This is entirely appropriate, for no one would fault any of the three talented brothers for taking some time to do them. Based on Phonte collabos and Pooh mixtapes and 9th Wonder Grammy-nods, it’s apparent each can hold his own. But what had some of us ’Cologists feel anywhere from dejected to depressed is the fact that Little Brother’s split almost spells doom in today’s music environment. They were, after all, one of the last few relevant groups in black music. Scan the R&B, new soul, Bridge and hip hop landscapes and you’ll find fewer compelling groups than you can count on one hand, two at the most. So, Little Brother represented a bastion, of sorts. They were torch-bearers of earnest artists coming together, combining creativity, producing extra-solid projects, sharing limelight – everything that set groups apart from solo acts.
Now, we’re not stupid. We all realize that groups have been breaking up from the jump. It was originally Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions; Lionel Ritchie went solo on the Commodores; Smokey split from the Miracles; James Brown bounced on Bobby Byrd and the Flames; Lennon and McCartney were at the core of the Beatles’ breakup; Bobby broke off from New Edition and went solo; Busta Rhymes parted ways with Leaders of the New School; and Eric Clapton used to be part of several outfits. For Slum Village to go from Jay Dee, Baatin and T3, to T3 and Elzhi is not an entirely new thing. What makes today’s climate different (even disconcerting) is that groups are breaking up sooner and with greater frequency, but without balance. There aren’t any new groups coming along to fill the void.
De La Soul, Jagged Edge, Jurassic 5, 112 and the new Slum Village – that’s about the jist of today’s relevant groups (our apologies to Dem Franchise Boyz) – none of which are fresh on the scene. This disturbs us. And you know how we do… We got to thinking: What happened? Why are groups near extinction? Where is this trend headed?
Uncle Harry was less alarmed than he was resigned, chalking it up to ego. “When you are working with other people,” he said, “you are stuck sharing the limelight and artists don’t really want that.” Sometimes that means tension, jealousy and resentment within the group; other times, says Uncle, “The particular member that has the star power or most talent will see that and decide that (s)he wants to go solo and leave the rest of the group behind.” He mentioned what Ladybug, former member of Digable Planet, said in a recent audio interview with ThisIsRealMusic.com, when she mentioned that a group hinders individual creativity. Uncle said that if Lauryn, Q-Tip, Ice Cube, Cee-Lo, Wyclef, Ghostface and other artists never branched out, we wouldn’t have gotten some classic albums (The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, AmeriKKa’s Most Wanted, Supreme Clientele, New Danger).
But is it all on the artists? Egos and creative differences aside, there are most definitely some outside forces working here. Fans, labels and the marketplace can’t escape blame.
“You have to mention the difficulty of these crews or groups to even get a record deal.” Brolic Scholar brings up a salient point here. It was brought up in crew discussions that Nelly was actually a part of the St. Lunatics, before Universal Records decided to feature him as a solo artist prior to the group releasing an album. Ditto for Eminem and D-12. Brolic says it wasn’t always like this, that nowadays, the dearth of groups has to do with marketing, lazy labels and consumers with appetites for just one star. “Remember that the only reason the Wu made it was because an upstart indie with dough [Loud Records] was willing to give in to a slew of ridiculous demands, while no other label even considered giving a regular deal to a nine-man crew. What happened to groups like BDP and Public Enemy, where there was obviously one dominant member who wasn’t the most important? The crew came first, back then. Kris [KRS-One] was BDP, for the most part, as Chuck D was PE; but we still know who Scott LaRock, D-Nice, Flavor Flav and Professor Griff are. They were a group regardless of who did what and that kind of group is now extinct.”
Ant-I-Thesis and I (Music Dude) are probably the two most distraught members of the Musicologist crew. Thesis said he just straight up misses the group and that, “Plenty of times an album just sounds better when you have options. Yeah, The Roots are obviously more than Black Thought and ?uestlove, but I think it’s no coincidence that The Roots didn’t drop a classic album without Malik B. Raekwon is absolutely lost without Ghostface. Not to say that every artist should join a group, but there are plenty of artists that would benefit heavily if they were in a group.”
The demise of the group baffles me. Remember that DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince album? Yep. He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper. There’s something almost romantic about that notion. What really happened to the rapper-producer thing? DJ or no DJ, Pete Rock and CL Smooth is a dope concept. One is the DJ or producer, the other is the rapper. It’s like, “Our roles are clearly defined and symbiotic; let’s do this.”
But then, this is before the era of super-producers. At some point, say around 1994, producers’ options started opening up. Solo artists were popping up everywhere and they were all willing to spend crazy dough on a hot beat AND put you in their videos. It became a hindrance for a producer to be monopolized by one group or emcee.
“The producer became too big for the background.” That’s how Brolic put it when we kicked it.
He has a story, too: “I remember when Greyson (of Greyson and Jayson) said in a rhyme about a whack emcee: ‘They should put your DJ in the front and make you rhyme in the back.’ At the time, this was borderline extreme and ridiculous, hence the gravity of the diss. But in actuality, this is what eventually happened. The Nas and Biggies of production would come out with a weak emcee (since people still aren’t ready for instrumentals), and then emphasize their (the producer’s) ability to make beats and, in some cases, whole albums.”
So now what do we have? A bunch of solo rappers and solo singers with about 30 different hands touching their products. Thesis thinks these disjointed efforts make for albums that basically sound like a collection of singles. And according to Thesis, “If every song you make is a single, there’s no chance to develop continuity, therefore, how could you possibly produce a good album.”
A glimmer of hope is seen in some of the recent collaborations. Dangermouse has teamed with MF DOOM as Dangerdoom for The Mouse and the Mask, plus his Grammy-nominated turn as Gnarls Barkley with post-Goodie Mobb Cee-Lo (St. Elsewhere). There’s no more Black Star or Reflection Eternal, but Kweli just linked with Madlib and gave us Liberation, perhaps his best effort since Train of Thought, which (coincidentally) was an album wherein he was the rapper and Hi-Tek was the DJ. Be might as well have been a group album, with Kanye producing the bulk of Common’s album and turning up as an emcee on four tracks. Timbaland and Justin Timberlake played tag-team on FutureSex/LoveSounds and – no matter what you think about JT or N’Sync – hit us with a sleek, ambitious bit of techno-pop-R&B. And there are more of these types of genius-collaborations on the way. So, perhaps all is not lost.
But in reality, the future still looks grim. The singing group just might be a thing of the past. We’ve gone from dudes getting together on the corners – a soprano, a tenor, a baritone and a bass – crooning for free, to a market that seems only hungry for bubble gum boy bands (Pretty Ricky). Traditional hip hop groups may die the day De La Soul calls it quits or Elzhi decides to go solo for good.
Troop, where art thou? Where have you gone, Souls of Mischief?
