I know enough about it to know that the majority of it is all the same and has been since the early 90s.....a stripped down weak beat over a sample that has been slowed down to midtempo pace with some "talking" over it. In other words, "nothing".

And if you noticed, I said in your response to Najee about "true hip hop heads", I said "true music heads" know exactly what he's talking about. There's a difference. Music heads are concerned with music, shit hop heads are concerned with lyrics. My point is, why should it be played on the radio along side of what is supposed to be considered music if music is of absolutely no concern. In that case, start putting poets on CDs and let them read their poetry acapella. It would get pretty boring. Well, that's what shit hop is also.

Music is of absolutely no concern any more in R&B, not just shit hop and it's because of the record labels and radio stations keeping everything else out.



I wouldn't be caught dead with that mess in my collection. If someone gave me one of his albums, I would throw it in the trash. Also, songs that get radio airplay are the ones that influence future artists the most. Those songs are the ones that can do the most damage to the future.



Then he should have gotten himself a job introducing acts rather than trying to be one himself.



Yeah, because that's all they know. Radio and record labels have done a good job of keeping shit hop as the only source of music they know.



I've done research, there's none out there. And even if there were, is it all in the mainstream where it should be? No? Mainstream is what dictates what is played in the clubs when you want to go out and have a good time. Even if I found a ton of great new songs, what am I supposed to do, sit and home and listen to them at home alone? Mainstream music needs to become good again so that people can start actually having a good time in clubs dancing even if they don't get lucky with a one night stand for the evening. A club these days is nothing but a pick up joint to me. That's the only time I go out any more is if I want to get lucky because clubs sure aren't entertaining any more.



The dead hasn't rested in peace. It's very much alive and all over the radio.




I guess so because the radio has fed them nothing but bullshit their entire lifetime. They don't know any better.




I have moved on. The problem is, the radio and record labels will not let everyone else move on. Yeah, in the 1990s, there was rap out there like Quad City DJs, 69 Boyz, and Dis N Dat that I liked. I'm sure if I looked hard enough, I might find some similar type rap as that today that I might like. However, I'm tired of it. It's time to move on to something else.

The same with everyone else. They can't move on because radio and record labels aren't going to let them move on. Shit hop has dominated for over 15 years now. A change is long overdue.



And as I said before, what is on the radio is what influences future acts. A change will never come from album tracks that got no airplay.....although I truly doubt there were any tracks on the album worth a damn anyway.

namepeace said:

Oh, but the production and the music is part of the package here. You can't have it both ways or only when it's convenient for your sake. And yes, I've heard more of The Notorious P.I.G.'s music than just his hit songs -- it's more of the same thing.

The point you're missing is that most other pioneer rappers tended to have cutting-edge production sounds or styles that made them stand out. People went on about Biggie Small's delivery, but there was nothing profoundly great about his music. That's the thing -- he really didn't offer a creative bent in the creation and production of his music, like the likes of L.L. Cool J., Rakim, Chuck D. and others have/had.

namepeace said:

I strongly disagree. "It's Like That," "Rock Box," "Jam Master Jammin'," "30 Days" and "Sucker MCs" were all Run-DMC original compositions. They weren't songs based on picking up an older, hit song made by another artist and looping it or someone interpolating the vocal part of a hit song by another artist. Their appeal wasn't predicated on going through a crate of older songs and biting their style. With Biggie's stuff, it sounded like his lyrics were practically cut over the instrumentals to some 1980s songs! You're all wrong on that one.

namepeace said:

Because without P. Shitty, there is no Notorious B.I.G. You can't elevate one without the other. Just like I wouldn't speak about Public Enemy without The Bomb Squad or L.L. Cool J. without Marley Marl or Run-DMC without Jam Master Jay or Rakim without Eric B. IT'S ALL PART OF THE PACKAGE OF THE CONCEPT.
[Edited 9/11/07 4:17am]

Najee said:

No, I'm taking it to your critiques because you don't have enough information on the subject.

