What makes coFlow "avant-garde"?

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the second track sounds like if preemo dropped a couple dat's into his toilet tank like 2000 flushes. (damn, that's pretty close to an el-p rhyme!)
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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the problem with coFlo is they didn't go far ENOUGH - i want to hear about structural characteristics of monosaccharides and what they plan to do about it
-- Tracer Hand ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (tracerhand) (link)

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yeah it was always so ninth grade like dude if youre so into bugged out mental science how come youve only read philip k dick !!
-- simon trife (r55r5@=/9+-9/), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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el-p tries to pull kool keith on the opening to track 3 circa black elvis (er, wait, does this mean he actually predicted it? black science fiction by white guys is so complicated), but unfortunately he then turns back into el-p "dropping so much shit his ass needs a diaper" (actually, that was a juss rhyme from track one, but whatever.) i just remembered that track he guested on the quannum record...when you're getting schooled by lyrics born, you've got a problem!!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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I like the idea that Brandy has a song that sounds like Grindin?
-- Tracer Hand ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (tracerhand) (link)

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track 4: "we hate it when these mc's try to fuck with us"...el-p sure likes to say "corporation" even tho it's gotta be one of the most awkward words to drop into a rap in history. (he also likes to say "pedophile" a lot, make of that what you will.) there's some horns in this track; where's all the sci-fi beatscape shit!?
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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dude missed the point, it wasnt that keith was just on some space shit or whatever he was on some FUNNY space shit!! el ps idea of a joke is end2end burners
-- simon trife (55tt^^@/*=-), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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tracer i meant 'what about us', its a difft rugged style than grindin but i bet r jerkins and chad neptune were thinking about the same robot pussies when they cooked the tracks
-- simon trife (545tr@44), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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Fuck this thread
-- Nate Patrin ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (link)

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jess youre doing that track by track awfully fast, its almost as if youre only listening to the first thirty seconds of each song!!
-- simon trife (4rr5@yt/9+-9/+-), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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track 5 has some nice spinchter opening epmd bass-shit going on, i'll admit. big juss is the best part about co flow; i wonder if it was just him and not el-p if we'd hate them as much. otherwise it just sounds like yr typical 95 undiehop. they shout "big juss!" like a track from moment of truth ("it's preemo, guru and something something!")...more coflow prescience!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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PATRIN ALERT!!!
-- simon trife (o0;.0@8.;=/+-=), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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Well jeez it's not like somebody used my name in conjunction with some stupid junior high bullshit joke OH WAIT
Christ, you people wanna be retards without the unwelcome intrusion of people you talk shit about, then be retards on IM.

-- Nate Patrin ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (link)

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Remember when El-P and Sole battled each other? "By calling yourself independent you belittle the whole movement!"
Trife have you heard the new Xzibit? As polished Dre-funk-commercial as he gets, it makes a pretty good case for new roughness.

-- Honda ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (link)

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nate you just published your first review and it was about anticon! we weren't talking shit!! (it was a good review, btw.)
simon, how dare you?? i'll have you know i listened to the whole of the last track.

anyway, track 6 contains the line "in bizarro world where co flow is the new pop sensation", so maybe you're right after all, simon!!

-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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track 7 is some "turntablist" shit. oh no!! the goverment is out to get us!! OH NO!!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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if this was spin, i'd call track 8 "gnostic rza-influenced hiphop that sounds like it was recorded in a masoleum." it actually sounds like it was written and programmed in the time it took to get the tape rolling and not in the good way.
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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co flows realest moment was that anticon dis track where they sampled the dude saying they were the best and called it linda tripp, thats just all purpose
-- simon trife (uok@78=/-/), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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Well I'm not on Anticon's dick or anything (find me ONE EXAMPLE on this board where I was), I just liked that album out of sheer circumstance regardless of label affiliation. "Nate's beloved Anticon"... christ, man.
-- Nate Patrin ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (link)

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track 9 is more preemo shit (in other words it moves by standing still, rather than turning around in circles like the rza, uh, flavored shit does), nice descending xylophone (?) melody in the background. this might sound good if it was on, say, the rj-d2 album without the rapping.
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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nate you know i hear you, i wish youd post to ALL my threads!!
-- simon trife (6tjhyf6@343), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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no
-- Nate Patrin ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (link)

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"But unlike other independent-minded hip-hoppers -- who view mainstream rappers like Nas and Jay-Z as vapid and commercial -- El-P isn't interested in overthrowing hip-hop's gangsta elite. "It's not about us versus them," El-P maintains. "It's about who makes the better record." He even rejects the "independent" tag, which connotes left-of-center purists, for his own label. "Independent?" he asks angrily. "What the fuck does that mean? I put out Cannibal Ox on Def Jux. That's some straight-up street shit from Harlem." And he becomes infuriated at the suggestion that hip-hop might currently be drowning in it own vanity. "Hip-hop doesn't need to be saved from itself," he says. "The music has a built-in sense of survival.""
...

