Kick ass post vainandy. You nailed a big aspect of the whole deal.

Can't say that I follow the music anymore, but what are they saying? Do they have anything of any importance to say? While I love the dance track/ Club banger, what about everything else?

I do see that Lil Wayne has a unique style, but what is he saying, how soft his leather is? Telling duffle bag boys to get their money?


Hip Hop is dependent on lyrical content, it's a lyrical art form. Rap content is like music for children aka Nursery Rhymes. How long can one pretend that this content has any meaning beyond boyish posturing. How can anyone listen to most of this commercial stuff and think there is any intention by the "artist" to convey anything that's artistic or has anything of meaning beyond making the artists some temporary cash.

Can it get any worse than this,




I'd rather listen to disco duck

The hell if I know. Even if I wanted to listen to it (which I don't), I can't make out any of the words they are saying. Every now and then, I recognize a racial slur, or the word bitch or ho. Other than that, the rest of it sounds like Charlie Brown's school teacher.




Hey, I like "Disco Duck". I found the 45 a few months ago and bought it.
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[Edited 8/5/08 14:39pm]

Thanks.

vainandy said:

Most MCs are mushmouths these days.

Meloh9 said:

i hate hip hop cause its stupid. they talk about oral sex, they degrade women, talk about clothes, cars, money, having one night stands, getting rich, or why they are better then you, and then to top it off the beats sound the same. It has become overrated because its pushed in our face so much, its to much to bear.

I don't want to hear about how a man wants a woman to give him oral sex, if i complain about janet singing about that crap why would i tolerate it from a degrading disgusting rapper like Lil wayne.

I hate rap and will never like it ever or hip hop. If i had it my way it would be illegal to play that crap on mainstream radio and tv.

TotalAlisa said:

Not much of a Prince fan either, eh?

IdentityCrisis said:

nope and you can check my profile it says clearly im not a fan at all. but i am a MICHAEL JACKSON FAN

Break it down Vain !

vainandy said:

vainandy said:

agree. if that music was geared towards the young white society and having a bad influence on the young white youth. They wouldn't even be allowed on the radio or tv. But because it affects the young black boys the government doesn't care.

vainandy said:

I don't agree with everything you say about hip hop but this shit is funny.

Of course it affects young black kids but it also has an absolutely huge white audience as well so I can't agree with you there Totalalisa.

Look, it doesn't matter what color anyone is as long as their money is green.

This is all about the money and let the chips fall where thye may. Vainandy nailed it.

Have you seen all the videos on Youtube of stupid white kids trying to act like they're black pimps and players?

The music industry has force fed them what's cool and they are buying it hook, line and sinker. Gotta have your proper soundtrack, yo, if you gonna be big pimpin'.

I cut the black kids more slack because most of them are being exposed to the music within ghetto and inner city enviroments where a certain strain of resentment due to past and current oppressesion is justified. The music has come from their streets.

But white suburban kids pretending to be ghetto? They don't realize how ridiculous that is.

But hey, the name of the game is cha ching.

DakutiusMaximus said:

you are more impressionable to someone who looks like you. White kids have no reason to want to be like a black rapper from the ghetto. When they live in the suburbs and see their dads working and have connections. They think of rap as a joke, you see them mocking hip hop all the time.

Black kids see these rappers who have money and they come from the ghetto just like lil wayne and think thats the only way they can get out it. Rap music is life to a lot of those black boys.

and enimen had a bigger affect on young white kids even though he was a rapper. But because he was white it was more impressionable to the young white kids. Why do you think the government went after Emninme.

The government went after Eminem? That's a new one on me. Please elaborate; sounds fascinating.

Maybe you are halfway right about the white kids who embrace rap music. They can pretend to be big ballin' nuccas by day but at night they can go into the solitude of their comfortable suburban bedrooms with no gunshots or sirens wailing outside their windows and sleep peacefully knowing that mom and dad are going to lay their $100 weekly allowance on them the next day.

And what are they gonna do with that Benjamin? Run out and by some more shit hop.

