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Rap Expo Part 3-The Labels

·         Bad Boy: Puff Daddy/Diddy-Our first group on the expo is Bad Boy. A dominant rap label...plain and simply is cursed. It started out with the Notorious BIG's murder. After that it just went slowly downhill. Sure Diddy went solo for a while, and he's recruited lots of talent like Ma$e, Da Band, Loon, G Dep, Craig Mack, and MGK....but ultimately no Bad Boy Artist after Biggie Smalls has been that successful. Overall i feel Bad Boy has been rather trend setting however.
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·         Roc Nation/Rocafella Records: Jay-z-Jay-z's Rocafella Records enjoyed a good deal of success with rappers like Freeway, Beanie Siegel, and later Kanye West and J.Cole. Jay-z remained the main act here, despite the other rappers having success. J.Cole is the future of Rap, well hell, his time is now. I'll talk more about Kanye when i get to his label further down.
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·         Shady Aftermath: Dr. Dre  & Eminem- This is a difficult label to judge. Like Bad Boy Records, Aftermath has seen many rappers come and go. Eminem has proved to be an elite rapper, and he's recruited talented rappers like 50 Cent, Yelawolf, and Obie Trice. You might even consider the Game an extention of Shady Aftermath even though he has his own label now. The fututre looks ok for the label.
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·         Young Money Cash Money- I've combined YMCMB with the old Cash Money. Cash Money Rappers like Juvenile, BG, and Lil Wayne, were followed by non dirty south rappers like Drake and Nicki Minaj. This label seems to go as far as Lil Wayne will take it. He is the heart and soul of the label, despite having Carter V album delayed. Drake and Nicki are also very succesful. The future doesn't look as bright as it has in 2005-2013 for the label however.
A
·         G.O.O.D. Music-Kanye West is a supreme talent, and he assembled a very good squad of rappers for his label, He started out just with Common, an elite Chicago rapper, but Common would eventually leave. GOOD Music has Kid Cudi, 2 Chainz, Pusha-T,Cyhi Da Prynce and Teyanna Taylor. With all that talent joining Kanye....this label cant be stopped.
A+
·         The Inc.(Murda Inc): JA Rule & Irv Gotti-Perhaps a label can onnly stay popular for so long. At one time JA Rule was a dominant rapper, accompanied by singer Ashanti. The sky was the limit...then came The Inc's dark times and G-Unit. This NY Label is now just a relic....a shadow of its former glory....
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