Noodled24 said:

MTV Base didn't broadcast until 1999.

.

So? Ever heard of Yo! MTV Raps? Ran from 1988 to 1995.

Noodled24 said:

But people talk about Prince jumping on hip-hop as if it was everywhere, and it just wasn't. Looking back at the charts (no so much in terms of sales but in terms of what was on them) what people were listening to at the time - what was mainstream.

.

Ever heard of New Jack Swing?

.

New jack swing or swingbeat[1] is a fusion genre spearheaded by Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle that became popular from the late 1980s into the early 1990s.[2] Its influence, along with hip-hop, seeped into pop culture and was the definitive sound of the inventive black New York club scene. It fuses the rhythms, samples, and production techniques of hip-hop and dance-pop with the urban contemporary sound of R&B. The new jack swing style developed as many previous music styles did, by combining elements of older styles with newer sensibilities. It used R&B style vocals sung over hip hop and dance-pop style influenced instrumentation. The sound of new jack swing comes from the hip hop "swing" beats created by drum machine, and hardware samplers, which was popular during the golden age of hip hop, with contemporary R&B style singing.

Militant said:

It's been a while since I watched it but I don't remember it being that bad.

From what I remember it was very good. I should dig it out and watch it tonight.

BartVanHemelen said:

Noodled24 said:

MTV Base didn't broadcast until 1999.

.

So? Ever heard of Yo! MTV Raps? Ran from 1988 to 1995.

Yeh I've heard of it. But it was one show on a 24 hour music channel. So again. I'm not sure that means rap/hiphop was manstream. In 1999 when it was mainstream hip-hop had it's own channel.

BartVanHemelen said:

Noodled24 said:

But people talk about Prince jumping on hip-hop as if it was everywhere, and it just wasn't. Looking back at the charts (no so much in terms of sales but in terms of what was on them) what people were listening to at the time - what was mainstream.

.

Ever heard of New Jack Swing?

.

New jack swing or swingbeat[1] is a fusion genre spearheaded by Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle that became popular from the late 1980s into the early 1990s.[2] Its influence, along with hip-hop, seeped into pop culture and was the definitive sound of the inventive black New York club scene. It fuses the rhythms, samples, and production techniques of hip-hop and dance-pop with the urban contemporary sound of R&B. The new jack swing style developed as many previous music styles did, by combining elements of older styles with newer sensibilities. It used R&B style vocals sung over hip hop and dance-pop style influenced instrumentation. The sound of new jack swing comes from the hip hop "swing" beats created by drum machine, and hardware samplers, which was popular during the golden age of hip hop, with contemporary R&B style singing.

Yes.

Although thats a modern definition because back in 1990 nobody was using the term "hip-hop".

Again, I'm not saying rap didn't exist. I'm saying it wasn't exactly mainstream as early as 1990. Dre, Snoop, 2Pac, Biggie, Nas, Mase, Jay-Z, Puffy - all those names that made hiphop mainstream had all yet to come.

As of 1992 the only BIG selling hip-hop artists were MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. They were the #1 sellers. The Chronic was released in '92, and Doggystyle was '93. But I'd bet you a pound Eminem sold more copies of Dre's "The Chronic" than Dre did himself in the 90s.

It was around, and there was a huge audience in the USA but not so huge we saw many #1 singles. It was the mid 90s before Hip-hop was a best selling genre. Late 90s before it was the best selling genre.

EDIT - Just to add, I'm not denying the clear influence of New Jack Swing and Rap with Prince. It's most clearly visible on the album. But he did it pretty early in the life of the genre - commercially speaking. But he couldn't have ignored it, and it's not like he invented Rock and Roll with Purple Rain.

[Edited 2/27/15 16:25pm]

^ I never said it wasn't. It just wasn't mainstream like it became in the mid and late 90s.

Noodled24 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Yes.

Although thats a modern definition because back in 1990 nobody was using the term "hip-hop".

.

Utter nonsense. By then I'd seen a ton of documentaries on BBC and Dutch TV about rap and hip-hop. Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, De La Soul,...: that's a significant part of the soundtrack of my very 1980s youth.

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ime_period

.

