I don't follow hip-hop music closely enough.

Cafe Society
1

The hijack festering on the Pit thread on Auto-tune, to which I contributed heartily, reminded me that I have very little idea of what’s happened in the world of good, socially conscious, self-aware hip-hop since the heyday of the backpacking era now that I no longer have friends who are into it. I’ve been listening to the same backpacker albums from the late 90s and early 00s, and I need some way to stay on top of the current scene.

What do I do? Is there a message board that’s good for this? A blog or something? I know I’m sounding terribly white right now, but I just don’t have a source for this. Help!

2

KEXP has a hip-hop segment from 6-9 pm (Seattle time) on Sunday evenings. You might want to give it a listen.

3

I’m not an expert by any means, myself, but my one recommendation is Saul Williams.

4

Second Saul Williams. As I said in the other thread, if rap music is around in twenty years, it will sound like the stuff Saul is putting out now.

Maybe take a listen to Killer Mike’s song “That’s Life”. Lot of true words in that song…

5

Plug One Mag is my favorite hip-hop blog. It doesn’t cover everything, but it gives me a pretty decent overview of what’s coming up, and I’ve come across a lot of artists I like from reading it (Giant Panda, Kidz in the Hall, Time Machine, and The Cool Kids, for example).

6

Common Market, Jazz Liberatorz, CunninLynguists, J-Live

possibly Ill Bill, Lupe Fiasco, Little Brother (these are good but may not be what you are looking for)

To name some older guys still putting out stuff: Pharoah Monche, Aesop Rock, Talib Kweli

7

Hip-Hop Linguistics is a great site. They regularly post album reviews and will often stream singles(that work at work!) and occasionally post an album; I highly recommend that free ‘Almost Fameless/Brief History of Time’ mixtape download on the right side. They also post news stories from the world of hip hop.
Speaking of Immortal Technique in that other thread, there is a story on the site about him doing a show to raise money for a hospital and orphanage in Afghanistan; seriously, that cat is one of, if not the, realist people in the game.

Trips for Saul Williams; probably my favorite artist, period.

I’ll try and pull my list together from that other thread later on and add some links to it so you can better sample them.(can’t youtube at work)

For now I’ll offer this amazing performance: Buck 65 with Symphony Nova Scotia

8

Sick. One thing that has always amazed me about people who really love hip-hop music is the intense joy they/we take in sharing it and exposing more people to brilliance. Thanks for the input, guys, and a preemptive thanks to tds1273 for putting all those links together. Additional suggestions are, of course, still quite welcome.

9

Okay, well I’m still working on putting links to that list. It’s tough because I can’t learn to just grab the link and move on, I almost always have to finish the song. I tried cutting it down to just more current artists, but I still ended up watching all the older stuff too.

However going into the holiday weekend I’ll post a couple choice links I came across…

3 favorite songs from 3 must have albums:
First off is my favorite song, period. Illogic’s “1000 Whispers” with the original Who sampled beat. The beat pulls you into a trance and the lyrics are just pure poetry. The rest of the album, Celestial Clockwork, is just as good; a top 5 favorite.

Next up is the Blue Scholars’ first video, Back Home, off of their newest album, and another top-5 all time, Bayani. I can’t say enough on the quality of this album(or all their others ftm), except I’m just happy to share with you these hometown favorites; 9-8-double1-8!

Finally is Jedi Mind Tricks. You’ve heard of machine-gun type flow? Well you haven’t actually heard it in practice until you’ve listened to the second verse of Uncommon Valor(A Vietnam Story); lyrics are in the video, and you will need them. Off of ‘Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell’; another complete and incredible album.

And a couple different videos.
Saul Williams’ reciting Children of Night in a small circle of, I guess, other artist. If you’re familiar with his catalog you will probably recognize a couple of poems/songs in there. An amazing video.

DJ Q-Bert’s WaveTwisters! The best full length cartoon based off of it’s own soundtrack of one of the definitive DJ scratching albums you will ever find. Trust me on that. Preview it on youtube, but it really needs to be seen on a good tv and heard on good speakers to be appreciated. Watch for the special Buckethead cameo!

10

I was heavy into turntableism about 4 years ago. I have to agree, Q-Bert is freakin amazing. Kid Koala is another great one who doesn’t get enough props, as is RjD2.

Man, I need to dig some of that stuff up. I am looking forward to tds’s list too.

