classic Wu-Tang solo run poll

don't know which i dislike more: current 'these guys' '90% of rappers selling today' or the posturing/condescension inherent in how rap is discussed nowadays

i'd like to know what backpack rappers a deej likes

actually maybe it's just the posturing/condescension inherent in how deej discusses rap

i like royce & crooked i. although not together and not with joe budden or especially ortiz.

backpack has nothing to do w/ it?? lots of backpack rappers dont spit this way

maybe my condescension is directly related to your boring, 1.5 decade old argument of received wisdom. can we take on HIP HOP ALBUM SKITS next??

u know what i hate?? when rappers 'go pop'!!

serious question deej: how do you approach/interpret/deal with the subject matter of the majority of mainstream rap? I'm assuming you aren't in denial about the prevalance of drug dealing/mysogny/violence/nihilism/materialism, and given that the "thug" persona rules mainstream rap in general, I just wonder what you find so interesting about infinite sub-permutations of it. Like, I'm assuming you aren't really cool with dealing coke or shooting people or fucking strippers or whatever, do you just look past all this stuff? Cuz to me, after awhile, the nihilism of it all becomes crushing. I'm not saying this kind of subject matter is unacceptable or without merit - I like plenty of music with grim subject matter, rap included (and metal and rock etc etc) - but it just seems SO dominant in mainstream rap, and so explicit and bare... I dunno how people look past it, really.

xp

fwiw this is not condescension directed at ppl like m@tt and dan who are content to listen to old dudes doing new stuff or whatever

i mean, an example of a rapper who never dealt w/ clock-radio-speakers type raps is SCARfACe who has cross-generational appeal. lots of rappers now, particularly the ones on the charts, follow the pattern of moving rap more towards the realm of persona/character instead of constructions of dense wordplay. imo, this was largely a good thing, considering how boring so many rappers 'in it for the wordplay' turn out to be

of course 99% of rappers are garbage but i dont really take every dude with a rapping myspace into account

fully aware you probably won't answer this and will just go for the zings but hey

xp

SCARfACe

I mean I'm old enough to remember when these criticisms were lodged at rap the first time around back in the 80s, but back then you could really point to a LOT of other mainstream stuff that wasn't gangsta or whatever, there really did seem to be a wider range of approaches that were explicitly NOT "underground", backpackers didn't even exist then

HOW COULD ANYONE WACTH THE SPORANOS>!??!

deej is this "moving to the realm of persona/character" a thing you can hear in the music or are you talking about branding/twitter or something? Cuz I don't recall rappers from previous decades being particularly short on persona or character

serious question deej: how do you approach/interpret/deal with the subject matter of the majority of mainstream rap? I'm assuming you aren't in denial about the prevalance of drug dealing/mysogny/violence/nihilism/materialism, and given that the "thug" persona rules mainstream rap in general, I just wonder what you find so interesting about infinite sub-permutations of it. Like, I'm assuming you aren't really cool with dealing coke or shooting people or fucking strippers or whatever, do you just look past all this stuff? Cuz to me, after awhile, the nihilism of it all becomes crushing. I'm not saying this kind of subject matter is unacceptable or without merit - I like plenty of music with grim subject matter, rap included (and metal and rock etc etc) - but it just seems SO dominant in mainstream rap, and so explicit and bare... I dunno how people look past it, really.

xp

― i was like a person at a table at a place (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, October 13, 2010 6:34 PM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i easily get tired of lots of rappers working in this vein btw -- its what i found kind of crushing about freddie gibbs. 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? i dunno i mean ppl still post to the politics thread daily & imo thats a much more oppressive & nihilistic exercise on some level.

i enjoy the musicality of it, and it seems to me that a lot of times when ppl get excited about 'wordplay' rappers its part escapism & partly just ... not whats fun about music. i like rappers who have musical approaches, and unique approaches. im not really excited by guys who are doing rote styles either! i mean isnt the fundamental thing here that i find say gucci or waka to be unusual, interesting stylists, while you find them to be typical/generic? i mean swag cru and old heads (& ppl who make up both groups like m@tt) often find common ground in old-head rap debates but i kinda like how this raekwon / gza argument shows that its aesthetics at stake here, not 'subject matter' -- so im not really sure how your question relates to the issue at hand.

i like rappers who are convincing / consistent. the less frequently im taken out of the world they're creating the more likely i seem to be to want to hear their tracks again & again. After a few years GZA's stuff just makes me feel like im listening to a dude who was rapping really well for his time, but wasnt really ready for the changes that were coming in rap style. where ghost in the immediate future & rae in a kind of timeless roughneck way were on the cutting edge of stylistic developments

deej is this "moving to the realm of persona/character" a thing you can hear in the music or are you talking about branding/twitter or something? Cuz I don't recall rappers from previous decades being particularly short on persona or character

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 6:40 PM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nothing about twitter -- im talking about the way their aesthetic choices become more ... consistent? all-encompassing? there are lots of older rappers who i would argue 'aged well' because their rapping stayed consistent, in character etc. -- thinking Too $hort, rakim, even schoolly d. and there are others where stuff just doesnt age as well. this doesnt make it less important, it just means im less likely to listen to it -- a lot of Run DMC stuff today sounds a lil silly. this is the nature of the context of the present -- thinking 'call me sire'-type Run DMC lyrics. or LL saying he'll take a musclebound man and put his face in the sand.

Don't see what Run-DMC's datedness has to do with a lack of persona/character/consistency

btw my favorite recent 'playing with context' bit of rap writing i posted on fruity swag thread the other day -- j0rdan pointed it out to me --
http://realniggatumblr.tumblr.com/post/1293579216/lost-boyz-feat-canibus-dogg-pound-music-makes

The deaths of BIG & Pac gave birth too many random (and sometimes unnecessary) collaborations between East Coast & West Coast artist. There’s a bunch of big titty bitches at a pool party mean while Canibus is talking about murdering people and burying their bodies on another planet

geographical context can have stuff seeming 'more' or 'less' corny, or in this case LOL, as well

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

Don't see what Run-DMC's datedness has to do with a lack of persona/character/consistency

― da croupier, Wednesday, October 13, 2010 6:45 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dunno, that rappers saying you should 'call them sire' isnt really a 'character'? it breaks the consistency of a person playing a role other than 'rapper'? it totally takes me out of the song & sounds kinda 'silly'?

thumbs up to any discussion that forces a multi-graf, interesting, non-knee-jerk think-through from deej instead of "oh no your argument is old & therefore invalid" -- as if something that sucks for longer than a year magically stops sucking because we failed to stop it early

fwiw i dont mean artistic consistency, i mean holding together a consistent persona that is fleshed out more than 'really good rapper'

did they do "call me sire" more than once & anywhere else than in the context of a song called, bolded for emphasis here, king of rap

I could be wrong but I think the sire bit is like maybe a reference to the king part

just thinkin out loud here

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.

the failure of which doesnt necessarily make for bad music or anything -- obv run dmc are totally classic & awesome & i do listen to them, same with gza, its just this kind of ability to withstand current trends that puts cuban linx or schoolly d slightly ahead in my playlist

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