BY DART ADAMS • MAY 18 2019

In the summer of 1999, the rap industry was moving into previously unexplored territory. Twenty years after the very first rap 12-inch was released, the genre had finally become the top-selling in terms of sales. Rap was the most popular kind of music amongst the youth and the most sought after demographic from brands and corporations looking to sell products to both Generation X and burgeoning Millennials. There was a time when rap music couldn’t be played on Black radio while the sun was still up. Rap was once relegated to the very back of the record store, partially because it wasn’t regarded as real music and partially to discourage shoplifters (since they would essentially have to sprint through the entire store in order to escape with their ill-gotten vinyl, cassette tape, or CD long box.)

All of this could be said for mainstream Rap music but underground/indie Rap in 1999 was perceived much like a red-headed stepchild. It was dismissed as “backpack Rap” where hundreds of lyrical-spiritual-miracle loving “heads” who lived for obscure references, punchlines, metaphors, similes, internal rhyme schemes, multi-syllable rhyme schemes, speed, and remarkable breath control had nerdgasms over vinyl singles that were insanely hard to locate. They existed only to nod their heads furiously to songs with 30 bar verses — no hooks — and thumb their noses at everything on the radio. That was the general consensus. “Backpacker” was often used as a slur/derogatory term in a world where Swizz Beatz and Mannie Fresh ruled the radio and the charts.

Rawkus was the leading brand in underground rap in 1999. Whereas other indie Rap labels made their marks selling 12-inch vinyl singles and CD’s through Web-based mail-order marketplaces such as Sandbox Automatic, Underground Hip-Hop, and Hip-Hop Site, and physical storefronts like Fat Beats. Rawkus did all that and sold a significant amount of CDs. Rawkus had the advantage of being well funded, this meant they had quite a promotional budget. They could secure print ads in all the major and independent music publications. They could afford TV spots, ad space on the radio, and they could shoot videos for their big singles which landed in the rotation on BET, MTV, and MTV2.

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