Finally Rich - Chief Keef

Polyrhythms are made up of different subdivisions of the same macro beat based off of grouping together note values of the same microbeat; everything about them is directly related. Saying they are "different beats" and acting as if there is no relationship between them is like saying there is no relationship between two groups of three pennies and three groups of two pennies.

i'm waiting for the post where deej explains that keef was waving a gun at cops to create a tension and warhol-esque crime-as-pop meta-narrative as a sly juxtaposition to lyrics about partying

Polyrhythms are made up of different subdivisions of the same macro beat based off of grouping together note values of the same microbeat; everything about them is directly related. Saying they are "different beats" and acting as if there is no relationship between them is like saying there is no relationship between two groups of three pennies and three groups of two pennies.

― GIMME SOME REGGAE (DJP), Wednesday, January 2, 2013 9:40 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

uhh if thats how you interpreted me saying 'different beats' then you misinterpreted. they are, in fact, different, which doesn't mean they're not related--obviously i think there is some relation as opposed to lil b who completely disregards the original beat

i'm waiting for the post where deej explains that keef was waving a gun at cops to create a tension and warhol-esque crime-as-pop meta-narrative as a sly juxtaposition to lyrics about partying

― finally rich, fun-packed, fulfilling (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, January 2, 2013 9:42 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dog shut the fuck up

this trick where u guys bog things down in pedantic critiques in order to make it seem like i'm trying to argue he's doing some big complex mozart concerto style ambitious thing is stupid

where we tricked you into saying "a pretty masterful sense of rhythm" and "a self-consciously 'sloppy' style" and "he's keeping time in his head outside of the actual beat" and "hemiola"

Discussion is reminding me of the late 80s when hardcore bands who picked up instruments for the first time a week before they recorded an ep were described as Beefheartian in zines

where we tricked you into saying "a pretty masterful sense of rhythm" and "a self-consciously 'sloppy' style" and "he's keeping time in his head outside of the actual beat" and "hemiola"

― finally rich, fun-packed, fulfilling (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, January 2, 2013 10:10 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eh i think all these things are pretty self evident in the music, it sounds like u guys are just hearing some amateur kid flailing around & i dont think that's really the case

that is exactly what I hear in the verse you cited as "masterful," which made me think "deej is Emperor's New Clothing this guy for whatever reason but it sure as shit doesn't have anything to do with the guy's ability to rap"

there's nothing wrong or inherently insulting about saying that a really young rapper who had an incredibly swift rise is not a very polished or technically accomplished vocalist with expert timing.

you guys are giving deej a hard time for no reason -- i'm not bowled over by that verse or anything but i think deej is right in that keef is consciously trying to do something different w his flow

saying he's a deliberate innovator really doesn't strike me as a stretch at all -- denying him that is p much what everyone has been doing, like this is some sort of accidental thing instead of intentional & i pretty strongly disagree w/ that

― D-40, Wednesday, January 2, 2013 2:17 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the disconnect here is maybe not that people think he's an accidental innovator but that they don't think he's an innovator period? like other than the inevitable incremental differences that will happen to what lex luger & various rappers have been doing when you give it a couple years to mutate and move to different regions, i have no idea how the keef/young chop sound is 'innovative.'

that beat is really weirdly sparse, it almost drops completely at some points. i think it's a little hard to count, maybe keef did too.

yeah one of the interesting things about the rap world CK is part of is how the rappers are often kind of minimal and sloppy while the beats are getting more fussy and intricate -- the drums in the Big Lean song have all these triplet fills and 16th note hi-hats. it's a contrast that sometimes comes off cool, tends to really irritate me more often than not.

calling him CK is kind of confusing

sorry -- to clarify, i was talking about Louie C.K.

Finally Rich, a new fragrance by Calvin Klein

some dude brings a MadTV sketch with him to every thread

sorry, man, i was scrambling to cover the embarrassing gaffe of using a strange and confusing acronym

if you guys are bored of using deej as a punching bag, here's a finally rich review that compares chief keef to chuck berry

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/chief-keefs-finally-rich-will-be-more-influential-than-you-could-possibly-imagine

Rock legend Chuck Berry, for example, became the most influential guitarist in his genre by combining country guitar song structure with blues and jazz guitar inflection. Chief Keef, on a smaller scale of course, combines the subject matter and kayfabe of ‘00s street rap with the purposefully affected vocals and minimalistically impact-oriented structures of Youtube rappers like Lil B and Soulja Boy.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/b24f69cb3deccb7717cea663044ff560/tumblr_mfpivr1fex1rcny7ko1_250.gif

j0rd you're usually good at acknowledging when deej is being his own worst enemy in an argument, do you not see that happening here

"on a smaller scale of course"

sort of but he's only trying to flailing to pull himself out of a hole that 5 people are furiously digging for him xp

Bobby Flay and Chief Keef both combine things and buy grills I guess they are pretty similar

all this dumb discussion did was make me consider that maybe the track for "citgo" was built around his vocals as opposed to the other way around which is kinda bumming me out

j0rdan i'm curious if your position is "yes keef is a rhythmically sloppy rapper but i like that" or if it's closer to deej's

that being said i have always been interested in the idea of someone with some formal chops breaking down what we mean when we talk about 'flow.' it seems like here, even with a bunch of smart peeps who know what they're talking about, there are like 5 different conversations going on, vis a vis what it means to be 'on' or 'off' beat, etc.

i don't think keef going off beat is a particular detriment to his songs (or at least it doesn't bother me) so i can see why deej is trying to say it's not the most relevant criticism (or at least not an argument-winning one). having to listen to the album several times made me pretty impressed with the command keef has over what he does (though i personally find that a total drag sonically, apart from "i don't like", which i've caved to)

j0rdan i'm curious if your position is "yes keef is a rhythmically sloppy rapper but i like that" or if it's closer to deej's