DakutiusMaximus said:

my brother used to listen to eminem. and if you listen to his lyrics he would talk about how he was in trouble with the government. and many radio stations, the us government and governments over seas banned his music. Even when he first came out the govt fined him but later dropped the charges.

why not target lil wayne his stuff is just as hateful and degrading.

Well that doesn't give any detail at all about Eminem.

Anyone else got the 411?

would we even have hip hop without...

Not sure what you're saying here, bro'.

Are you talking about all the sampling of great funk and soul artists?

Now that we can discuss all day long....!!!
Real Shit ! By Real people that are qualified to call themselves Artists/Musicians/Music Makers !

Meloh9 said:

IdentityCrisis said:

I always thought Prince did it with a level of tongue in cheek wit.

Vainandy is right though, "Shit-Hop" could exist along with any other commercial crap out there, but when it's totally taking over and shitting on the airplay and appreciation of great R&B, that's where the problem is. All of a sudden you needed a crossover hit to get anywhere, and the quality was automatically cheapened and diluted.

DakutiusMaximus said:

no it goes deeper than that, the samples are a part of it, but listen closely to the socially conscious lyrics of Curtis Mayfield and the cadence in which Mayfield delivered it, the call and response rapping that George brought to parliaments stage show, the groove of James Browns funky drummer and a host of other grooves by James that formed the backbone for golden era Hip Hop,and the spoken word of the last poets. funk is hip hops mother just as diso is to house and tec and trans etc
what was going on before sampling? the dj would catch the breaks and DJinng and scratching is an art form in itself that not anybody can do and it is a major element of what is known as the five elements of Hip Hop.

wordplay was a major part of Hip Hop, Hip Hop didn't mean you grabbed a microphone and said something frivolous, and that was that. the wordplay, the timing, clever punchlines, cadence, delivery a flow that kept with the beat but at the same time a voice that brought something to the music and most of all content, anybody can go fuck, duck buck struck, thats not rhyming, this is all what made hip hop and art form, the rhythm of the word play and the flow and cadence and how it all went along with the beat

and even sampling can be done in a creative way. pre puffy p diddy, we used to see a process in hip hop called "layering" when they would take two sometimes three very different original songs, sample them, slow the tempo, speed the tempo whatever it took to create the desired effect and you would get a sound that was distinct and sometimes very different than the source material. for those that are fans of 'Beck' take note, he wouldn't be what he is today without the era of hip hop that I m referring to. some albums that display layered samples that were done creatively include De La Souls 'three feet high and rising' public enemy's ' fear of a black planet' Nas ' illmatic' and to this day, due to a change in laws it would be financially impossible to create another album such as the Beatsie Boys psychedelic sample heavy Pauls Boutique, all of these albums sample in very creative and even innovative ways

I have seen few critics of hip hop here that seem to have a clear understanding of the history of the art form, if I was to start naming albums when Hip Hop was not 'dead' and it had substance the list would go on and on, I wouldn't have room
[Edited 8/6/08 8:49am]

I love to throw that around as an insult. I have absolutely nothing against classical, opera, or symphony music. Even though those types of music bore me, they are extremely talented singers and musicians, probably moreso than any funk or rock act around. However, when I was growing up, someone who listened to those types of music were considered the biggest nerd or dork of the school and if someone was accused of listening to it, they were ready to fight.

If you ignore the stupid thug image and lyrics in shit hop and just pay attention to the music alone, you will definately see that it is of the same tempo as those classical types of music and never gets faster. I love to throw that comparison out as an insult to shit hop. There are some people my age (who never fully grew up and worship shit hop just like these kids do). The ones my age do get pissed because they grew up in the same era that I did when only nerds and dorks listened to classical music or slow music only. However, I don't think the younger folks understand the comparison so it doesn't piss them off. Hell, they've been raised on nothing but slow music their entire lives so they don't know to be insulted. I guess we just have a new generation full of closet nerds and dorks who wear a thug outfit as a disguise.

In order to kill shit hop, we have to find something that makes shit hop look "uncool" to these kids. That's the only way to kill it. Talking about negative images and lyrics won't do it because those things are considered "cool" and that helps the genre to grow even larger. Disco died when it started being considered "uncool" because of folks like Ethel Mermon making a disco record. It's just a matter of figuring out what this new generation considers uncool and then applying it to shit hop. One way or another, it needs to die.
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[Edited 8/6/08 9:28am]

Ethel Merman made a disco record?

