Some Rappers Are Inviting Fewer Guests to the Party

When Public Enemy featured Big Daddy Kane and Ice Cube as guests on its 1990 album, “Fear of a Black Planet,” it was an event. Today, if LL Cool J records with DMX, no one in the hip-hop community raises an eyebrow.

That’s because the practice of loading up records with guest rappers has become so excessive in hip-hop that the designation “solo album” has become a misnomer.

Such popular artists as Eightball, Noreaga, Master P and Fat Joe have all featured guests on nearly every song on their “solo” albums. The reliance on collaborations has become a standard for singles as well, whether it’s Lil’ Bow Wow’s “Bow Wow (That’s My Name)” with Snoop Dogg or Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode,” also with Snoop Dogg.

But some artists now seem to be rebelling against the trend. Upcoming albums from rap stalwarts Eightball & MJG, Layzie Bone and Capone-N-Noreaga, among others, feature considerably fewer guests than the norm. And chart-topping rappers Nelly, Mystikal and Eminem have not featured any guests on their recent singles.

The reason is the whole guest-rapper game plan has simply become too predictable. “That’s why we didn’t feature a lot of guests on our album,” says Eightball, one-half of Eightball & MJG. “Everybody is really into doing 100 guest appearances and I had already done it before, so I know I didn’t want to do a lot of them.”

Eightball & MJG’s fifth album, “Space Age 4 Eva,” due in stores Tuesday, features guests on six of its 14 songs--pretty restrained by today’s standard.

For Layzie Bone, a member of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the long-awaited debut solo album is too meaningful to become an excuse for an everyone-in-the-studio party.

“This is my first time out solo and I really wanted people to know that I could hold my own,” says Layzie, who plans to feature only five other acts on the collection, due in March.

Another possible reason for the reduced number of guests, although some acts denied it, comes down to the most basic of reasons: money. Take sampling, which was virtually ubiquitous until laws were enforced, forcing artists to pay for the borrowing of sounds from someone else’s record. Artists and producers started realizing that they’d earn more money by making their own music.

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With rappers being more astute businessmen than they were just five years ago, it seems likely that many understood that the fewer people they had to pay to appear on their album, the more money they would make for themselves.

If the trend toward true solo albums continues, one class of losers will be rap newcomers. Getting a shot as a guest on a star’s album has been a common way to make a name for yourself. Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Ja Rule, DMX and C-Murder are among the long list of rappers who appeared on albums or singles with high-profile acts before releasing their own hit albums.

“It’s a good marketing strategy to feature up-and-coming rappers with established acts,” says Andrea Duncan, music editor of 360hip-hop.com, an Internet site founded by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. “But I think that people are going to learn how to balance it better. Featuring too many guests has diminished some people’s reputations, and I know that other artists are looking to do things themselves. But guests support the artists and can help buoy their success.”

That seems to be the logic on “Pleezbaleevit!,” the debut album from Doggys Angels, a Snoop Dogg protege group. Snoop is featured on 10 of the 19 cuts on the album, which is scheduled for release Tuesday. (Nate Dogg, Layzie Bone and Tha Eastsidaz are among those who also appear with the Angels.)

The practice of using guests is also very much in evidence in Jay-Z’s “The Dynasty Roc La Familia (2000- ).”

As the biggest star on Roc-A-Fella Records, which he co-owns, Jay-Z seems to be using “The Dynasty” as a way to hype Roc-A-Fella acts Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek. At least one is featured on 11 of the album’s 16 songs. Bleek’s second album, “The Understanding,” is scheduled for a Dec. 5 release. If Jay-Z’s album does as well as his last two, which have both sold more than 2.5 million copies, Bleek’s appearances will give him invaluable exposure. And the collection is certainly off to a good start. It entered the national album chart at No. 1 on Nov. 8.

Not everyone who uses guests is simply out to boost sales or groom proteges, however.

Prodigy, one-half of Mobb Deep, features guests on 12 of the 22 songs on his just-released solo debut, “H.N.I.C.” Many of them are affiliated with Mobb Deep, including lesser-known artists Big Noyd and Bars & Hooks, both of whom record for the group’s Infamous Records. “I just selected people that I respected in the game,” says Prodigy, who insists that he made a concerted effort to limit the guests to those who normally appear with Mobb Deep. “They are the people that I like, so I wanted to have them be on my album.”

But regardless of the amount of respect the artists have for one another, a high number of guests on an album can make the collection seem more like a compilation than a legitimate solo release.

Duncan says that too many guests can drown out an artist and even offend fans. “If you’re an LL [Cool J] fan,” she says, “you don’t necessarily want to hear a whole bunch of other rappers with him on his album.”