As Remembered By Music Dude: Baduizm, Erykah Badu: D’Angelo and Maxwell blew the roof off black singing music back in ‘95 and ‘96 with Brown Sugar and Urban Hang Suite. But in '97, if you were a black female, you were either a sex-kitten (see: Adina Howard); a b-girl (see: Mary) or a pop icon (see: Mariah). Then Badu and her head-wrap dropped “On & On” and it seemed like every female wanted to start burning incense.
The fact that this new-soul album went on to become the second top seller on Billboard’s hip-hop/R&B charts (behind Big’s Life After Death) and over Mary’s Share My World, is fairly amazing. Most of America was rocking the Spice Girls and black radio was all about Bad Boy and young-boy R&B like Dru Hill and Usher. But here came this soul-sista—the New Mary.
Women liked her, because she was emotional and “real” (our favorite term, back then); dudes dug her, because she was uniquely beautiful and pumped with Wu-Tang and had kats like Pete Rock in her videos (“Next Lifetime”); video stations dug her because she was popular and different (remember the earthy “Otherside Of The Game” with Badu and Andre 3000 in the loft?); radio dug the singles, because, surprisingly, listeners dug the album.
As Remembered By Music Dude: Life After Death, Notorious B.I.G.: Unlike All Eyez On Me, which was released before Pac’s death, Biggie died a little more than two week’s before Life After Death hit stores. It gave the album a mythic quality. You were listening to an instant heirloom.
Remember “jiggy”? Well Big was jiggy before Jay was Jigga and Will Smith got jiggy with it. Big and Puff played fly with joints like “Big Poppa” and “One More Chance” on Ready To Die. But, by 1997, them dudes were wearing silk shirts on yacht’s and Big was flashin’ smiles. That meant CRAZY radio and video play. This album is now certified diamond, meaning it has sold over 10 million copies.
When white girls are singing “Biggie, Biggie, Biggie can’t you see, sometimes your love just hypnotizes me”, that means you’re large and your ish is getting played everywhere and all the time. Who wasn’t grinding to “Nasty Boy” at college parties or in the club? And what hustler wasn’t quoting “Ten Crack Commandments”? Was it Anthony Mason or John Starks? You know, “one of them 6’5 niggas” that Big spoke about in “I Got A Story To Tell.”
And if that weren’t enough, we all know that when we think ‘97, we think “Mo Money, Mo Problems” and those shiny suits. Ah, nostalgia.
As Remembered By ANT-I-THESIS: The War Report, Capone-N-Noriega: In early January I kopped the, “T.O.N.Y.” single because this album was simply taking too long to come out. It finally dropped early summer and was the only thing I listened to beside Wu-Tang Forever for the entire summer. Everywhere I went it was “Bloody Money.” You caught me out somewhere and I would be on some, “I keep it real with a niguh keep it real with me/I cut the hand off a niguh tryna steal from me.”
I entered Howard University at the end of the summer. Freshman year at Howard will always be one of my favorites and upon arrival I didn’t know what to expect. I had never even visited the school before arriving in August ‘97 and I was real curious to witness the type of hop most cats would be on. You can imagine my surprise when I realized that War Report was the sound of Drew Hall. It’s funny how when you get to Howard everything is like one big party. Within the first couple days it was firmly established that the freshman class anthems were, “Its All About The Benjamins”, “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See”, and “Bout It.” At every single event we attended, these were the bangers. But when you came home and you walked into the halls of Drew it was C-N-N!!! I was amazed at how universally accepted the album was. Brolic met one of the Musicologists' official brethren because of this album. I mean this cat was a pretty boy from Miami, far from the back packer steez that Brolic repped. But upon moving into Drew and hearing The War Report banging out of this Miami cat’s speakers, an instant bond was formed.
In addition, freshman business students at Howard are broken into small groups and sponsored by Fortune 500 companies throughout the year. My group happened to consist of the most wild-out group of cats in that freshman class. After every group meeting, every freshman orientation class, every business school function, someone from the group would lead off with Capone’s infamous call and response chant (track #16) “CNN War Report”, with the rest of the group doing the right thing and chiming in with Noreaga’s echo-response “The war report.” And we would continue through the whole call and response. “Fatty banging, Fatty banging”-“It’s co-banging”!! Within the group there were cats from Georgia, Virginia, New York, DC, Cali and every one of us was on this album. Soundtrack indeed!!