― some dude, Wednesday, January 2, 2013 11:22 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i thought we already established that we were talking about two completely different things

or are you still confusing his 'sloppy' style w/ the actual rhythmic pattern he's using

i refuse to read that noisey review

the "two different things" was about keef's rapping style vs. an engineer putting kanye's verse in the wrong place (???????). forget the word "sloppy," let's be nice and say "rhythmically unique," does that work?

no, the difference which i pretty neatly delineated upthread is the diff between his delivery being slightly 'off' the beat & the actual underlying rhythm that he's following which is fairly precise

rhythmically irresponsible

j0rdan i'm curious if your position is "yes keef is a rhythmically sloppy rapper but i like that" or if it's closer to deej's

― some dude, Wednesday, January 2, 2013 12:22 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

honestly i rarely think a rapper is "off-beat"... my mind just doesn't register that stuff often if ever. like, when you used to say that webbie was the most off-beat rapper in the game or w/e i just couldn't hear it. obviously i'm more on deej's side of things as it pertains to keef... i think there's some virtuosity to what he does but mostly i just think he's throwing things out there and messing around a bit. i apply the portrait of him as a cocky and self-directed kid to his music in the sense that he tries a lot of things that most rappers wouldn't/wouldn't think of. i don't necessarily think all of it works but i will say that i think keef is at his least interesting when he's being the most "normal". i also think he's smarter than a large swath of people want to give him credit for but applies to lots of hated on trap rappers.

no, the difference which i pretty neatly delineated upthread is the diff between his delivery being slightly 'off' the beat & the actual underlying rhythm that he's following which is fairly precise

― D-40, Wednesday, January 2, 2013 12:44 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you'll also notice upthread that nobody else has really agreed that this distinction exists no matter how well you think you made your point.

pretty much all of keef's flows have syllables grouped into clear 8th notes, 16th notes, etc. if you transcribed the lyrics and recited them, they'd fit over the beat very neatly. he just doesn't deliver them so they land on the beat neatly. i don't feel like that indicates the existence of an "underlying rhythm," whatever that means.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

that's a typical four four beat. keef's vocals might start on one, or the + of 4, but they might be at the beginning of one, or the end of one, which makes them feel slightly "off" (Gucci, most obviously, did this too).

By 'underlying rhythm' i just mean the actual space w/in the subdivision of the beat that the notes land -- if it lands at the beginning of '1' or the end of '1' its still implying '1'

like, do you understand the concept of swing, at all?

^^this is a sincere q btw

late period Andre 3k is to me a clear example of a rapper going deliberately 'off the beat,' dragging behind and catching up, darting around the 1 with jazzy embellishments. not to say that his way is the only way to do that, but it feels to me like Keef is not doing that at all, there is no swing, it's all pretty rigidly segmented, just not executed with a steady hand.

one of the most interesting flows on finally rich for me is "no tomorrow," where during the verses keef starts his bars before the 1 and finishes before the 2 hits and his next bar before the 3 starts and finishes before the 4 hits... really odd pocket he's in, makes it feel like he can't get his lines out fast enough, there's quite literally "no tomorrow" for him, he's gotta get his raps out asap fuck a beat

We was sittin’ there watchin’ the stage. Waitin’ for the man they called Chief Keef to come out and do his thing. It was me and my four droogs. Them bein’ Peter, Georgio and Dim; Dim being really Dim.

‘Round an hour’d passed and the place was packed straight through to the back. I’d just dropped some dollars for the Best Buy exclusive version of Finally Rich six months back. Now was the time, this was the place. The Harambee House. Chicago. 2012.

I was only there for the first night, see, but them cats at DatPiff just made my life complete. They put out a few mixtapes of all that sound. Keef put out those nights. But you know my type, man. Can’t afford to eat, let alone spend some heavy cash on internet. So I only got the essential. Finally Rich is one disc, makin’ it cheaper than an iPhone. And you only get the best stuff.

Man, the opening beauty of “Love Sosa” It’s like a dream I had: I floated on the River Nile, smokin’ some fresh weed, relaxin’. But I ain’t ever gonna see the Nile anyhow. This track’s as close as I come, and it’s close enough. Best of the best, though, has gotta be “Laughin' to the Bank.” It’s only when you listen to a perfect old rap tune like this that you realize how much "trap rave" is derived from this music. Keef takes it to heaven and back with some style, man. Some richness, daddy. It’s a sad thing his career was cut short by them jaws o’ label fuckery.

Shit, cat. It don’t make a difference. The man produced enough good music to last me a lifetime. This Finally Rich thing’s just another example of the genius of Keef.

--D-40

that was a pretty good Mad TV sketch, props.

actually he's pretty consistently hitting the 1, but finishing each line before the 2 hits, it's so strange.

late period Andre 3k is to me a clear example of a rapper going deliberately 'off the beat,' dragging behind and catching up, darting around the 1 with jazzy embellishments. not to say that his way is the only way to do that, but it feels to me like Keef is not doing that at all, there is no swing, it's all pretty rigidly segmented, just not executed with a steady hand.

― some dude, Wednesday, January 2, 2013 11:59 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw i think as far as his actual 'swing' goes rtc is right that it's currently at an unresolvable tension b/w 'intentional' & 'side effect of emergence' (if im mischaracterizing he can correct)

but again, w/ this particular example, what was interesting to me rhythmically was where he was deciding to slot each eight note in that 4-beat measure as opposed to where he's trying to place it on each individual beat

you should share these ideas on twitter

im glad weve reached the resolved state of empty zinging

not as happy as the rest of us are