I rarely post, but this has been such an excellent thread just based off the fact alone on what poster's perspectives and memories were like in their lives as observers during the 1996 Rap War. As a lifelong New Yorker, I was thirteen in 1996, and I definitely remembered how tense the energy from Hip-Hop felt even at that age.
I would watch MTV or "The Box" music videos all the time and peep Death Row's imagery from their music videos such as: "How do You Want It", "Made Niggaz", "Toss It Up", "California Love", "2 of Amerika's Most Wanted", or "Hit Em Up". Seeing those videos and hearing the anger in some of Pac's lyrics, riding hard for the WESTSIDE, constantly throwing up the W, I often wondered in my young mind: "Why aren't they playing this shit on HOT 97, this shit is fucking fire!"
The lack of 2Pac & Death Row music not being played in NYC was confusing to me, because I thought the instrumental's Pac were rapping too (specifically the "How Do You Want It" instrumental) in his videos were so much more better produced, with awesome rhythm and percussion celebratory energy. To me, they sounded so much better to my young ears, compared to the bland street instrumentals I was hearing here from the Bad Boy produced NYC sound at that time. I was always in awe of how Death Row's music video directors, strategically would make California look in Pac's videos. Sunny weather, palm trees, bouncing low-rider cars, The Bloods and Crips, & exotic pornstar women, (It was crazy to see the "How Do You Want It" video uncut on Playboy TV at that age. To me it was just totally unheard of to see naked beautiful topless pornstars show up for a Hip-Hop music video?!?). All of this drama seemed extremely fascinating to me as an up & coming young black teenager.
At the same time, it was weird to see the majority of my classmates in the 7th/8th grade purchasing Lil' Kim's Hardcore album and talking about Biggie's and Lil' Kim's nasty sex lyrics and her risque album cover all day and I felt like why are they talking about them? Haven't they been listening to 2Pac and watching his dope music videos? Nobody seemed to wanna talk about Pac/Death Row at school in Queens, and I felt confused because Pac's music videos were being played everywhere and he had this insane charismatic energy in the way he rapped, specifically in his unique evolving baritone style of his voice (perhaps a side effect to his vocal chords after getting shot 5 times in 1994). Yet people here, including the NYC Hip-Hop media, or at my school at least, seemed to be ignoring him and Death Row, bypassing Pac's talent...
People were blazing "How Do You Want" "All Eyez On Me" and "Hit Em Up" in their cars loudly here like crazy non stop. That I remember very well.
There was definitely this: "See No West-Coast, Hear No West-Coast, Speak No West-Coast" of what 2PAC and DeathRow, were doing over in California here in NYC 1996. You could feel that in the air and maybe the NYC streets climate at the time, played a hand in that...based off how PAC and Death Row verbally, were constantly shitting on NYC and there artists.
Part of me felt jealous to see the pride of Pac, Snoop, Dre and Californians always throwing up that W in all there music videos with pride in California's sunny palm tree weather. I often wondered during this "East-Coast/West-Coast beef" the media were slowly cooking up, how come NYC didn't have our own Eastcoast sign we can throw up? Even at that age, I felt teens, shit NEW YORKERS in general were purposely being denied or banned from hearing Death Row music or anything Death Row related. There was definitely a "Fuck California, just ignore them niggaz" vibe that I felt going on which I didn't get, I guess because I really wasn't too familiar with Biggie, his music, and his influence over NYC at the time.
The Motown of Hip Hop records at it's peak, and yet the company wasn't being promoted anywhere here in Queens or NYC??? All I heard in 1996 New York media radio on the airwaves at HOT 97 was just: "Bad Boy this", "Ain't No Nigga" from Jay-Z over here, "Street Dreams / I Rule the World" from Nas over there, Fugees "Ready or Not" down that way, and that was it. No Pac, no Snoop, no Dre, No Death Row, being played or promoted here AT ALL in New York. It almost felt like Death Row was being buried deliberately and purposely and that feeling felt very unmistakable to me even as a 13 year old teenager. It was so unbelievably biased and I hated it.
As a fan of that westcoast sound early on that piqued my ears as a youngin, I felt very frustrated with New York and my classmates refusal to talk about how ill 2Pac's music and his music videos honestly were. From my little 13 year old eyes at the time, watching Pac's music videos, him and all his fellow Death Row artists looked like they were having the time of their lives out there in Hollywood. If not for Kurt Loader, and MTV News showing Death Row clips, interviews (Yall remember Pac counting that "Death Row money" in the L.A. desert with his Mad Max costume on lol) and music videos of Pac, I would have been totally out of the loop as to what was really going on. In hindsight, it was fucking disgusting and asinine how NYC was hating on that Death Row run, totally giving a blind eye to the Death Row Machine, & never, ever, giving them there side of the story.
Sorry for my essay, I just wanted to give my take on what I remembered and observed as a young teen New Yorker during those 1996 Dayz...I can only imagine if I had grown up in California in 1996 what my story would have been like lol.