Allmusic writes, "Hip-hop's golden age is bookended by the commercial breakthrough of Run–D.M.C. in 1986 and the explosion of gangsta rap with NWA in the late 80s and Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg in 1993 ",[16] However, the specific time period that the golden age covers varies among different sources. The New York Times also defines hip-hop's golden age as the "late 1980's and early 90's".[21] Ed Simmons of The Chemical Brothers says, "there was that golden age of hip-hop in the early 90s when the Jungle Brothers made Straight Out the Jungle and De La Soul made Three Feet High and Rising"[22] (though these records were in fact made in 1988 and 1989 respectively). MSNBC states, "the "Golden Age" of hip-hop music: "The '80s".[2]

.
In the book Contemporary Youth Culture, the "golden age era" is described as being "from 1987–1999", coming after "the old school era: from 1979 to 1985".

.

And WRT New Jack Swing, you say:

.

EDIT - Just to add, I'm not denying the clear influence of New Jack Swing and Rap with Prince. It's most clearly visible on the album. But he did it pretty early in the life of the genre - commercially speaking.

.

Pretty early? New Jack Swing was producing hit records back in the late 1980s. Theme tune to Ghostbusters II: new jack swing. Bobby Brown had been scoring hits since 1988! Soul II Soul. Keith Sweat's "I Want Her". The band Guy. Al B Sure's "Nite and Day". Club Nouveau. Johnny Kemp's "Just Got Paid". Wreckx-n-Effect. Janet jackson's 1814 Rhythm Nation. Bel Biv Devoe.

.

The list of new jack swing hits that predate Prince jumping on the bandwagon is pretty damn long.

Noodled24 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

So? Ever heard of Yo! MTV Raps? Ran from 1988 to 1995.

Yeh I've heard of it. But it was one show on a 24 hour music channel. So again. I'm not sure that means rap/hiphop was manstream. In 1999 when it was mainstream hip-hop had it's own channel.

.

Yeah, keep ignoring the facts:

.

The pilot was one of the highest rated programs to ever air on MTV at that point. Only the Video Music Awards and Live Aid received greater ratings.

.

The competition was quick to have similar shows:

.

in January 1989, former rival BET created competition when the network premiered Rap City

.

BartVanHemelen said:

Utter nonsense. By then I'd seen a ton of documentaries on BBC and Dutch TV about rap and hip-hop. Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, De La Soul,...: that's a significant part of the soundtrack of my very 1980s youth.

Were MTV... giving away awards for "best Hip-hop video" or "Best Rap Video"?

You keep talking like I'm trying to denythese artists exist. I'm not. But the fact they were all largely absent from the top 10 says I'm right about rap not being mainstream.

.

And WRT New Jack Swing, you say:

.

EDIT - Just to add, I'm not denying the clear influence of New Jack Swing and Rap with Prince. It's most clearly visible on the album. But he did it pretty early in the life of the genre - commercially speaking.

.

Pretty early? New Jack Swing was producing hit records back in the late 1980s. Theme tune to Ghostbusters II: new jack swing. Bobby Brown had been scoring hits since 1988! Soul II Soul. Keith Sweat's "I Want Her". The band Guy. Al B Sure's "Nite and Day". Club Nouveau. Johnny Kemp's "Just Got Paid". Wreckx-n-Effect. Janet jackson's 1814 Rhythm Nation. Bel Biv Devoe.

.

The list of new jack swing hits that predate Prince jumping on the bandwagon is pretty damn long.

Hold your horses there fella.

I said it was most clearly visible on the album because thats the album his image became far more masculine. But on which album does he call for Cat to Rap? Does he sing the lyrics to DMSR? Shocadelica? It's not gansta rap, but they're delivered in a manner closer to "rap" than being sung.

In relation to New Jack Swing - I don't disagree. But do you think the girly-boy image would have cut it in the early 90s? He had to update his sound and image. Was it around this time he performed in Brazil and had to buy the rights to the footage because large portions of the audience were chanting "faggot"?

BartVanHemelen said:

Yeah, keep ignoring the facts:

.

The competition was quick to have similar shows:

.

in January 1989, former rival BET created competition when the network premiered Rap City

.

Nothing about that wiki suggests rap was dominating mainstream media. Rap existed and there was an audience for it, but rap wasn't dominating MTV was it?

To compete BET launched their own version of the show... it was equally popular because where else could you watch... given rap was largely ignored by mainstream media.

