Finally Rich - Chief Keef

"You already know how to rap. Now rap wrong and make THAT right": Keef D-Bags Thread 2013

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M-OqF8-N-Dw#

like this is one of the first coltrane recordings and you can here him pushing a bit compared to the others but only slightly, this was a wilbur hardin record

god y'all some bop boys

there were individual jazz players who had idiosyncratic styles from day one tho. t monk is an extreme example

but anyway w/ jazz i was just talking about swing that basically every artist does, where the shit is written out as if it's right on the beat but if a classical musician plays it it sounds stiff and if a jazz artist plays it, it's actually slightly behind or w/e on the beat

I'm guilty of this too but comparing rap or rock artists to jazz dudes is always kind of a stretch because most rock or rap dudes are basically pants pooping infants, musically speaking, compared to jazz dudes

Except chief keef, of course

i'm not making an argument about anything musically except how the artist finds a rhythmic pocket on the beat. what is wrong w/ you guys

http://media.mediapost.com/images/inline_image/2012/10/11/Hot-pockets-B.jpg

It's an analogy that comes across as a legitimization because it doesn't really fit, cf.

The one thing about the jazz/keef things that breaks down for me is that free jazz dudes who were challenging rhythmic conventions were all schooled in the classics and completely technically adept enough to knock out sets of standards, where it's not like keef could like knock out a Do or Die type verse

― fart the police (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, January 12, 2013 3:12 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I understand what you're trying to say, deej, but it feels like an overstatement because you don't really need jazz to say it . Rap has been about finding individual styles and flows since day one, or at least day two or three.

but anyway w/ jazz i was just talking about swing that basically every artist does, where the shit is written out as if it's right on the beat but if a classical musician plays it it sounds stiff and if a jazz artist plays it, it's actually slightly behind or w/e on the beat

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Saturday, January 12, 2013 3:30 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that is not the same thing as what matt is talking about

Except a lot of the record he's just flat out sloppy and it's got nothing to do with that

i dunno i'm listening to 'diamonds' right now & it sounds pretty in control to me. as we discussed upthread, this isn't like when lil b would just completely disregard the beat

and as rtc said it's not an either-or thing (control vs. chaos), there's def a chaotic-ness to his style but it's not completely out of control

No, but would you really say that about, say, Thelonious Monk? "There's def a chaotic-ness to his style but it's not completely out of control" - a lot seems to hinge on the "completely" there. The sentence would pretty much mean something completely different. I'm all for sloppiness and the will to try new things as great-reasons-for-breakthrough-in-art, but again I'm not sure if the jazz analogy is the best.

*sigh*

ditto, lol. I'm sympathetic to the cause, I just don't see the great illumination here. I definitely agree that if you gave the same lyrics to, say, Wale, they wouldn't sound equally good. Keef's flow/delivery/off-ness definitely contributes to his shit sounding good. The question is how big of a point this is for you.

I'd still love to read something perceptive on Keef's vowels and consonants though. As I've said before, his o and a game is unparalleled in rap - and the drawn out wovels and swallowing of consonants soften the rapping in a really interesting way that runs counter to what is often referred to as his "steely, unemotional style". It also merges with the slowed down trap sound of young chop in a way that brings out its undulation and the way it surges in different ways than, say, Luger or Lil Lodi does. And I'm not only talking about young chop's production here - much the same happens on/with the citgo beat.

is lex luger over?

http://cdn.fashionista.com/uploads/2013/01/over.png?9d7bd4

Him being a big thing is definitely over but his career is not.

what has he even done this/last year?

mike will definitely been eating his lunch for a long minute now

but anyway w/ jazz i was just talking about swing that basically every artist does, where the shit is written out as if it's right on the beat but if a classical musician plays it it sounds stiff and if a jazz artist plays it, it's actually slightly behind or w/e on the beat

do you have some examples of this? Jean-Yves Thibaudet's Bill Evans disc is pretty dope=

xp right. it's crazy how fast him & waka just disappeared. as much as i loved them the reshuffle was one of my favourite things about rap this year, not that they were replaced by anything so fundamentally different but it definitely feels like someone cracked open a window after the oversaturation of that sound the past 2 years

what has he even done this/last year?

― flopson, Sunday, January 13, 2013 12:45 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Luger_discography#2012

He has been pretty busy it seems. Not too many huge hits but quite a few bangers in there.

ya, not bad. crazy that he only produced one juicy j song this year (if that`s true)

deej can you ysi me chi bangin comps if u got any?

hit me on teh google chat

i think i added u ages ago but i never see u on? sent u a msg i think

first initial last name at gee mail dot com

ya thats the 1, weird

http://www.complex.com/music/2013/01/chief-keef-taken-into-custody-by-chicago-police

http://cdnl.complex.com/assets/CHANNEL_IMAGES/MUSIC/2013/01/content/keef.jpg

simonandfatfunkel ...

first time pitchfork has actually sent someone to jail?

I was thinking: Vice almost did McAffee in, now Pitchfork does Keef in...

omg @ pitchfork

this was clearly a really stupid decision by pitchfork but it also shows how reckless the super hands off approach that keef's people have with him is

avoiding Pepsi-ready timidity comes at a cost, I suppose

how do you think a 'hands on' approach would work, exactly

i mean i know it's way more fun to just be like, "oh the adults around him are just bad people" but that really doesn't quite capture it

on a purely mercenary level, they're inept

i don't think they're bad people, but i think based on your piece that the people around him can do a better job of helping him not sabotage his career. throwing your hands up and going "eh, he's gonna do the opposite of whatever we say!" isn't a good way to handle things imo

who said they're throwing up their hands? they are inept but who exactly COULD step in & manage him? who would he let 'manage' him in the traditional sense?

i feel like this is one of those situations where you think you know what you would do, but it's kind of rich to be sitting back armchair-managing the whole situation w/out observing first hand

and this isn't in any way a defense of his mgr's, i basically think 'trust none' is probably closer to the way a lot of people in the situation are operating

saying that the people around him could be doing better is not armchair managing

what Pitchfork did was probably far further out of the realm of what music press usually does or should do than anything his management has done

i mean we're asking someone to run interference on someone else's unprecedented monumentally bad idea

man you guys really don't respect chief keef's intelligence do you

it takes a village to keep a guy from being filmed at a shooting range while on probation