Image via Complex Original
In the early ’90s, hip-hop was going through a series of changes. A decade after its birth, the genre already had a handful of big hits and a variety of bona fide stars—N.W.A, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, Queen Latifah, and countless others. Still, challenges lay ahead.
There was the issue of radio. Pop stations only played non-threatening rap (think DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s “Parents Just Don’t Understand”) when they played it at all, while black stations restricted rap airplay to nighttime and weekends. There was cultural appropriation (i.e. Vanilla Ice). There were sampling lawsuits—most notably against Biz Markie, which affected how the music itself was made—and other changes, too. In 1990, the lyrics on 2 Live Crew’s third album were declared obscene by a federal court judge (though the ruling was appealed and overturned).
These problems, among others, are explored in writer Dan Charnas’ 2010 tome, The Big Payback, the inspiration for VH1’s forthcoming original movie, The Breaks. The film, airing Monday, Jan. 4, at 9 p.m. on VH1, is set during the summer of 1990, and in it, the characters confront these problems. Charnas, an executive producer on the project, talked to us about those concerns.
Hammer and Vanilla Ice Broke Sales and Airplay Records
“Hammer had already gone platinum with 1988’s Let’s Get It Started. But ‘U Can’t Touch This,’ of course, sampled Rick James’ ‘Superfreak,’ which—although pop radio never actually played it—the programmers knew and were familiar with. Hammer sold 9 million albums in 1990. Later in the year, Vanilla Ice emerged and eventually broke that ceiling, selling 11 million. But the sales ceiling was only removed for artists like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Pop radio was opening its doors, but now it was creating all of this opportunity for only a certain kind of hip-hop. The perspective was that pop radio had hip-hop in a box. The major labels were gonna jump into this thing with both feet, signing Vanilla Ices and MC Hammers, and the great artists of the genre were going to lose. If you look at some of the early issues of The Source, many of the main advertisers were major labels advertising completely wack-a#$ sh*t.”
Black Radio Wouldn’t Play Everything
“By 1990, black radio was backing away from hip-hop. There’s a pivotal scene in The Breaks where a white intern who loves hip-hop is trying to convince an older, black radio programmer why he should play more hip-hop, not less. The radio programmer then explains why he has to back away from it: ‘The only thing these advertisers are gonna pay me to do is to bring them black, older females. My gut tells me that older black women don’t like hip-hop.’”
Artists “Needed” to Soften Their Music
“One of the only ways a black radio station would play a hip-hop record was if it was over a new jack swing beat. In The Breaks, there’s a rapper named D Rome (played by real-life MC A-F-R-O), a Five-Percenter who is well-respected but suddenly starts doing this new jack swing stuff because his manager is trying to get him on black radio. A great real-life example of this phenomenon is the Genius’ lauded first album. The single that Cold Chillin’ Records picked was ‘Come Do Me,’ but that’s not where the Genius’ genius is. And not many people remember that Brand Nubian also did a new jack swing record, ‘Try to Do Me,’ on their first album.”
Clubs Shut Out Performers
“Coming into the ’90s, on the tail end of the crack epidemic and the peak of the murder rate in New York, many of the clubs that played hip-hop—Latin Quarter, Union Square, etc.—had shut down. Club owners didn’t want their DJs to play hip-hop because they didn’t want black crowds. A lot of them were racist too, straight up. And the whole ‘Stop the Violence’ movement was partially a response to the violence that closed down the clubs. You close down the clubs and you close down a vital place where culture can perpetuate.”
Rap Lyrics Faced Punishments
“The attorney general in Florida had a case against 2 Live Crew. They were trying to pursue the group on charges of obscenity, which in part brought about the political atmosphere that led to those ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics’ stickers. A few major chain record stores wouldn’t carry rap records with that sticker. It was a climate wherein record stores could get boycotted or sued.”
Hip-Hop’s Golden Age Artists Were Marginalized
“From 1992 to 1993, while black radio remained closed to rap, two huge pop stations—Power 106 in L.A. and Hot 97 in New York—started playing hip-hop aggressively. But they arrived too late to be a place where a group like Public Enemy or De La Soul could thrive. Many golden age artists had already made their best work by then. Instead, those stations became home to a new generation of hip-hop where the tastemakers were people like Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs and Suge Knight.”
Major Labels Signed Copycats
“In the early 1990s it seemed like for every group on a reputable indie label, there would be at least one major label copycat. Example: Def Jam had Public Enemy, so Columbia signed Movement Ex. At the majors in the early ’90s, there were a lot of groups signed by folks who really didn’t have any familiarity with the culture. This stuff was not that great because major labels didn’t know who to sign.”
Sampling Landed Artists in Court
“Before the Grand Upright lawsuit against Biz Markie, no cases involving sampling had actually gone before a judge. When De La Soul sampled the Turtles, they sued Tommy Boy and Tommy Boy settled out of court. When Sylvia Robinson had her band replay ‘Good Times’ for the Sugarhill Gang, and Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards sued, she settled out of court. No judge had ever decided anything about hip-hop. But in 1991, federal Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy decided the Grand Upright case. He likely had no reference point for hip-hop; composers were not writing songs with musical notes anymore, they were taking bits and pieces of found sound and putting them together in creative ways. There was no way Duffy was going to understand that. His first line of his decision was, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ Sampling breaks and beats was harder after that.”
Women’s Roles Changed
“We have to remember that this whole genre of recorded music started because of a woman. Hip-hop on record started because of Sylvia Robinson. A big part of the success of Jive Records was Ann Carli. She was one of the first champions for Will Smith when he was the Fresh Prince. She co-produced the ‘Stop the Violence’ record. Monica Lynch ran Tommy Boy. Julie Greenwald emerged from the Def Jam family. In Europe, Sophie Bramly created Yo!, the show that inspired Yo! MTV Raps. Faith Newman signed Nas and Jamiroquai. Wendy Day had her hand in almost every super-empowered artist and entrepreneur deal of the 1990s. Women behind the desk played a very important role. In front of the microphone, however, their roles were more problematic. In the late ’80s artists like Salt-n-Pepa, Queen Latifah, and Monie Love cast a positive, almost wholesome image. But by the late ’90s, the emergence of Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown changed the tenor of what it meant to be a woman in hip-hop. Many felt it was a regression toward females performing mostly for the male gaze. But that problem was and is bigger than hip-hop.”