Finally Rich - Chief Keef

Old LEP is completely frightening shit actually
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BrI1Gu3XzU

the 1st rapper w/ count is Larro, who was killed in 2006

anyway, as sort of a powerpoint summation of what I was saying to j0rd, the conversation that I find interesting about chief keef (rap, morality, reality, etc.) is also one that's really tough to have, esp on ILX, so why not just talk bout aesthetics and make fart jokes instead, ya mean?

you never converted anyone on the 'rhythm' thing man, never will

― trey songza (some dude), Friday, January 11, 2013 6:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jordan (non-j0rdan) confirmed everything I said. keep dreaming

anyway, as sort of a powerpoint summation of what I was saying to j0rd, the conversation that I find interesting about chief keef (rap, morality, reality, etc.) is also one that's really tough to have, esp on ILX, so why not just talk bout aesthetics and make fart jokes instead, ya mean?

― 乒乓, Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:21 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If not here, then where? It's an important discussion.

he confirmed that "he's usually not in the pocket in the traditional sense and almost always rushes/falls ahead of the beat" and that he was so far off the beat on the big lean song that he agreed it could be an engineer issue. high praise.

you are still completely incapable of understanding the different between the macro & micro rhythmic issues

he is 'offbeat' but that doesn't mean he's not still hitting a rhythm. jazz artists are 'off beat' all the time (rushing or falling behind), i mean that's the nature of swing

but one can have a masterful command of rhythm and still swing.

I tend to think of it as two traditions. There's the tradition of transcendence wher ethe rapper overcomes the troubles of his upbringing - mainly through his ability to rap well (most obvious on, say, Kendrick's album and Starshipz & Rocketz) and then there's the non-transcendent tradition, exemplified by Gucci for instance, where the rapper is totally immersed in his surroundings and has no intention of getting out - just to get more money, cars, drugs, etc. And then there's Jeezy who is sort of inbetween those traditions - especially after he got inspirational - and that's how all the real hiphop guys came to love him. Keef seems even more immersed than Gucci, caught up in a cycle of violence and even embodying that cycle and its lack of "tomorrow". But the point, to me at least, is that it's still a matter of aesthetics and tradition. Not only of course. But we do meet Keef chiefly as a rapper, not a killer. We're not reviewing his crimes.

― future kendricks (longneck), Friday, January 11, 2013 6:19 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is a really weird construct

anyway, hope you're happy j0rd that after all that I just got deej and ship arguing about hemiola again

we're not arguing, al is either completely ignorant or is willfully misrepresenting me.

deej it doesn't strike as odd at all that the song you initially brought up as an exemplary rhythmic performance, you're now totally committed to the theory that an incompetent engineer mislaid the vocal track and made it a trainwreck?

i mean every post you've made on this subject, you've basically admitted "well I can't hear any of these rhythmic nuances you guys hear, but if they exist this is definitely the reason"

i'm NOT totally committed to that -- from the VERY FIRST TIME i talked about it in this thread i said it was either mislaid by an engineer or he's got a masterful sense of rhythm because of how he's entering at an unexpected time on the beat

again, misrepresenting my argument

i mean every post you've made on this subject, you've basically admitted "well I can't hear any of these rhythmic nuances you guys hear, but if they exist this is definitely the reason"

― trey songza (some dude), Friday, January 11, 2013 6:33 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i NEVER said anything remotely related to this!~

HOW ARE YOU SO INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING A REALLY SIMPLE CONCEPT JORDAN EXPLAINED THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN OFFBEAT FLOW (MICRO) AND ACTUAL RHYTHMIC PATTERN (MACRO) IN HIS POSTS ITS VERY FUCKING SIMPLE

anyway, hope you're happy j0rd that after all that I just got deej and ship arguing about hemiola again

― 乒乓, Friday, January 11, 2013 7:29 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

well yeah, so it goes

The furthest you can reasonably take this is to say Keef's sense of rhythm complements his style.

The beats etc..

