Along with honoring the highest hitmakers of the yr, the 2023 Billboard Music Awards are additionally celebrating hip-hop’s fiftieth anniversary with the invaluable help of three rap pioneers.
“Hip-Hop By the Charts” finds Jermaine Dupri, Ludacris and T.I. sharing insider reminiscences about their numerous career-building Billboard chart achievements in addition to their reflections on hip-hop’s musical and cultural impression.
Watch all three interviews under with Vibe editor Datwon Thomas for illuminating sound bites excerpted from the trio’s particular person chats :
Jermaine Dupri on…
“Cash Ain’t a Thang,” that includes Jay-Z, from Dupri’s 1998 debut studio album Life in 1472 (No. 3 on Billboard 200; No. 1 for 2 weeks on Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums): “Once I did ‘Cash Ain’t a Thang,’ the corporate, Columbia, they didn’t have actually no concept what Jay-Z meant to the tradition. They have been really asking me like: Why did I would like this tune to be my first single once I had ‘Sweetheart’ with Mariah [Carey]? … They thought they may do extra with ‘Sweetheart.’ It’s loopy, as a result of that’s identical to this period and this time of those 30 years in the past. [It] was such a studying interval for thus many individuals.”
Mariah Carey’s “All the time Be My Child” (Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 for 2 weeks, 1996): “That file taught me that it wasn’t actually about first and second singles. It’s nearly nice songs.”
Ludacris on…
What hip-hop means to him: “Hip-hop is the whole lot to me. It’s how we discuss, it’s how we gown, it’s how we stroll. … Like, the whole lot I do is to provide again to the tradition that gave me.”
Usher’s “Yeah!” that includes Lil Jon and Ludacris (Sizzling 100 No. 1 for 12 weeks, 2004): “Quickly as Lil Jon despatched me the file, I used to be like, ‘That is out of right here’ earlier than I even received my verse on there. That’s why you see me at first of the file, a verse, and on the finish: ‘Take that and rewind it again.’ I’m attempting to get on as many components of the file as potential. I knew what it was. It’s crossed three generations. … That’s when you’ve gotten the hit file of a lifetime.”
T.I. on…
His lengthy and profitable profession in hip-hop: “Man, it seems like lots of work, lots of arduous work that paid off. I’m the proudest of the music we made then. It impressed a lot to occur that has developed to nonetheless be related now.”
“No matter You Like” (Sizzling 100 No. 1 for seven weeks, 2008): “I feel that was my first solo No. 1. We was on a run, you dig? And had a good time regardless of a reasonably darkish second that I used to be going by means of. I used to be preventing a fed case and making ready for jail. My entire factor was simply give attention to doing probably the most we will … being as productive as we will and progressive as we will with this time. And ‘No matter You Like’ was undoubtedly the catalyst of that second.”