Or, I'm presuming you don't.

Do you own, or have you listened to, any of Biggie's albums?

namepeace said:

No, you presumed I don't know anything on The Notorious P.I.G. -- a presumption based on absolutely nothing, I may add.

namepeace said:



On his 1990s album, "Back From The Tomb", he has some great jams but he also had some of that same old bullshit like the other artists were making at the time. I trashed him for those tracks also.

Andy don't play no favorites. I've trashed The Barkays for their latest stuff. I've trashed Prince for tracks like "Incense and Candles". As much as I love Rick James, I wanted to sling his latest complete shit hop sounding bullshit album as hard against the wall as I could when I heard it.



And that's when rap and hip hop started getting boring, when white kids got into it. Even with R&B, I've never liked to see the artists crossover because I knew the future albums would be weaker because of it. Rap is the new crossover music. In fact, it's the new "pop" music period.



I've said many times that I don't like classical music, opera music, symphony music, or country music. I have also said that even though the music is not my personal taste, I have tremendous respect for the music because the artists are very talented. They are great singers, and better yet, great musicians.

I have also said that I have absolutely NO respect for shit hop whatsoever because they have no musical talent whatsoever and don't deserve the dominance that they have received. Also, shit hop is the reason there is no more funk, disco, house, or whatever future form of uptempo R&B that could exist if it weren't for shit hop. Those other forms have never been a threat or kept out the type of music that I like. If they had, I would be trashing them too.




I don't worship Prince and I have pointed out many of his flaws. As for his raunchy sexual songs, I love the hell out of them and wish he would do more of them. I've never seen Prince promote being something that I absolutely despise though....a damn thug or a violent criminal.

If Prince were to influence me to be as permiscuous as possible, and he has, the only person that is being hurt is myself. These damn rappers are influencing a generation of young criminals and that affects everyone.

I think the point is being missed.
Hip hop has always been about sampling!
It started by stringing the instrumental breakbeats of funk records together one after the other so there would be no vocals played, and then rapping over those breakbeats. So I don't see the fact that sampling is used as an issue. MC's rapping over records from yesteryear is a part of hip hop, people!
It's hard to really have a proper discussion on anything hip hop unless this fact is accepted all around.

vainandy said:

I know you apparently invented the "shit hop" term but I don't consider biggie as "shit" anything because he has way more artistic substance than say someone like "diddy" or "nelly" who IMO are deserved of the term "shit hop". The beat is of concern to hip hoppers, of course, how could it not be, but the lyrics and delivery are foremost to the instrumentation.

vainandy said:

There are clubs here in New Zealand that play plenty of funk from the 70's and some 80's. They are my favourite weekend spots! Surely there are some in it's homeland too? Or am I just in a lucky spot?

_

nd33 said:

Yep, you are also missing the point.

What vainandy and I are saying is that by the early 1980s rap music went beyond simply playing a old song in the background and that was the entire music presentation. Acts may have used the scratching techique to use an old James Brown groove as a sonic emphasis (see Eric B. and Rakim) or used a keyboard riff as part of its bridge (the immortal "Planet Rock"), but the overwhelming majority of the musical elements of the songs are original.

That's different from The Notorious P.I.G's and P. Shitty's use, which was basically play an old song as its entire rhythm track and even have someone sing an interpolation in the mode of that old song. Basically, what The Sugar Hill Gang did with "Rapper's Delight" in 1979 -- save that it was nearly 20 years later and rappers had moved beyond that years ago.

P. Shitty helped make rap music the critical joke it is today, because he sold it in its most stereotypical manner to people who had stereotypical assumptions about the genre. The fact that Biggie Smalls was his ace in the hole doesn't excuse either one.
[Edited 9/11/07 4:24am]

namepeace said:

I doubt that personally -- I think they listen to it out of a sense of validating their own superiority and ridiculing stereotypes. They surely aren't listening to it to improve race relations.