Man, I wanna hear that just for the novelty of it. For real?

Meloh, obviously you have a deep grasp of the idiom that surpasses most people and I can see how there is great talent involved in being able to mix and scratch and choose compatable samples to blend, etc. etc. and I agree with you that it's a valid art form.

I don't agree with vainandy that anything below his preferred BPM level is shit.

I happen to think that some of the head noddin' stuff by artists like Madlib and Guru is the shiznit... but then I'm 60 years old. Good music is good music whatever speed it is.

The problem as I see it is the use of skill and talent in the service of ildignified values. While the technical components of a production may shine with genius the attitude and lyrical content can easily sour the overall effect.

In the words of George Harrison, "Isn't it a pity; isn't it a shame..."
As an exercise I could attempt to figuratively hold my hand over one ear and disregard the lyrics while listening to the musical production with the other ear but that would not amount to a pleasurable listening experience.



This is quite an astute observation and if you offer it to illustrate a chief feature of good rap music then it opens up the territory quite a bit.

Check this out. Using the above criteria a case could be made that Frank Zappa presaged the appearance of rap by about 12 years.


[Edited 8/6/08 10:29am]

also for those that want to hear a current album that exemplifies what I like about hip hop when it is done right I recommend this one

namepeace said:

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Unfortunaly, you are a part of small minority of the people who will bring it up.

I am not even going to bother with it anymore. If a person cannot see the racism and cooning in Ship/Hop and you are black, you probably enjoy it, which makes you a part of the problem and not worth my time

vainandy said:

-----
Good points about the slow tempo of some of shit/hop who would have ever belived that black folks (the inventors of the groove) would want to slow the tempo of rap. WTF.
Noone knows how to jam anymore

I love a lot of the old slow jams and even some of the old midtempo songs. However, when it gets to the point (and it has been for some time now) that only slow to midtempo songs are being made and absolutely nothing is made for the dance floor, then I have a problem with it and it makes me fighting mad.

Every generation since the rock and roll era began has had plenty of songs for the dance floor except for this one. Even before the rock and roll era, there was fast stuff like "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company B" and maybe the swing jazz or big band type stuff. I have no problem with other types of music existing and "living and let live". However, the corporations that control what music is made and played don't "live and let live". They keep everything out that is not slow to midtempo from getting a record deal and if any of the acts slip through the cracks on an independent label, then the radio takes the ball and runs with it by not giving them any airplay. They have all the bases covered so that a new style of music (one that might be more expensive to make) will never catch on. It's not a matter of them wanting midtempo music itself as the dominating music. Money and the biggest profit possible is their main concern and shit hop just happens to be the cheapest form of music to make. Therefore, since we can't stop the corporations from controlling people's tastes, we have to take a different approach by making what the general public is buying seem "uncool" to them. It's hopeless though because the corporations have too much money and they have controlled things for sooooo long that a new generation has developed the tastes of what they have been fed (with no style changes in their lifetime like we had) so they will never accept a change style.

DakutiusMaximus said:

well i would have to literally get my brother to explain it better. and i doubt he is going to come on the org just to talk about eminem. but the basic was that the government went after him because of his negative influence on the young white youth.

I'll keep it simple.
I still dig quite a few acts in hip-hop like Immortal Technique and others. That said, as a person who creates music and undertsand the level of talent required 2 do any art form, I believe that hip-hop in general has allowed way 2 many people who have marginal talent dominate their field from the producers on down. Most of the so called producers in the hip-hop are basically "loop" creators. They don't produce anything really. My daughter can create 4 bars loops all day long. It's just not that hard 2 do. Let's not even talking about the rapper's themselves who are just weak overall. Lame presentation, lame lyrics and lame music. There is just nothing 4 me 2 hold onto in rap - hiphop music.

I still have the few groups that I listen 2, but overall it's DOA.

I don't speak about the other music because I never liked it in the 1st place.