11

Damn. Okay so here is the thing with this list. I was going to take the time and tell a little about each artist, or point out the story songs, political songs, rock hybrids, unusual or stand out beats, etc… or at least organize it better, but I just got carried away with hunting for songs. I also tried to throw in some choice live videos(yes, rap can be very good live) though I didn’t remember to mark all of them live. Between not being able to say no to the whole song, the holidays, and me going on vacation tomorrow(I’ll be going to a Pharoahe Monch show next week!); I just don’t have any left in me right now.

I was also going to post the best starter albums for each artist, including some that weren’t on youtube, but again I sort of just burned out here. I’ll revisit this in a couple weeks maybe when I get back from vacation.

Perhaps some other hiphop heads who are familiar with the artists on here could weigh in and help navigate. One thing, with the artists who have a lot of songs next to their name, that was only partially because of the available material, but more so show how varied their sound can be (K-OS, Sage, Buck) or because I just couldn’t narrow my enthusiasm down to a couple songs(Saul, Pharoahe, Blue Scholars).

So for now just consider this a grab bag to have fun hunting through when your in the mood. If you do like something post about it and we’ll see if we can’t find something else in your size.

Start digging…

Avalanches- Frontier Psychiatrist

Aesop Rock- Coffee, Daylight, Harbor Is Yours, None Shall Pass, Save Yourself

Arrested Development- People Everyday, Mr. Wendel, Raining Revolution, Tennessee

Atmosphere- Guarantees, If I Was Santa Claus, Say Hey There, Woman With the Tattooed Hands, Trying to Find a Balance, What They Sittin’ For(Texas Hold’em song), You(Live on Letterman)

Blackstar(Mos Def, Talib Kweli)- Children’s Story, Definition, RE: Definition, What Is Beef

Blockhead- Insomniac Olympics

Blue Scholars- Back Home, Joe Metro,Loyalty, No Rest For the Weary(Live), North by Northwest(Live Remix), South Side Revival, The Ave

Brother Ali- Rain Water, Take Me Home

Buck 65- 4-6-3, Cries a Girl(Live w/ Symphony Nova Scotia), Dang!, Shutterbuggin’, Riverbed pt.1, Roses and Bluejays(Live), Way Back When(Live w/ Symphony Nova Scotia), Wicked and Weird

Bus Driver- Avantcore, Casting Agents and Cowgirls, Imaginary Places, Sun Showers, Troglodyte Wins(Live), Unemployed Black Astronaut(Remix)

Calm- Get My Mind Right, Treat Me Like a Villan

Cool Calm Pete- Lost, Tune In, Two A.M

Danny!- Cafe Surreal(skip to 4:00), Fly

Del the Funky Homosapien;Deltron 3030- 3030, Phoney Phranchise

DJ QBert- Wave Twisters!

Dose-One- Birdcatcher’s Return, It’s Them, Square

Dr. Octagon(Kool Keith)- Blue Flowers, Halfsharkalligatorhalfman

Flobots- Handle Bars, Rise, We Are Winning

Gabriel Teodros- No Label, Northern Lights

Georgia Anne Muldrow & Dudley Perkins- Beautiful Mind, One

Illogic- 1000 Whispers, Celestial Clockwork, The Only Constant

Immortal Technique(NSFW)- Internally Bleeding, Obnoxious, Point of No Return

Jedi Mind Tricks- Blood In Blood Out, Uncommon Valor(A Vietnam Story)

K-OS- Black Ice:Hymns for Disco, Chocolate Chewing Gum(w/Rahzel), Crab in the Bucket, Crucial, Dirty Water, Emcee Murder(Live in Paris- accoustic), Man I Used To Be, The Love Song, Valhalla, Valhalla(Live on Craig Ferguson Regae Remix)

Living Legends- Addicted(Luckyiam), Artsy(The Grouch), Let’s Go(Luckyiam, live), Moving At the Speed of Life(Aesop w/Slug), Race the Moon(Mystik Journeymen), She Wants Me

Lupe Fiasco- American Terrorist, Conflict Diamonds, Daydreamin’, Dumb It Down, Fighters, Hip-Hop Saved My Life

MF Doom- November Has Come, One Beer

Mr. Lif- Earthcrusher, Iron Helix, Live From the Plantation, Return of the B-Boy

Pharoahe Monch- Agent Orange, Body Baby, Gun Draws, Loose Ends, Official, Oh No, Queens, The Light, The Truth

Qwel- Fable Salt

Ras Kass- Interview With a Vampire

Roots Manuva- Again and Again, All Alone, Awfully Deep, Colossal Insight, Dreamy Days, The Falling, Thinking, Too Cold, Witness

Sage Francis- Bridal, Climb Trees, Escape Artist, Hoofprints in the Sand, Got Up This Morning, Makeshift Patriot Runaways, Slow Down Ghandi, Sun vs Moon, SeaLion(w/Saul Williams!)