-- But Wait! ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (link)

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and honda i havent heard the new x but i plan on picking it up, i love forty days and forty nights and his last one was good too
-- simon trife (3@akj8*/*/), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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track 10 is MORE preemo shit, at least of the "come clean" variety. i wonder why everyone sez co flow is so influenced by the wu (well, i mean they ARE, but...) "syncopated shit"...could this guy syncopate ANYTHING?!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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track 11 ACTUALLY BANGS. but it's all over in 34 seconds!! why?!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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track 12 is a freestyle. PASS.
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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(i should clarify that track 11 "actually bangs" in the style of, say, hard dj shadow tracks.)
track 13: "i've been nastiest one since birth." where were nas's lawyers that day? "as i flow fluently"...um...uh...um...

-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou, El-P ROOLZ!
(ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha)

Anyway, the new thing is the whoo-whoo theremin from Brandy's "Full Moon" which is also on the new 112.

-- Sterling Clover ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (s_clover) (link)

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track 14: my bellybutton has this really fucked up odor today. can you tell i'm getting exhausted with this? this track is a lot more like the typical atypical arrhytmic coflow of legend.
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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track 15 predicts bollywood hiphop by 5 years!! okay, not really. can i just say that it's better than talvin singh?!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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track 16 sounds like dj cam recorded underwater.
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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jess you blockhead, fire in which you burn is to truth hurts as gift of gab is to eminem
-- simon trife (664u@j/9-6+), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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Jess, it's "I drop so much shit my anus needs an icepack," which you have to admit is a lot better.
-- Clarke B. ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (link)

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track 17 is almost dainty. um, at least for the first 20 seconds. oh wait, this is the one where el-p moans about his step-daddy! i will say that i vaguely respect him for this song, since showing weakness in hiphop is a bit like being masculine in indie rock! i do like the stalker horns creeping through the mix.
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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"fire in which you burn" = "and now, along extra-long raga by ravi shankar."
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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and sadly fire in which you burn is one of their only three good songs (along with vital nerve or patriotism)
-- simon trife (65thu6yu@32), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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haha jess what about showing weakness in hiphop that only indie rock dudes listen to??
-- simon trife (hukmurkm@3434), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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along = another. krusty must be turning over in his grave in shame.
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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'rory bellows'
-- simon trife (yrjiyrjn@5ryg5), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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track 18: who knew hell was a week being trapped in the basement of fat beats with only stretch armstrong for company!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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i knew that
-- simon trife (7ujy@43tf), September 25th, 2002. (simon_tr) (link)

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track 19: ...
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

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thank god that's over! now where's my fucking jean hersholt humanitarian award?!
-- jess ([email protected]), September 25th, 2002. (dubplatestyle) (link)

i was talking to ethan tonight, and i said that it wouldn't really bother me if someone sat down and did a track by track pisstake of a fall record. to which he replied: "i couldn't even listen to the fall. at least i UNDERSTAND co flow. on some level it makes some kind of horrible sense."

i'm too tired right now to really put this into context, but i think it's revealing.

And I think there's plenty of worth in a fall comparison with the noise/rantization of traditional forms, except that when I "get" the fall I hear a whole world of genres within them, like they have the secret of rock and replicated inside the secret is the whole of rock. I don't hear that with coFlow. Is it there?

sasha frere-jones on the wu-tang clan: "the rza was building a new house for hiphop, a place to mourn and think and wander. if anyone happens to dance or have fun along the way, bully for them. funk was never really part of the plan. the mc's would handle that as they saw fit."

i think it's wholly possible co flow built their entire career/aesthetic out of misinterpreting this goal.

For someone who has such a large appreciation for chartpop, Jess, you certainly have a preoccupation with "cred."

