amen mouthbreather.
I’m a big PE and DeLaSoul fan myself.
Not to mention Tricky.
Whatever happened to Arrested Development?
Speech put an album out about 2 years ago. It was his 2nd or 3rd solo album since Arrested Development ended.
Also don’t know if you knew this, but Dionne Farris, who had a quai-hit about 5 years ago with “I know” (“I know what you’re doin, yeah, and it’s not gonna work this time…”), is also an A.D. alumni.
I personally am a big fan of the oft-maligned genre of electronic music and thereby hip-hop. Whenever I mention the former somebody goes “mmm-tss-mmm-tss” as if it’s a clever mimicry of all electronic music, and make some jack-assed claim about it “not being real music”. They then procede to either listen to a rock band with about as much talent as my left testicle or a song that, unbeknownst to them, employs all manners of drum machines, synthesizers, and the like.
Very clever indeed. It must be great to believe that your music taste is so refined that only the truest forms of melody may penetrate your ears.
I’d like to send this off with a quote from Jay-Z:
If I couldn’t flow futuristic would ya
put yo’ two lips on my wood and kiss it could ya…
Michael Ellis, I feel your pain.
I, too, think it sucks bilgewater. Bunch of no-talent hacks, if you ask me(not that anyone did).
But then, I like punk rock. I have heard those words hurled at that genre, too.
Grrr. Fatboy Slim ain’t hiphop.
Anyways, filtering this through a kinda “pseudo-deconstruction” vibe, one might suggest that one can only define “music” in terms of what is “not music” - a polarity which is intensified by the opposition “good music” vs. “bad music”.
By definition I can only define something by what it is not.
Therefore:
Good music (early 90s warehouse techno)
stands in a binary opposition to
Bad Music (C&W / gangsta rap / soft rock / Radiohead / punk)
such that Good Music, to be authentic to itself, must suppress Bad Music.
But by the same token, the existence of supressed Bad Music is that which at the same time validates and affirms Good Music.
Thus, for early 90s warehouse techno to thrive as Good Music I must first accept the existence of C&W and Kenny Loggins as Bad Music, but must then do everything within my power to suppress this Bad Music.
So remember kids, each time you listen to that hiphop CD (or C&W, or punk or whatever) you are in fact strengthening the position of the One True Sound: the Warehouse Vibe.
– Quirm
“Top one, nice one, get sorted…”
I used to feel the same way as the OP feels about rap, but I have come to know and love it as an art in and of itself. I am currently bustin’ my ass with a few friends of mine to be discovered as a rap group. Not only is it music, and therefore art, it is a damn hard genre to write and pick up. Yes, we sample beats (but a lot of them are original ones that we came up with ourselves on REAL instruments), and yes we swear like sailors sometimes, but we are anti-“bitches and hoes” music and focus on the positive and cleansing of our minds. Writing in general is theraputic, but how someone expresses it and who the message is reaching is a different story altogether. Here we are, five white guys, a white girl, and a black guy, spittin’ rhymes and layin’ down beats, hoping that one day we won’t necessarily be played on MTV or the radio (although if I could get on TRL I’d slap Carson Daly in his pretty-boy face) but that our message will be heard. I listen to Slim, I listen to Dre, but Dre is the godfather of hip-hop IMHO.
Rap is music, punk rock is music (another genre we have toyed with), and yes, I’ll even say country and western is music. It is not up to us to judge what others find musically or otherwise inspiring. Ever heard Stomp? They make beats on goddamn oil drums, and I think it’s great.
And now more references for “good rap”: Bloodhound Gang, Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, DKB (cheap plug for my own group), and Arrested Development. I know I repeated what others have said before, but at least I got it out.
-Syko
Hey gadget. I was involved in a project that was signed by Tricky himself. Lemme know if you want any mp3s.
Well, I’ve only heard “Bad Touch” about a thousand times, and I seriously can’t consider that to be “good” or “rap”. Perhaps the album “Hooray for Boobies” is different, but I can’t imagine such a thing.
However, there is a good line in the other Bloodhound Gang song that I’ve heard, something like “I’m not black like Barry White but I’m white like Frank Black is”. Anything that references both Barry White and the former lead singer of the Pixies is great in my book; I’ll give credit where credit is due.
Think about rap/hip-hop in terms of movies: you have to admit that it’s rare that the “best” films, terms of artistic merits, are the big box office winners every week. The watered-down mass market ones are the ones that are the big winners at the box office. The crappy music that sells records to kids at the mall is what you hear on the radio, and that’s the only rap music most people hear.
I’ve been into hip hop since 1988, when I was in 8th grade. I listen to all kinds of music, but I’ve always been into hip hop. I’m a white guy from rural michigan so it dosen’t “speak” to me necessarily, but there is so much great stuff out there that’s not all about smackin’ bitches and shootin’ motherfuckers, although there are good albums from that genre also.
Check out any of the following albums and tell me that hip-hop isn’t “music”:
De La Soul - Three Feet High and Rising, De La Soul is Dead, Buhloone Mind State
Mos Def - Black on Both Sides
DJ Shadow - Entroducing. This instrumental album is all sampled, but not like Puff Daddy “samples” (aka. shitty “karaoke” style rapping over an entire lifted track). Little bits of songs strung together in a crazy, beautiful mess, almost more like a jazz album.
Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique. Again, a crazy example of sampling as a true art form. Little snippets of things weave in and out - the Beatles, Ramones, phone messages, Slayer, etc. It’s unbelieveable. Listen on headphones, and you’ll hear each Beastie Boy assigned to a specific space in the stereo image - one panned left, one right, and one in the middle.
Blackalicious - Nia
Latyrx - Self-Titled
Outkast - Stankonia and Aquemeni are examples of the rare artsy movie that makes big money at the box office.
The Roots - Do You want More?, Things Fall Apart
Any one of these albums (and dozens and dozens more) are great works of art, much moreso than any crappy pop album written by a team of songwriters and producers and tweaked in the studio to sell more units.
Um, I listen to country, but then I need a melody, which rap, by definition, doesn’t provide me, so I can’t stand the stuff.
I think of it as lyric poetry, myself.
Esprix
O, 'Spree, that is SO not true. Listen to some Lauryn Hill or Lucas or Outkast, if you want some melody. You might try Imani Coppola for some lightheaded pop/twang/hiphop confection. And I defy ANYONE not to enjoy Salt N Pepa.
Remember, it’s not all Snoop Dogg and Eminem, though I’ve come to greatly appreciate them, too. Take small bites, and savor: you too will be welcomed into the fold.
I like a lot of rap/hiphop and I don’t even like Salt N Pepa. Loudmouth skanks, IMO.
[sub]sounds like there are other issues at work here[/sub]
OK, lemme rephrase.
I have never like one of their songs, and I don’t particulary like their style. Spindarella is decent, though. Aside from all that, I think they are skanky and loud.
Better? Or still other issues? 
I guess this is just my perspective, but I always thought Frank Black in “Fire Water Burn” referred to the guy on that old show Millenium. Hehe. They make so many off-the-wall references and similies in their music; I think that’s what I like the best about them.
That said, I don’t know if you can consider TBG “rap”. I don’t really think they are rap in the Dre-Snoop-Eminem vein, but they aren’t really straight rock music either. I guess it’s best to say they lie somewhere in between.
And yeah, I do pretty much hate hip-hop in general. But damned if I don’t actually dig circa-1993 Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg/Cypress Hill and the Beastie Boys. So it wouldn’t be fair for me to say I hate it and it all sucks.
Sounds easy, and fun, let me try.
Someone’s knocking at the door
somebody’s ringing the bell
someone’s knocking at the door
somebody’s ringing the bell
do me a favor
open the door
and let 'em in.
What? That’s been done?
:rolleyes:
Music and lyrics come many sources, just because Mike Ellis can’t relate, doesn’t mean it is not a legitimate art.
Music is the Artist’s expression of how they are viewing their surruondings and life. Sure some of it is crap, some of it may not suit all tastes. Some of is simple and basic.
People are different, to each his own.
If it gets people to move, tap a foot, sway, bob their head, clap, snap their fingers, shake dat ass, it just might be music.
Hey mouthbreather, skanks gotta eat too.
[sub] I like McCartney, I was just using it as an example of simplistic writing.[/sub]
Now that I think about it, maybe they’re not straight-up rap, but Jimmy Pop is definitely skilled in the rap style. I would categorize Bloodhound Gang in the same vain as Limp Bizkit and Red Hot Chili Peppers- rock bands with a lead guy who raps or has rap influence. That being said, some of the samples Bloodhound Gang uses in their songs are a trip. They sampled both Homer Simpson and the Pac-Man music on their song “Mope,” which is one of my all-time favorites. I suggest giving it a listen. Anyway, I’m done talking about rap now.
-Syko
Now that I think about it, maybe they’re not straight-up rap, but Jimmy Pop is definitely skilled in the rap style. I would categorize Bloodhound Gang in the same vain as Limp Bizkit and Red Hot Chili Peppers- rock bands with a lead guy who raps or has rap influence. That being said, some of the samples Bloodhound Gang uses in their songs are a trip. They sampled both Homer Simpson and the Pac-Man music on their song “Mope,” which is one of my all-time favorites. I suggest giving it a listen. Anyway, I’m done talking about rap now.
-Syko
Tried. Don’t. Thanks.
Esprix
Hip-hop or rap is certainly not my cup of Dew, but as long as you don’t park in my driveway and blast it at my windows, as so many are wont to do, I have no particular concern either way.
What does annoy me, though, is the genericness of damn near every hip-hop or rap video. It’s bad enough that both MTV and VH1 only play two videos for every thirty-six minutes of commercials and/or wholly useless “news” soundbites- When they DO play a video, it looks just like the last video they played.
Some guy in a high-dollar sportscar or expensive SUV, cruising. That same guy in a room with funny lights, stooping and doing the same arms outstretched, inward-pointing “V” thing with his fingers that every single other rap or hip-hop artist does. Wearing loose pants, jersey type shirts four sizes too large, and enough gold jewelry and tooth-caps that even Mr. T says “that’s tacky”.
I’m not saying anyone elses’ video is a paragon of artistic mastery, but can’t these guys think of a different theme?