That statement alone should tell you that there is something wrong with this picture. Rap music exploded in popularity when acts glorifying the most stereotypical images of the genre and black American society became popular with white suburban kids. It's no coincidence that acts like NWA became the influential sound of the 1990s while acts like Public Enemy (considered confrontational and too pro-black) became obsolete.

And that's where The Notorious P.I.G. and P. Shitty came in -- evoking more stereotypes of the genre and the black experience. The blame primarily goes on the side of the artists and the black people who supported and made artists like Too $hort, NWA, Tupac and Biggie Smalls popular in the first place and pushed the impression that this was the ONLY representation of the black experience in rap music.
[Edited 9/11/07 18:15pm]

Najee said:

But you still haven't answered the question.

Najee said:

Seems to me you're taking it personal. He never went away for a big bid. He did a little time. There's no such thing as a little sin. What Biggie did was a sin. But wasn't a major player. He was a two-bit rock slinger.

namepeace said:

I have listened to The Notorious B.I.G.'s albums. So what's next, the 90s battle cry of the wack (aka "You're a hater!")?

It's very obvious you're having a dfficult time seeing the difference between accepting criticism of a performer you like and making personal attacks. If someone says they are not a fan of, say, The Isley Brothers' 3+3 era I'm not going to attack their musical tastes. I feel I can separate my subjective feelings from looking at the artist from an objective standpoint -- but you obviously cannot when it comes to Biggie Smalls.
[Edited 9/11/07 8:00am]

namepeace said:

A drug dealer is a drug dealer. It doesn't matter whether The Notorious P.I.G. sold it under a trash can or had a large distribution system -- he was a drug dealer, and selling crack is not something you can try to rationalize to make it sound good. Moreover, Ol' Chris' second career, life and death are based on the same persona and approach he used as a dealer.
[Edited 9/11/07 10:05am]

No, in other words . . . "I don't like it." The world don't revolve around you. The fact you don't like a product anymore doesn't mean it has no value to it.



We're talking hip-hop, post 1990. You don't like it and you don't know it. You want to rail against the industry and the state of music today? That's Kool and the Gang. But you don't know anything about Biggie's body of work, so how can you dog him out?



I accept that. I agree with that, as you WELL know. But what does that have to do with Biggie Smalls? Leave him out of it.



So you shouldn't be talking about Biggie at all, except to say, I don't like him.




You know a funny thing happened on the way to the forum? He recorded an album and his audience loved it. It caught on with a larger audience, and they loved it. And not for no good reason; he was a great MC.



You can be a music fan and a hip-hop fan at the same time.





So vain doesn't like anything that's out today. I feel your pain. I miss the variety in music too. But don't use this thread to vent on an artist whose work you know nothing about. We've established you don't like him. Fine. But you bring nothing to the conversation because you haven't heard his work.




Biggie gets played on the radio, yeah, but he can't be faulted (entirely) because radio is saturated with copycats. I don't blame Scorcese for every horrible gang movie that comes out.





Why are you taking it out on an artist whose work you've never heard?




The thread deals with the appeal of Christopher Wallace, the hip-hop artist.

You don't know the music of Christopher Wallace, the hip-hop artist.

You simply presume that his music wasn't worth anything without knowing his work.

Najee said:

This coming from the orger who uses cheap shots like the Notorious P.I.G.

So, you've "listened" to Biggie's albums (how many times, perchance?) and don't like them.

Okay. I happen to be a big fan. I happen to know that his lyrics were not as two-dimensional as you'd believe them to be. I happen to know that he actually worked with more producers than Sean Combs, and that Sean Combs was the front man for many of those tracks that he got credit for.

I never attacked your musical tastes (I actually complemented them, remember). You know that.

