Respect. Its trendy to hate on **** like no limit and cash money cause it's associated with rap becoming more commercialized and unapologetically materialistic but that's just the culmination/logical conclusion of so many forces that have always pointed in a particular direction from day 1. Stemming from the material conditions in the hood and the grind or die mentality it produces.
It's interesting to me to think of how rap music is the perfect reflection of the dark underbelly of modern life under western capitalism. How it started out as a gritty alternative to disco in NYC... Disco itself being a monument to the kind of pure hedonism that defines our culture which probably reached it's apex around the 70's and 80's when disco was still relevant, cocaine was a novelty, hip hop was just a hood variety of dance music and Americans still thought the dream was alive.
Its not surprising that as the genre adopted a more aggressive stance as cocaine turned to crack and gang violence dominated the urban centers of every major metro area.
And it's also not surprising that when all that gang banging and King pinning climaxed with the deaths of biggie and pac and the east coast west coast beef... Nobody noticed the elephant in the room which was that the south was about to rise up and dominate the genre for the foreseeable future.
Nobody took the south seriously in the 90s.
"Back when new York niggas was calling southern rappers lame, and then jacking our slang" - jay electronica - exhibit c
Outkast got booed when they won an award cause the award show was in NY and all non east coast rappers were getting booed as if they were west coast.
Plus there has traditionally been more of an affinity between the west coast and the south in hip hop. NY always thought it was the center of the universe and their sound, style and aesthetic appealed particularly to the bleak yet busy concrete jungle that NY is.
Cali is more spread out. More beautiful yet somewhat distorted. Isolated. Alienated. The southern cities are similar in this regard.
Is it a coincidence that 2pac got accused of biting Scarface's style and then master p got accused of biting 2pac? That scarface lived in Houston, pac lived in Oakland, and master p lived in Richmond Cali and new Orleans? Is it hard to notice the influence of west coast rap on late 90s rap from new Orleans, starting with no limit but leading on to the cash money dynasty which is still relevant in the rap world to this day?
I dunno.. could be coincidence. I be could be a schizo rambling to himself about nothing at all. Who knows.
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