Which city is more famous for Hip Hop: Atlanta or New York City? (live, best)
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I'm a software developer. I could build this site. Think before you type.
A quick google search of rappers from Atlanta is easy to do, and the list is long, and they are all terrible and not famous. I had to youtube most of them to verify that they did, in fact, make terrible music that few people outside of niche fan-boys have ever heard of.
Now let's try that for LA: Tupac, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice T etc etc. NYC same thing. Outside of the USA, I bet a lot of fans have never even heard of Atlanta, let alone hip-hop from Atlanta.
To be fair, Outkast and Goodie Mob are not terrible and they are famous.
To be fair, Outkast and Goodie Mob are not terrible and they are famous.
Outkast much more so than Goodie Mobb. Cee-Lo as a solo artist is more famous than Goodie Mobb as a collective ever was, but most people don't know Cee-Lo as a hip hop artist.
To give some perspective, Goodie Mobb never went platinum, and this was back in the day when it was much easier to go platinum. CeeLo's solo album "The Lady Killer" went double platinum in 2010.
I'm a software developer. I could build this site. Think before you type.
A quick google search of rappers from Atlanta is easy to do, and the list is long, and they are all terrible and not famous. I had to youtube most of them to verify that they did, in fact, make terrible music that few people outside of niche fan-boys have ever heard of.
Now let's try that for LA: Tupac, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice T etc etc. NYC same thing. Outside of the USA, I bet a lot of fans have never even heard of Atlanta, let alone hip-hop from Atlanta.
Girl, bye. The only two rappers that are renown are Tupac and Biggy. Jay Z is the living legend, as is Eminem. Outside of that NAS, Dre, or Ice T (WTF? Is this even for real?) ain’t hit on SHAT outside the US. So miss me with that petty chit, ok.
I am a 51 year old black man born and raised in Philly but currently residing in Maryland since 1999.
Growing up in Philly I saw hip hop raw and probably way before it become commercialized and nationwide in the early eighties.
I was exposed to the early eighties rappers convention tapes from Harlem world.
I saw people in Philly at block parties and clubs rhyming on the mic for 30 minutes straight without breaks with crazy high flow, word count, originality and complexity..I saw dj's mixing crazy records with up to 4 and 5 turntables at a time per dj.....I saw dj's mixing and scratching records with spoons, forks and even some used thier manhood to mix and scratch....we had rappers (some of which were girls and women - way before Roxanne and Mc Light) and dj's throuout the city at block parties, clubs and even on the radio..with local radio shows (wkdu, what and later power 99). They were all competing with each other trying to stretch grow and be more original than the next group. they constantly competed with each other and sometimes with groups from New York.....all of this competition made the craft of rapping and djing constantly evolve and improve......I was amazed to see all of this growing up and wonderred why more of these people from the neighborhoods around the city weren't making records......
I saw Hip -Hop change and improve each year through the eighties and into the ninties the golden era of Hip hop.
One thing that isn't mentioned in this debate about Hip Hop is this, the art began as performers that could perform live and rhyme off the top of the head and be improvasational....similar to jazz......the rappers had to have talent and to have already proved themselves and their skill from among a sea of competitors before being considerred record ready .......
All. Of this competition amongst the rhymers in New York in particular produced ever changing steel that few if any other regions could match. The ever changing complexity, energy, creativity and bravado that emerged from New York (and yes some Philly men and women)is undeniable even if it did not always result in record sales and financial success that's common today.......
I think that what
Krs one once said -"mainly what I rhyme is for the average New Yorker" is prophetic. New York (and Philly) rhymers were battling each other constantly and they wrote and rhymed for that audience....because if that audience accepted them, then the nation would follow .....as they did.....
The New York audience was tough, discerning and knew and respected hip hop from true artists that could rhyme live - be creative, improvisational in a cypher and dust off all competition undeniably.
And unfortunately, there I believe lies the problem of Hip Hop, as it has evolved or devolved to be what it has become today.
Few rappers not of the New York region could compete with New Yorkers in lyrics, flow, word count, complexity and originality and I beleive that the record industry heads knew and understood this so, they had to break the mold, slow things down (meaning weaker lyrics, slower delivery, reduced word count, remove the ever changing street slang) so that just about anyone could rap from anywhere in the country wether they are from LA, Georgia, Texas or Florida.