You're the one that made crass attacks on the dead that are below you and generalizations about Biggie that just aren't true. You KNOW they're below you. So no, I'm not getting personal. Nor should you take it as such. But if you want to come strong at me, I'll come right back at you.

namepeace said:

The shots aren't at you, though -- unless your name is Biggie Smalls, it's not a reflection on you.

namepeace said:

In other words: "You're a hater! You're hating on Biggie! Why are you here if you're hating on Biggie?!?!" This isn't 1996, for goodness sake.

namepeace said:

I didn't say anything about Ol' Chris' lyrics as much as I did the Color by Numbers music production that was typical for his music. It still doesn't matter, because without P. Shitty there is no Notorious P.I.G.

namepeace said:

What, being a drug dealer wasn't true? Someone who made songs about violence, death, misogyny and "the game" is a generalization? Someone who passed off the most stereotypical, hedonistic viewpoints as typical of the black experience is crass? Excuse, but wouldn't you say Biggie Smalls' life and death seemed fitting with the type of lyrics he made?

namepeace said:

Bring it -- I'll even upgrade and pull out the C-list material. But unless you're Chris Wallace, I didn't equate talking about the Notorious P.I.G. as the same as talking about you.
[Edited 9/11/07 10:25am]

namepeace said:

The Notorious B.I.G. had a unique and distinctive vocal style, I'll give him that. But then again, so did Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, The D.O.C., Snoop Dogg, KRS-One and L.L. Cool J. when he got rolling. IMO, it was his vocal style that appealed mostly to people.
[Edited 9/11/07 10:41am]

vainandy said:

i have 2 echo ur sentiment but i do give tupac the edge slightly but not much. upon their deaths, people thought they were lyrical gods of hip hop. uh uh. try rakim, krs-one, chuck d, brother j frox xclan.

biggie was no kool herc either

I never understood the appeal of making a thread about music you don't like.

Najee said:

No doubt that he had a unique vocal style. He was pretty agile from a delivery standpoint and could quip with the best of them. I think that a lot of listeners, hip-hop heads and casual fans alike, are drawn to the voice of an MC. The best MCs invariably have distinct voices.

L4OATheOriginal said:

Biggie and Tupac rose at the tail end of the golden age of hip-hop. At the time both of them dropped their signature albums, their styles represented one segment of the hip-hop community. When Biggie dropped Ready To Die in 1994, legendary hip-hop acts like Common Sense, Digable Planets, Gang Starr, Redman, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, et al. had dropped jewels. There were a lot of unique, distinct voices in the hip-hop chorus. Their commercial success abd rivalry drew all the attention away from the forest and focused on the "trees" of hardcore/gangsta rap. Biggie and Tupac were better at what they did, but their imitators were not. Them dying within a year of each other really sealed hip-hop's fate. The moneymakers were gone, and there were thousands looking to take their place.

So, the MCs most imitated were canonized in the hip-hop community, and the others slowly forgotten. So Christopher Wallace and Tupac Shakur are now the Alpha and Omega of hip-hop to most, while those who love hip-hop know that they were great MCs but not the greatest.

namepeace said:

xactly. rakim runs circles around both of them..now THAT'S A MC!

I never said it didn't have any value. Hell yeah, it has value. Look how many tasteless people buy it. As long as there are people with no musical taste, shit hop will always have value. I said it didn't have any talent. Once again, I don't like country, classical, or opera either but there is a difference in those genres that I respect even though I don't like. They have talent, shit hop doesn't.



Who doesn't know it? How can I not know it? The bullshit was everywhere in the 1990s. I couldn't escape the shit and, believe me, I wanted to. Yes, I am aware of Piggie's work also....."Between The Sheets" mixed in under some "big poppa" bullshit. I remember that bullshit all over the radio back then.



I'm not taking a damn thing out on him. I'm just pointing out that he's no different than any of these other clowns today. Nothing has changed since his death, which music was already fucked up while he was still alive. Things are still the same....stripped down, slow ass midtempo samples with some damn talking over them. And my quote that you are responding to in this section (which is missing because of an org defect) is me responding to you telling me to "move on". My response was "I have moved on, everyone else hasn't". And they haven't. Shit hop dominated then and it still dominates. Once again, it's time for a damn change. I'm ready and waiting. I've been waiting for over 15 years. You see, I have "moved on". Tell these other motherfuckers who are still stuck in shit hop mode to move on.




