ODD FUTURE WOLF GANG KILL THEM ALL

i dont mean anything about the lyrical content -- i mean a lot of older rappers from when i was younger were saying the same shit. i mean em was rapping about putting nine inch nails thru his eyelids or whatever. ppl were rapping about rape (btw -- seriously not trynna be all 'idgi' about this but the way ppl are like 'omg he said rape lol' about this is super weird -- like, i understand its shock humor, fine, but all the 'heeheehee' kinda shit from noz's blog & ppl biting his blog just made me o_O like nabisco's steepled-fingers "verrry interesting" about coco rosie & race) is not a new thing.

its more aesthetically, this stuff feels unfinished, unpolished, kinda lazy. they dont really have rapping 'down'. idk i like my rappers polished & w/ swag & style

& like these beats ... ehh. weird trippy space-y idm-y shit, not my bag

like these stuttery awkward ambient rhythms

i like my rappers polished & w/ swag & style

― NOT FUNNY NEEDS MORE GUCCI (deej), Tuesday, August 31, 2010 8:08 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

Music Sucks Now. The Only Rap Shit Out Now Thats Fucking Swag Is Waka Flocka, Lil B And OFWGKTA. Seriously.

their swag has no polish

its too absurd & weird-4-the-sake-of-it for my tastes

include waka flocka in that

and lil b

Music Sucks Now. The Only Rap Shit Out Now Thats Fucking Swag Is Waka Flocka, Lil B And OFWGKTA. Seriously.

i find your criticisms legit as they pertain to your taste

they're dope cause they're raw obv

same w/ waka flocka (tho less so lil b?) (waka isn't nearly as talented as these guys, but he makes up for it, sometimes -- only sometimes mind you, with sheer energy)

i think this quote is relevent:

not sure if anyone feels like talking about this, but noz has made this point a few times recently, and i think it's kind of interesting

Lately I’ve been thinking about how a lot of recent hip hop - street hip hop, which is to say real hip hop, that which hasn’t yet been polished by Jimmy Iovine - is entering a sort of punk period where technical competence is pushed completely to the background as a stylistic choice in favor of raw aggression and emotion. And then old people are like BUT THEY’RE ONLY PLAYING THREE CHORDS and young people are like duh.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, August 24, 2010 12:22 PM Bookmark

yeah basically fuck the sex pistols im bumping michael franks

"THAT man could play a guitar"

i do think the OF guys are all very technically competent, but in an unpolished way, if that makes sense. also they aren't really street rap in the way lil b or currensy aren't really street rap, too inward and self-aware to really be that, street rap-qua-street rap needs a certain measure of extroversion that those guys don't really have. like all those guys sound like they spend more time chillin at home than hanging out on the block

but a lot of j0rdan's points still apply

i find your criticisms legit as they pertain to your taste

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, August 31, 2010 6:38 PM Bookmark

this is otm tho

haven't heard rolling papers yet but ofwgkta isn't "weird-4-the-sake-of-it" it's "weird" because it's framing, evoking & transferring male angst, aggression & rebellion (and yeah, eminem surreality & shock). (also lil b isn't "weird-4-the-sake-of-it", he's a genuine eccentric.)

co flow & fondle em have already been mentioned in this thread (while noz has referenced antipop consortium:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ-u8CfsNbY

and there's definitely a likewise uneasy underground aesthetic going on here that i thought a broad-church rap fan would find exciting on some level.

yeah i mean im not saying these guys arent 'interesting' or even somewhat 'important' (altho per usual i find the suspicious speed w/ which they blew up to be kinda like wha...) & i dont begrudge anyone for liking them ... but i do think they're just kinda aite

antipop is a good pt of comparison. when i was like 21 or whatever i saw their last show. & was into it (they were opening for DJ Shadow after private press dropped -- dope LP btw).

