It didn't sound like anything I had ever heard. Right off the bat, I knew this tape was different, but different in a good way. I rolled my blunt in Franklin Mills parking lot, hopped on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, popped in 400 Degreez and away I went on a journey into the future. Some weird thing made me buy that tape that day and I was always looking for a new sound or new artist to spark my interest. I still remember walking in to The Wall on this day 22 years ago, checking the rap tapes for new releases and being oddly drawn to this album called 400 Degreez. It's a special album to me, one of my absolute favorites. If there was ever a moment in time that you could pinpoint when that shift started, it was the "Ha (Remix)".īack to 400 Degreez, the album. Within 2 years, power in the mainstream rap world would shift heavily to the South. Cash Money smartly and swiftly followed with another single that would be a radio smash "Back That Azz Up". The Hov remix of "Ha" penetrated through the East Coast shield and quickly established Juvenile and Cash Money Records as the next big thing in rap. 2 Hard Knock Life selling 5 mil, the new King of New York Jay-Z jumped on the "Ha (Remix)" and the rest as they say, is history. How could an artist from the South who was locally selling hundreds of thousands breakthrough in the East when the DJ's were frontin? Why get the DJ's favorite artist on one their songs of course! Fresh off Vol. One record would come along to change all that. I even recall one radio DJ who will remain nameless completely trash Three 6, Mystikal & Master P on-air calling them "wack" and insisting "I will never play this shit, ever". I used to listen to & record rap radio from 3 different states on the East Coast at that time (PA, NJ & NY), so I had a pretty good ear for what was getting spin and what wasn't. Master P broke through with "Make Em Say Uhh" but the DJ's were still holding out. Aside from "Rosa Parks" getting a few spins, nothing from Aquemini was in heavy rotation.
In 1998, Southern rap especially had yet to breakthrough as a staple on mainstream East Coast rap radio. An artist that may have sold 100,000 in the South or West Coast may have never even had their record played in the East and vice versa. Radio was still the primary platform for rappers to get heard and blow up. If you weren't around for the 90's pre-internet days, Hip-Hop was very regional and territorial. It's one of the most important albums in rap history and especially one of the most important rap albums from the South. 400 Degreez released on this day 22 years ago and changed everything.
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