Hip-Hop & Bullshit: Money Miz Honors: LOUD RECORDS

VH1 recently honored Def Jam as a record label for its 2009 Hip-Hop Honors program. They showed the world how much of an impact Def Jam had on the hip-hop community from the mid '80s until the present. What they didn't show or discuss is how Def Jam, in many ways, also contributed to the demise of the integrity of hip-hop and its culture. (See my post titled "KRS-One Droppin' Knowledge On Def Jam" which was posted on 9/27/09.) I'm not even gonna get into all of that right here because I feel like there is another label from the '90s that should have been honored for the profound impact it had on hip-hop. That label is Loud Records, founded by Steve Rifkind (www.Twitter.com/SteveRifkind).

Loud Records started in 1992 and I truly believe that Steve Rifkind elevated hip-hop music to a level that we will never see again. His mission was to design a bi-coastal label that produced hardcore, street hip-hop or, dare I say, REAL HIP-HOP. The hip-hop I refer to in the title of my blog, if you will.

Steve Rifkind signed, promoted and exposed to the world some of the greatest hip-hop artists and groups of all time. In the mid '90s, Loud Records put out 6 of the greatest hip-hop albums ever made. Let me just give you a list of who was signed to Loud Records back then: The Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Big Pun, Raekwon (as a solo artist), The RZA (as a solo artist), Dead Prez, Xzibit, Tha Alkaholiks, M.O.P., The Beatnuts, Pete Rock (as a solo artist), The X-ecutioners, Twista, Krayzie Bone, and The Three 6 Mafia. Are you fucking kidding me???

Rifkind literally signed the realest rappers he could find. He had the balls to sign a nine member group of 5% Nation students who got high on woolies and almost all had prior run-ins with the law including attempted murder, robbery, and distribution or narcotics. He signed Big Pun, a 450 pound Puerto Rican from the Bronx who he never heard rhyme before, because his assistant (who never arrived on time to meetings) showed up 15 minutes early insisting that Pun was a lyrical phenom. Big Pun turned out to be arguably one of the top 5 greatest emcees in the history of hip-hop. Steve Rifkind signed Dead Prez, a militant, pro-black, anti-white group of modern day black panthers whose album cover had to be censored in stores because it showed a group of black slaves holding guns high in the air. Dead Prez's first album "Let's Get Free" pushed a lot of limits and is one of the better hip-hop albums to ever be made. He signed Mobb Deep when they were little teenagers from Queensbridge. Let's face it, Loud Records released "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)," "Wu-Tang Forever," "The Infamous," "Capital Punishment," "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...," "Let's Get Free," "At The Speed of Life," and "40 Dayz & 40 Nightz."

Loud Records was and always will be the best record label in hip-hop music. While Puffy was gettin' dressed up in silver space suits with Ma$e, Ja Rule was singing instead of rapping on tracks, LL Cool J was catering his music to women, and 2Pac and Biggie were beefing over nonsense, Loud Records was slappin' the industry up-side the head with raw, unadulterated hip-hop. They boldly told the world that the Wu-Tang Clan wasn't nothin' to fuck with, that just because you weighed 450 pounds didn't mean that you couldn't fuck a lot, and that there ain't no such thing as half-way crooks 'cause they shook, scared to death and scared to look!!!

Loud Records embodied what true hip-hop was and should always be. Not R&B a.k.a. Rap and Bullshit. Just HIP-HOP...