If it weren't for Dr. Dre, would modern day hip hop have been another fleeting moment like grunge?

[Guest NGOG]

Hip hop's big two in the early to mid 90s were obviously Tupac Shakur and The Notorious BIG. When those two were killed off and the scene itself basically imploded there was a distinct possibility that hip hip could have been cast off to the grave of past popular music. Did Dre, by expanding his industry influence through innovative projects like Beats by Dre and demonstrating tremendous scouting ability in his position with Aftermath, provide hip hip with the necessary longevity? The fact is Dre's acts have been the frontrunners of each 21st century generation of music. Eminem to 50 Cent and most recently another young artist taking the industry by storm, Kendrick Lamar.

Edited May 30, 2013 by NGOG

[arnold layne]

Hip/hop and rap poisoned us with a decade of shitty music. The last of the bubblegum crap ended about five years ago followed by a new surge of pop music.

[Guest Len B'stard]

No way. For a start the pivotal work in the establishment of hip hop was done in the east coast anyway. It's doing a tremendous disservice to hip hop to suggest that without Dre, as great as he is, Hip Hop would've been a fad. For a start by the time Dre got into the game it was almost a decade old at that point. You forget how huge the south was when BIG and Pac died, look at Nelly and how huge he was in the post Pac and them era. Definitely not man. I can kinda see where you're going with it but i disagree.

East Coast always had the better hip hop anyway...maybe Hip Hop is the foremost influence in pop culture of your times in the world and that was down to a lot more than Dr Dre.

Edited May 30, 2013 by sugaraylen

[Guest NGOG]

I accept your well-informed perspective as always but I wasn't trying to imply hip hop was merely a superficial 'fad' more that without the intelligence of Dre it wouldn't have enjoyed such longevity given the volatile, self-destructive nature of the genre.

Nelly was never that big. If you look to the big and emerging big names of modern day hip hip, the odds are there's an association with Aftermath. This is a pretty faultless timeline really:

Eminem 1998

50 Cent 2002

Kendrick Lamar 2012

[Guest Len B'stard]

Nelly was pretty fuckin' huge man, first album 8 times platinum, second album was pretty fuckin' huge too, agreed not the hugest but he certain took up his share of the room around the time.

Perhaps it would've taken a different route but i don't think hip hop would've been a fleeting moment, it was well solidified in popular culture by that point.

[Iron MikeyJ]

Dre is def on the MT. Rushmore of hip hop artists, but I can't give him ALL the credit. People forget, but DRE was not the star in NWA, Easy E and Ice Cube and maybe even MC Ren were more popular than DRE in the early days. It was The Chronic that really made DRE who he is. If I were to put together hip hops big 4 it would be (in no particular order)

DRE

Snoop

2Pac

Biggie

I would give DRE the tie breaker over Snoop because DRE is helped make Snoop who he is, but I can't say that DRE was more important or had a bigger influence than 2Pac.

But I do feel that overall, the West Coast provided more quality and important music than the East Coast did. I know that rap kinda started in NY, but LA took it to a whole new level. And before NWA came on the scene all New York had was LL Cool J talking about "I need love." Fuck that shit!!! West Side made rap into the pop culture phenom that it is today. Argue it all you want, but at the end of the day the West Side had more influential albums and artists, end of discussion.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Mike420

[Randy Lahey]

Dre is the most important guy in rap history other than the people who actually invented it. He helped bring us NWA, Snoop and Eminem. He also provided Tupac with California Love. 50 Cent and Kendrick Lamar are mostly shit though. I can't even listen to Kendrick Lamar without falling asleep. Dre was largely responsible for bringing gangster rap into the mainstream with The Chronic; Nuthin' But a G Thang was the sound of gangsta rap hitting the mainstream. Snoop completed the mainstream transition with Doggystyle. NWA's N4Life was the first gangsta rap album to hit number one on billboard but you didn't hear any songs off of that on the radio.

