The late 80’s and 90’s were the best times in music. Some would say ever.
The most diverse, quality-driven, and iconic artists the world has ever seen produced their greatest work during these decades. Several records were being broken and entertainment was starting to break away from traditions with 24-hour cable channels and sports radio.
Hip Hop in the Midwest embodied the diversity of these times. I started to become a rap artist in this era, influenced by the sounds of WGCI radio and the artists on Soul Train.
I fell asleep to slow jams and blues music, and I would formulate my music around those beats and the alto saxophone I played. Me and my cousins, who just came up from Memphis, would often listen to 3-6 Mafia, Eightball & MJG, and KingPin Skinny Pimp. I introduced them to Psycho Drama, Crucial Conflict, the great Legendary Traxster, Triple Darkness, and the Snypaz.
Twista, a rap icon from my area, did songs with a lot of those people but his 1997 album Adrenaline Rush was produced by Traxster, which gave it a whole new vibe. It embodied not only the Midwest attitude but specifically the West Side of Chi-Town at the time.
When the project became a commercial success, thousands of imitators began to flood the market, many where the same ones who used to tell us we flowed “too fast” and “didn’t really have skill”, yet everybody called the Chicago rapper to spice up their music.
I started to hear the music from the West Side all over Pop songs and many artists got pressured by record labels to “sound more like Twista”.
Adrenaline Rush could be seen as both a blessing and a curse.
Many of us rap artists from Chicago got put in a category of just being a “fast rapper” and “not a real artist”, then they would find someone to sound like us and study our slang.
My first solo project was just getting started around that time and I often got compared to Twista and the SpeedKnot Mobstaz, which I admit I hated with a passion. My cousins knew some of Modstaz’s family members and they would often fan the flames.
My song from my second project Jackson and California, the title named after street corners by my Grandmother’s old house, was one of many that I wrote to end the comparisons. |THIS.
[By Gerald G-Ride King]
