Simon Reynolds - C or D

not particularly, criticism-wise. his recent "free folk" piece in the voice was fucking terrible, no surprise. he seems like a nice enough dude otherwise, though. i wouldn't mind reading his new book.

Do you ever listen to KMEL? Where the fuck are you from? Yeah, yeah, yeah, "synth beats" blah blah blah. Frontline & Balance. Keak Da Sneak. Turf Talk. E-40. Mac Dre RIP. Too $hort. etc, etc...the political issue is too deep for me to get into right now, but you may have a point on the corporate tip. After all, Davey D got bumped from KMEL for talking too much shit, but still.

metal shows

See, that's your problem right there. Why don't you come cruise the E14 with me so we can pretend we're black together. Then we'll go to Sweet Jimmy's and get stomped in the parking lot.

Get Stoopid

At least we stopped obsessing over Simon Reynolds.

its stupid. yes on paper you can say 'hey kool and the gang sample and sung hook, its the same two songs' but if you hear them, its obvious theres a world of difference.

Why is it stupid?

Both are sampled from old cuts the 70s and 80s hip hop d.j's (from Flash to Kid Capri) used to play and both are on Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilations. Both Mase and L.L were smooth rappers (no homo !!!) making cuts for the ladies but which still bumped enough for guys to be able to appreciate them. "Feel so good", like "around the way girl", is a straight loop of a classic hip hop break with Mase talking slick over the top and a sung hook. There is no "world of difference" whatsoever.

if you think ll's rapping style or lyrics are anywhere near the same as mase's lazy mush mouth blabberings, or think that marley marl's beat on around the way girl is like the paper thin, blanded out to the point of funkless-ness of mase's song, that's nice for you. feel so good makes around the way girl sound positivly hardcore.

by the way, i dont think around the way girl does sample kool and the gang - always thought it was keni burke and mary jane girls.

seriously, i get what youre saying - both have sung hooks, both R&B flavoured, but feel so good was fluffy pop stuff compared to around the way girl IMHO. around the way was still soulful and funky, feel so good sounded bland as anything when it came out.

Never ceases to amaze me how these corny white rap fans and backpackers like tracks like "around the way girl" by LL and the smooth jams people like Grand Puba or Pete Rock & C.L Smooth made but somehow convince themselves that tracks like "one more chance" remix and "mo' money mo' problems" by Biggie or "feel so good" by Mase are some "flossy glossy sellout rap".

Hilarious.

stretch and bobbito must be some corny fucks too cos last time i saw stretch armstrong play, he wasnt playing hip hop and he had a 'hip hop is dead' card on his turntables. bobbito doesnt play new hip hop anymore either. he must be a corny white hip hop fan. masta ace says he doesnt really feel modern rap or didnt much care for the bad boy stuff - he must be a corny white hip hop fan too. k-def thinks production is soft these days. another white cornball. who else? large professor didnt like any of that stuff. not even the lox liked it, and they were ON bad boy. they must all be corny white fuckers. keep on pulling out the race card and generalising dude, as if its only corny white fucks who thought the bad boy stuff was lame.

Hiphopfan must be British. I've had the misfortune of living in the U.K the last two years and have met far too many of his type. I don't see any difference between me making generalizations about white rap fans and you making generalizations about commercial rap and the people that enjoy it. At least i admit my racism.

Again, Mase was a hardcore rapper who ended up making commercial music just like LL. Puffy's whole production steez was taking the old r&b and funk cuts he used to hear when attending the Brucie Bee and Kid Capri parties at the rooftop and then looping them, just like Marley and Pete Rock did. I can't see any difference between their commercial tracks whatsoever. In the 80s everyone from Spoonie Gee to Slick Rick used to make club records. I can't see how you backpackers can claim that Mase isn't "real hop hip" (a despicable term) when the music he and Bad Boy in their prime made is far closer to actual, ya know, "real hip hop" than all this earnest backpacker nonsense you guys seem to think is authentic.

Strech has always been a cornball, Bobbito is cool but put out a lot of shitty rap on Fondle 'Em like Cage and the like, Masta Ace is old and bitter and boring, K. Def is my man, Large Professor fell off, The Lox were better on Bad Boy than they have been since.

there more to production than fucking 'taking the old r&b and funk cuts [...] and then looping them'. if you knew this you might be able to tell apart the records made by two different hip-hop producers.

