Industry Research: How rap became a big genre in the the industry

New York was the birthplace of hip-hop, but in the early 1990s the West Coast started to become the epicenter of rap music, thanks in large part to Death Row Records' release of Dr. Dre's 1992 album The Chronic and Snoop Doggy Dogg's 1993 album .  Los Angeles was beginning to usurp New York's throne for hip-hop supremacy.  

 In 1993, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs founded Bad Boy Records, based in New York.  The following year, Bad Boy released debut albums from New York rappers The Notorious B.I.G. and Craig Mack.  The albums' successes rejuvenated East Coast hip-hop.

Oakland based rapper Tupac Shakur then created a rivalry with Biggie, alleging him and Puff Daddy to have created an incident in which Tupac was robbed and shot five times in the lobby of a New York recording studio.  Biggie's track "Who Shot Ya?" was released soon after Tupac's attempted murder.  Biggie and Puff Daddy denied involvement in the shooting and claimed that "Who Shot Ya?" was recorded prior to the incident, but Tupac and the majority of the hip-hop community viewed the track as a taunt at Tupac.