Rockist Hip-Hop?

As for Can-Ox and cLOUDEAD, I like 'em so I presume it is okay to like 'em (unless I'm not okay--oh no).

This is what they call 'backpacker's hip-hop,' eh? I don't think it's rockist so much as not confrontational or controversial. The beats seem to skewer closer to bedroom stylee indie-approved electronic genres rather than anything that could be considered a floor filler -- more American antidiscoism? Most of it also seems to be somehow aracial, made by whites, or has 'empowering' lyrics (black star, common, mos def and such) for whatever that's worth*.

* worth mentioning I mean. Maybe it's all indie liberal guilt!

No ones had a brand spanking new idea in, uh well, hmmmn. . . a really long time, as far as I can tell.

Rockist hip hop would include stuff like "The Blueprint" I'd imagine, so the whole "OK to like" attitude is more indie than rockist isn't it? And the Mos Def thing is pretty accurate I think... the activist/intellectual stance is appealing to the indie mindset, although some still feel alienated by the blackness of it all.

Different clubs and contexts though - commercial hip hop music is pitched at urban dancefloors, backpacker hip hop music at clubber bedrooms (among others).

Which is a largely an aesthetic difference, not a racial/class one.

I'm not going to argue that there isn't an element of elitism involved here (and I suppose you can make an attendent class argument here) I just fail to see a huge race/class-based element. Seems no different than old school punk fans not liking top 40 pop-punk or purist Detroit techno fans not liking big beat or whatever.

Who has the best beard in beard-hop?

and also to a lesser extent run dmc

And the whole turntablist DJ competition thing is based on Claptonian values, and a 15yr old yngwie malmsteen would have 1200's instead of a stratocaster.

But the mainstream vs. undie/hip-hop vs. trip-hop/commercial vs. backpacker debate is so so so useless and boring. Whichever side you're on. Can there be a less interesting opposition by which to categorize music at this point?

Prefuse = collaborated with member of Sea and Cake

(Remind me why we're shocked that indie kids buy these records?)

AC/DC. Surely.

I don't dread Automator producing Beck so much as I wonder how the hell the whole album will sound since other parts of it are being produced by Nigel Godrich. So it's gonna be half Mutations, half Beckomator? Erm.

Many aesthetic differences are racial/class ones. That is, racial/class characteristics are often experienced aesthetically, as more/less beautiful, more/less exciting, more/less cool, more/less glamorous, more/less dangerous, etc., and are consciously liked/disliked for the "aesthetic" reason more often than for the class reason. But nonetheless, the distinctions often follow class lines. Sometimes new class differences are created around aesthetic differences; e.g., around punk, metal, hip-hop. That is, hip-hop isn't just "urban," but a particular type of urban.

Yeah I was confused by that response as well - my point was an entirely racial/class based one.... ie. backpacker/instrumental hip hop is pitched at middle class white dance kids who, already having dance music thank you very much, are looking for stuff to play in their bedrooms. In contrast for a black American - for whom urban music forms the majority of their music experiences (FEAR MY GENERALISATIONS!) - hip hop fulfills the social/physical function that white kids (and black gays) might use dance music for.

Maybe this is why Timbaland has been so crucial to the crossover of commercial rap into white critical consciousness - the production intricacy allows for the music to be received using the class-motivated aesthetic model of the bedroom/ headphones. Thus there is still a lingering reluctance among some sectors to engage with hip hop as a dancefloor/populist formation where the edifice of that model remains. On the other hand my little (white) sister understands perfectly, perhaps because she's not old enough or cashed-up enough to go clubs and rock concerts, so the urban-dominated charts form the backbone of her reception of music in the social/physical sphere.

2. By "backpacker/instrumental" I meant Anticon/Dan the Automator, not El-P who a) I don't think fits and b) I like a lot anyway. cf. RJD2 who I have never heard but I bet fits my argument.

3. "dancefloor/populist" = these words used deliberately as opposed to "ghetto" or "street" - we're talking about different things here, different contexts *and* different music often (eg. please listen to the defiantly un-ghetto, un-street "Be Faithful" by Crooklyn Clan and Fatman Scoop; a record more explicitly designed for clubs than any I can think of in any music genre ever).

I had a longer elaboration but the computer just wiped it. If you read it again with that in mind though and still don't understand it I'll explain further.

If it signifies disdain for the street and it signifies clever, then maybe it also signifies escape.

I went to an El-P show in Philly. Most everybody there were white college kids and/or backpacker types. The opening act (who I didn't recognize - not on Def Jux though) rapped about blunts 'n' bitches quite well IMHO, and got no reaction. El-P comes on and raps about Ataris and references Back To The Future and gets all emo about his family issues. Aesop Rock drops lines like 'life's not a bitch, life is a beautiful woman' like a rap-rock Promise Ring. Now, I love these guys, but I fail to see how their popularity with the indie set has anything to do with the mainstream media - seems like some simple mathematics to me.

Also: isn't an indie kid going to inherently seek out the 'indie' hip- hop labels by force of habit?

*coughcoughTimbalandcough*

They should make like Will in the Fresh Prince and carry their schoolbooks around in a pizza box so nobody knows they're studying.

Yeah but the reverse is true - when kids talk about how they listen to "indie/underground hip hop", they're often placing the artists as the inheritors to a lineage of the "true spirit" of hip hop => the "true spirit" of *blackness* (whether it's afrofuturism or Common's soulful realism etc.). And anyway "backpacker" may have been pejorative once but it just sounds genre-descriptive to me now. And there seriously are a lot of backpacks. (I guess El- P might indeed be backpacker - my doubts stem from the dislike the owner of the local IDM/post-rock/backpacker store has for him and Can Ox - "they're too angry" he says. Can Ox especially come too close for him to the usual "spitting" of gangsta).

"*coughcoughTimbalandcough*"

Dave's good point notwithstanding, this was why I mentioned Timbaland before. There's a *very good reason* why Timbaland's getting such cross-cultural cred. I doubt that would be extended to, say, a prime Puff Daddy-produced track (though he deserves a fair amount of praise himself.).