Once upon a time in a universe far, far away, HipHopDX used to host blogs. Through Meka, Brillyance, Aliya Ewing and others, readers got unfiltered opinions on the most current topics in and beyond Hip Hop. After a few years, a couple redesigns and the collective vision of three different Editors-In-Chief, blogs are back. Well, sort of. Since our blog section went the way of two-way pagers and physical mixtapes, Twitter, Instagram and Ustream have further accelerated the pace of current events in Hip Hop. Rappers beef with each other 140 characters at a time, entire mixtapes (and their associated artwork) can be released via Instagram, and sometimes these events require a rapid reaction.
As such, we’re reserving this space for a weekly reaction to Hip Hop’s current events. Or whatever else we deem worthy. And the “we” in question is me, Andre Grant, and our Sr. Features Writer Ural Garrett. Collectively we serve as HipHopDX’s Features Staff. Aside from tackling stray topics, we may invite artists and other personalities in Hip Hop to join the conversation. Without further delay, here’s this week’s “Stray Shots.”
Was Silkk The Shocker The Only 90s Rapper Due For Criticism?
Andre: Of course not. The 90s were littered with middling to straight up terrible emcees that hit a deep vein of rap gold and struck success. Let us never forget Milli Vanilli or Vanilla Ice. And let us own the fact that Shaquille O’Neal went platinum at one point. You can find his great contribution to rap here:
That doesn’t even include “(I Know I Got) Skillz,” which was buried deep in Hip Hop apocrypha before Shaq got his own Vevo channel. I digress, though. Are we really going to act like Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch weren’t a thing?
And they’re just the ones that achieved a reasonable amount of cultural saturation. There were the weed carriers (Byron Crawford would be proud) getting deals left and right because the 90s were so flush with cash no one knew what to do with it all. Every once in awhile I’ll bump into an OG somewhere and they’ll proceed to tell me what the party life was like during the glory years. It makes my job feel like a government one as they regale you with stories about how Def Jam flew them out to their own private island and all the women were like 12s or above. And, about how the champagne flowed from heaven itself.
A few were more going to slip through with all that money floating around, and they did. Silkk The Shocker wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t going to assassinate you on some lyrical shit, sure, but the dude was entertaining. Plus, as long as someone with real chops like Mystikal was there to make things coherent, it was for sure fine. “It Ain’t My Fault” is a hood classic and it literally had a reference to Steve Urkel. Who can be mad at that?
And to all the folks who are going to be all like, “he rapped off beat!” My answer is so? So what? Yeah, he did and now half the game does. Who cares? These guys built an empire off of hard as beats, mafioso references and truly not being able to understand some of what these dudes were saying. I’ll take it.
Ural: Regardless of the genre, there are certain artists who generally made bad music despite having commercial success. Hip Hop wasn’t any different. Nothing killed me more than the success of Coolio. For me, he serves as the antithesis to the perfect notion of The Golden Era. And yes, I hated “Gangster’s Paradise.” To this day, it bothers me that the L.V. assisted track managed to win a Grammy over Tupac’s “Dear Momma,” Biggie’s “Big Pappa” and most importantly Skee-Lo’s “I Wish.” Damn you Michelle Pfeiffer!
https://youtu.be/cpGbzYlnz7c
For one, I never found Silkk The Shocker that bad as everyone believes. His verse on classic No Limit track “I’m A Soldier” was on par with Mystikal and Mia X’s standout verses. Matter of fact, The Tank had quality control issues due in part to the ridiculous amounts of artist signed to the label. Compared to several notable WTF signees to No Limit, at least Silkk sold fairly well.
Then there’s the ultimate blemish of the 90s in Vanilla Ice. How exactly To The Extreme managed to sell over seven million copies is beyond me. Then again, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Couldn’t have been any more different than the stuff folks complain about in this day and age. “Ice Ice Baby” wasn’t the only offender. Mr. Van Winkle almost ruined my childhood fascination of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles through “Ninja Rap.”
Andre Grant is an NYC native turned L.A. transplant that has contributed to a few different properties on the web and is now the Features Editor for HipHopDX. He’s also trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot. Follow him on Twitter @drejones.
Ural Garrett is a Los Angeles-based journalist and HipHopDX’s Senior Features Writer. When not covering music, video games, films and the community at large, he’s in the kitchen baking like Anita. Follow him on Twitter @Uralg.
thanks for highlighting bad acts in the 90s cuz these hiphop purists romanticize the past to ridiculous degrees but the groups you highlighted were poor examples imo. coolio wasnt that bad as at least he was saying something. Marky Mark is cheesy yes but who can deny Mark Whalberg..Whatever u say, the song is still played at basketball stadiums…they are worse groups to highlight like MC Hammer, Wrexx-n-effect, Kid N Play, PM Dawn…they were worse than Coolio
at least. And please recognize “Big Poppa” and “Dear Mama” are spelt wrong. Kind of gives off a different meaning…
Wreckx N Effect was dope, don’t let the single fool you. So was Kid N Play.
What an awful article
I’m going Diddy. He was awful on the mic back then.
DX Staff just went full retard. I can’t believe you MFs are hatin on Coolio, and Shaq is a legit MC… Coolio has party hits that radio stations to this day still play. Gangstas Paradise will forever go down as a classic and you can’t do nothing about that.