i defended/'liked' that stuff then but as ive gotten older i find i never pull it out & just the 'interesting'-ness of it has kinda been lost on me. they might be genuinely weird, but it still feels like u dont get much outta the weirdness

coflow are dope but i came to them retroactively & honestly the vibe i get from that record isnt as messed up most of the time -- end to end burners legitimately bangs, and most of funcrusher plus sounds like nerds-biting-the infamous

from like 8th to 10th grade me and a couple friends would pretty regularly get drunk and smoke weed and try to freestyle raps and often it would just end up a competition like who can come up with the funniest and most vulgar multisyllabic punchline raps. ofwgkta is basically exactly that but done real well. and that's pretty cool imo

i do have to say i find their embrace of swag to be something of a red herring. when you get down to it, their music is pretty anti-swag. they are loser misfit dudes who got picked on and are too busy creating their own world as a way out of ours to worry about trying to impress anyone with how cool they are.

both of these last posts otm -- what i really LIKE about this stuff is what samosa describes -- thats what makes it interesting & fun to me -- but that doesnt really translate as 'great' more 'wkiw'

antipop is a good pt of comparison. when i was like 21 or whatever i saw their last show. & was into it (they were opening for DJ Shadow after private press dropped -- dope LP btw).

i defended/'liked' that stuff then but as ive gotten older i find i never pull it out & just the 'interesting'-ness of it has kinda been lost on me. they might be genuinely weird, but it still feels like u dont get much outta the weirdness

coflow are dope but i came to them retroactively & honestly the vibe i get from that record isnt as messed up most of the time -- end to end burners legitimately bangs, and most of funcrusher plus sounds like nerds-biting-the infamous

― NOT FUNNY NEEDS MORE GUCCI (deej), Tuesday, August 31, 2010 6:54 PM Bookmark

i never heard any of that stuff even in passing (i was more into straitlaced brainy backpacker dudes than weirdo brainy backpacker dudes at the time, at least until about 03/04 when i got into mf doom and madlib) so there's really no reason this aesthetic (if it's that intebted to those guys) would be old hat to me. to me it's just all kinda madlib x lil b

it translates as close enough to great for my purposes :D xp

it's not old hat to me either: to me it's like a weird reemergence out of nowhere that kids wld rescue this inheritance from the boring MCs who kind of stopped it in its tracks, but i don't know if that exists or is just a feeling i have.

re funcrusher plus, i was thinking something like "last good sleep" is p close to some of this stuff musically - atonal, stuttering, rhythms that sound like they speed and slow within a bar. interesting too the subject matter there is a dark emo confessional on childhood trauma etc. whereas tyler say almost takes the 8 mile battle confessional route of putting it out there defiantly before anyone else can (the title BASTARD & the whole tape concept is a meeting w a school counselor or shrink)

i mean id rather have this stuff than boring passionoftheweiss editorials about boring jcole songs im just sayin

def got an APC vibe from some of this stuff but on thinking how poor and overcooked some of that ended up getting, probably didn't want to fully admit it. this stuff comes more Tragic Epilogue than Arrythmia or solo Beans anyway

adding on to what i said a while back, the creating their own world aspect will really either instantly attract or repel. it kinda makes them perfect cult artists. i've spent, what, half a week with them and already kinda become immersed in their domain. it occurs to me there are two different types of cult artists tho, the local hero and the outsider. both of them depend on the use of worlds outside of the mainstream.

the local hero uses a found, preexisting world, his immediate, localized surroundings, which attracts the people already inhabiting that world, but will often repel those looking in from outside unless they can find an 'in'. he usually shares many of the same concerns as the mainstream but expresses them in a way only immediately understandable to those who share his surroundings. however his easily relatable concerns allow the mainstream to embrace him if they can catch on to the local color, even if he is often at his most interesting before this happens. obviously the local hero has been very important to rap from the beginning and will continue to be so. he is the foundation of street rap and a big part of the reason why mainstream rap is unhealthy right now is that the usual pattern of local heros intruding on the mainstream and making everything fresh again has been broken.

the outsider, on the other hand, creates his own world, open to those that share their mindframe, but again repellent to others unless they can find that 'in'. the outsider doesn't have the advantage of a readymade local audience at hand that the local hero does, but is kind of uniquely suited to the internet age, when a sympathetic audience can easily find them in spite of location. the outsider has a more contentious relationship with the mainstream, due to his different set of concerns, and usually locked out of the process in which the mainstream refreshes itself, is much less important to the evolution of music, but often creates many of its more interesting, unfollowed ends. obviously odd future belong in this second category.