About the emotional thing, El-P is really effective at oppressive kill-joy anti-feelings for people who find masochism in excessive stoicness. He sometimes slips in some moody organ chords or something to cultivate little post-RZA omen moods which are still suffocating half the time. When I saw CanOx live the crowd was completely fucked, attempting to have a good time but falling apart to the fractured rhythms. I like the man-into-machine texture of things but it seems more caught in the middle of referrents that I like more isntead of actually triumphing as some crazy innovative juxtaposition.

Sterling, have you heard Dalek? Surely it sheds light on the subject here...

Aren't you the same guy who the other day called someone a "cunt" and "retard" because that person didn't think the Streets album was all that hot? I'm guessing you don't like the Fall all that much if someone could go through any album track by track and negatively comment on it, because you go batshit over little things.

1990s: Rap is well into its third decade and while it continues to be ridiculously successful certain people think that the predominance of danceable, pop-influenced yet viscerally sexual, fashion-conscious and tough-guy-ethos infused gangsta and "player" rap are harmful to the genre. They react with ponderous "abstract" rap and virtuoso turntable theatrics. Eventually underground rap merges with a few compatible genres such as IDM and glitch to create whatever it is you call Prefuse 73. The movement is hailed as a "return to hip=ho's roots".

Not a judgement call -- just a contrast I find pretty interesting.

As far as the persona of Co Flow/Can Ox, I think part of it is the "survive and defeat all rivals" ethos of the modern-day concept of battle rap taken as a personal musical credo and infused into general life. It's in the lyrics -- El-P's flow reminds me of a man onstage feverishly clutching a mic trying to get as many fatal jabs at his opponent in the shortest possible amount of time, and I can understand if it sounds grating if you're used to laconic g-funk style or linear storytelling raps.

Something I gotta correct: "I think the avant-garde label is affixed to their deep cynicism towards traditional hip-hop elements" -- er, I thought the underground rap types were all feverishly devoted to defending the traditional hip-hop elements i.e. MCing, DJing, b-boy dancing and grafitti. I've read interviews with Company Flow where they basically say that if you don't know where rap's place is in the hip-hop scheme of things that you should probably reconsider being an MC. If you want to deride indie rap, deride them for giving too much of a fuck about traditional hip-hop elements.

I'll be here to answer other questions and get mocked later.

Also, Patrin is OTM on his analysis of the Dej Jux strain.

Then again most of arguments I've seen against underground hip hop on ILM usually do come down to some sort of "authenticity" paradigm revolving around "street" cred or race, etc.

and why do you insist on creating boogeymen "on ILM"? just for the sake of argument?

Non-US hip-hop I enjoy because even though much of it sticks pretty closely to a Rawkus or Premier or mellowed-out RZA template musically, either language or accent pretty much forces MCs to flow differently.

and yes, nate is right about the 4 elements; considering that co flow called one of their ep's "end to end burners", which had to be one of the first major graf references in hiphop in some time.

Don't really care about all the ideological stuff.... it's way overloaded. Probably don't agree with the undie rhetoric, but don't have any trouble ignoring it and think that some good music is being made in spite of it...

I agree completely, which is why the Can Ox record completely bowls me over. I dunno what kind of hip-hop fan this makes me, but I pay more attention to the mood and feel of a song than I do to the lyrics. Just the way I am with all music. But with Can Ox, the mood forces me to listen to what VA is saying. I love the production. I forget exactly what my Voice Pazz & Jop quote was about Can Ox, but something along the lines of it sounding like a fucked up Brian Eno record. Which I'm sure I'll get trashed for saying here.

jack you make the mistake of thinking i give a fuck one way or the other. i just don't like being misquoted or misrepresented in a public forum. you can do whatever you want to misrepresent me in your little fiefdom.

Er, I've seen a few things that have stated "Pop Rapper X is better than Undie Rapper Y because X is more 'real,' 'street authentic,' 'connected to the masses,' etc." Or the inverse: "Y is less 'real,' 'more cerebral,' 'underground,' etc." I think both approaches are pretty silly for pretty much all music, but esp. when you're talking about a genre who's first real achievement in the pop sphere of things was the Sugar Hill Gang. I mean, this debate is as old as hip-hop itself, and it's not going anywhere, and honestly you'd think after 25+ years, it'd get kinda old. That's my take, anyways.

More preposterous than any Def Jux foofaraw I've heard is Talib Kweli rhyming "where were you the day hip-hop died" on his otherwise not-that-stupid Reflection Eternal album.

Also, people should note that everybody calls coFlow avant-garde and so the self-label hardly matters. That would be like nabisco complaining about the "post-rock" sameness coming out of Chicago and stencil replying "hey! they didn't ASK to be called 'post-rock'!" Also, regardless of if they call themselves avant-garde or not, are they? Or are artists only what they say they are?

