classic Wu-Tang solo run poll

I think I get what you prefer in rappers - a kind of earthbound straightforwardness that doesn't risk embarrassment through flights of fancy - I just don't think it has anything to with having more "persona". I love workmanlike singer-songwriters like JJ Cale but I wouldn't say he has more "persona/character" than Neil Young.

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 6:51 PM (13 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nah thats not it -- if they have 'flights of fancy' i just want those flights to be consistent to the character making them.
husalah does this all the time ...

A yo the Husalah shines on the steet
But at night the bright lights will have it bright enough
Picture this a million stones, I got brand new kicks
The world is ours you understand it huh? Sometimes I get too deep

A yo the Husalah shines on the steet
But at night the bright lights will have it bright enough
Picture this a million stones, I got brand new kicks
The world is ours you understand it huh? Sometimes I get too deep

what the fuck does all this really mean? i dunno its pretty 'out there' -- but it fits into his character, which is supposed to be pretty 'out there'

the answer is that variation in style & substance can make up for a lot of 'depressing topics,' and also that just because topics are depressing doesnt mean that i dont think we shouldnt face them?

this is kinda what I expected you to say, more or less. I guess my problem with so much of it is that the variations I hear don't make up ENOUGH for me, they seem kinda minor a lot of the time. as for facing depressing topics, I guess I've been facing coke-dealing thug topics in music for 30 years and I can't say I, or society in general, is any better for it. If anything things are even WORSE now than they were in the 80s. I guess I know more about coke dealing than I would have otherwise, and it sounds like the life of a coke dealer sucks pretty bad. the subject matter has just become background noise for society in general, it's just taken for granted, it's like that's just what you can EXPECT rap to be about, it's "just the way it is" *shrug*

many xposts

I don't understand when/why "the entertaining guy with the funky-fresh flow" stopped being a compelling 'persona'

― rmde and dangerous (bernard snowy), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

what the fuck does all this really mean? i dunno its pretty 'out there' -- but it fits into his character, which is supposed to be pretty 'out there'

and LL and Run-DMC's grandiosity does fit into their characters?

or like canibus talking about burying bodies on other planets -- when the video isnt canibus wearing shades at a pool party, im into that. when ll cool j is rapping in 'love u better' im into that. when mf doom is being goofy on doomsday. when cam'ron is being weird on purple haze. when royce is rapping about a dude getting his dick cut off like it was a twilight zone episode. these are all weird & goofy

of course i can appreciate raps where the rappers break character too -- im not setting up rules or something about what kind of rap i like -- but im just saying that there are certain tendencies rap has gravitated towards over the years, and as a result some artists material ages better than others

doesn't, I mean xpost

the novelty wears off

but somewhere, forever, there's always a group of people insisting that the novelty will never ever wear off, which is basically where we're at with coke rap these days imo

if u don't believe me may I invite you to some Richie Blackmore forums

and LL and Run-DMC's grandiosity does fit into their characters?

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 6:56 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

imo it keeps them from creating a realistic character -- im not sure whats complicated about this. it works the same way in literature -- sometimes a character can be TotALly WACKY but is well-drawn, and sometimes a character can be very serious but poorly drawn, and vice versa. im talking about how the characters are drawn, not the nature of the character itself

mandatory disclosure, at least 40% of my listening is instrumental guitar-solo rock these days :(

but somewhere, forever, there's always a group of people insisting that the novelty will never ever wear off, which is basically where we're at with coke rap these days imo

― drawl the whine (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 6:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and so you have dudes who seem like an extreme reaction to this i.e. drake

or like ... curren$y is one of my favorite rappers~! & his whole thing is not at all rapping about coke/drugs/guns but just being a chill stoner dude. there are entire scenes of non-coke rap out there fwiw

& i mean what do you tell a rapper like j stalin, actual crack baby who sold drugs when he was young & turned to rap -- 'sorry your life story is passe!'

certain tendencies rap has gravitated towards over the years

& imo his stuff proves that there's still room for new narratives within the extremely broad fake-concept 'coke rap' -- hes about as many miles from the clipse as he is from del the funkee homosapien

what does this even mean??? because if you're talking mainstream success, you basically have to bracket out Lil Wayne's weirdness, Soulja Boy's playfulness, Drake's retarded LL Cool J suaveness, etc.
― rmde and dangerous (bernard snowy), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:01 PM (19 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

why are you guy still conflating 'weirdness' with 'well drawn characters'??

