In this episode of The Grey Area, Black Jesus actor and comedian Slink Johnson and author and journalist Soren Baker discuss rap artists having short windows of success with their music.
Baker starts the conversation by mentioning rap group Three Times Dope.
“I will be absolutely honest with you, Soren,” Slink says. “I couldn’t tell you any other song on their album other than ‘Greatest Man Alive’ and ‘Funky Dividends.’ Those two songs made such an impact for me at that time in my life the golden era in hip-hop and these guys voices were definitely being heard at that time.
“In ’88 I was a young teenager and Hip-Hop had gotten its legs by then,” Slink adds. “Hip-hop was here and at that time Three Times Dope dropped those two songs and it was phenomenal it was ground breaking for me.”
“It was dope on ‘Funky Dividends’ how the female guest was dissing [main Three Times Dope rapper] EST on his own song,” Baker interjects.
Slink notes that the ‘Funky Dividends’ song touched on gold diggers even before gold diggers were a well-known term.
Switching gears, Baker gives us another group who had incredible music but had a short run: Black Sheep.
“A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, I think is one of the best albums in rap music,” he adds of the New York duo’s debut album. Baker says how he thought they were going to be “It” because they came from the Native Tongues collective and were down with De La Soul and Jungle Brothers.
“Black Sheep were supposed to do big things at that it was so disappointing to see them not go any further,” he adds.
Adds Slink: “Black Sheep was another one of those groups that made their impact on Hip-Hop and the culture as a whole in that short amount of time.”
Baker explains that these windows happen in every era of music. “Slink, we want to let the people know that this window happens in all eras and someone that recently did it and had a big push and a lot of momentum was Trinidad James.”
Slink agrees. “The impact he made with the ‘All Gold Everything,’ single I knew he was poised to be one of the greats,” he says. “Although he is still doing work, he hasn’t seen any success like he did with ‘All Gold Everything.’”
Trinidad was on Def Jam Recordings, one of the most iconic labels in rap history and he still couldn’t sustain the success.
“From your perspective and what you know of him and his music, is that because the music wasn’t there, he didn’t have the talent or did the label not know what to do with him?” Baker asks Slink.
Slink says he does not think he didn’t have the talent, but that he thinks the label didn’t know how to properly market him.
What are your thoughts? Let us know.