkk the Shocker ( Charge It 2 Da Game , 1998) and C-Murder ( Life or Death , 1998).
After the turn of the millennium, superstar Nelly ( Country Grammar, 2000) and the rest of the St. Lunatics ("Gimme What You Got", 1996) put St. Louis on the hip hop map, while Eminem ( The Marshall Mathers LP, 2000) arose from Detroit to become the biggest star in the history of hip hop.
Jermaine Dupri, an Atlanta-born record producer and talent scout, had had great but-shortlived success after discovering youthful pop stars Kris Kross ( Totally Krossed Out , 1992) performing at a mall, but his formula proved enormously successful in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as pre-teen pop acts like Lil Bow Wow ( Beware of Dog , 2000) topped the charts, along with older performers like Da Brat ( Funkdafied , 1994), Mariah Carey ( Daydream , 1995) and Usher ( My Way, 1997).