SuperSoulFighter said:

Okay, what's the difference between "big" and "mainstream"? I just remember that in the late 80s I was getting into Prince and I also heared a lot of hiphop. (Eric B & Rakim is another act I just thought of that broke through then.) Anyway, you heared it everywhere. (Anyone remember the Wee Papa Girl Rappers?) True, the genre was in its infancy, but it was obvious that it was becoming big. [Edited 2/27/15 17:19pm] [Edited 2/27/15 17:21pm]

Mainstream media. The top 10/20, magazines, headlines. Were many rappers turning up on talkshows? Were they getting huge video budgets?

Rap was around, there were a handfull of artists who'd had some commercial success. But for the most part rap was ignored by the mainstream media. With the possible exception of Hammer and Ice no rappers were mounting huge world tours - not to say rappers didn't tour but nothing like the scale of the rappers who made their names in the mid and late 90s.

What happened was that rap supplanted and replaced punk as the voice of the underground, the poor, the "hip" and the teens and it took the mainstream media a while to catch up. It started to blow up commercially in the late 80's and early 90's...

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ne_singles

.

...but everyone who was plugged into music knew who Doug E. Fresh, Public Enemy, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Jungle Brothers, Ice T, NWA, Tone Loc, Big Daddy Kane and 2 Live Crew were. Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock fucking OWNED the summer of 1988 and that shit was banging in every club and out of every car stereo in the city that year.

.

But it wasn't totally ignored either. Ask Ice-T, NWA, Luther Campbell and the Ghetto Boys how much the mainstream ignored them back then. This was just a few years after Tipper Gore and the PMRC hearings; something that Prince was a central part of. Once those stickers hit the records, hip hop artists went out of their way to get them slapped on their records because it boosted sales and hype. It was mainstream during the 80's in a sense. Rolling Stone and SPIN were giving album of the year awards to stuff like "It Tales A Nation of Millions", "Straight Outta Compton" and "Liscenced to Ill". Those are pretty mainstream. YO, MTV Raps started in 1988. Aerosmith and Run DMC did "Walk This Way" in 1986.

.

This relates to Prince because around this time he started to incorporate this new "punk" into his sound. When he started out, he was punk/funk, but the times changed and rap became the new punk. He wasn't always great at it but at times he was and I think a lot of it works. Hip Hop and rap came AFTER Prince and that's the difference. For the first time in his career he was trying to catch up to the new shit and his trend setter mantle was removed.

[Edited 3/4/15 12:05pm]

SuperSoulFighter said:

I don't really have any proof, because it comes from memory and just talking to people, but around 1990, the term "hiphop" was already in use. Don't fool yerself. It was big at that time.

Mainstream - Means crossing over to white audiences. Hip-Hop and New Jack Swing had not crossed over to pop audiences unless you count Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer.

Prince was doing the sort of music and look that was popular more with RnB than pop. Nothing wrong with it since he started out as an RnB artist

Noodled24 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Hold your horses there fella.

I said it was most clearly visible on the album because thats the album his image became far more masculine. But on which album does he call for Cat to Rap? Does he sing the lyrics to DMSR? Shocadelica? It's not gansta rap, but they're delivered in a manner closer to "rap" than being sung.

In relation to New Jack Swing - I don't disagree. But do you think the girly-boy image would have cut it in the early 90s? He had to update his sound and image. Was it around this time he performed in Brazil and had to buy the rights to the footage because large portions of the audience were chanting "faggot"?

Trust me Bart and many others on this board are clueless they really do think that Prince should have kept on wearing those pirate shirts right on into the 90s. Times change and sometimes you have to change up your look and style. Prince has been doing this his whole carreer yet some so-called fans missed this over the years

Noodled24 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

.

So? Ever heard of Yo! MTV Raps? Ran from 1988 to 1995.

Yeh I've heard of it. But it was one show on a 24 hour music channel. So again. I'm not sure that means rap/hiphop was manstream. In 1999 when it was mainstream hip-hop had it's own channel.

Bart is right. Proof that it was, if not mainstream, already rooted in pop?
Michael Jackson's "Dangerous". There was rap where there used to be a guitar or a synth solo, in at least 2 singles : "Black or White" and "Jam".

Yes, Prince has a great flair, and he knew that the next crossover would come from hip-hop.
But that doesn't mean he should have commit his clairvoyance to his own records.

Fact is, you can't deny that McHammer is a definitive proof that the public was ready to let rap enter the charts.
And what about "Walk This Way", which is 1987? Didn't Lovesexy already contain some "Glam'of'em all"?
Didn't "It's Going To Be A Beautiful Night" contain a rap ?