Also, there is an absolute distrust for traditional hip-hop elements. Otherwise the beats and MCing would (duh) sound more traditional.

Of course if they stuck to the traditional elements they'd get lumped in with J5 et al. and called "conservative" so I guess it's damned if you do etc.

type a: prefers the evolution of the elements of hiphop via the petri dish of engaging with popular culture at large, the steps forward made by engaging with a dancefloor audience (anyone who denies the importance of a hiphop song in a club is being irredeemably rockist, and that seems to be most people on ilm who can't deal with anything other than dance music in a club format [barring pointless "eclectic" dj sets or the dreaded "indie disco"], the whole scenius vs. genius debate, who feel that underground hiphop - despite the sonic inventiveness, lyrical dexterity, whatevah - is contributing nothing to this progression.

type b: argues against the commercialization of hiphop, engages with a musical style that - to paraphrase sasha frere-jones again - was previously required to provide funk, talk charming shit in unison, discuss trousers (as opposed to providing semi-funk, talk ugly philosophy alone, discuss watches aka now) as a gnostic sect, a series of rites, recieved history, and "appropriate" behavior. not unlike, in it's way, US hardcore.

type c: sez, fuggit, there's little to no difference between the two, between "backpacker" and "charthop", the two are equally valid, complement rather than contradict each other, etc.

none of these three types are completely right (in much the same way none of them are completely wrong), but each refuses to admit this. MOST people on these two threads (yes, including myself and simon) fall into some nether region between the three, but closest to c.

the hardcore analogy is apt, i think; i'm not the first person to make it obviously (simon reynolds, frere-jones, and peter shapiro in discussing def jux have all made it.) hardcore is - by and large, today and yesterday - a music which DEVOUTLY (religious metaphors and language are hard to avoid here) avoids engaging with the mainstream (even when "avant-garde work requires the survival of the order it first flared against, or its full radicalism no longer properly registers"). yet, ostensibly, hardcore is the only genre which evolved rock into the 80s and 90s: post-punk, noise, post-metalcorewhatever. these are small increments, yes, and it makes no bones about not attempting chart success in any way.

maybe this is why rock is "dead" from a mainstream pov; new ideas are purposefully cut off from the center, content on the margins, so old themes-ideas continually get recycled until it all bloats up and shits blood. which is what, i think, a lot of chart rap fans are wary of happening to hiphop as well - a music who's cultural and artistic value is not yet exhausted - when the jermiahs on the sidelines are constantly predicting it's bloated, encroaching on 30 years demise. it's a forest for the trees thing, except i can't work out which is which.

Hey, just because Simon Reynolds comes up with some bullshit non-term doesn't mean everyone else has to follow suit. If Simon Reynolds jumped offa bridge, would you too?

Seriously, though I think the phrase avant-garde really should only refer to something that was pretty much finished by the mid 1960s in the Western "art" "classical" music tradition. Whenever I see it applied to other genres/times, it seems pretty pointless. For terms of categorization, yeah, I see your point, but can we categorize things without using completely empty, overworked terms (avant-garde, cutting edge, contemporary, experimental, etc.)?

This is interesting, though. When you get down to it, very few "undie" acts do really avoid engaging with the mainstream. I mean, for example, Jurassic 5 keep coming up in this thread. They've worked with Nelly Furtado and Linkin Park. That's not Fugazing now, is it? (Arguably, there is a difference, and quite a big one, between the Def Jux crowd and the Rawkus crowd, one that gets glossed over in these threads in an attempt to split everything into two camps).

Is the idea that new ideas are cut off from the mainstream the reason why Neptunes and Timbaland are so critically loved? Because it seems like they're the only people trying anything different, because everyone else trying something knew seeks to keep it for "people who'd appreciate it", rather than the masses?

I'm sure this hip-hop divide can be traced down to "Ice Ice Baby". And I'm not joking.