Good god, you're a fucking moron. Stick to Company Flow you limey faggot.

Again, i just can't understand how you limey idiots can't seem to grasp that rap has always been club music made for the dancefloor. Baffles me. Back in '98 you'd hear "feel so good" in clubs in N.Y next to "ebonics" by Big L and "superthug" by Noreaga and it was all just good rap.

mase WAS a hardcore rapper in children of the corn, but he totally changed his style when he signed with bad boy. are people supposed to be happy about that? i dont hate club records, never said i did, i just dont like lowest common denominator club records, big dumb club records. just cos a record is a club record, doesnt mean all club records are the same (and im a huge lil jon and ludacris fan). not sure why you think that is. its like saying that just cos talib makes suposedly conscious music, i should like him as much as i did KRS, when talib is actually lame, and his music is shit.

and i dont like backpacker music. so get off your 'authentic' high horse. i like kanye, diplomats, bun b, slim thug, little brother, . but most hip hop these days bores me. underground AND commercial. the music is pretty much stagnant lyrically. its only musically its doing interesting things. and even then, most of it sounds lightweight (a result of everyone trying to get on the radio in the late 90s, which has stuck with the music), theres little heaviness to the sonics anymore (apart from some stuff like lil jon or whoever). hip hop isnt trying to push the boundaries anymore cos its won, its mainstream.

fuck what you think of stretch, bobbito, masta ace or whoever, the fact is only about 10% of the old school arent old and bitter and about the same number have been able to survive when things change. im not mad at that, older rappers always get left behind. but it doesnt mean their points arent valid.

the funny thing is that you think anything with a core black audience is automatically authentic, when rappers dont give a shit about the core audience anymore, theyre more interested in selling to middle america.

"Yes, but that has been the basis of NYC rap production since 1986."

man, listen to i dunno, rakims my melody then listen to clipses grindin and tell me which one hits harder. my melody fucking POUNDS, grindin was made for radio. hip hop used to be about saying 'fuck the radio', now its all about pleasing the radio. for me at least, that doesnt really do much.

Yep. "1 thing" by Amerie and "crazy in love" by Beyonce are hip hop beats. Certianly more hip hop than what passes as underground rap these days.

there's no way of telling difft trax apart?

Um, im not sure where i said anything like this.

idiot.

Yes you are. Took us a while you you to admit it, though.

It's great when you're a N.Y native being told about rap by cretinous British guys with hilarious username puns based on soccer players who've probably never been to N.Y or an N.Y club whose criticisms consist of "OMG it's popular and flossy it suxz!!"

man, listen to i dunno, rakims my melody then listen to clipses grindin and tell me which one hits harder. my melody fucking POUNDS, grindin was made for radio. hip hop used to be about saying 'fuck the radio', now its all about pleasing the radio. for me at least, that doesnt really do much.

The Clipse aren't even from N.Y you shitbird. And "grindin'" is fucking amazing even if it was, OMG!, made for radio.

That's far more creative than Cannibus rapping about verbally decapitating gelatinous rappers, yo !

1. Biggie-juicy.

2. Biggie-hypnotize.

3. Mase-feel so good.

4. Craig Mack, Biggie etc-flava in ya ear remix.

5. Puffy, The Lox, Lil' Kim, Biggie-all about the benjamins.

6. Biggie-warning.

7. Black Rob-whoa

8. Puffy, Black Rob, Mark Curry-bad boy 4 life.

9. Biggie-who shot ya?

10. Puffy-diddy.

He was also the first rapper to give the Neptunes a shot with "lookin' at me" on "harlem world" before they blew up a little later with "superthug" by Noreaga.

http://www.hiphopflash.com/img/contenido/B.jpg

You HAVE to include "flava in ya ear" remix in a Bad Boy singles top ten.

I agree with what you're saying but the thing that made Bad Boy truely great was that they made great street records as well as club records and even managed to turn hardcore tracks like "flava in ya ear", "warning", "it's all about the benjamins", "victory" and "whoa" into songs which were huge club records and pop hits.