And I can confirm that Nelly was huge. To be perfectly honest, Eminem is the only rapper who came out in the post Biggie and Tupac era that I've really enjoyed. 88-96 was a great era for rap music. My favorites were Public Enemy, Ice-T, NWA, Eazy, Cube, Dre, Ren, Snoop, Geto Boys, Cypress Hill, Pac, Biggie, Wu Tang, Method Man, EPMD, Naughty By Nature, Eric B and Rakim, Tribe Called Quest and many more that I can't think of right now.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[wasted]

Maybe the 90s for rap was like the 60s for rock. So grunge is just another rehash of the orginal, it was an attempt to get back to late 60s70s rock. There could be 10 years of 80s rap before grunge rap appears. There will be a GNR of rap in 2027.

[Randy Lahey]

Maybe the 90s for rap was like the 60s for rock.

That's how I view it. And the 2000's are the 80's hair metal era.

[wasted]

Then maybe in ten years a rap group will come along that is influenced by NWA and Snoop, make one flawless record then implode, ushering in another era of gangster rap.

[dalsh327]

The end of NWA and the release of The Chronic established the west coast sound.

NY stopped being the stronghold and center of rap, but rap was also going global. Dre's reign as a producer kind of came to an end with 50 Cent, with an occasional hit here and there. It's twice as long as George Martin produced The Beatles.

Longevity and influence was established by the end of the 80s. It wasn't going away, but it was a pretty diverse time and you had the pretty clean to the really filthy in the late 80s.

[Guest Len B'stard]

. Argue it all you want, but at the end of the day the West Side had more influential albums and artists, end of discussion.

OK, so the history of hip hop covers from the mid 70s to the present day in which time the west coast was huge for like, OK, lets give em 87 to 96 (and even thats being generous, there weren't much huge in the West Coast during the late 80s except NWA) and then you don't hear shit from em really til The Game and now Kendrick and they had the most influential artists and albums? It's simply not true. More influential is just flat out ridiculous.

[Iron MikeyJ]

I admit that when I made my previous post I was over looking run dmc and public enemy. But having said that, neither of those bands had the success or lasting impact like the west coast rappers. So even though I forgot a couple of good ones, my point still remains. But this is an age old arguement ny vs la. I am on the la side. I just feel that they were the ones who really made rap explode, and honestly it was nuthin' but a g thang. That one song and one album changed the history of music more than anything since the 1960's. Kurt cobain and smells like teen spirit are choir boys by comparision.

I admit that west coast rap pretty much died with 2pac, their have been good songs and albums here and their. I really like some of kurupt's work, but it never reached the heights that it once had. I'm sure lenny is going to disagree but give me nwa, the chronic, the chronic 2001, doggystyle, the dogfather, ice cubes best work, and 2pac's albums collectivly are greater than all of new yorks artisit combined.

[Guest Len B'stard]

I think the problem arises when you labour under the mentality that commercial success and influence are the same thing.

Those artists are greater than all the east coast combined is just ridiculous. What you are saying essentially is that there are just under 20 hip hop albums that are of greater value than the east coasts entire output, which is basically the bedrock, the foundation of, the heart and soul of hip hop, even the greatest west coast advocates wouldn't say that, thats just crazy.

Edited May 31, 2013 by sugaraylen

[sweetness]

For a lot of people, myself included, hip hop was a fleeting moment. Beyond the 90's it's just like whats the point? What good has come of this? Maybe there have been a few great artists since the late 90's that I've missed, I wouldn't know who they are, but everything I've heard has been incredibly underwhelming. My brother keeps trying to get me into these new rappers, Childish Gambino, Chance The Rapper, can't remember the other ones, but even though I can tell they're talented I just can't get excited about new hip hop, the music has really run it's course imo.

I'm sure you guys have heard Macklemore, seriously, THAT is hip hop today? fucking awful

[Guest Len B'stard]

Whether you like it or not its undeniable that its not a fleeting moment, it permeates our culture musically and in terms of fashion and the way people speak, even the pop music of the day is heavily hip hop influenced, everybody has there personal preferences era-wise.