you're treating "realism" and "rap" as though they were linked on some basic conceptual level, as though it didn't take YEARS to get from raps about how well you rap to raps about WHAT IT'S LIKE ON THE STREETS

ok saying that trends in rap have made some older rappers sound more dated than others - got that, kinda obvious - but your examples of rappers breaking "character" sound pretty arbitrary. I mean LL's all about saying he's a cartoonish macho man, Run-DMC were royalty from the word go. it really feel like you're conflating a dislike of datedness with a desire for "realness" with fondess for consistency as if all the reasons you like the stuff you like follow one clear thru-line.

and as for the idea that rappers are more "well drawn characters" now...yeah, I'm not seeing it.

yeah but thats the thing croupier of course it doesnt work like that! like any musical debate its about whether it works for me subjectively when u get down to it -- its not like im coming up w/ some set rockist standards for 'sounds dated' 'sounds timeless,' its just how i hear the music & then describe my reactions

why are you guy still conflating 'weirdness' with 'well drawn characters'??

― j. sargent & lil k3v (deej), Thursday, October 14, 2010 12:02 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

I mean LL's all about saying he's a cartoonish macho man, Run-DMC were royalty from the word go.

i may have been misleading here. im talking about them not thinking about being characters, just being regular dudes who were good rappers. they were just 'them.' the im not a rapper im a trapper thing comes later (or im not a rapper im an arty weirdo, im not a rapper im a prophet, im not a rapper im FLOCkA!)

fwiw I never get tired of dudes rapping about how stoned they are, to me that's just fun. it's just...like...I smoked a fair amount of crack in my wild days. you know what exactly ZERO crack slingers I knew were? cool. or successful. or rich. or well-liked. they were pretty much all scumbags. the crack dealer big-player persona who doesn't sell in his own neighborhood and holds to an ethical code which he would sooner die than violate , afaik, is fiction. it's decent fiction, sometimes, but it's been done to death at this point, and it can't be defended on the "that's reality" point in my opinion. I'll always listen to Ghost telling dope stories, because his storytelling is fucking incredible. biggie's before-you-knew-me stuff is obviously all-time. but for the most part, to tell an interesting crack dealer story at this point, that's how good a writer you'd have to be: ghostface level. biggie level. not a lot of cats will even be on that level for five minutes in their lives imo so maybe scoping out new territory wouldn't go amiss

its not like im coming up w/ some set rockist standards for 'sounds dated' 'sounds timeless,' its just how i hear the music & then describe my reactions

and when you use broad generalizations about how people are moving from hyperbolic wordplay to more consistent "personas" (as if those were inherently opposed), people are gonna try to unpack them and probably criticize them

and as for the idea that rappers are more "well drawn characters" now...yeah, I'm not seeing it.

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:05 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im saying theyre more constructed now. & that as time goes on, those constructs require becoming more & more well crafted -- its like an arms race thing

of course they're broad generalizations! youre talking about an art form w/ thousands of performers

think of it like this -- there are dudes doing wordplay
those guys become more marginal as time goes on
because of that marginalization, older artists that may have inspired them may seem less significant to the overall arc of history
artists who may have unintentionally anticipated these broader changes seem more prescient, their reputations more intact

my observation is that folks who recognized that rap was turning towards more constructed personas, that the 'artfulness' of rap was no longer all about wordplay, that it was about developing into consistent characters & fleshing those out & making those artfully realistic, were the ones who have aged better

deej I would be willing to buy the argument that within the (sub-)genre of coke rap (or whatever-rap), as defined by its broad generic constraints, there are dudes today who are as innovative and awesome and crucial as anyone ever, and that they have probably gotten to that point by developing stories and characters and shedding 'foreign elements' that had roots in the pre-coke-rap era like goofy similes or whatever -- but I absolutely categorically refuse to admit that this says something about "rap" as a whole, especially when it has developed parallel to the mainstream rap scene that recently gave us GROCERY BAG

imo, shouty 'you can call me sire!' rap doesnt anticipate the kind of turn rap would take the way rakim's persona & personality would on 'paid in full'

