Money, Power & Respect would eventually be certified platinum by the RIAA.įans know what happened next. Not to mention Lil Kim delivers one of the most iconic hooks of her career. 1" and "Livin' The Life" and highlight their skills on rhyme showcases like the MC Lyte-referencing "Goin' Be Some Shit," and even make flossy tracks like "Can't Stop Won't Stop" work.Īnd the title track is a bonafide classic, one of the best singles the Bad Boy label ever produced and a star-making turn for DMX, the star of the label that would one day prove a more long-term home for The LOX. The LOX deftly navigate grimy street tales on tracks like "The Heist, Pt. Money, Power & Respect is the best example of hardcore East Coast rap that Bad Boy had produced since Biggie's 1994 debut, Ready To Die. And Puff's radio aspirations didn't squelch that fire on their debut album - even if it did perhaps sideline it occasionally, as the sugary ethos of the Bad Boy label couldn't always see beyond the trappings of the period.
guest verse) when it hit airwaves in 1996. The group's potent chemistry had been obvious since fans heard the track "You'll See" (with a smoking Notorious B.I.G. " the latter a bit of typical Bad Boy fluff, a fairly uninspired interpolation of Rod Stewart's disco hit "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" It was the label formula that had worked so well for Ma$e's Harlem World and Puffy's own No Way Out but it wasn't as neat a fit for The LOX, with their street sound and sensibilities. They'd guested on the hit remix of Mariah Carey's "Honey" in 1997 and the first official single from The LOX was the awkward "If You Think I'm Jiggy" The latter was a slinky radio smash carried by a sample of The World Famous Supreme Team's "Hey D.J. They'd made an appearance on The Notorious B.I.G.'s blockbuster double album Life After Death helped pay homage to the fallen legend after his March 1997 murder on the tribute single "We'll Always Love Big Poppa " guested on Ma$e's hit posse cut "24 Hrs To Live ' and, perhaps most notably, been prominently featured on Puff's smash "It's All About the Benjamins." And in fall of 1997, they'd dropped their own hit single "Money, Power & Respect," with Lil Kim and DMX.īut it was a couple of other tracks that first indicated that the musical marriage between The LOX and Bad Boy would sometimes be uneasy. He knew a lot about marketing and said 'Warlocks' wasn't marketable and 'LOX' was more marketable."Īnd in the run-up to their debut album, The LOX had enjoyed some enviable, high profile successes. "So it was like, everything he said was golden so we was young hungry whippersnappers coming from Yonkers.
"At that time he was like MJ in his prime," Jada recalled last year. Originally known as the "The Warlocks," the trio of Jadakiss, Styles P and Sheek Louch embraced a name change in 1995, after they landed a record deal with Sean "Puffy" Combs and his then red-hot Bad Boy Records label. The LOX would famously balk at this early image and sound, battling their way off of the chart-topping Bad Boy Records for the upstart Ruff Ryders camp, a label built on a street-oriented approach that would eventually help slam the door on Bad Boy's reign.īut their dramatic label exit shouldn't obscure the fact that this has always been one helluva opening shot. 13, 1998 at the height of the polarizing "Shiny Suit Era," the group's debut bears all the hallmarks of the Jiggy late 90s lots of flossing, radio ready-hooks, pop samples and mafioso flirtations. The first album from The LOX, a hardcore trio of emcees from Yonkers, N.Y., is often thought of as an example of how the industry can mis-market and misrepresent a talented act.