Hip Hop/Rap Appreciation thread

[Skip Donoghue]

Class going on in Huddersfield it has a bright rap scene

 

[oldhamblue]

Not read the whole thread but I'm guessing there's been a lot of praise for Milli Vanilli?

 

[Blue Hefner]

This is top. I’d never heard of Mysonne before last week but this freestyle and others I’ve heard are excellent

 

[Blue Hefner]

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

You’re talking as if music is supposed to be one style.

Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre once said that singing doesn't have to be the be all and end all of a song. It can be just another instrument as part of the overall song. Loads of rock bands have lead singers who can’t sing. Anton is one of them. But they still produce great songs.

Rapping isn’t like that anyway, it’s not really anything to do with singing. Rapping is poetry. And good rappers can perform multisyllabic rhymes very skilfully with high level vocabulary (even if a lot is improper English and colloquial US city slang).

Hip hop music is the research and discovery of good funk or afrobeat music hooks that are repeated and brings the beat of the track together, accompanied by samples of jazz or funk or other melodies, that the poetry is delivered/performed over the top of as what is called rapping.

Unfortunately a lot of what is known as Hip hop is what I call Hip-pop. Like your reference to the woeful Eminem. The flakiest beats, the least pure Hip hip fundamentals in the music produced and the worst lyrically talented “rappers” are often the ones the music industry push and think will grab the masses. And they do. But they’re shit. And people who aren’t into Hip hop will only ever be exposed to this shit and that’s what they think Hip hop is.

A lot of modern mainstream Hip hop music and rappers don’t deserve to be called Hip hop or rappers because they have absolutely nothing to do with the genre of music it’s said to be part of, have no elements of pure Hip hop music and these rappers are in the Evo Stick league of skill when it comes to poetry and delivery of the words.

DJing is also a skill. Have a listen to Transitions vol.4 by John Digweed where he plays two or three techno tracks at the same time that fit together as if it sounds like one track being played. That isn’t just good DJing, it shows research skills and knowledge of what makes a good track for it to be pulled off in the quality it is on that mix album.

Hip hop DJs often try a bit too hard. Take the talented DJ Premier on the mix album New York Reality Check 101. He fucking butchers some excellently selected tracks on what should be a great album but isn’t due to his overwork of the scratching and re-starting of them. But he is still a talented bloke, much moreso because of his producing of top quality tracks himself rather than his DJing in my opinion.

But original Hip hop DJing where, like I said early, they find a little break in a funk or afrobeat track and scratch around that break - that’s proper Hip hop DJing, and it’s a proper skill.

you just call eminem woeful?

HAHAHAHAHAH

 

[80ZBERT]

Not sure if they have been mentioned but if you like hip hop you will like these guys;

RA rugged man

Jedi Mind tricks

Jurassic 5

The pharcyde

vinny paz (also in jedi mindtricks)

Token


UK Artists

Four owls

Dirty dike

Splitprophets

children of the damned

Ocean Wisdom

The Mouse outfit

fliptrix

Jam Baxter

Black Josh

The Bluntskins

Most stuff from High Focus is pretty good same fo Blah records, some quality uk hip hop out there at the moment.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Like poetry?......yeah I can see that.
" you say honey I say G, you say honey I say G"...........proper talented these rappers.....and where does all that funny shaped stuff they do with their hands while bobbing about in them oversized clothes?.....you can polish a turd all you want mate however in the cold light of day it's still a turd !

Not “like poetry”, it is poetry.

Black Star “Respiration”


Lyrics:
“The new moon rode high in the crown of the metropolis, shining, like who on top of this?
People was hustling, arguing and a-bustling
Gangsters of Gotham are hardcore hustling.
I'm wrestling with words and ideas
My ears is pricked, seeking what will transmit to scribes who can apply to transcript,
This ain't no time where the usual is suitable
Tonight alive, let's describe the inscrutable
The indisputable, we New York the narcotic
Strength in metal and fiber optics
Where mercenaries is paid to trade hot stock tips, for profits, thirsty criminals take pockets
Hard knuckles on the second hands of working class watches
Skyscrapers is colossus, the cost of living is preposterous, stay alive, you play or die, no options.
No Batman and Robin, can't tell between the cops and the robbers, they both partners, they all heartless, with no conscience
Back streets stay darkened where unbeliever hearts stay hardened
My eagle talons stay sharpened, like city lights stay throbbing, you either make a way or stay sobbing. The Shiny Apple is bruised but sweet and if you choose to eat you could lose your teeth, many crews retreat, nightly news repeat, who got shot down and locked down, Spotlight to savages, NASDAQ averages.
My narrative, rose to explain this existence
Amidst the harbor lights which remain in the distance.

