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Before The Lox officially joined Ruff Ryders and took over the streets with their gritty style of Hip-Hop music, some might’ve forgotten that they were signed to Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy records and were a big part of the “shiny suit” era that many have slandered over the decades. Something Verzuz Gawd Jadakiss isn’t fond of.
Recently Jadakiss opened up about having had to wear that dreaded attire in the late 90’s and in an interview with Nas and Ms. Info for The Bridge: 50 Years of Hip Hop podcast, Jay-To-The-Muah once again stated that he “hated” the gleaming threads. “We never felt comfortable one time wearing [the shiny suits],” Kiss said. “Ma$e loved it… ‘I’m wearing this one.’ When he looked in his dressing room and seen that shit on the hanger… he knew what he was doing. ‘Going for the money guys, don’t mind me.’”
Of course Ma$e loved the new look. That shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Kiss went on to recall his feelings about the new look at the time saying “We ain’t feel right with that shit. It didn’t feel right. You look good, you feel good. We ain’t look good, we ain’t feel good.” He ain’t have to tell us. After that whole debacle The Lox basically had to go all out to get off the label and make their way to a more representative record label in Ruff Ryders. While many knew that the whole look was basically P. Diddy’s idea, Nas weighed in on the thought process behind everything and did his best to explain why Bad Boy went that route in the late 90’s saying “At the time, everything was about platinum. So I think we were all trying to figure out what was the look—what was that money look. Mase was going for the money. It was a shift—it was like a look that we needed, a star look.”
Well, that era of Hip-Hop saw more artists going platinum (in actual physical album sales) than ever before, so you know Puff was all about the coin, but The Lox obviously didn’t want it to come at the expense of their street credibility. Luckily it didn’t as they made their way to Ruff Ryders and dropped their street classic album, We Are The Streets. Interestingly enough their shiny suit debut album on Bad Boy, Money, Power & Respect went platinum while their gritty and gully Ruff Ryders sophomore album, We Are The Streets only managed to go gold.
We guess those shiny suits worked at least a little bit. Just sayin.’
Check out the full interview below and peep Jadakiss talk about the aforementioned suits at around the 12:25 mark.
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