Sweet Mother of God, Hip-Hop Sucks!

[Tibby]

Here’s some old white guy hip hop for you:

LJ LOOPER - Beethoven (classical beat/classical hip hop instrumental) Für Elise Beat

[running_coach]

@Happy_Lendervedder

So this thread is just cranky old farts screaming at clouds and reminiscing about onions on their belts. Cool.

Nothing screams “rock ‘n’ roll” like complaining about today’s music! -

We scream so we can be heard over your “music”.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Atamasama

Country music though, is like listening to a cat being tortured.

Piffle. Listen to some Johnny Cash or Emmylou Harris, not the Yup&Twang Toby Keith crowd. There’s great music everywhere.

[Smapti]

@Thing.Fish

Wait, has there been a hip hop track less than 30 years old posted yet?

How about a rap from 1968?

Here Comes The Judge - Pigmeat Markham (1968)

[HMS_Irruncible]

I liked rap when I was 13 and it was new(ish). Novel, underground, often funny. Lyrically dense and narratively diverse. Had all the right ingredients.

I tried to keep up with it for years. Every time Rolling Stone published a review of an act that was “fresh, innovative, thought-provoking”, I would listen to it, and it was always the same:

1. You shouldn’t provoke me, because I’m armed and very comfortable with violence.
2. I like money. I own many expensive things. Here’s an abbreviated list.
3. I have a lot of sex. The women are kind of an afterthought, and quite candidly, a bit of a nuisance.
4. I am better than you. Frankly, I could best you in basically any area that you might contest.

Same damn thing. Every time. And it’s still the same all these years later. How many fucking times am I supposed to listen to a different version of that same song?

“what about pop and rock, isn’t that repetitive too” yes, I could write a few paragraphs about that. Songs about dancing. Songs that rhyme “honey” and “money”. Bands named after cities. But it’s easier to find works that depart from the formula. Creators and fans value departure from the formula. By contrast, rap seems to value works mainly based on how recently they were released.

The exceptions prove the rule here. Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Wu-Tang, Beastie Boys… these are not common ground with modern, mainstream rap fans. When I drop names like that, I get an eye-roll and a dismissal that it’s “white people rap”. But the even greater sin is the stuff is just old. Classic rap is mostly discarded if it’s not a mega-huge cultivated brand like Snoop.

Anyway, yeah OP, I hear you. I suggest trying the “white people” rap I mentioned above. Good stuff in there. But if it’s not your thing, don’t sweat it.

[WalterBishop]

You might like this. I’m not a great Hip-Hop fan either, but this is one of my favourite albums:

- YouTube

[msmith537]

@panache45

@msmith537

Rap and hip hop have been around for over 40 years, so I find it strange the OP wouldn’t be familiar with at least a little bit of hip hop.

Why is that strange? I’m another old white guy and am TOTALLY unfamiliar with any of it.

It’s strange because rap and hip have been a major component of music sales since the late 80s. Currently around 30% of all sales, which I believe makes it the largest (depending on how you might define “pop”, which sort of overlaps everything). Hip hop and rap is played in mainstream movies, television shows, commercials, the radio, sporting events, pretty much everywhere.

To not be familiar with any hip hop, I think you would need to be like my dad who literally has zero interest in music. And even that is a bit weird. I have very little interest in sports, but I’m still familiar with most major teams and can tell you who Tom Brady is.

[Two_Many_Cats2]

@msmith537

To not be familiar with any hip hop, I think you would need to be like my dad who literally has zero interest in music.

No, you can be plenty interested in music and still not be familiar with hip hop. I have my favorites from rock, country, bluegrass, blues, soul, disco, classical, opera, ragtime, tin pan alley, and Mongolian throat singing. Yet I know next to nothing about hip hop because I’ve totally ignored it for forty years.

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

And he still had time to invent boogie-woogie:

Beethoven's Jazz

[panache45]

@msmith537

It’s strange because rap and hip have been a major component of music sales since the late 80s.

Opera has been around since the mid-1600s. How much of it are you familiar with?

[msmith537]

@HMS_Irruncible

I liked rap when I was 13 and it was new(ish). Novel, underground, often funny. Lyrically dense and narratively diverse. Had all the right ingredients.