It's easier to accept influences when they are digested, not regurgitated.
Prince thought he was so great he could simply copy/paste rap on top of his songs,

but it doesn't work that way.

Hence the feeling of selling himself, where instead he had this naive vision
that a musical melting-pot can gather people together.
Wrong! When I'm going to the Dance Club, I hope the music I hear to be a personal vision,
and then some artist can kick in with an entirely different vision, and that's what I'm looking for.
I don't expect artists to dilute their expression into one another.
The result is often weak.

What is disturbing to me is the set of mind he entered.
Suddenly he had videos worth a million, and a yellow BMW.
It exsuded the vulgarity of the black man shouting he has won some kind of war
when in truth he only embraces capitalism at its fullest.

"People from MPLS", all this baloney Minneapolis "Hood",
everything was so fake about it.


Having said that, then there's Prince the live musician.
Let have him play some peruvian shit or a Polka,
he'd still be able to make your jaw drop at the very rare point where maestria meets raw feeling.
Still to this day, he's capable of miracles. We can't expect it from every live, but that's the game
and the beauty of the treasure hunting we constantly participate in.

Live, the man can do no wrong.
Except maybe for the mimed homosexual intercourse at Arsenio's,
but history tells us he was going through hard times.

Fuck the stadiums, fuck the giant symbol stage, fuck Muzakella.
Small Club(s) 4 ever.
That's where he belongs.

Shut your rap and play the blues, man.

herb4 said:

What happened was that rap supplanted and replaced punk as the voice of the underground, the poor, the "hip" and the teens and it took the mainstream media a while to catch up. It started to blow up commercially in the late 80's and early 90's...

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ne_singles

.

Thats the Rap chart? Even so, it's hard to deny there are more #1s in the mid and late 90s. How many of those singles made it on the mainstream chart? (Prince rules - sub-charts don't count they're genre-specific and not mainstream)

...but everyone who was plugged into music knew who Doug E. Fresh, Public Enemy, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Jungle Brothers, Ice T, NWA, Tone Loc, Big Daddy Kane and 2 Live Crew were. Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock fucking OWNED the summer of 1988 and that shit was banging in every club and out of every car stereo in the city that year.

The bit in bold says it all. In the USA it was bubbling nicely but it just hadn't boiled over into the mainstream. Where were the rappers releasing a string of top 10 singles? Big production hip-hop performances at the grammys?

.

But it wasn't totally ignored either. Ask Ice-T, NWA, Luther Campbell and the Ghetto Boys how much the mainstream ignored them back then. This was just a few years after Tipper Gore and the PMRC hearings; something that Prince was a central part of. Once those stickers hit the records, hip hop artists went out of their way to get them slapped on their records because it boosted sales and hype. It was mainstream during the 80's in a sense. Rolling Stone and SPIN were giving album of the year awards to stuff like "It Tales A Nation of Millions", "Straight Outta Compton" and "Liscenced to Ill". Those are pretty mainstream. YO, MTV Raps started in 1988. Aerosmith and Run DMC did "Walk This Way" in 1986.

Again, Yes, there was a vibrant scene. There was a genre emerging gaining more and more popularity, A handful of rappers had enjoyed some commercial and critical success. But it still wasn't dominating the pop charts. Rappers didn't get the coverage Pop stars got.

.

This relates to Prince because around this time he started to incorporate this new "punk" into his sound. When he started out, he was punk/funk, but the times changed and rap became the new punk. He wasn't always great at it but at times he was and I think a lot of it works. Hip Hop and rap came AFTER Prince and that's the difference. For the first time in his career he was trying to catch up to the new shit and his trend setter mantle was removed.

He'd used rap on every album since "Lovesexy" Excluding "Batman". As time went on he used it more, but even on the album which was probably the culmination of his hip-hop adventure where he even samples some hip-hop artists. I don't think the samples are mis-appropriated, and it's hardly a hip-hop album. He had international success with 2 singles from which featured rap.

[Edited 3/4/15 16:08pm]

Noodled24 said:

herb4 said:

Stuff about rap

.

Thats the Rap chart?

No. It's a list of rap songs that made it to # 1 on the overall charts. That was a good post you made right there though and it's hard to argue with any of it. But rappers STILL don't get the get "coverage" that pop stars get overall since it's a niche genre, like country. and by definition, "pop" is short for "popular".