And maybe it's just my erroneous perception, but I don't see that much dialogue between the undie rappers and the mainstream ones. But maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. It seems more like (huge generalization here) the undies are in effect saying, "We're gonna be the anti-Nelly" when Nelly's saying, "Who the fuck _are_ you anyway?"

seriously though, if you're so interested in taxonomy, then propose other words to replace the ones you don't seem to like. since you seem to know exactly what was is implied by using "avant garde" in 2002, then maybe the word hasn't lost it's meaning at all, the locus of that word has just shifted. the desire to "categorize things without using completely empty, overworked terms" seems to contradict the first part of that post where you rail against "post-rock"s "emptiness" as a term.

as for "avoiding the mainstream", yes, obviously avoiding the mainstream is an effective marketing tool. avoiding and embracing and making a point about it (although i guess you don't really have to make a point about embracing it) are both ways of saying "pay attention to me."

dom, the point is that in hiphop new ideas are NOT cut off from the mainstream yet. mainstream hiphop producers are still fucking ravenous for sounds; i don't think anyone could have predicted circa the chronic the preponderance of dancehall drums, rave stabs, acid basslines, and chipmunk samples in chart hiphop by the decades end. the closest a chart rock has come to appropriating music from outside its contentuous border regions is radiohead. (an argument could be made that the whole nu-metal/rap-metal thing as a whole represents rock looking outside itself but a. it's not really all that "new" and b. it's a very tentative overture at best. rap guys like the preemo remix of "n2gether now" because it sounds like preemo. rock guys like the original because it's drop d guitars with a breakbeat. i dunno.)

I don't follow you. "Post-rock" is overused and simultaneously devoid of meaning, i.e. "empty." It implies an end to something that can't have an end, and something else being built of that. I'd argue the same of "hip-hop." If that can mean anything from late 1970s Kool Herc parties in the Bronx to P. Diddy's clothing line, then why use it?

And if this was really a high-concept joke, I'd start using the word "brend."

i think hstencil is right: before ANYONE posted to this thread i wz gunna say that sterl's question is sidetracked by argts about the unclear — or any "select-yr-own" — meaning of "avant garde" (which in fact *is* in inverted commas in the thread title): the question is actually about professed relationships

i. is the professed relationaship of er "undie" to er "ovie" one of challenge and overthrow, or completion and recovery, or tough-love critique, or pluralist complementation (if that's a word), or freedom of consumer choice, or what?
ii. is this relationship tenable by its own tenets?

A few minutes ago I wrote a post saying exactly this to correct/extrapolate on what I said earlier, and I deleted it. This is to say that I agree.

i stand by everything else said on this thread though!

jess: you saw sonic youth this summer!!
simon: yes, but i didn't pay for it!
simon: i went to a parking lot last week for free too, but i didn't write 500 words about it on my blog!!

Company Flow, and their fellow Rawkus brethren, did break up the boring monotony of gangsta hip hop that was dominant in 97’. I was listening to Nas, Mob Deep, etc…in 97’ and when this dropped, it sounded revolutionary. Maybe not to your seasoned avant garde (whatever that means) ears, but to headz it was pretty groundbreaking. Unlike Anticon or any of the shit that came afterwards, it adhered to hip hop traditions while taking it the next step. They were independent as fuck before independence became as cliché as that bullshit studio gangsta routine xhibit came with on Restless (and I love 40 days and 40 Nights). You could argue about whether or not their influence upon hip hop has been a positive one (I hate Anticon and their whiney musical cousins) but at the time Funcrusher was pretty fuckin’ dope. “Vital Nerve,” “The Fire in Which You Burn,” “8 Steps to Perfection”…all classic.

BTW, Primo (or Preemo as you like to call him) did produce “8 Steps to Perfection” and even included it on a compilation of his work. And Funcrusher was released in 97’, not 95’.

anyway, here's another snappy one liner: zzzz.

What made Co Flow "avant-garde" is boring, psuedo-intellectuals who tag them as such because they need some intellectual footing for listening to hip hop(type d, perhaps). Primo may have only included it on his comp (i was going by memory), but the fact remains that it was accepted and produced by the same scene that brought you Gangstar, DITC, Blackstar, Pete Rock, and other New York underground legends. And, for the sake of this discussion, why have you broadened the question as to the avant aspects of all el-p produced material?

jess, here's an equation for you to mull over:

"the preponderance of dancehall drums, rave stabs, acid basslines, and chipmunk samples" as marks of pop hops evolution = as clicks, dissonance, and noise as marks of grimy, lyric-based NYC hip hop

to be honest, my personal preference is the later, but only slightly. i wish the neptunes and tim came with better emcees, although i realize that isn't the point. i just can't listen to bubba sparks or britney regardless of who's on the boards. give me madlib or fat jon any day, regardless of what you want to call it

jess, i didn't disagree with a lot of what you said outside of your comments on funcrusher, although i did think you were speaking to your preferences a bit more than you realize. i thought that it was particularly pathetic when simon (i think it was simon) talked shit because el-p only reads philip dick...perhaps he'll only consider the paranoia of those who are ivy league.

