But that Mary/Meth song was cheesy (and no one loves Mary more than I do!!), Naughty By Nature were past their prime, and Coolio is more or less ridiculous. I'm not saying they weren't popular, but a lot of people use "commercial" as a put down.

Deb, now I'll have "Crossroads" in my head for days. Man, that song sucks.

Edited to reiterate that you shouldn't take my word for anything in that mid-90s time period, because like I said, I wasn't really into the rap then.

Actually, I'm less worried about the whole commercial versus keepin' it real thing than I am about the club and heavy rotation thing.

Basically, if the man with the gold and diamond chain had strolled into a NYC or LA club in 1995, with his entourage behind him, what would have been getting the play? The bigger names (as in, Grammy winners), the indie stuff no one ever heard of, or both?

My memory is just a whole lot of Biggie.

Not large on the rap scene then, but yeah - Biggie, Tupac, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg....

Ancillary question that has no material benefit to the research--Is there any kind of trend nowadays that addresses the dichotomy between the bling and the "we're poor outsiders who hate the establishment"--but tell them where the good jewelers are.

I think moving beyond the dichotocmy is what much (not all) "Gangsta" thing was about - at least the version that made it bigtime. It was about "yeah we are poor outsiders and we are coming for your stuff - but not as revolutionaries; we're we are not out to overthrow the system; we are out to move to the top of it cause we're tougher, meaner and hungrier. " And there are a lot reasons that strain was more commericailly sucessful than others (including other strains of Gangsta.). It appeals more to advertisers; what better way to sell shit than with music that spends time telling you life is all about getting rich, buying fancy stuff, and buying women (cause women are all for sale). And it appeals to white kids cause all the pimp/ho/gangsta image plays to sterotypes that are out there anyway. And of course mixed in with it is other stuff. There is the party/have a good time stuff. There is still a little political stuff that creeps into even mainstream hip/hop. And it is not that any of this was inauthentic. I just think that one particular strain of Gangsta that was always there got pumped up a whole lot bigger than its natural size cause it was a good way to sell shit, and to cripple more dangerous versions.

Deb, my Black Star CD is AWOL (which annoys--I think it's in my closet somewhere), but they're one of the (later than the period you suggested) things I was thinking wouldn't make you twitch.

Plei, cool - I can always order a song off iTunes, if you can think of a title.

Gar, I suspect you're right, which is one reason I was on what was considered the wrong side of the "explicit content labeling" divide. Bottom line is, I don't hand money over for something I'm allergic to, or that benefits the KKK or Aryan Nation. Why the fuck would I be willing to hand a thin dime over to someone to reward them for mysogeny or Jew-bashing? That kerfuffle, in my eyes, was all about commerce and nothing about creative freedom. Being a parent is hard enough, especially when the one child is a daughter. Why should I enrich someone who thinks women are commodities? Fuck that.

Nic once said that, if the revolution this country needed so badly ever came, it would be because a single black mother living with four kids in a one-room apartment in Detroit or somewhere finally decided she'd had enough. And I once got into a heated conversation with a black friend of my sister's; she was defending the stance straight down the line until I said that, bottom line, sisters were getting pissed on and no matter what colour the dick was, the colour of the piss never changed. That got her thinking instead of knee-jerking.

So when the whole "why you keepin' me down?" is coming from someone with eighty million dollars and three kids with three different women he can't be bothered to even disguise his contempt for, he has zero cred with me.

I tell you, those eleven hours of conversation at FUBU this week? They were not boring.

But I just came home to an email from Daymond. Let the games begin...

Deb, Definition, RE-Definition, and Brown Skin Lady would be the tracks I'd suggest. (You know, the ones I'd send if I could find the thing!)

Deb, Definition, RE-Definition, and Brown Skin Lady would be the tracks I'd suggest.

Excellent! I'm on it.

I have the prologue, the thing that sets up the storyline, written in my head. Need to discuss with Daymond.