I tried to keep up with it for years. Every time Rolling Stone published a review of an act that was “fresh, innovative, thought-provoking”, I would listen to it, and it was always the same:

1. You shouldn’t provoke me, because I’m armed and very comfortable with violence.
2. I like money. I own many expensive things. Here’s an abbreviated list.
3. I have a lot of sex. The women are kind of an afterthought, and quite candidly, a bit of a nuisance.
4. I am better than you. Frankly, I could best you in basically any area that you might contest.

Same damn thing. Every time. And it’s still the same all these years later. How many fucking times am I supposed to listen to a different version of that same song?

“what about pop and rock, isn’t that repetitive too” yes, I could write a few paragraphs about that. Songs about dancing. Songs that rhyme “honey” and “money”. Bands named after cities. But it’s easier to find works that depart from the formula. Creators and fans value departure from the formula. By contrast, rap seems to value works mainly based on how recently they were released.

The exceptions prove the rule here. Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Wu-Tang, Beastie Boys… these are not common ground with modern, mainstream rap fans. When I drop names like that, I get an eye-roll and a dismissal that it’s “white people rap”. But the even greater sin is the stuff is just old. Classic rap is mostly discarded if it’s not a mega-huge cultivated brand like Snoop.

Anyway, yeah OP, I hear you. I suggest trying the “white people” rap I mentioned above. Good stuff in there. But if it’s not your thing, don’t sweat it.

Being old, I don’t really know what the kids find “cool” musically these days. And truth be told, I’m not really up to speed on current hip hop for most of the reasons you describe. I imagine it’s like alternative rock was in the early 90s. All of a sudden, 80s hair metal seemed extremely lame and uncool and everyone was listening to grunge and wearing flannel. Except it’s more like when grunge was replaced with “nu metal”. Lyrically dense and narratively diverse music by Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and so on was replaced by the likes of Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock.

[Daithi_Lacha]

Let’s not forget trip hop.

Massive Attack - Karmacoma (UNKLE Situation Mix)

[msmith537]

@panache45

@msmith537

It’s strange because rap and hip have been a major component of music sales since the late 80s.

Opera has been around since the mid-1600s. How much of it are you familiar with?

The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, Le Boheme, Don Giovanni, Carmina Burana (technically a “cantina” but close enough), Faust, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli…

Which is my point. I don’t listen to opera and yet I have a passing familiarity with it from watching Looney Toons or mafia movies or just being on planet Earth for 49 years.

[DPRK]

@HMS_Irruncible

I tried to keep up with it for years. Every time Rolling Stone published a review of an act that was “fresh, innovative, thought-provoking”, I would listen to it, and it was always the same:

1. You shouldn’t provoke me, because I’m armed and very comfortable with violence.
2. I like money. I own many expensive things. Here’s an abbreviated list.
3. I have a lot of sex. The women are kind of an afterthought, and quite candidly, a bit of a nuisance.
4. I am better than you. Frankly, I could best you in basically any area that you might contest.

Speaking of lyrical content, that is the difference between some engineered and marketed product and some authentic rap composed by people who actually grew up in a dangerous, violent ghetto and were forced to be desperate gangsters to put food on the table all the while watching their friends and loved ones die or go to prison. All the lyrics about violence, money, and sex are dark and significant.

Ten Wanted Men - Wanted Dead Or Alive

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

You want something more recent and that’s not white people hip-hop and that’s not fitting into racist stereotypes about hip-hop, consider This is America: Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video) - YouTube

[not_what_you_d_expect]

Oh, I love that one.

Seriously, there is good music in pretty much every genre and time frame under the sun.

But it is rude to listen so loudly in the presence of a non appreciative roommate.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

You want something more recent and that’s not white people hip-hop and that’s not fitting into racist stereotypes about hip-hop, consider This is America: Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video) - YouTube

I actually like the hell out of that one, but AFAICT it’s mainly popular with white people.

[DCnDC]

It takes two lyric

[DCnDC]

Here’s a couple of old white guys:

Frank & Maury - “Sticky” (Official Music Video - WSHH Exclusive)

[DCnDC]

Here’s a British guy:

Professor Elemental - I'm British (Dir: Moog Gravett)