Alot of this discussion has to do with age/generation.
Somebody on the first page implied that early 80s rappers didn't sell where that simply isn't true. Alot of the early rap SINGLES went gold/platinum. Rappers Delight, The Breaks, The Message and Planet Rock went gold/platinum.
If you really think about it, Rap was a new thing and there weren't that many rap songs or rap groups. So if you liked rap there were only a handful of records worth buying. If you compare the early 80s to the late 80 or 90s there was more competition so record sales were spread out amongst different regions and different artists. In the early 80s there was one region and only a handful of artists to choose from. So thats what people bought. You could count the rap albums that came out between 1980 and 1983 on your fingers.
Also to say Too Short and Ice T aren't legends is insane. I was heavily into rap/Hip Hop in the late 80s and Ice T was the spokesperson for Hip Hop. He was articulate and gave good interviews. Censorship and gangsta rap was a big issue and Ice T was older and expressed himself very clearly. I'm on my phone now but somebody should go yo Youtube and look for Ice T interviews on the Phil Donahue show or the Arsenio Hall show. You might not care for his music but it's impossible to say that Ice T wasn't Hip Hop's spokesperson in the late 80s and early 90s. More so than Chuck D and KRS ONE, who made socio-political misic but weren't as articulate as Ice T in interviews.
You gotta remember Ice T served in the army before his rap career. He was in Breakin and Enterin in 1983, which was the first West Coast movie about Hip Hop. Then in 1984 he was in Breakin.
My point is that when Hip Hop started getting socio-political and Afrocentric Ice T was grown and more mature than the younger rappers.
There was a huge censorship issue around 88-90 with Ice T, 2 Live Crew, Too Short, NWA and Public Enemy. They were seriously talking about banning rap music from being sold in stores (the 2 Live Crew got arrested for performing "obscene" music) Ice T was one of the few people that really lived the life that could put everthing into perspective for the masses of people in middle America.
Somebody on the first page implied that early 80s rappers didn't sell where that simply isn't true. Alot of the early rap SINGLES went gold/platinum. Rappers Delight, The Breaks, The Message and Planet Rock went gold/platinum.
If you really think about it, Rap was a new thing and there weren't that many rap songs or rap groups. So if you liked rap there were only a handful of records worth buying. If you compare the early 80s to the late 80 or 90s there was more competition so record sales were spread out amongst different regions and different artists. In the early 80s there was one region and only a handful of artists to choose from. So thats what people bought. You could count the rap albums that came out between 1980 and 1983 on your fingers.
Also to say Too Short and Ice T aren't legends is insane. I was heavily into rap/Hip Hop in the late 80s and Ice T was the spokesperson for Hip Hop. He was articulate and gave good interviews. Censorship and gangsta rap was a big issue and Ice T was older and expressed himself very clearly. I'm on my phone now but somebody should go yo Youtube and look for Ice T interviews on the Phil Donahue show or the Arsenio Hall show. You might not care for his music but it's impossible to say that Ice T wasn't Hip Hop's spokesperson in the late 80s and early 90s. More so than Chuck D and KRS ONE, who made socio-political misic but weren't as articulate as Ice T in interviews.
You gotta remember Ice T served in the army before his rap career. He was in Breakin and Enterin in 1983, which was the first West Coast movie about Hip Hop. Then in 1984 he was in Breakin.
My point is that when Hip Hop started getting socio-political and Afrocentric Ice T was grown and more mature than the younger rappers.
There was a huge censorship issue around 88-90 with Ice T, 2 Live Crew, Too Short, NWA and Public Enemy. They were seriously talking about banning rap music from being sold in stores (the 2 Live Crew got arrested for performing "obscene" music) Ice T was one of the few people that really lived the life that could put everthing into perspective for the masses of people in middle America.