So much on my mind that it can't recline
Blasting holes in the night til she bled sunshine
Breathe in, inhale vapors from bright stars that shine
Breathe out, weed smoke retrace the skyline
Heard the bass ride out like an ancient mating call
I can't take it y'all, I can feel the city breathing
Chest heaving, against the flesh of the evening
Sigh before we die like the last train leaving.

Breathing in deep city breaths, sitting on shitty steps, we stoop to new lows, hell froze the night the city slept
The beast crept through concrete jungles communicating with one another and ghetto birds where waters fall from the hydrants to the gutters
The beast walk the beats, but the beats we be making
You on the wrong side of the track, looking visibly shaken
Taken them plungers, plunging to death that's painted by the numbers with crime unapplied pressure
Cats is playing God but having children by a lesser baby mother but fuck it, we played against each other like puppets, swearing you got pull when the only pull you got is the wool over your eyes
Getting knowledge in jail like a blessing in disguise
Look in the skies for God, what you see besides the smog is broken dreams flying away on the wings of the obscene
Thoughts that people put in the air
Places where you could get murdered over a glare
But everything is fair
It's a paradox we call reality
So keeping it real will make you casualty of abnormal normality
Killers born naturally like, Micky and Mallory
Not knowing the ways'll get you capped like an NBA salary
Some cats be emceeing to illustrate what we be seeing
Hard to be a spiritual being when shit is shakin what you believe in
For trees to grow in Brooklyn, seeds need to be planted
I'm asking if y'all feel me AND THE CROWD LEFT ME STRANDED
My blood pressure boiled and rose, cause New York niggaz actin up spoils the shows, to the winners the spoils go
I take the L, transfer to the 2, head to the gates
New York life type trife the Roman Empire State

So much on my mind I just can't recline
Blasting holes in the night til she bled sunshine
Breathe in, inhale vapors from bright stars that shine
Breathe out, weed smoke retrace the skyline
Yo don't the bass ride out like an ancient mating call
I can't take it y'all, I can feel the city breathin
Chest heaving, against the flesh of the evening
Sigh before we die like the last train leaving

Corner I stood looking at my former hood
Felt the spirit in the wind, knew my friend was gone for good
Threw dirt on the casket, the hurt, I couldn't mask it
Mixing down emotions, struggle I hadn't mastered
I choreograph seven steps to heaven
And hell, waiting to exhale and make the bread leavened
Veteran of a cold war It's Chica-I-go for
What I know or, what's known
So some days I take the bus home, just to touch home
From the crib I spend months gone
Sat by the window with a clutched dome listening to shorties cuss long
Young girls with weak minds, but they butt strong
Tried to call, or at least beep the Lord, but didn't have a touch-tone
It's a dog-eat-dog world, you gotta mush on
Some of this land I must own
Outta the city, they want us gone
Tearing down the 'jects creating plush homes
My circumstance is between Cabrini and Love Jones
Surrounded by hate, yet I love home
Ask my God how he thought traveling the world sound
Found it hard to imagine he hadn't been past downtown
It's deep, I heard the city breathe in its sleep
Of reality I touch, but for me it's hard to keep
Deep, I heard my man breathe in his sleep
Of reality I touch, but for me it's hard to keep

So much on my mind I just can't recline
Blasting holes in the night til she bled sunshine
Breathe in, inhale vapors from bright stars that shine
Breathe out, weed smoke retrace the skyline
Yo how the bass ride out like an ancient mating call
I can't take it y'all, I can feel the city breathing
Chest heaving, against the flesh of the evening
Kiss the Ide's goodbye, I'm on the last train leaving”


As for the oversized clothes thing - that started in Salford in the 1980s with the Baggy scene. American rappers were wearing Adidas trainers, tracksuit bottoms and polo t-shirts (not too dissimilar to our football Casuals) before Salford took Baggy to the masses.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

you just call eminem woeful?

HAHAHAHAHAH

Yes. In my opinion he’s a squeaky voiced Frank Sidebottom tribute act and has shit beats and very overrated lyrics and shit pop tracks. He was just marketable and just like most marketable things, it’s more about hype than substance.

 

[Banned Tosspot]

Yes. In my opinion he’s a squeaky voiced Frank Sidebottom tribute act and has shit beats and very overrated lyrics. He was just marketable and just like most marketable things, it’s more about hype than substance.

Eminem annoys the fuck out of me but you're wrong on most points you make about him.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

Yes. In my opinion he’s a squeaky voiced Frank Sidebottom tribute act and has shit beats and very overrated lyrics and shit pop tracks. He was just marketable and just like most marketable things, it’s more about hype than substance.

Opinions, but when rappers themselves say he is the greatest MC of all time and they don't want to F with the whiteboy.

Tells you something.

Hip hop also wouldn't be as big if there was no marshall mathers