AllTime8: Nate D-O-Double-G

03/16/2011

After Nate Dogg had his second stroke in 2008, and news on his condition since then was scarce at best, I had a feeling that his health wasn’t on the up. Still, it was a shock to wake up at 2:30 this morning and see that he had passed last night.

As one of the original “Death Row Inmates”, Nate was the writer and performer of some of the catchiest and most familiar hooks in hip-hop. For years, he was a reliable guest star on tracks by everyone from Snoop and Dre to 50 Cent and Ludacris. I don’t even know what I can say about his influence and importance to the game that hasn’t been said today. But I’ll suffice it to say that he’s participated in a number of classics that may not have been as classic without him.

In paying tribute to Nate’s life, DanjLovesThe90s drops eight of my personal favorite guest appearances by him- here they go:

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7 Comments | AllTime8, DanjLovesTheHipHop, In Memory Of... | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

AllTime8: G.T.D.

01/24/2011

Yeah, you know it… today’s entry is all about those songs that used to come on the radio, and you might get smacked in the mouth for singin’. Either that, or you’d get asked about a certain part in the song and what you know about it, and you’d have to act like you didn’t know shit. Or maybe that was just me.

Today’s AllTime8 is all about eight great “GTD” anthems from the ’90s. Music to hump by, if you will. It’s kinda funny to see people from my generation comment on new music and say “it’s all about sex now, back then they sang about love”… I don’t know what ’90s them niggas grew up in, but the one I grew up in was where they started getting a whole lot more blatant wit’ it. But hey, that’s neither here nor there- here are my eight personal favorite ’90s joints dedicated to Gettin’ The Draws:

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6 Comments | AllTime8, DanjLovesTheR&B, GTD | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

AllTime8: This Is The (Slept-On) Remix

10/25/2010

Welllll… it’s Hip-Hop Soul Week on DLT90s, as promised at the top of the month. I’ll be showin’ love to a classic hip-hop soul album from ’96, and makin’ the week complete with the DLT90s HipHopSoulMix, but first things first…

While New Jack Swing was on the way out, it gradually transformed into a new subgenre that relied heavily on remixes. Whereas the New Jack sound fused hip-hop and R&B during the late-’80s, the Hip-Hop Soul sound represented a more aggressive, breakbeat-driven style for the ’90s. Mary J. Blige and Puffy popularized it with What’s The 411? in ’92, which later carried over to become a big part of The Bad Boy Sound. By ’95, it was almost uncommon for there to be a single that didn’t either feature a rapper or have a remix featuring one. Most times, these remixes were also built on samples of past rap hits, which further made them palatable to the hip-hop audience. While some of them blew up and took on lives of their own, there were others that only got minor play or none at all. Either way, even though this trend eventually went on overload and played itself out by the end of the decade, it definitely spawned some memorable tracks. Annnd so, in jumping off Hip-Hop Soul Week, here are eight remixes that didn’t really make it over the hump, but to me were still hittin’:

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14 Comments | AllTime8, DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheR&B, Hip-Hop Soul | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

AllTime8: Shoulda Been A Single

09/25/2010

You ever heard a song on an artist’s album, and wanted it to be the next video, or the song they played on the radio? Well, around the mid-’90s after I got my turntables and went record-coppin’ crazy, I did the same. I always kept up on what all the new singles were, but as I stayed up on those, very rarely was I buying full-length albums. When I did get the albums, being the music nerd I was, I’d try to predict what the forthcoming singles were gonna be. Sometimes, I was correct (D’Angelo‘s “Lady” and DMX‘s “Ruff Ryders Anthem” being two correct guesses I made)… other times, not so. In this installment of the AllTime8, I drop eight instances in which I was wrong, but perhaps should’ve been right. You be the judge…

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11 Comments | AllTime8, Coulda-Woulda-Shoulda, DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheR&B | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

AllTime8: Married To Juana

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: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

AllTime8: MJB Remixes

06/23/2010

Back in my day, there was one female R&B artist I rocked with heavy- that got-damn Mary J. Blige. There were some others who were good, others who were aight, others whose singles and videos I wasn’t mad at… but I wasn’t bumpin’ all their albums or anything. The chances of me walkin’ down the street (or sittin’ in my room for that matter) with Monica‘s Miss Thang in the headphones were unlikely. But MJB was something different. As I said when I covered the 411 joint about a year ago, she was damn near like a rapper in a singer’s body (but still, she SANG). The beats were hard, the singing was unpolished but strong, and her whole style was naturally hip-hop.

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15 Comments | AllTime8, Classic Material, DanjLovesTheR&B, Hip-Hop Soul, Love Movement | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

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