*sigh(

And it's probably best to leave Jazz out of this.

its best if u stfu

one thing that i think is an issue in the keef debate is that it makes much more sense to talk about 'finally rich' from an aesthetic standpoint because its very much wrapped up in its own aesthetics. 'back from the dead' is not that way and from an aesthetic standpoint it has less going on and its influences are much easier to trace out, and the moral issues that keef presents are much more apparent in those early tracks than they are in the ones on 'finally rich'.

the entire debate of what keef represents is more divorced from 'finally rich' than i think a lot of people realize, which is why i thought something like derogatis' review was a trainwreck

Chill. It ain't that serious.

j0rdan you make it sound like some Trout Mask Replica thing inventing his own language. he's making a variation on Soulja Boy rap, and he can't catch the beat with a butterfly net, just like Soulja Boy.

you guys are amazing <3

how can you listen to a track like 'diamonds' & say he cant catch the beat ? he's completely in the pocket

j0rdan you make it sound like some Trout Mask Replica thing inventing his own language. he's making a variation on Soulja Boy rap, and he can't catch the beat with a butterfly net, just like Soulja Boy.

― trey songza (some dude), Friday, January 11, 2013 7:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

wait what are you talking about

that malik yusef video is really great everyone should watch it

i assume you're not talking about the hemiola beat xp

don't recall having any opinion either way about the vox on that one, will have to listen to it again tonight to remind myself what his delivery is like on it

i'm never talking about the hemiola beat itt, it's a red herring

one thing that i think is an issue in the keef debate is that it makes much more sense to talk about 'finally rich' from an aesthetic standpoint because its very much wrapped up in its own aesthetics. 'back from the dead' is not that way and from an aesthetic standpoint it has less going on and its influences are much easier to trace out, and the moral issues that keef presents are much more apparent in those early tracks than they are in the ones on 'finally rich'.

the entire debate of what keef represents is more divorced from 'finally rich' than i think a lot of people realize, which is why i thought something like derogatis' review was a trainwreck

― J0rdan S., Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:42 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this ties in with what I was trying to say. The Finally Rich narrative points toward transcendence in a way that Back From The Dead-Keef didn't - but it's like people don't really believe it. They still primarily identify him with the environment he represents - and I think that's partly why the "he can't rap" argument keeps popping up in the discourse as well, since you are only allowed to transcend the environment if what you are doing can be considered as art rather than as an automated "reflection" of what goes on in your life.

we've all agreed he has an 'off-beat flow' where he occasionally plays w/ how on or off beat he is. other rappers do that sometimes, he does it a lot. an example of a rapper doing it is how eazy e ends "making sure the mutherfuckers don't see me" on 'for the love of $'

this, obv, has nothing to do w/ the big lean song, which was on some next level shit starting each phrase like 2 beats early

like is it just impossible to say maybe he's sloppy? that possibility can not ever be entertained? xp

one thing that i think is an issue in the keef debate is that it makes much more sense to talk about 'finally rich' from an aesthetic standpoint because its very much wrapped up in its own aesthetics. 'back from the dead' is not that way and from an aesthetic standpoint it has less going on and its influences are much easier to trace out, and the moral issues that keef presents are much more apparent in those early tracks than they are in the ones on 'finally rich'.

the entire debate of what keef represents is more divorced from 'finally rich' than i think a lot of people realize, which is why i thought something like derogatis' review was a trainwreck

― J0rdan S., Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:42 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this ties in with what I was trying to say. The Finally Rich narrative points toward transcendence in a way that Back From The Dead-Keef didn't - but it's like people don't really believe it. They still primarily identify him with the environment he represents - and I think that's partly why the "he can't rap" argument keeps popping up in the discourse as well, since you are only allowed to transcend the environment if what you are doing can be considered as art rather than as an automated "reflection" of what goes on in your life.

― future kendricks (longneck), Friday, January 11, 2013 6:53 PM (10 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think he's left it allll behind. and the reason for that is in the malik video (thank you for checking it out m@tt)

like is it just impossible to say maybe he's sloppy? that possibility can not ever be entertained? xp

― trey songza (some dude), Friday, January 11, 2013 6:54 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i thought we all had agreed there was a sloppiness to his style?

1017 new answers

j0rdan you make it sound like some Trout Mask Replica thing inventing his own language. he's making a variation on Soulja Boy rap, and he can't catch the beat with a butterfly net, just like Soulja Boy.