adrie, i'm gonna apologize for being snotty to you above, since you did come back which frankly knowing ilm i wasn't expecting!

i don't know why everyone who is on the "opposite" side of these threads seems to think that i don't know that i'm expressing my own personal preferences. i've made that clear several times! (my "review" was totally a spur of the moment reaction to what i was hearing, cranky, at 10 am.) i can totally see your equation above, but it's the same reason i don't listen to the grimier, nastier end of glitch-tronics, or hard acid, or nu-drum&bass, or whatever. the elements i described above though are exciting to BECAUSE they're a-musical on the surface (mentasm-y sounds, synths, whatever...even the rhythms sometimes) which are finding an audience. hearing bollywood or 92-rave sounds at the local put-put golf is exciting to me!

.
.
(haha okay no it doesn't)

also, real gangstaz get their paranoia from doc smith. word.

one of the worst!

who is attributing the term 'avant-garde' anyway? avant vs populist seems to be the main game here, but getting involved in such an argument makes me think i'm playing along to someone elses rules (ie, yes, i know i come down on the side of the 'populists' but when did i ever acquiesce to the terminology of 'avantgard' to describe conservative college rap?)

but p-word didn't distrust success: as soon as an a-g is measuring its critical power by its LACK of presence, it's in trouble (how this registers in this particular argt i have no idea)

1) Oppositional stance towards bourgeois society
2) Embrace of extremity
3) Hyperbolic, over-the-top agony of the romantic artist

I'd say most undie rap makes a nod towards the first, Def Jux has a good lock on the second and El-P pretty much owns the third part of the definition.

Talking about the positive aspects of the avant-garde is a red herring, since the avant-garde has defined itself negatively from the French revolution all the way to Albert Ayler.

Maybe music critics are confused and are using "avant-garde" and "innovative" interchangably. Not smart, since the notions of the "avant-garde" is rooted in 19C romanticism. No, I don't think CoFlow are particularly "innovative", but they're definitely "avant-garde" as far as the historical definition goes.

But, speaking of the beats, CoFlow did have a way with spatial effects (noises that leap out of the mix, ambient effects). I don't think that's enough to redeem them for non-fans.

the idea that the "avant-garde" is somehow seamlessly in existence from the French Revolution to Albert Ayler = a second way in which it institutionally cuts its own throat, since it means that arguments between difft generations of the a-g have to be placed on one side, as not germane to the essence of the a-g, which effectively strips out the material logic of the works in question

1 2 and 3 are all perfectly good descriptions of the majority of non-undie hiphop

1) Bourgeois society must be DESTROYED. (for the sake of argument, can we ignore artistic/criminal activity as alternatives to bourgeois)

2) This is subjective, yeah, let's throw it out.

3) I think I mean more in the delivery than in the message, sort of a helpless flailing before the intensity of one's own emotion. I guess El-P doesn't own the field when you consider guys like DMX, but he does have a sort of "whoa dude i'm totally gonna explode" pretense.

Do you disagree with this definition of avant-garde? I'll admit, I'm cribbing from the Oxford Companion to Jazz, that could be part of the reason it's a sloppy point. Would the second point explain any sort of gap between El-P's fierce old-school, Run-DMC posturing and the reality of the matter?

How can genres die when they're not even alive? People die, music doesn't. What sort of music (aside from unknown, undocumented "pre-historical" music) isn't performed, heard, read about, talked about?

anyway, ilm only uses english ironically.

The point is, even though that stuff isn't brand new, it's still viable because people still care about it. Can you dispute that?

so expect more inconsequential ilxor rambling forthwith

also i tried to play cold vein earlier on, but then i took it off and played mobb deep instead

top of the pops was AWFUL (except for busted and pink obv): i try to like bon jovi and i try try try but he is clammy

sara cawood introduced aqualung by saying "and now, for those of you who think the charts are too full of pre-fab pop..." and supergrass and beanie man were playing LIVE!! what tiresome prauncing is this? listening to neptunes "live" is like eating blue maggot sushi with corned beef

Either way his worldview crumbles in a pile of illogic and hasty accusations. Muhahahahahaha!

vs.

"The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll."

Come let us discuss the SHOCK of the new and the SHROUD of the past!