A lot of good points have been made. But here's my two cents:
In many cases, the MASSES are suckers for anything promoted as the latest thing--they want whatever is new AT THAT TIME so that they can appear hip. Since a great portion of CD sales are determined by said masses, this looks good at first. Unfortunately, a big percentage of the masses go for whatever is exposed on TV, the newspaper, or magazines (which West Coast Rap was quite a bit between '89 to '96/'97 or so) instead of THINKING FOR THEMSELVES. People on this board who are willing to work to find quality music are WAY outnumbered by those who say, "duh, I saw it on MTV, BET, or read it in ROLLING STONE--it must be dopey--oops, I mean dope!" (yeah, I know, pathetic imitation of someone using rap slang out of context, but I've met a few like this. LOL)!
Now, once a style of music, TV, etc. has been around for awhile (which West Coast Rap has) and once said style has been accepted as here to stay (underground or otherwise), the true fans (like us) will stick with it, 'cause it spoke to us in some way, but a large part of the masses will move on to whatever the NEXT "latest" thing is--not because so-called new thing is any better than the one they just abandoned, but because a certain kernal of the masses want to be with whatever is hot AT THAT MOMENT. Once West Coast rap was no longer new, a certain percentage of such trend-hopping masses moved on to, say, the "newly-exposed-to-the-masses" NO LIMIT (the '97/'98 model) or CASH MONEY, thus causing THOSE artists sales to reach the 8-10 million mark, because they were now ('97/'99) "the latest thing."
If the ONLY people who had bought NWA, CUBE, ICE-T, SPICE 1, TOO SHORT or the Death Row classics (to name a few) were people from the streets, those CD's sales would probably not have soared into the 9/10 million range. A good many people (i.e., the masses) who bought these hardcore CDs from '89 to '96 were suburban kids who knew that Cali Rap was what the media was focusing on at that time. So they abandoned PUBLIC ENEMY, BDP etc., whose consciousness would have been the "new thing" in 1988 (and the masses back in 1988 probably abandoned RUN-DMC, WHODINI, KOOL MOE DEE and other early '80s rappers, because they wanted to be "hip" by being seen listening to CHUCK D., KRS-ONE, etc.). Thus, the decline in huge sales.
So, I think part of why the West Coast doesn't get the sales it once did has to do not so much with quality (though the market is too flooded), but because the masses who have the $$$ to buy CDS have moved on--not because West Coast rap suddenly got boring--THEY MOVED ON BECAUSE THE BASIC NATURE OF A GOOD PORTION OF THE MASSES IS TO GO WITH WHATEVER IS EXPOSED TO THEM THE MOST AT ONE PARTICULAR TIME. Again, in '93, conscious Rap didn't suddenly just get wack--it STOPPED GETTING EXPOSURE because the media turned their focus to Wu-Tang, Nas, Death Row, 2Pac, Dre/Snoop/DPG. Thus, the declining sales of the consciousness artists.
I don't know that the masses' current focus on, say, Nelly, is ONLY because "they want to dance"--a lot of it has to do with the fact that Nelly is the one who is NOW GETTING EXPOSURE. If JT THE BIGGA FIGGA, for some weird reason, started getting MTV/ BET play, THE MASSES WOULD START BUYING JT CDs by the truckload. Not because JT's earlier stuff stunk (it didn't), but because JT would be who was "the latest thing", by virtue of his media exposure.
In all honesty, I think we have to approach music with the idea that music does not gain its' definition of excellence based on whether or not OTHERS like it--it should gain its' definition of excellence based on whether YOU like it. I'm like a lot of you in that I do get frustrated when my homies only want to hear commercial shit from MTV/BET. But I'm secure enough with my tastes and confident to trust myself to be my OWN musical guide. If you don't like what I like, hey, whatever, I'll keep on living. But this is a great topic, and KILLA TAY is dope for starting this thread. Remember: there's wack shit EVERYWHERE. NORTH, SOUTH, EAST and WEST!