Everyone knows that the pace, ferocity and tenacity of the everyday language spoken in New York and Philly leant itself to the pace, complexity and ever changing styles of rhyming during the golden era of the late eighties to the Ninties.......People from the other regions of the country like from LA, Georgia, Texas or Florida aren't know for aggressive, complex fast talking ....and everyone knows this....that is why rhyming from the other regions were delivered at a slower pace with less complexity and without the lyrical dexterity. .....and I believe that if most rhymers from the other regions had to be tested in the competitive cauldron out of which most New York rappers made it, they wouldn't have survived.
So the audiences from the other regions of the country were less critical and discerning and accepted anything called hip hop even if it was garbage -with a loud base -fast electronic dance trac -with few if any lyrics (that's why vanilla ice and hammer were so disliked by manny New York rappers because the New Yorkers knew that Hammers talent was suspect as a ryhmer and that he wouldn't be taken seriously in New York, but he could dance and was an entertainer and the nation, not understanding the differnce, accepted him as a rapper.!
I also beleive that
The record companies fed the masses the garbage so as to water down the craft and water down the "thinking" masses......I honestly beleive that the best products produced during the golden era of Hip Hop particularly from New York ....May have alarmed and frieghtened some of the powers that be...so someone decided that the garbage, base, less complex and ever changing Hip hop had to die and a uniform garbage had to be promoted so that all so called Hip hop had to sound the same wether the rapper was from Cali, the dirty south, the mid west and yes the east coast,
less variety meant that less thought was needed.....further dumbing down of the masses. That is my opinion of the sounds made today that are called hip hop....
The roots made a song called 75 bars with 75 bars, Nas once said "in my book of rhymes all the words cross the margin" ......well this exists no more.......at one time Hip hop and the Hip hop nation and audience was progressing to something greater and larger , but unfortunately no more.....it's all about the auto tune. Some one saying the same 30 words over and over again over a pop top forty hit and people mumbling and whining.
yes people sell more records nationwide now than former New York artist but that doesn't make today's artist are better, in the words of Krs, "you think that record sales make you the dopest, relying on marketing schemes and promotion, instead of rhyme flow"
Atlanta May be the hot spot today, but it has not supplanted New Yorks place in the Hip hop pantheon....with the poor quality of hip hop today and the interchangeabilityof the characters making it (due to its current simplicity) Atlanta will eventually loose it's hot spot status in Hip Hop to Peoria Illinois or Nutbush Tennessee, forever erasing hip hops image as a complex, versatile ever changing and evolving urban art form to match the
complex, versatile ever changing and evolving urban language spoken.
I have stop this..... this cause this falseness, rosy glasses with a bias.
afrika bambaata,
Sugar Hill gang,
Kool Moe Dee,
Whodini,
Kurtis Blow,
The Fat Boys,
The Bestie boys,
biz markie and etc
aren't more lyrical than
Young thug,
Big Homie quan,
21 Savage
and etc
Today.
You could argue they aren't raising the lyrical bar but they are just as lyrical if not more than 90% NY rappers for East Coast during the 80's.
Only a handful of rappers like Rakim, KRS, LL Cool, Big Daddy Kane were actually lyrical from 80's.
The true lyrical Revoulation started in the 90's, with the Nas, Tribe call quest, Biggie, the fugees, Wu tang and etc.
Here the flaw a lot of East Coaster have.... Hip Hop did not come to the South, West and etc with Biggie and Nas in the 90's..... Hip hop came to the South and West during the era 80's Kurtis Blow, afrika bambaata and etc.
The East Coast 90's sound should be consider a evolved sub genre from The early 80's, No different than G Funk of the west or Miami Bass in the South.
I hate to break this too you but in South with History of rock n roll and R&B..... You had people like Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, Ray Cales, aretha franklin, tina turner, Howlin' Wolf, Louis Jordan and etc that had extreme soul, Personality, enthusiasm in their voice. Their a art in pronunciation, charisma. Even George Clinton is from the South
A lot of NY rappers besides a few Like Biggie, DMX, and Busta most east coast rappers have very dull voices, extremely boring near monotone voices. In the South a lot rappers like Luke from 2 live crew were basically channeling the James Brown.
Just because the focus wasn't always on lyricism doesn't means their wasn't complexity, general the diction in a lot of southern rappers was more complex in vocal delivery then the East coast.
