rolling stupid fruity crazy swag thread

i mean rap is a form where the artists are totally in dialogue w/ their own context all the time -- you cant just be like 'oh i just listen to it for the pretty sounds' when yr rapper is distinctly rapping "LIVE ON STAGE THE HOES YELLING MY NAME" -- not saying u have to BELIEVE him but if u want to talk w/ me about rap you better take rappers on that level where what they are saying enters into the discussion

i dunno man, i can't entirely parse that.
obvs i'm paying attention to lyrics and "what they are saying" but that's not the same as seeing it through the eyes of the world at large or of a rap blog in particular
anyways i mostly just click the youtubes and dl songs so my overarching context is "somebody thinks this is pretty good"
longer more in-depth artist-specific ILM conversations lose me a bit, but that's hardly rap specific
but i'm the first to say i'm a dilettante in the NEW RAP OF THE MOMENT (and most all musical) fields; i'm trying to hear as much of whatever's out there and that can mean i have limited interest in trying to drill deep to things that are not ringing a bell

like the distinction between jacka and pill for me is that pill spurred instant interest on a first listen to an album and jacka was somewhat less so. I do like 'all over me' a lot though and will be trying again.

wont be right
iller clip
addiction

― Kyrgyham (surfboard dudes get wiped out, totally), Wednesday, April 14, 2010 7:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah it should go w/out saying that any of these could go into my top ten at any pt

i agree with rev to a point -- obv i like shit that pretty much spans the spectrum of popularity -- but what im trying to say in that difficult-to-parse para. is that the way we as fans & the artists as well talk about their music both outside it & within is v. clearly i think all related to issues of 'popularity' & purpose and how artist x should be more popular & artist y less so (or less celebrated, or more accurately described, or whatever) & that this is what 99% of the discussion around here/ disagreements come down to.

i also just think its important to have some perspective on how popular artist are w/ other people, because music is social

i mean especially ESPECIALLY if u want to write about music, rev. Who do you want to write for? writers writing for writers is a waste, imo, x1000 when it comes to music writing

is currensy really a borderline star? that sounds kind of absurd

Yeah, how are we defining "borderline" star?

Also, if anyone's bothered to listen to those B.o.B snippets, "The Kids" sounds like a complete swipe of Vampire Weekend's "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance."

ppl know curren$y because of wayne, and he raps w/ a looot of different folks -- he has cross-country appeal, is def one of the broader-demographic'd rappers out there, is lyrical but has that wiz khalifa audience (noz mentions that the kids he talked to mentioned hearing about wiz cuz he worked with currensy, who worked with wayne)

& heres something we can all enjoy !!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTtW7eHjyPo

DJ Crazy Toones & WC - Frontline prod. by Terrace Martin

XDDDDDDDDDD

This is sickness.

Five minutes of pure spitting. Wow. That's all there is to say: wow.

i mean especially ESPECIALLY if u want to write about music, rev. Who do you want to write for? writers writing for writers is a waste, imo, x1000 when it comes to music writing

― The BoyBoy Big HOO$ (deej), Wednesday, April 14, 2010 10:26 PM Bookmark

Of course when writing about musicians, one has to relate them to the broader contexts within which they operate, but when listening to something for my own pleasure, it's not a huge concern.

Unfortunately, my own music experience is currently not very social. I rarely talk to anyone about rap offline, except for my best friend, who mostly hears about stuff through me. Basically most of the people I currently know who are into rap are herbs who look at me sideways for ever having liked Jay-Z. Hard to sell those types on Waka Flocka Flame, you know? If this detracts from my abilities as a music writer, not much I can do about it.

yeah i have no idea of what's popular cuz we don't have rap radio here \(o_O)/

We have rap radio here but it never plays rap.

Unless B.o.B. featuring some Vanessa Carlton lookin boy counts.

thx for the jacka/husalah top 10s deej!

my sense of rappers' popularity is all screwed up anyway, so the ones who grab me are those with an easily identifiable thing they do beyond engaging with their context - vocal or lyrical personality, basically - which is kind of an intangible, case-by-case quality. a lot of the rappers i've got super into over the years i hadn't particularly noticed the first 4-5 times i heard them, and then something clicks. but i literally have no idea of which rappers are popular on the charts vs popular on the street vs popular here; everyone i talk to about hip-hop (you guys, the few IRL people i know who care) cherrypicks their favourites. when i realised b.o.b. was at no 2 or whatever i just went UHHHH WHAT because not one person i know ever mentions him (inc here!).

i get the impression that "popularity" is increasingly hard to get a handle on even if you're in the right social context, anyway - cf noz tweeting about nicki minaj the other night, and it seemed that no one could even agree whether she had buzz around her or not.

i've never been the "report what's popular" kind of journalist - predicting the Next Big Thing is a mug's game imo - but "report what's good" seems to do me well enough. still proud that my featurette on minaj last may was basically the first time her name was mentioned in a UK publication, and now look where she is.