By the way Id take Marky Mark All day over 80% of todays generation. Mark > Yung Thug. Get your head straight, foolheads.
dx acting like “Good Vibrations” isnt a banger, people still bop their heads to this when it comes on its a hype track
Awh I’m gonna bump the shit out of Gangsta’s Paradise now.
There was not 1 wack rapper he 90s….not 1
– old school niqqas
Anybody who thinks coolio was wack needs to listen to WC and the maad circle and it takes a thief. Coolio was dope.
Ninja Rap>>>>sh**>>garbage>>anything Future, Young Thug, Chief Keef, put out
Dx. Slippin like usual. Gangsta’s Paradise is one of the best songs in the history of hip hop. Everybody knows how that shit start off… straight banger. Coolio kinda went soft on the solo tip but he had a few bangers like I Remember. Vanilla Ice wasn’t marketed to hip hop heads. He was marketed to kids. So hating on music marketed to kids is kinda dumb. You gonna critically review the first Kris Kross album and say that is the reason why the 90s had wack artist too? Last, but not least, I’d take Shaq over half the rap game now. And he made it by being a celebrity. Nobody took that shit seriously then he actually had a few decent tracks. Now we have clowns like Adrien Broner imitating Young Thug. The strength of each individual year in hip hop is made up by its best acts not its worst ones.
NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE FLACK COOLIO RECEIVED AT A CERTAIN POINT IN TIME. HE HAD SOME GREAT SINGLES, A GOOD FLOW & FUN MUSIC. GANGSTA’S PARADISE, TOO HOT & SEE YOU WHEN I GET THERE ARE SOLID DEEP TRACKS. FANTASTIC VOYAGE ALBUM WAS NICE TOO. STOP HATING ON COOLIO BC HE WASN’T AFFILIATED WITH DRE.
lol @including coolio in that list…
hiphopdx you better step your game up. Gangstas Paradise – and i am talking about the album – is a G-Funk classic. Coolio did his thing, thats for sure!
I Wish and Big Poppa were just cheesy pop hits. I Wish made few people take Skee-Lo seriously though he had bars. Big Poppa was Biggie’s worst song on the album and a typical Puffy-type song that was trying to kill hip hop in the 90s. Dear Mama should have won. Not only was it the most meaningful of all nominees, it was 2Pac’s career turning point.
Sen Dog, completely agree, homie.
Milli Vanilli??? That was not rap and other than Silk and coolio (who I think you guys are too hard on since he can play like 6 instruments) were very early 90s rappers, the 90s didn’t get their own identity until late 91 when grunge rock blew up. Before that it was 80s 2.0
How would you know what was good or bad in the 90’s? You guys have a hard time understanding whats good or bad in todays music.
This is soooo true. They give these wack non English speaking mfs a great review every time. Yung thug and chief keef are WORSE than Vanilla Ice
MARKY MARK G.O.A.T.
No doubt the 90’s had some wackness, but shit… the whole rap game wack as hell now! Just take a good look at the clowns running around in the game nowadays, fruitcakes such as Young Thug, Wiz Khalifa, Kanye, Drake, Macklemore, Kendrick Lamar (ridiculously overrated and is certainly not an all time top 10 rapper), Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea and the list just goes on and on…
Preach!
You guys get alot of flac for these articles Eh. Gangstas paradise is a classic by the way.
How can Vanilla Ice be the wackest rapper you dumbasses? His lyrics were written by a black rapper named: choclate. Nothing wrong with Coolio better then those horrible rappers by the name of: lil wayne, 50 cent, young jeezy, future, tyga, big sean, lil faggot, young shit, lil wack etc. In the 90’s you DX fucks were just shitting in your pants. You grow up with ja-fool and 50 cent. Oh for that dumb fuck who said Biggie’s poppa is crap, fuck you and go back to your drake cd.
The Golden Era was doper than the 90s. It’s all been downhill since ’89.
vanilla ice is an OG show some respect
HHDX putting VANILLA ICE up there is a low blow……..but DRSAKE gets a pass for being POP…SMH…RACIST!
Vanilla a legend
They got this whole editorial idea from thecoli.
Here’s the difference between wack acts back then and wack acts now: You could understand what they were saying. At least they were trying. And Gangsta’s Paradise is a classic. Y’all fucked up including that track in this article.
Plus, the good outweighed the bad by a landslide back then. Now, the tables have turned, which is why a good rapper, like Kendrick or Cole, gets heavily praised.
Not gonna reiterate the great points made about coolio and silk…but lets not act like shaq didnt hold his own…he had a track with Biggie that was fire and a Fuschnickens or however you spell it…yall make articles like trolls more often than not
I never understood why people hated on Coolio for Gangster’s Paradise. I thought it was a dope record. I mean it wasn’t on some super complex lyrical shit; but that didn’t make the record bad. And you can’t hate on the man for winning an award that you feel someone else should’ve gotten (which I actually agree one of the other nominees should’ve won).
Ural… you dont know shit about Hip Hop man, just STOP! Go write about another music genre, you are way out of your league. All you are doing is embarrassing yourself. Who cares about the grammys? Lmao what a LAME you are
We have somebody now that makes Vanilla Ice look hardcore, and her name is Iggy.
Terrible terrible article