Sure someone can repeat Luke and Trick Daddy lyrics but there delivery and charter noooooooo, it's extremely difficult to match Luke and Trick charisma here, Luke does all these pitch changes, and Trick use his drawl to place emphasis
But today most new rappers are less complex both lyrical and delivery. My theory is a lot of young rappers grew seeing rappers they grew disrespected..... TI, Ladacris, Outkast and etc were extremely lyrical.
The irony is in the South actually probably broader rang of "Creativity" given it's a larger and there was multiple different sub genres across the south and time. You Bass music, crunk, bounce, Screwed and lyrical rappers.
Ludacris Number 1 spot
I'm never goin' nowhere so don't try me
My music sticks in fans veins like an IV
Flows poison like Ivy, oh they grimy
Already offers on my 6th album from labels tryin' to sign me
Respected highly, Hi MR. O'Reilly
Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey
Drove through the window, the industry super sized me
Now the girls see me and a river's what they cry me
I'm on the rise, so many people despise me
Got party ammunition for those tryin' to surprise me (surprise!)
It's a celebration and everyone should invite me
Roll with the crew or meet the bottom of our Nikes (blaow!)
Explorer like Dora these swipers can't swipe me
My whole aura's so mean in my white tee
Nobody light-skinded reppin' harder since Ice-T
You disagree, take the Tyson approach and bite me!
TI on here ye
Still stand tall when it all falls down
Whether Hollywood hills or a 1 horse town
You should know better
There’s no better than these 4 letters
Mo' than ever *****s want me dead
'Cause they're starving and I’m getting fed
But **** 'em anyway
I’d rather be me on my worst day
Than to be a sucker ***** on his birthday
All cake no candles, just a living example
10 toes down, all out, no sandals
Godfather, a young Marlon Brando
Let me make sure they understand yo
Here ye, hear ye, you wise you fear me
Real *****s on their shine, much obliged, merci!
Everybody want to criticize him about how bad he ended up
Look how bad he could've been
I could've caught a body sold a brick to somebody
Who volunteered my information to the federales
I made it out of all of that like I ain't gonna be proud of that
So petty ****, you sticking to me
Give me all you got of that
Doing this for all my *****s
Who'd rather go to prison than to let a ***** kill him
So we leaving this PO snub-nose in his denim
Trap or death is waiting
Round the corners that he been in
On bended knee, God forgive us, we’ve been sinnin
In our defense, look at the options we’ve been given
Laying in the prison cell staring at the ceiling
Back in this ***** again
I guess they wasn't bull****ting, huh?
Still wonder where it all went wrong
Since Phil got killed I ain't never moved on
Like I’m still in the club where the blows got thrown
When my crown fell down and I got dethroned
Bunch of *****s around but I feel all alone
Like a piece of me is missing, guess it never came home
Probably died in a van when it all hit the fan
Save the life of a friend
We don’t all get the chance
Now here I stand with blood on my hands
Trying hard to explain so his mom understand
I'm at fault for the loss of the soul of a man
Only soldiers know how that’ll take a toll on a man
Burden's on the world on my shoulders: heavy
Visibly composed, my emotions buried
Scary, so if I pop a pill
Smoke a blunt or take a shot
Ya’ll let a niggga live
Still baffled how my life unravelled
In the meantime time just travelled
Can’t see behind the walls of my castle
Opinionated peons son but who asked you
I tell you what you do
Take your 2 cents
Kick rocks to a fountain pitching to make a wish
****, if wishes had wings, they’d all make it to heaven
And we’d all be kings
But did they get respect from East coast noooooo....... So youngins thought no matter what they do there never going to get respect. So now line become blurr between legit criticism because a lack of talent...from bs east coast dudes hating because it's a different sub genre.
The criticism of soulja boy shouldn't had been he wasn't lyrical cause that not the only measurement of talent..... He wasn't trying to be lyrical................ the criticism should been he was no Three 6 mafia, Pimp C, Pastor Troy, Young Jeezy... ...... Soulja boy, doesn't have a unique voice or Character or anything to level of talent that those artist have.... The error was people on East coast were already criticizing talented people calling no talented, now talented level actually has drop...... but the younger generation isn't going to listen wolf has already been cried.