Saul Williams- Amethyst Rock(SLAM(movie)), Banged and Blown Through, Children of Night(wow!), Coded Language(Slam), Convict Colony, DNA, List of Demands, Act III, Scene 2 (Shakespeare), Sunday Bloody Sunday/(live version), Wine (verses at: 3:50, 7:58)

Sleep- Bucket, Fall Guy, Guy’s Like Me(w/ Josh Martinez), Little by Little(w/ J.M. as Chicharones)Never, Parallel to Hell(w/ Oldominion), Pork Rind Disco(w/ J.M. as Chicharones)

Soul Position(Blueprint & RJD2)- Jerry Springer Show, Priceless, Right Place Wrong Time, Run, Take Your Time

Substanstial- Blessing It(remix), Favorite Things, Think Different

Talib Kweli- Around My Way, Hostile Gospel Pt.1,Listen, Lonely People

Timz- Iraq

12

The above used to be in heavy rotation on my ipod, along with some older school stuff. (WuTang, WuTang solo albums, DJ Shadow, KRS-One, The Chronic, De La Soul) I also dug the hell out of Kanye Wests early albums and the Roots early stuff (up to Things Fall Apart, I didn’t care for their later stuff).

Sadly, I lost a lot of that in an unfortunate computer crash (I was young and hadn’t learned about proper backup procedures.) and never got around to re-ripping the few things I had in CD format.

Flobots I have heard playing on the radio recently. Good stuff too.

13

Wow, that’s quite a list. I’m at a public Wi-Fi spot, so it would be rude to watch or download those here, but as soon as I’m back on a stable home connection I will.

I will just say that WaveTwisters!, Deltron 3030 and Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell are already among my favorite albums; I’m a big fan of Immortal Technique–is Point of No Return the one about the gangbanger who unknowingly gang-raped his own mother?; and I tried to give Buck 65 a try, but “Spread 'Em” just creeped me out. The lyrics look innocuous enough, but the whole thing had such overtones of anti-gay violence that it seriously shook me and I ended up throwing away the CDs I’d burned of him and deleting the two albums of his I had on my computer. Maybe I’m a little sensitive to it, but I wasn’t completely in love with his voice or his flow anyway.

Anyway, thanks for putting together that huge list and I hope I can do it justice sometime soon.

14

It got popular. “Socially conscious”, “self-aware”, “underground”, etc., are marketing terms in the hip hop world now.

15

No one needs my input, because it has all been laid out quite nicely.

If I add anything it will be Math and Sean P. (I think the official spelling of the former is M.A.T.H., in case that helps anyone that wants to you tube him).

I really came in this thread to say to tds, it is people like you keeping hip hop alive. Nice job. And to say to NAF, you have real taste in good hip hop.

16

Still on vacation, but thought I’d pop in here right quick.

I didn’t quite get that from the song; to me it sounds more like a sarcastic depiction of an asshole cop. Can’t say which is the case either, probably neither, like so much good hiphop it’s open for much interpretation. Plus, truth be told, I always got the impression that Buck himself was gay.

I dunno, I like Buck 65 (or most of his stuff anyway). I like the country/folk type of vibe that most of his beats have; it’s a good, unique change of pace. His lyrics are usually pretty unique and interesting too, though not especially stand out with some of the others on that list.

But on the flip side of your impression of the song Sage Francis has a good line from the song “That Ain’t Right”, from the Non-Prophets ‘Hope’ album.

From the same song…

17

Check out Jurassic 5 and DJ Format.

Abdominal (who often collaborates with DJ Format) is an insanely talented hip-hop vocalist who deserves a listen as well.

And I absolutely love this video from Gym Class Heroes.

(those are for starters, I don’t want to intimidate you with an exhaustive list)

18

I think you would really like Tim Fite. His music is pretty evenly split between hip-hop and country-ish with, strangely enough, not much syncretism at any point. Off the Myspace page listen to “It’s All Right Here”.