COKE RAP IS NOT A SUBGENRE OR GENRE

IT IS A CONSTRUCT Of A HANDFUL OF RAP WRITERS WHO REALLY likED THE CLIPSE & oVERRATED THE NEPTUNES

rakim had a different flow, but i'm pretty sure he thought you could call him sire

think of it like this -- there are dudes doing wordplay
those guys become more marginal as time goes on

finding it a little ironic you think I'm reductive about rap when you're on this "wordplay is out, real is in!" tip

deej I would be willing to buy the argument that within the (sub-)genre of coke rap (or whatever-rap), as defined by its broad generic constraints, there are dudes today who are as innovative and awesome and crucial as anyone ever, and that they have probably gotten to that point by developing stories and characters and shedding 'foreign elements' that had roots in the pre-coke-rap era like goofy similes or whatever -- but I absolutely categorically refuse to admit that this says something about "rap" as a whole, especially when it has developed parallel to the mainstream rap scene that recently gave us GROCERY BAG

― rmde and dangerous (bernard snowy), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but on the rest of your point, yeah there's been a recent shift in this direction -- my hypothesis would be that this is a temporary shift towards corny similies (& drake's recent "i dont rap like that any more its played out" thing suggests i might be right) that was a result of lil wayne's huge popularity. obv it could shift punchline rappers back into fashion -- but you're still talking about dudes w/in the vein of lil wayne which is (gasp) "coke rap" (which doesnt really exist but i assume you mean the stuff that came out of cash money would qualify in your imaginary genre)

finding it a little ironic you think I'm reductive about rap when you're on this "wordplay is out, real is in!" tip

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:17 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you think GZA style wordplay is really hot right now?

Waka isnt one of the most popular rappers out right now?

rakim had a different flow, but i'm pretty sure he thought you could call him sire

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:16 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

... and yet he would never say it in a corny way like that

"The word 'precursor' is indispensable to the vocabulary of criticism, but one must try to purify it from any connotation of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that each writer creates his precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future."

croupier i know this theory doesnt fit into your bias towards music that is un-selfaware and silly (when not performed by the electric 6) but i dont think im really saying anything radical here

"The word 'precursor' is indispensable to the vocabulary of criticism, but one must try to purify it from any connotation of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that each writer creates his precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future."

― rmde and dangerous (bernard snowy), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:19 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hey im totally flexible here!! who knows what could happen. im just HYPOTHESIZING

i remember when metal dudes used to get all mad and tell you "speed metal" wasn't a genre

you guys, dont you realize sean f & nick sylvester basically created 'coke rap' in a pfork staffboard lab back in '06

... and yet he would never say it in a corny way like that

i know you're on this "hey it's all subjective" thing, but to act like there's a demonstrative difference between Run-DMC saying "sucker MCs should call me sire" and Rakim's "I melted microphones instead of cones of ice cream" is pretty absurd

how else are we supposed to evaluate art? i hear a pretty qualitative difference between those two quotes. if you dont think one sounds cornier than the other then, ok, you dont. but i think its pretty self-evident, even if subjective

anyway im going to dinner yall have fun play nice

are you saying rakim is just less corny? cuz you previously said shouty 'you can call me sire!' rap doesnt anticipate the kind of turn rap would take the way rakim's persona & personality would on 'paid in full' and well, both were braggarts!

you guys, dont you realize sean f & nick sylvester basically created 'coke rap' in a pfork staffboard lab back in '06

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/10/12/arts/13sann.1.184.jpg

are you saying rakim is just less corny? cuz you previously said shouty 'you can call me sire!' rap doesnt anticipate the kind of turn rap would take the way rakim's persona & personality would on 'paid in full' and well, both were braggarts!

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what does bragging have to do w/ this?

couldnt resist a refresh

i hear a pretty qualitative difference between those two quotes.

the thing is this: if you can't state what that qualitative difference is in formal terms, then you oughtn't assert a difference; you should just say that you prefer one to the other. imo.

what does bragging have to do w/ this?

so by "persona & personality" i guess you mean flow and not persona & personality