Lastly the South became the center of hip hop, cause with the 4 region in the US..... over 57% of the Black population and growing live in the South alone. So if you took the East Coast, The West and Midwest and combine it would still be less than the South's black population.
That with the growth of the Southern cities this made the South start to become dominate in Black culture not just Hip hop. Other wise The South became dominate because most Blacks are southerners.
In Early 90's the East Coast did not play a lot of southern stuff, but south did play east coast stuff....so the south underground scenes started supporting themselves. The process flipped the entire Hip hop industry. So now New Yorker rappers are trying to appeal more to the south.
Is Atlanta even famous for hip-hop? NYC and LA were the hot beds of hip-hop back when hip-hop was actually any good.
and
Quote:
I'm a software developer. I could build this site. Think before you type.
A quick google search of rappers from Atlanta is easy to do, and the list is long, and they are all terrible and not famous. I had to youtube most of them to verify that they did, in fact, make terrible music that few people outside of niche fan-boys have ever heard of.
Now let's try that for LA: Tupac, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice T etc etc. NYC same thing. Outside of the USA, I bet a lot of fans have never even heard of Atlanta, let alone hip-hop from Atlanta.
These two post are hilarious if don't know about Atlanta in Hip hop means you don't anything about Hip Hop to even comment.
First off apparently being a software developer didn't help with common sense, if you did a google search on any city you probably going to run into underground artists.
Second off..... there actually an measure for this "fame" idea your saying....... It's call record sells, hit songs, Awards........... Not only are there a lot of Grammy winning, multi platinum rappers and singers from Atlanta, and artists with number 1 billboard hits,
which contradict your post alone.
But 3rd off...... a lot of multi platinum rappers and singers from other cities have homes in Atlanta. or record and work with "famous" Atlanta producers, and song writers. Atlanta is generally a fixture in black Entertainment.
Honestly this is like asking which city is more famous in Jazz New Orleans or New York. There both famous for different scenes.
New Orleans started Jazz like New York started Hip hop. But regardless New York is an important historical Jazz center like Atlanta have been in Hip hop for like the last 20 years.
These two post are hilarious if don't know about Atlanta in Hip hop means you don't anything about Hip Hop to even comment.
First off apparently being a software developer didn't help with common sense, if you did a google search on any city you probably going to run into underground artists.
Second off..... there actually an measure for this "fame" idea your saying....... It's call record sells, hit songs, Awards........... Not only are there a lot of Grammy winning, multi platinum rappers and singers from Atlanta, and artists with number 1 billboard hits,
which contradict your post alone.
But 3rd off...... a lot of multi platinum rappers and singers from other cities have homes in Atlanta. or record and work with "famous" Atlanta producers, and song writers. Atlanta is generally a fixture in black Entertainment.
Honestly this is like asking which city is more famous in Jazz New Orleans or New York. There both famous for different scenes.
New Orleans started Jazz like New York started Hip hop. But regardless New York is an important historical Jazz center like Atlanta have been in Hip hop for like the last 20 years.
Atlanta runs Hip-Hop. Take in mind Hip Hop is the most popular genre of music worldwide now. Hip Hop (If you include far out music like Grime as Hip Hop as well as the singing guys who exclusively sing with rappers or sing-rap in general) artists from Nigeria, Indonesia and other places are destroying the charts in their countries.
Anytime 21 Savage, Lil Yatchy and anyone who might not have been born in Atlanta but are associated with the sound drops a 5 songs one of them or more hits 10 million views. Future, 21 Savage and Migos drop songs as well as Gucci Mane and it is guaranteeing millions of views.
Their are multiple artists dropping songs today that get 10 million views that non of you guys have likely heard. Like everyday you can stumble across an artist that routinely is putting up 10 million + views per song that.
I hadn't heard about Russ till this year, and this dude has at least ten songs with 10 million views. Gucci Mane likely has more songs with 10 million views than Eminem does. If you look at the guys with 100 million views in the last 5 years besides one hit wonders (in terms of New Artists) New York is nowhere on the list besides Cardi B.
The two biggest areas for Rap and it's spin-offs in the U.S is.
Atlanta
Puerto Rico- (more of a stretch but has U.S artists that routinely hit 100 million and involves Rappers)
Daddy Yankee
Luis Fonsi
Farruko
Bad Bunny
etcetera (Puerto Ricans are putting up serious numbers)
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