[Iron MikeyJ]

In most cases I would agree that commercial success and influence are not the same, but this is one of the few exceptions. The chronic changed everything. It was extremly successful, and extremly influential. That album defines the 90's better than any other album imo. Every rapper that came after that album was directly influenced by it, including biggie, jay z, eminem, 50 cent, nelly, outkast, wu~tang, master p, all of them. It's the one album that changed rap from the 80's run dmc, mc hammer, and even public enemy type of sillyness to making hip hop a serious force to be rekoned with. And we all know what hip hop blew up into, it can be directly traced back to the chronic. So yes this one album is far superior influentially than anything new york has ever done. And when you add the stuff that followed, then yes I feel very strongly that LA produced more quality and influence.

Honstly I could make the case that the chronic is one of the 5 most important and influential albums of the 20th century. I haven't even touched on the social impact of that album. Sure nwa and to certain extent public enemy, were making people aware of what life is/was like for african americans, but it was the chronic that made the world shut up and take notice. That's an influence that not only can't be under estimated, but honestly may never be felt again. At least not in our life time.

[Johnny Drama]

I think people give The Chronic way too much fuckin' love than it deserves.

The last handful of songs are shit, don't flow and unnecessary.

[Coma16]

I think people give The Chronic way too much fuckin' love than it deserves.

The last handful of songs are shit, don't flow and unnecessary.

I drop bombs like hiroshima!

I think Wu-Tang is owed a lot of credit as well.

[Guest Len B'stard]

In most cases I would agree that commercial success and influence are not the same, but this is one of the few exceptions. The chronic changed everything. It was extremly successful, and extremly influential. That album defines the 90's better than any other album imo. Every rapper that came after that album was directly influenced by it, including biggie, jay z, eminem, 50 cent, nelly, outkast, wu~tang, master p, all of them. It's the one album that changed rap from the 80's run dmc, mc hammer, and even public enemy type of sillyness to making hip hop a serious force to be rekoned with. And we all know what hip hop blew up into, it can be directly traced back to the chronic. So yes this one album is far superior influentially than anything new york has ever done. And when you add the stuff that followed, then yes I feel very strongly that LA produced more quality and influence.

Honstly I could make the case that the chronic is one of the 5 most important and influential albums of the 20th century. I haven't even touched on the social impact of that album. Sure nwa and to certain extent public enemy, were making people aware of what life is/was like for african americans, but it was the chronic that made the world shut up and take notice. That's an influence that not only can't be under estimated, but honestly may never be felt again. At least not in our life time.

I think what you are saying is patently ridiculous and reflective of a very poor understanding of the genre and the breadth of its power and influence, for a start you've almost negated key elements of the culture that wasn't reflected in the west coasts take on hip hop, you're taking like, the cherry on top and calling it everything and totally devaluing the 500 layers of cake that it took to give the cherry a place to rest on.

The Chronic was a great album but it is not the centrepiece of hip hop, not by a long chalk.

Edited May 31, 2013 by sugaraylen

[moreblack]

There's little moments that make all the difference. Like Jay Z picking up on a beat by Timbaland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Lckplj6ZA&feature=youtu.be&t=1m41s

Edited May 31, 2013 by moreblack

[Guest Len B'stard]

It's my stupidity really for discussing hip hop on a site full of metallers, God bless you all

[moreblack]

It's my stupidity really for discussing hip hop on a site full of metallers, God bless you all

I don't know what you expected

[sweetness]

Whether you like it or not its undeniable that its not a fleeting moment, it permeates our culture musically and in terms of fashion and the way people speak, even the pop music of the day is heavily hip hop influenced, everybody has there personal preferences era-wise.

I mean when it was actually good, can't deny that it's dominated popular culture for the last 20 years but seriously how many new hip hop artists do you listen to and enjoy? There's literally Kanye West and a bunch of uninspired copy cats, its at the point hair metal was at in the late 80's

[Guest Len B'stard]

Whether you like it or not its undeniable that its not a fleeting moment, it permeates our culture musically and in terms of fashion and the way people speak, even the pop music of the day is heavily hip hop influenced, everybody has there personal preferences era-wise.

I mean when it was actually good, can't deny that it's dominated popular culture for the last 20 years but seriously how many new hip hop artists do you listen to and enjoy? There's literally Kanye West and a bunch of uninspired copy cats, its at the point hair metal was at in the late 80's

That much i can agree with you on.