And as I've said before, I know all I need to know to determine his music ain't worth a damn without listening to any more than what I, unfortunately, heard on the radio. Does he play instruments on his other songs? Does he come up with is own melodies on his other songs? Does he ever get past midtempo on his other songs? I can almost guarantee that the answer to all these questions is "no".

The name of the thread is called "I Never Understood The Appeal Of The Notorius BIG". Well, I have kept straight on topic because I have never and will never understand the appeal of any artist, not just Piggie, that ain't got the damn talent to play instruments, come up with their own melodies, or have enough rhythm to get their dull asses past boring ass midtempo. No, I will NEVER understand that appeal. I guess I've just got too much taste.
.
.
[Edited 9/11/07 13:44pm]

Exactly. There are many racist white people that love rap. They find it funny and, like you said, all that ignorance makes them feel superior.

vainandy said:

EXACTLY. The music that you hear today has not changed stylistically since at least the mid-1990s. I cannot point to another period in contemporary black popular music where the styles have been the same for 14 plus-years. Even when it comes to contemporary fashion surrounding the hip-hop culture, the same baggy-pants, basektball-jersey-wearing style has been around for 20 years.

Like VA said, it's like black pop culture has been in a time warp since the late 1980s. It's ironic some people will call us "fuddy-duddies" when in fact the music and clothing style they like is the same stuff that was around when I was a teen-ager (and I'll be 40 next year).
[Edited 9/11/07 14:01pm]

By the time I was 15, I had already seen so many style changes in R&B. I was born during the Motown era of the late 60s. Then there was the Al Green, Staple Singers, type soul of the early 70s. Then there was 70s funk. After that, was the disco era of the late 70s. After that was the new wave type funk era of the early 80s along with the rap of the early 80s, which a lot of people later referred to as "electro". All this was before I was even 15 years old. Then there was the crossover era of the late 80s. The late 80s also had house music underground but it came above ground for a short while beginning around 1989 and lasted until around 1992 or so. I'm just talking about mainstream radio, I'm not talking about underground stuff, which there was even more of. After that, it has been midtempo shit hop ever since.

Look at what a 15 year old today has experienced on the mainstream R&B side in their entire lifetime.....one word....shit hop.



I'll be 40 in exactly two weeks and I can't wait. I'll be entering an entire different age group away from these shit hoppers. Since I'll barely be 40, I'll also be the baby of the bunch.

Najee

said:namepeace said:

I also vigorously contested some of your assertions about Christopher Wallace, which can be summarized thus:



That's simply wrong. Biggie's body of work contradicts that.




I said you've listened to Biggie's albums and don't like them. Fair enough. Then I asked you how many times. And you haven't answered that question either. If you hate his music, that doesn't make you a hater. And I'm not the one hurling ad hominems at a guy who's been dead for 10 years, like it's 1996. I'm debating the merits of Biggie's work, you're the one trading in conjecture about what I'm saying because whatever I've said has gotten to you.




No, calling a dead guy a "pig" is crass. And making a broad statement about Biggie's style based on a handful of his singles is a generalization. To assert that he's a studio creation based on a few hit songs just ain't true; no more than calling Run-DMC (who, btw, sampled from Bob James, the Knack, and countless others) a novelty act based on "Walk This Way." That's what I meant.

But since you raised these other issues, let's deal with them. Biggie dealt drugs. Biggie rapped about drugs, violence and misogyny. Biggie exaggerated about every aspect of his life throughout his songs. He, moreso through his death than his career, spawned a bunch of less talented imitators who tried to fill that commercial void he and Tupac left. Which is why I said what I said at the very beginning of this thread. His legacy should not be increased OR decreased. He was what he was. A hood. A braggart. And a great MC.