.

As far as "mainstream success" = "crossing over to white audiences" (and I know it wasn't your post), most of the people I knew that were into NWA, PE, Ice T, Onyx and the Beastie Boys where white. Then again, most of my friends were white so there's that, but rap was absolutely blowing up in the suburbs in the mid to late 80's, so maybe it just felt "mainstream" to me, even if it wasn't on the cover of TIME or Newsweek.

.

I never much minded Prince exploring rap and hip hop although a lot of people here sem to. Problem was, his rappers flat out sucked. Like really bad. But occasionally Prince delivers some pretty nice hip hop/rap elements (Face Down, Funky Design, Days Of Wild). Funny enough, but I've never even seen the performance that inspired this thread.

.

Maybe we should start a seperate Prince/rap/hip-hop thread since we're into major derail territory here?

[Edited 3/4/15 17:16pm]

laurarichardson said:

Noodled24 said:

Hold your horses there fella.

I said it was most clearly visible on the album because thats the album his image became far more masculine. But on which album does he call for Cat to Rap? Does he sing the lyrics to DMSR? Shocadelica? It's not gansta rap, but they're delivered in a manner closer to "rap" than being sung.

In relation to New Jack Swing - I don't disagree. But do you think the girly-boy image would have cut it in the early 90s? He had to update his sound and image. Was it around this time he performed in Brazil and had to buy the rights to the footage because large portions of the audience were chanting "faggot"?

Trust me Bart and many others on this board are clueless they really do think that Prince should have kept on wearing those pirate shirts right on into the 90s. Times change and sometimes you have to change up your look and style. Prince has been doing this his whole carreer yet some so-called fans missed this over the years

.

Oh look who is once again making shit up to avoid admitting her hero Princey was desperately following trends.

.

BTW you do know that in later years Prince BLAMED WARNERS for "forcing" him to incorporate such things into his music, despite the testimony of studio personnel and band members that it was PRINCE who was desperate to score a big hit and thus started following trends?

herb4 said:

Noodled24 said:

Thats the Rap chart?

No. It's a list of rap songs that made it to # 1 on the overall charts. That was a good post you made right there though and it's hard to argue with any of it. But rappers STILL don't get the get "coverage" that pop stars get overall since it's a niche genre, like country. and by definition, "pop" is short for "popular".

No, the first paragraph in the link you posted says those are from the rap chart:

Hot Rap Songs is a record chart published by the music industry magazine Billboard which ranks the most popular hip hop songs in the United States.

The list follows with no mention of the main Billboard chart.

As far as "mainstream success" = "crossing over to white audiences" (and I know it wasn't your post), most of the people I knew that were into NWA, PE, Ice T, Onyx and the Beastie Boys where white. Then again, most of my friends were white so there's that, but rap was absolutely blowing up in the suburbs in the mid to late 80's, so maybe it just felt "mainstream" to me, even if it wasn't on the cover of TIME or Newsweek.

That's kind of been my point throughout this thread. Rap was around and becoming ever more popular and accessible... but it hadn't reached the point where Rap singles were dominating the mainstream charts. That came later.

I never much minded Prince exploring rap and hip hop although a lot of people here sem to. Problem was, his rappers flat out sucked. Like really bad. But occasionally Prince delivers some pretty nice hip hop/rap elements (Face Down, Funky Design, Days Of Wild). Funny enough, but I've never even seen the performance that inspired this thread.

.

Maybe we should start a seperate Prince/rap/hip-hop thread since we're into major derail territory here?

[Edited 3/4/15 17:16pm]

That might be a good idea.

BartVanHemelen said:

laurarichardson said:

Trust me Bart and many others on this board are clueless they really do think that Prince should have kept on wearing those pirate shirts right on into the 90s. Times change and sometimes you have to change up your look and style. Prince has been doing this his whole carreer yet some so-called fans missed this over the years

.

Oh look who is once again making shit up to avoid admitting her hero Princey was desperately following trends.

.

BTW you do know that in later years Prince BLAMED WARNERS for "forcing" him to incorporate such things into his music, despite the testimony of studio personnel and band members that it was PRINCE who was desperate to score a big hit and thus started following trends?

Can you point me to that source please mate?

I've read quotes where he mentioned WB people had the audacity to give their opinions, even if they weren't exactly what Prince's assistant told them to say - if you can imagine such a thing. But I've never read anything specific to hiphop?