― trey songza (some dude), Friday, January 11, 2013 7:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

well i'm not saying everyone has to agree with me in terms of the quality of what he's doing on the album. but the mixtape and album are clearly different... like there was much more thought and time put into 'finally rich' and how it sounds than and what he does with his voice and choruses than there was on 'back from the dead'. it's just a much, much more intensive album... i mean almost anything would be compared to what they went for with 'back from the dead' but still.

i don't think that keef has totally left all that stuff behind, there's still some scattered lyrics about shooting people in the face and stuff. but it is instructive that the album is called FINALLY RICH, after all. the tone and mood of the album is a lot different than the mixtape. i do think that if you heard the album w/o knowing keef's backstory it wouldn't scan as a remarkably divisive album content-wise.

so i don't know... that question of how far to separate his backstory and old music from the 15 or so songs on 'finally rich' is probably something that tripped me up in my review. but i think it's also muddled the debate a lot because people are talking about different things even if they don't realize it.

did you quote my post on purpose because i wasn't talking about lyrical content at all

oh. frankly i'm not sure what you're talking about.

so i don't know... that question of how far to separate his backstory and old music from the 15 or so songs on 'finally rich' is probably something that tripped me up in my review. but i think it's also muddled the debate a lot because people are talking about different things even if they don't realize it.

― J0rdan S., Friday, January 11, 2013 8:04 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well yeah, it's also kind of weird since if people (and I'm not singling you out in particular) are gonna focus on the organic, grassroots-driven success that keef has had, then it's gonna be because of the more grim earlier stuff. like, if you want to use the CHICAGO YOUTH MOVEMENT as one point to support taking chief keef seriously, you don't get to also totally erase the part of his past that got him that support in the first place by only talking about finally rich.

the earlier stuff wasnt THAT grim either. there were songs like 'true religion jeans' and 'designer' and 'everyday' that had basically no gang banging

if anything the 'realness' of keef that scares so many people makes a lot of 'violent' rap that doesn't have that same angle seem cheaper and more exploitative to me, rather than the other way around.

the earlier stuff wasnt THAT grim either. there were songs like 'true religion jeans' and 'designer' and 'everyday' that had basically no gang banging

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Friday, January 11, 2013 8:29 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

well idk... there were some songs like that but the majority of it is pretty grim

j0rdan you make it sound like some Trout Mask Replica thing inventing his own language. he's making a variation on Soulja Boy rap, and he can't catch the beat with a butterfly net, just like Soulja Boy.

― trey songza (some dude), Friday, January 11, 2013 7:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i agree btw that he's making a variation of soulja boy rap. i just think he's really really good at it and does things on the album that are pretty unique. all i tried to do w/ my review was talk about his place in the matrix of artists like wayne/gucci/soulja/waka/jeezy/future etc. i don't necessarily think that keef himself is a gamechanger or a groundbreaker but that entire group of artists definitely is (and continues to be). i think keef makes songs as good as any of them and is helping carry that baton to whoever the next artist is.

i think he's a dope rapper who made a dope album & part of this clusterfuck is about the timeless ILX activity of eating up boredom by trying to reframe each other's arguments so that you sound less crazy by a narcissism of small differences & then someone says something that is a little past the line & then you characterize it as totally nuts, and someone else says something a little more out there & they get characterized as completely wrong, and it's about trying to get your opponent to 'slip up' and admit something as horrible as liking this more than that perfunctory meek mill album (which i also like, but is about 100x more boring than the keef record)

so now you can't say its important or that he's not doing something new w/out RADICALLY OVERSTATING HIS SIGNIFICANCE COME ON GUYS HE ONLY HAS ONE BILLBOARD HIT AS A SOLO ARTIST even though 8 mo. ago i was saying, 'this guy could do something' & everyone's like HE"LL NEVER GET AN ALBUM OUT but as the mood shifts, so do the goalposts, and people who thought he'd never have a major label debut think he won't sell, and then when he sells they set up this false sales expectations as if those of us who like keef's music were expecting him to do 100k+ without any songs in rotation

shit is silly & sorry but Al is a big part of why this style of argumentation is completely frustrating

the malik yusef vid is great

I agree with all that deej but the thing is you are just as responsible for the clusterfucking as anybody else! me included