Jay-Z, 702, Ja Rule, DMX, The LOX, Drag-On, Eve, Swizz Beatz, Method Man, Redman, Nas, Q-Tip, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, MC Hammer made up 1999’s Summer Jam.
WOW.
It’s not easy to pinpoint who had the greater year because, in all honesty, each artist had one heck of a run in ’99.
Half of our line up did venture towards a new fete, a first of its kind hip-hop show on the road, the Hard Knock Life Tour.
(Photo by Mitchell Gerber/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Jay Z assembled a tour named after his best selling single at the time, “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” off of Vol 2….Hard Knock Life, which would also eventually become his most commercially successful album.
Photo By: Evan Aurebach
The historical tour featured Jay-Z, DMX, Method Man, and Redman.
While they made their rounds on the tour circuit, boy bands made theirs in music. There was no escaping N’SYNC who just hit the scene:
(Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)
And their arch-nemesis the Backstreet Boys made Billboard history with their album, Millenium.
Millenium became the first album in history to sell over a million copies in its first week and 500,000 copies in the first day of release.
And let’s not forget the pop hit that’s still being played in commercials today:
From one phenomenon to the other, you couldn’t hide from the Latin explosion.
Jennifer Lopez jumpstarted this new wave by successfully going from TV/film star to pop star with her number one single “If You Had My Love” and her album “On The 6” which followed the same victory.
Then came Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias, Shakira and Lou Vega and the song that wouldn’t go away, Ricky Martin’s “Livin La Vida Loca”:
Everyone freaked out for the coming year.
At a time where people steadily became reliant on tech, the Y2K bug was supposed to mess up computerized systems all over the world in the year 2000.
Some people thought we’d revert to living like cavemen because of this and bought supplies to live on just in case it did. Of course, nothing happened.
Trivia became a favorite TV past time:
And our love for Tony Soprano and his mafia life began:
Photo By Getty Images/Handout
Destiny’s Child wanted us to pay their “bills” and say their names:
The world was introduced to the wild, troubled, no holds barred lyrically beast that is Slim Shady:
(Photo by Ke.Mazur/WireImage)
We became obsessed with sci-fi when Neo and Trinity were household names and brought the great debate…blue pill or red pill?
And Knicks fans thought they had a shot at winning the NBA finals, but that soon was put to rest when the Spurs defeated them four games to 1. Hey, Sprewell did try.
However, the Knicks did set a record by becoming the first number eight seed in NBA history to make it to the NBA Finals, that should count for something!
It’s okay though New York, we did win another World Series during this year.
Photo by: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
And to cap off this year, just for kicks:
