All Things Hippity and Hoppity - Page 74

Originally Posted by boogaboogabooga 

I don't care where hip hop is going as long as it's not lazy, like Rick Ross (If you need to tout some grimy street music as the last bastion of gangsta rap, please cite The Clipse). I can understand liking a certain facet of hip hop, but to me thinking it has to be "gangsta" or "tough" all the time really marginalizes the form. I'm not much for hipster culture, but the "hipster mc" is an identity that's capable of producing art that has merit amongst the hip hop community at large, see Das Racist. Shit, see De La Soul.
I don't think gangsta rap is the zenith of hip hop or something that is sacred. If Rick Ross being the most popular last of a dying breed is all you have to suggest he's "number 1" (something totally meaningless to any serious hip hop fan or music lover anyway) despite his lyrical ability, I'd say that's a really thin and shallow argument.

Originally Posted by rennavate 

Fuck yes.

Originally Posted by boogaboogabooga 

...
This shit is really good.

Originally Posted by rennavate 

Of course it is. Cadence Weapon is great.

Originally Posted by indesertum 

i'm looking for a song like blue scholar's blue bank hanksomething with a simple, positive, seize the day type message that's not slow paced
dilated peoples, people under the stairs type old school soul kind of sound?

Originally Posted by boogaboogabooga 

His flow is ridiculous. I also like the song's instrumentation(the textural samples at the beginning seem like the electronic equivalent to some of the classical stuff DJ Premiere uses from time to time), open song writing, and arranging. Singing is great. Lyrics aren't "obvious-obvious" in terms of content or mechanics. The content also isn't tired cliches. I'll have to commit the lyrics to memory or find them written down somewhere. I'm not quick enough to figure it out, but is he using a lot of assonance around the 56 second mark? Is that why it sounds so cool? Besides the rhythm of the flow?
I don't know if it means much, but despite our differences, I respect your opinions. You seem to know your shit and your suggestions are always redeeming in some way, if not quite a few different ways. IMHO, of course.

Originally Posted by rennavate 

Appreciate the kind words. I like to think I know a little bit about the rap muzacks—I'm a freelance music writer who's got to do some cool things over the last few years—but I mostly am just a huge music dork who loves rap. Check out Weapon's first two albums, Breaking Kayfabe and his dance-rap record Afterparty Babies. You might like them! The album "Conditioning" comes from, Hope in Dirt City, comes out next month.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont 

I guess you are the sort of like Smooth Jazz. Technical skills are fine but they are certainly not the end all be all of any type of music, especially a music with origins in Black culture. Soulfulness is a key component and what these so called hipster nerd rappers lack and why they are garbage and probably will be the death of Hip Hop. Das Racist =/= De LA Soul lol no way.
When ever i hear someone say they are a serious hip hop fan I cant take them serious, that doesn't mean anything. I don't even listen to much hip hop outside of Ross, I like 60-70's music more, but I am Hip Hop. I am what it was created to celebrate, a young urban Black male, it is literally impossible for my opinion to be shallow.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont 

Technical skills are fine but they are certainly not the end all be all of any type of music, especially a music with origins in Black culture.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont 

Soulfulness is a key component and what these so called hipster nerd rappers lack and why they are garbage and probably will be the death of Hip Hop.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont 

Das Racist =/= De LA Soul lol no way.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont 

When ever i hear someone say they are a serious hip hop fan I cant take them serious, that doesn't mean anything.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont 

I don't even listen to much hip hop outside of Ross, I like 60-70's music more, but I am Hip Hop. I am what it was created to celebrate, a young urban Black male, it is literally impossible for my opinion to be shallow.

Originally Posted by jpeirpont 

I don't really even have that much reason to tout Rick Ross because I have no comparative basis or knowledge of the genre in which Ross operates. I think preferring music from the 60-70's somehow validates me as having superlative taste, though I have demonstrated to be the possessor of no critical faculties thus far, but I am a music genre. Self-aggrandizing generalization about purpose of an ENTIRE MUSIC GENRE that NO PERSON OR GROUP OWNS, my age, my living condition, and my ethnicity, it is literally impossible for my opinion to be shallow even though it is shallow.

Originally Posted by boogaboogabooga 

...
This post is so stupid I don't know where to begin. I'll try to keep it simple.
I would agree that one doesn't have to be technically proficient in the skills of whatever genre they are in to be a good artist within that genre. For instance, I wouldn't consider Big Boi and Andre 3000 to be the anything other than lyrically competent MCs, despite thinking Outkast is an important group. Outkast, besides having a tremendously creative production team with Organized Noize, were creative and wrote catchy, topical, distinctive, and varied material. Rick Ross' almost entire ouvere is made of Scarface alluding gangsta and drug dealing cliches. If an MC's content is trite and they lack an interesting way to deliver that content (this is where technique and skill are important) then I think it's highly arguable they are lacking.
As for the assertion of "technical skills" being an especially non-relevant factor in black culture, what about jazz? Jazz is probably the most musically demanding (in the academic sense, even) form of popular music ever, especially from the late 40s to the 60s. Also, I shouldn't even call you out with the jazz example as your claim is OBVIOUSLY RIDICULOUS. As for the importance of technique, technique is essential in the creation of anything. For instance, while Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. is interesting almost entirely because it's a smart ass idea (and not because it's technically ambitious),in order to express it the way he wanted to Duchamp still had to PAINT the fucking mustache on the god damned Mona Lisa (postcard). To further my point from the previous paragraph, Ross is like a painter who doesn't paint well (technique) or have interesting subjects or ideas(content). He does however have a cool voice (his paints are nice) and knows how to pick a canvas (his producers, I won't argue with Ross' track selection for his last 2 albums. I have ears.).
I would love to put you in a room with someone who argued the contrary point about the lack of "soulfulness" in nerd rap for a gillion years. Why? Because you'd be arguing over something that can't be proved or disproved! For a gillion years!
Also, didn't you hear? Hip Hop is already dead. It died during its Golden Age in 1999. May it rest in peace.
You sort of got me on this. I was vague with my De La Soul point (I guess?). Although, I would also say that you thinking I was implicitly equating Das Racist with De La Soul in terms of achievement or cultural value (or whatever) is a bit of a head scratcher. I was trying to further my previous point about Das Racist with a historic example of a group that is culturally and critically acclaimed, despite that group being radically divergent from its peers.
I see where you are going with this.
You're in a dive-y bar, you start talking to some semi-cute, slightly overweight (It's okay, we've all been there) blonde (it's dyed) woman (her name is Samantha, but she tells you it's Sam) and the subject turns to music.
J: So, what sort of music do YOU like?
Samantha:Oh! OMG! Ummmmmmmmmmmm... I like everything!*
*She's chewing gum
Later, you're at her place (you didn't have sex, she was giving you a hand job but didn't finish because you'd been drinking so it was taking a while and then her room mate Cheryl came home with her boyfriend Todd. Cheryl's boyfriend. Not Samantha's.) and you're able to look over her Itunes collection while she's talking to her room mate about some stupid shit that happened at work that no one cares about. What do you see? Bunch of Country. Lots of top 40. THE BLACK EYED PEAS.
I mean, we've all been there. Really, we have. It's okay.
But wouldn't counter assuming someone's claim be... sort of stupid? Especially when you could just ask them to explain and then vet their taste? This of course assumes one is authorative enough to vet someone. I find your authority... DUBIOUS. Which relates to your next quoted statement and my next point, presented as though you wrote it for novelty's sake.
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