R.A. the Rugged Man

By '94 white rappers were no longer getting deals. The East Coast belonged to Wu-Tang, Nas and the Notorious B.I.G. Death Row ran the West Coast and both ideologies ate up the game's available oxygen. In corporate suites and on the streets, white rappers weren't an afterthought they just weren't thought about. Their only option was to go underground. Def Jam offered R.A. The Rugged Man more money than Jive. So the Suffolk County-raised rhymer claimed "Every Record Label Sucks Dick." But though the label sprung for a Notorious B.I.G cameo on "Night Of The Bloody Apes," the album still couldn't get a release date in 1994 or anytime after. A subsequent deal with Profile/EMI yielded similar results. Regardless of how unhinged and histrionic Crustified Dibbs was, no major label was willing to waste much money marketing a burly, bearded white guy with a receding hairline. It didn't help that the Rugged Man allegedly exposed himself to a Jive employee. But bad behavior was secondary 2pac had gone to jail for sexual assault, and Interscope still made sure that advertisements for "Me Against The World" were plastered across every business stop and rap magazine in America. So R.A. tunneled to the sewers, with his filth-encrusted aesthetics fitting in well with the grimy and dank terrain of the late '90s underground.