08/30/2010
So… yesterday was an eventful day for a lotta hip-hop aficionados such as myself at the Merriweather Post Pavillion in DC. I’d never been to a Rock The Bells Festival, but I made it a point to make it there this year, callin’ around since way back in May to see who was ready to roll. We made it there, and it was well worth the admission. I didn’t catch much on the second stage, mostly because the main stage was MAJOR this year- with Snoop, Wu-Tang, A Tribe Called Quest, Lauryn Hill, Rakim, KRS-One, and Slick Rick all touchin’ the stage. I was amped when I woke up, amped when we got there, and still amped when we left. In between all that, here’s the shit that stood out- for better or worse. Here we go…
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DanjLovesTheHipHop | Tagged: ATCQ, DJ PREMIER, KRS-ONE, LAURYN HILL, RAKIM, SLICK RICK, SNOOP, WU-TANG | 
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08/26/2010
Some of y’all are familiar with my “The ’90s Loved The ’80s” series, right? Well, as fate would have it, the ’90s occasionally sampled some other joints from the ’90s as well. It mostly went on during the later half, although not as much as the rampant ’80s-jacking that went on. As I might’ve said once before, ’90s music still hasn’t been sampled as much as stuff from the previous decades, mostly because they were so busy sampling theirdamnselves during the ’90s. This entry is prime evidence of that, because there was so much sampling that some of the joints that didn’t contain samples… got sampled.
Confused? You won’t be, after this edition of… “The ’90s Loved The ’90s”. (Shoutout to whoever gets that reference)
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7 Comments | DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheR&B, Original Flavor | Tagged: LL COOL J, MARIAH CAREY, MC EIHT, MONICA, MONTELL JORDAN, SNOOP, THREE SIX | Permalink
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08/23/2010
“The people ain’t comin’ cause you grandiose muthafukkas don’t play shit that they like.”- Shadow, Mo’ Better Blues
“Crossover ain’t nothin’ but a double-cross. Once we lose our audience, we never gonna get them back!”- JT, The Five Heartbeats
“People gotta understand, we got in this to be stars. We didn’t get in this to walk around with bookbags on our backs, talkin’ bout we hip-hop”- Nas interview on MTV
“It’s a shame, niggas in the rap game, only for the money and the fame”- Xzibit, “Paparazzi”
In the past month or so, there’s been a few things I’ve seen around the internet that prompted me to drop this entry. First, there was the mini-fallout that started from Talib Kweli‘s collaboration with Gucci Mane, which to some defied the rules of all that is right in the world. Then, there were two excellent lists of late-’90s hip-hop- Complex’s 75 Greatest Tunnel Bangers and the Bloggerhouse spin-off, Backpack Bangers. The lists in particular threw me back to that time when the “commercial” and “underground” sides of hip-hop started splitting apart further than ever.
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16 Comments | 90% Dis, DanjLovesTheHipHop | Tagged: 1996, BIGGIE, DE LA SOUL, FOXY BROWN, JAY-Z, JERU, JUNIOR MAFIA, LIL' KIM, NAS, PUFFY, RAS KASS, ROOTS, XZIBIT | Permalink
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08/20/2010
Mobb Deep said “Tommy Hil is my nigga”- Tommy Hilfiger, 1995
Ah, yes- that hip-hop sure is a powerful thing. It has the power to make even the most ridiculous shit cool for a couple months. If it’s name-dropped by a popular artist, featured in a hot video, or endorsed by the community as a whole, the urban youth will jump on it. Likewise, the suburban youth that emulates the urban youth will jump on it too. In some cases, its influence has even blown up the products of companies owned by guys who don’t know shit about rap. Even if those companies were doin’ just fine without a hip-hop co-sign, they sure as shit reaped the benefits. Polo, Timberland and Cristal, rather they’d admit or not, are prime examples of that.
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12 Comments | 90s Stylin' | Tagged: HILFIGER | Permalink
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08/17/2010
In hindsight, August of 1995 was a monumental month for hip-hop. It started off with the release of Cuban Linx. A couple days later, there was the Source Awards event that kicked off that whole Bad Boy/Death Row thing. And on August 17th came the end of a show that played a huge part in hip-hop’s growth over the previous 7 years. It didn’t get advertised with a bunch of fanfare, or treated as an “End of An Era”-type happening, but on that Friday night, MTV aired the final episode of Yo! MTV Raps.
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11 Comments | DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheVideos, This Is TV! | Tagged: YO MTV RAPS | Permalink
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08/14/2010
Last year around this time, I was doin’ the Summer Seven Series, which still contains some of my favorite posts that I’ve dropped so far on this site. In hindsight, there’s a few songs I would have added in the place of others, but it is what it is. One in particular was for the summer of ’98- one that I couldn’t seem to get away from no matter what. If I was watchin’ MTV, it was on. If I watched BET, it was on. If I cut on the radio, I had to damn near listen to the country station to avoid hearin’ it. Of course, not doin’ anything that had to do with music was a way I coulda gotten away from it, but gimme a break.
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5 Comments | 90s Girls, DanjLovesTheR&B, One To Grow On | Tagged: 1998, BRANDY, MONICA | Permalink
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08/11/2010
You know what summertime reminds me of? Weed! It all started for me in ’96, and for the next six years or so, shit was on like Donkey Kong. I never became a devoted pothead with a time-and-money-consuming habit, but I did grow to enjoy the herbal practice very much.
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14 Comments | AllTime8, DanjLovesTheHipHop | Tagged: BONE THUGS, KEITH MURRAY, KRS-ONE, LUNIZ, NATE DOGG, REDMAN, SCARFACE, WARREN G | Permalink
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08/09/2010
I’m a lil’ late on this, but shoutout to T.I. and Tameka “Tiny” Cottle for givin’ each other their slave papers last weekend. I’ve found it somewhat of a culture shock that today’s generation knows shit about Tiny, except that she’s Tip’s old wife who has that show on BET. But I guess that beats bein’ called one of “them ugly-ass XScape bitches“.
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14 Comments | DanjLovesTheR&B, DanjLovesTheVideos, HA! | Tagged: XSCAPE | Permalink
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08/05/2010
Annnd so, as I’ve done a couple times before, it’s about that time to show love to those artists who took center stage in the ’90s… for about two months. Not that that’s a bad thing- when you think about it, there’s some artists who didn’t even get that. If nothing else, at least a guy like Pressha can say “hey, I did better than Alfonzo Hunter“, and Nonchalant can say “did Mother Superia make ‘5 O’Clock‘?”. So with that, join me for another installment of the series that congratulates those who did it at least once.
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15 Comments | DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheR&B, One Hitta Quitta, Whatever Happened To...? | Tagged: BLACKGIRL, NONCHALANT, POSITIVE K, PRESSHA | Permalink
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08/02/2010
During my peak years as a Wu-Tang superfan (which incidentally stretches the exact length of my time in high school), I’d have to say 1995 was the year it was solidified. For me, that Wu logo was like the quality stamp for anything it was on. I ran Method Man‘s Tical album (in parts) through the early months, tripped off Ol’ Dirty‘s Return to the 36 Chambers during the spring, and closed the year out with GZA‘s Liquid Swords. With respect to those, the real Wu-jewel of ’95 was the one that dropped on August 1st, known as Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…
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17 Comments | Classic Material, DanjLovesTheAlbums, DanjLovesTheHipHop | Tagged: GHOSTFACE, RAEKWON, WU-TANG | Permalink
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