velopment in terms of rap was a geographic shift.
Previously, the East Coast of the United States rep-
resented the home base of rap, but when California-
based Ice Cube and others began to rap unabashedly
about their dissatisfaction with America’s criminal
justice system, it resonated in communities similar to
Compton throughout the United States, and eventu-
ally found its way to suburban listeners.
Other Rap Genres In the 1990’s, other forms of rap
continued to exist that had their roots in previous
decades. Jazz-rap and alternative rap became popu-
lar because of artists such as Digable Planets and Ar-
rested Development. After 1993, it became obvious
that neither the West Coast nor the East Coast had a
particular claim to rap music: Artists from across the
United States and Canada were putting their partic-
ular spin on the genre, creating many subgenres, in-
cluding trip-hop. It was during this time that a new
brand of hip-hop was created. Hip-hop involves us-
ing a turntable on which to push a vinyl album by
hand to create a scratching sound to mix two differ-
ent sounds. Scratching causes the turntable to per-
form like a drum or other percussion instrument.
Often, prerecorded music samples are included in
the mixing. Throughout the 1990’s, hip-hop evolved
to include singers who performed with the rappers,
and who might also sing over melody samples from
prerecorded samples.
Even though it was a predominantly African
American art form, there were Caucasian rappers
who were quite popular during the 1990’s. From
Canada, there was Snow, a rapper from Toronto
whose reggae-inflected songs were often performed
rapidly and told of problems with the police and his
hardscrabble upbringing. Vanilla Ice was another
Caucasian rapper who earned fame in the early
1990’s. His brand of dance rap was largely about ur-
ban scenes in Miami. His videos featured the rapper
and backup dancers performing choreographed
moves. In the late 1990’s, Eminem was featured with
veteran rapper Dr. Dre in Dre’s comeback single,
“Forgot About Dre.” Eminem, however, had his own
brand of self-deprecating rap that catapulted him to
fame through the end of the decade. In 1992, the
Beastie Boys releasedCheck Your Head, which went
double platinum in the United States. This was fol-
lowed byIll Communication(1994), which included
the hit song “Sabotage,” andHello Nasty(1998); both
albums went triple platinum.
By the middle of the decade, there was a form of
hip-hop that was street-life oriented but also in-
cluded harmony in the vocal performance and con-
tained the heavier bass associated with gangsta rap.
This form of rap would come to define hip-hop. An
example of this is Bone Thugs-N-Harmony from
Cleveland, Ohio. Considered by some critics to be
particularly dangerous because of their willingness
to depict graphic violence in detail, Bone Thugs-N-
Harmony nonetheless became famous for their
rapid-fire delivery, which was sometimes sung, and
the limber, yet dark, rhythmic bass that accompa-
nied it.
Inevitably, sometimes the street life that many
rappers illustrated in their songs became a part of
their real life. In a feud whose origin is unknown,
rappers from the East Coast began to grow at odds
with rappers from the West Coast, and vice versa.
The most famous, and arguably most tragic, exam-
ple of the feuding was when onetime friends Tupac
Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., also known as Biggie
Smalls, created songs that taunted each other.
Things came to an end when Tupac Shakur was
gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996. A short time
later, in March, 1997, Biggie Smalls was ambushed by
gunfire. Shakur was represented by the West Coast
record company Death Row Records, while Smalls
recorded with New York-based Bad Boy Records.
Both murder cases remain unsolved.Female Performers Female groups were popular
in the 1990’s as they had been at no other time in
music history, except perhaps the 1960’s. Through-
out the decade, female groups with pop sensibilities,
regardless of the genre to which they actually be-
longed, were popular with audiences who desired a
more radio- and dance-friendly sound than could be
found in most rap.
En Vogue was a quartet who sang in harmony.
Comprised of African Americans, the group some-
times created a sound that hearkened back to earlier
times in rhythm-and-blues (R&B) history. SWV, or
Sisters with Voices, was an African American trio who
had radio-friendly hits and contemporary-sounding
melodies. While women dominated the pop R&B
charts, they also excelled as rap artists. Throughout
the 1990’s, performers such as MC Lyte, Queen
Latifah, Salt-n-Pepa, and TLC proved that women
could rap while providing socially positive messages
and a danceable beat with memorable hooks.The Nineties in America Music 597