Okay. That's it. The End. PEACE!
In many cases, the MASSES are suckers for anything promoted as the latest thing--they want whatever is new AT THAT TIME so that they can appear hip. Since a great portion of CD sales are determined by said masses, this looks good at first. Unfortunately, a big percentage of the masses go for whatever is exposed on TV, the newspaper, or magazines (which West Coast Rap was quite a bit between '89 to '96/'97 or so) instead of THINKING FOR THEMSELVES. People on this board who are willing to work to find quality music are WAY outnumbered by those who say, "duh, I saw it on MTV, BET, or read it in ROLLING STONE--it must be dopey--oops, I mean dope!" (yeah, I know, pathetic imitation of someone using rap slang out of context, but I've met a few like this. LOL)!
Now, once a style of music, TV, etc. has been around for awhile (which West Coast Rap has) and once said style has been accepted as here to stay (underground or otherwise), the true fans (like us) will stick with it, 'cause it spoke to us in some way, but a large part of the masses will move on to whatever the NEXT "latest" thing is--not because so-called new thing is any better than the one they just abandoned, but because a certain kernal of the masses want to be with whatever is hot AT THAT MOMENT. Once West Coast rap was no longer new, a certain percentage of such trend-hopping masses moved on to, say, the "newly-exposed-to-the-masses" NO LIMIT (the '97/'98 model) or CASH MONEY, thus causing THOSE artists sales to reach the 8-10 million mark, because they were now ('97/'99) "the latest thing."
If the ONLY people who had bought NWA, CUBE, ICE-T, SPICE 1, TOO SHORT or the Death Row classics (to name a few) were people from the streets, those CD's sales would probably not have soared into the 9/10 million range. A good many people (i.e., the masses) who bought these hardcore CDs from '89 to '96 were suburban kids who knew that Cali Rap was what the media was focusing on at that time. So they abandoned PUBLIC ENEMY, BDP etc., whose consciousness would have been the "new thing" in 1988 (and the masses back in 1988 probably abandoned RUN-DMC, WHODINI, KOOL MOE DEE and other early '80s rappers, because they wanted to be "hip" by being seen listening to CHUCK D., KRS-ONE, etc.). Thus, the decline in huge sales.
So, I think part of why the West Coast doesn't get the sales it once did has to do not so much with quality (though the market is too flooded), but because the masses who have the $$$ to buy CDS have moved on--not because West Coast rap suddenly got boring--THEY MOVED ON BECAUSE THE BASIC NATURE OF A GOOD PORTION OF THE MASSES IS TO GO WITH WHATEVER IS EXPOSED TO THEM THE MOST AT ONE PARTICULAR TIME. Again, in '93, conscious Rap didn't suddenly just get wack--it STOPPED GETTING EXPOSURE because the media turned their focus to Wu-Tang, Nas, Death Row, 2Pac, Dre/Snoop/DPG. Thus, the declining sales of the consciousness artists.
I don't know that the masses' current focus on, say, Nelly, is ONLY because "they want to dance"--a lot of it has to do with the fact that Nelly is the one who is NOW GETTING EXPOSURE. If JT THE BIGGA FIGGA, for some weird reason, started getting MTV/ BET play, THE MASSES WOULD START BUYING JT CDs by the truckload. Not because JT's earlier stuff stunk (it didn't), but because JT would be who was "the latest thing", by virtue of his media exposure.
In all honesty, I think we have to approach music with the idea that music does not gain its' definition of excellence based on whether or not OTHERS like it--it should gain its' definition of excellence based on whether YOU like it. I'm like a lot of you in that I do get frustrated when my homies only want to hear commercial shit from MTV/BET. But I'm secure enough with my tastes and confident to trust myself to be my OWN musical guide. If you don't like what I like, hey, whatever, I'll keep on living. But this is a great topic, and KILLA TAY is dope for starting this thread. Remember: there's wack shit EVERYWHERE. NORTH, SOUTH, EAST and WEST!
Okay. That's it. The End. PEACE!