'Frontline' is a good time.

DUB C HOL. LEE. SHIT.

that's the hottest shit i've heard in fucking forever!

hot damn.

around 4:37 or so he almost verges into a OG west coast version of "broken language"

unreal.

YYYYEEEEHAW

http://www.skicarstunt.com/gl_jump2_w.jpg

damn, son.

New Yelawolf, from some Cypress Hill tribute mixtape
http://www.mediafire.com/?jzyotq1zxkz

lol i never realised husalah's name was as in hustler - had been pronouncing it as though it was an arabic name

some of the beats on this mob trial comp are seriously O_O - happy to hear the hyperactivity i loved about hyphy still latent in bay area rap

lol hus-allah

dying @ hus-allah

lol i never realised husalah's name was as in hustler - had been pronouncing it as though it was an arabic name

i thought this for weeks! and thought it was a v pretty name on some "i might call my kid husalah", the penny dropping was a let-down

jacka if it's a girl

it is Hus allah, it's both joe

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LEghlft43kU/Sdu_iqJPYjI/AAAAAAAAAbc/nzpNlEqK7CI/s400/790327.jpg

HOOS-allah

They pronounce it pretty straightforward here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yl7jSiWWOk&fmt=18

Any suggestions on where to start with Mob Figaz as a group, or are the solo albums the only ones worth hearing?

I rarely talk to anyone about rap offline, except for my best friend, who mostly hears about stuff through me. Basically most of the people I currently know who are into rap are herbs who look at me sideways for ever having liked Jay-Z. Hard to sell those types on Waka Flocka Flame, you know?

describes my situation pretty much exactly, except my one best friend is getting pretty exasperated with ignant rap, (*sighs* again with the oj da juiceman dude?) everyone loves plugging my i-pod into the car speakers when we drive around but it would never occur to any of them to listen to any of it independently or in any other context.

i had the impression it was different in america, though. i live in canada so i get pretty much no exposure to rap zeitgeist besides drake or kid cudi or electro djs doing a milli remixes, i was under the impression that this shit got spread around. like not necessarily big krit, but boosie and jeezy-level dudes must be on the radio somewhere, right? to people here stupid fruity crazy swag rap is as much of a hipster fetish as noise rock.

I live in the Northwest, which culturally might as well be Canada.

It's worth noting that Jeezy, who does get played on the radio here, is much more popular than Boosie.

http://www.complex.com/blog_galleries/style-history-the-diplomats/

i can't even imagine how many no homos and pauses the complex staff is gonna try and shoehorn into that piece

there's hardly any text in fact, but they missed out not using my dn for a headline

The Game kind of murders "400 Bars."

Between this and that new single from yesterday, I'm almost ready to be excited about a Game album for the first time in my life.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X936OORX

i'm not sure I've ever actually heard The Game murder 16 bars.

he plead down to involuntary manslaughter

lmfao

i've never been the "report what's popular" kind of journalist - predicting the Next Big Thing is a mug's game imo - but "report what's good" seems to do me well enough. still proud that my featurette on minaj last may was basically the first time her name was mentioned in a UK publication, and now look where she is.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Thursday, April 15, 2010 3:18 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah i agree w/ this obv but another way to think of it is that when u are writing about music you are trying to communicate what things you think while hearing it that you think other people will identify with -- much as the artist has an audience, you do too. so being like, "i can see how this can connect with people outside of a, b, c" is interesting to me -- its such a difft way of thinking about music than trad music writing focusing on always being a reaction to 'the mainstream' or 'corporate rock' or whatever else

Dude, I'm pretty sure all of the music writers who post itt try to do that.

i didnt say they werent rev. im pointing out that imo, it matters how popular things are -- not to quality per se, but to how u write about stuff

Of course.

above a certain level, sure, but few of the artists we're discussing have actually reached that level - popularity becomes an interesting thing when a rapper gets the kind of traction gucci got last year, or minaj is getting now. not whatever husalah or yelawolf are getting! that's more buzz from the uh cognoscenti, which would indicate quality.

basically, we in canada and seattle and the UK really don't have any idea how popular rapper X is vs rapper Y beneath, say, the current minaj level, and to an extent have to take that on faith, but it doesn't really factor into how we hear their music

the only 16 bars that the game ever murdered was SNICKERS BARS on HALLOWEEN

"300 Bars" is classic for all time imo