And, by the way, it is not "fitting" that a young black man was murdered for no apparent reason other than his bragging. It may be "foreseeable," to a degree, but not "fitting." Najee, you should be using your words MUCH more carefully. You always do.

namepeace said:

I never did that. I always stuck to the argument. Show me where I didn't. I called you out over your cheap shots and took issue with the basis for some of your assertions.

Why?

Because you're a classy, well-informed orger who's not given to ad hominem attacks or uninformed generalizations.

Somehow, you've construed that as taking it personally.
[Edited 9/11/07 14:45pm]
[Edited 9/11/07 14:48pm]

I see why he was considered so great, I loved his flow. I think the people who can appreciate the good things in rap/hip hop can tell, but in skimming the thread seems like the ones who dog him don't like rap anyway so how could they really know?

I was never crazy about his stuff. I always felt 2Pac was coming from the heart, for better or worse, writing what really moved him, and Biggie was just fluff in comparison.

Eventually I came around a bit and I think it's the ease with which he rhymes. It feels like he could have done it all day long and never miss a beat.

vainandy said:

Okay, I'll give you that one. Hit-pop, as it exists today, has substantial (though diminishing) commercial value. But I'm talking hip-hop. You hear Yung [fill in blank] or Lil' Wayne or the rap cat of the month and call it hip-hop. I hear Madvillain, De La Soul, Mos Def, The Roots, and J Dilla and call it hip-hop. What I'm addressing is whether Christopher Wallace, or any other hip-hop, since you dragged hip-hop as a whole into it, has artistic merit. You can believe whatever you want, but don't know one way or the other because you don't listen to it.

But if it had a faster tempo you'd be shaking to it like it was 1975 all over again.



You couldn't escape what was and is being played on the radio. But I gave up listening to the radio ages ago. I even have given up on most hip-hop. But I know there's good stuff out there, which may not suit your style musically or melodically, but is fundamentally good hip-hop.

Biggie's work is bigger than "Big Poppa," "Juicy" or any other hit he had on the radio.




Let's deal with where I disagree first. Biggie was a better lyricist than any of his emulators or imitators on this hit-pop scene today.

Here's where I agree. The tragedy of hip-hop is that a huge lesson was there to be learned from the deaths of Biggie and 'Pac. That, even when employed by the most talented artists, gangsta rap had run its course, lost any context it may have had, and become dangerous to black culture in every sense of the word. Hip-hop didn't learn that lesson. And what is known to many now as "hip-hop" has become a wasteland, a minstrel show, an empty spectacle. We can agree on that.

I'd personally love to see nothing more than Hip-Hop As You Know It crash, burn and die, so that Hip-Hop as I Know It can live on underground, and free of its minstrelsy, and the gates can be opened again for true black musicians like Van Hunt, Martin Luther, and the funk soldiers of the making. I submit to you that hip-hop was and is better when music as a whole is in good shape.

But none of that takes away from Biggie's standing as a great MC.



Well, not really. You teed off again on your "s--t-hop" screed instead of sticking to Biggie himself. You say you heard all you needed to hear from Biggie from the radio. I say his body of work shows he's a great MC. There are a lot of great MC's you consider garbage by your standards (including all of those Najee mentioned a few post above). That doesn't mean they're not great MCs. On the other hand, I argue, based on what I know about Biggie's body of work, that Biggie had appeal to the masses and hip-hop heads alike as a great MC. Warts and all.


And you're comparing apples and oranges. Biggie wasn't a musician. He was an MC. I think we both agree that he ain't no Bootsy Collins. But I'm judging his merits by the proper standard: how was he as an MC? You are not. To say Johnnie Cochran was a terrible doctor adds nothing to the conversation.

You may hate hip-hop for many of the right reasons, but you used Big Poppa as a springboard to launch your 1,448,536th assault on Hip-Hop. I hope the assault proves successful, but Biggie was a dope MC. period.
[Edited 9/11/07 15:46pm]