probably the reason why wu-tang is the most popular rap cult act is that they managed to successfully synthesize these two appeals

i think a risky pt for the 2nd part of that is that it can encourage solipsism in music criticism (not accusing anyone here of that)

obviously the 1st one has its own pitfalls -- condescension, mistranslation, etc

oh certainly, on both counts

suppose it's kind of a death knell, but i love the domo gen album mentioned upthread, and am surprised by deej's idea that he's not into it cuz he's too old. i mean, i'm probably way older than he is, and i like cuz it's funny and personable and the hazy/blunted cheap-ass beats appeal. it's totally a punk/indie thing on my part, which maybe sucks, but i like what i like, and i can't help that. good for nodding along to distractedly, waiting for classic lines about fucking bitches and eating cereal.

& like these beats ... ehh. weird trippy space-y idm-y shit, not my bag

like these stuttery awkward ambient rhythms]

exactly what i like about it. plus this:

from like 8th to 10th grade me and a couple friends would pretty regularly get drunk and smoke weed and try to freestyle raps and often it would just end up a competition like who can come up with the funniest and most vulgar multisyllabic punchline raps.

wow how come everyone's up on rolling papers?

taking tips from the loudest voices, plus funny youtubes at the top of the thread, you know...

the youtubes are from diff records that have been around a while, rolling papers has been out like a day, i'm like woah

1st new release since everyone went 'whoa'

^^^ basically that. plus i just downloaded it yesterday. coincidence of interest. fwiw, at the same time downloaded a bunch of gucci mane mixtapes that have been out forever (relatively speaking).

rolling papers just dropped yesterday, obv ppl are checking the newest joing from their camp xps

losing my edge right here

joint*

imo rev yr theories actually relate to this here:
http://energyflashbysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2009/02/hardcore-continuum-or-theory-and-its.html

see his paras towards the end on the mobile vs. the rooted in particular

i didn't read all of that, but i did read the part you mention. i don't think that's the same distinction i am drawing tho. the "outsider" i'm talking about isn't someone trying to play connect the dots with all these localizations at all, even when directly influenced by them (c.f. lil b), and certainly not when reacting against them, as odd future seem to be doing. this is distinctly opposed to reynolds' mobile curator, who wants to bring the real worlds of the various worlds of the local heros closer together, not build a seperate world entirely.

ugh last sentence reads horribly

take 2:

this is distinctly opposed to reynolds' mobile curator, who wants to bring the various real worlds of the local heros closer together, not build a seperate world entirely.

here's an exercize: instead of e-40 (who i was roughly modeling the local hero on) and odd future, plug in tower of power (let's keep it in the bay) and mandrill

yeah its not the same but i think its interesting how, like, incompatible this stuff is w/ his theory

i think part of the problem here is that we are talking about forces within one genre (much more musically diverse and geographically disparate than the dance genres reynolds speaks of), whereas the distinction of reynolds' 'mobile' artist is that he is 'above' genre, which doesn't apply here

correct. perhaps these ideas are not related at all

idk its late

the reason i'm enamored w/ ofwgkta & young l & lil b is that i find them all to be exciting & inspiring & invigorating which isn't something that i can say for almost every other rap out -- there's def an element of what noz says -- it's a very primal sort of feeling: kids with ideas just throwing everything at the wall -- it's not to say that they're all innovators, but i find so much rap right now to be post-x or post-y or following this & following that where as the tiny pants scene feels like an actual scene, where ideas are bouncing around & dudes like ofwgkta are making based/swag rap that's influenced as much by wiz khalifa as anything & lil b has gotten obsessed w/ 90s nola music and young l is just out there pretty much doing lil b raps over warped hyphy beats & yet it all feels homogeneous but each is very identifiable and different

sorry for rambling, hope that makes sense -- but long story short this is the rap shit right now where if i'm talking to someone and the conversation lags i just want to bring up ofwgkta & young l