curren$y (or currensy i guess) - pilot talk

deej is otm about his mixtapes being way better than pilot talk tho

lol that is what's frustrating about deej, he actually knows his shit & is often right, and then he ruins being the guy who's right by standing on the corner w/a big sign that says DEEJ WAS RIGHT, RECOGNIZE

hahaha

is it really all that 'constructed' -- u just mean 'because im self-aware about it'

everyone enjoys being right & everyone is self-aware about that fact -- you're not the kanye of ilx

and anyway i'm not sure what you're claiming to be right about

anyway anyway i have yet to hear this record -- i dig curren$y in doses & when the production is juuuuuuust right, which i don't think it was that often on pilot talk -- didn't think it was lush enough all the way thru -- either way i like his style tons in theory, usually less in practice over the length of a full album

to my ears this splits the diff between lush & spare -- my expertise in the genre is at best dated but having said that there's a little bit of old west-coast crawl in this as I hear it, something v. understated & groovy. I listened to the whole album twice today with varying levels of attention & much, much pleasure, texting friends "fuckin A go hear the new curen$y" etc -- it just snapped for me, and I'm pretty out-of-touch rap-wise, listen to anything on stones throw & don't really hear much else so take that fwiw

listened to pilot talk 1 while i went to pick up 2--1 still owns imo, smoove beats all over the gd place

i think the real problem w/ the first pilot talk was that his rapping on it felt lazy, which was like, all you got out of it was this stoner-persona, the lilt of his vocals, & some nice if mis-matched production from ski. Also, guest stars with Respected Rap Pedigrees like jay electronica & mos def spitting guest verses. Anyone introduced to him through this record would have to feel underwhelmed

I think a problem that ive dealt with w/ curren$y & gucci & other rappers -- and something i tried to hammer home in the last line of my last gucci review -- is that saying 'the mixtapes were better' is not the kind of strategic 'i was down when he was underground' type positioning that it used to be. that 'the mixtapes' now are the catalog, and anyone engaging with rap seriously should know 'the mixtapes.' no one should be 'waiting around for the album.' it just doesnt make sense. these 'mixtapes' are straight-up full albums.

curren$y's mixtapes -- and pilot talk 2 sounds more like them than it does the first pt -- are great because they focused on a specific laid back vibe (which the first pt only occasionally glanced on, inexplicably) that created a sorta blank, relaxed platform for curren$y to spin some really interestingly-constructed lyrics. Like Gucci, his subject matter is fairly narrow; what's interesting is how deftly he weaves each individual word, sculpting verses that fold in on themselves like some kind of rapping origami crane. Its something that just sluices by you at first, but rewards repeat listens, these little intricacies that aren't used to make a 'point,' that aren't functional, they just exist as pieces of art on their own, each one with its own physical shape or something. The interesting parts are how each verse is constructed, theres a real beauty to the way each rhyme interacts on an individual line. its not 'deep,' its just art

shinobi how i kick it / american ninja major motion picture flippin my remote / same way i do them hoes / but she already know before she touch my chevy door / real n**** let me make it as clear as my windows / no squares shall enter in the circle of winners / no im prepared for whatev if you know what i been through / rear view clear vision memories of paid dues

have rosé, chandon, oj in my glass / mimosa testerossa program cold ??? curriculum / doors open like a pendulum, swingin / rockin my jetset emblems / foolish to serve ilke Wimbledon / interior cinnamon / the car that im sittin in / calm my bad nerves, i call her my ritalin

are ppl really spending the same amount of money on the mixtapes that they are on the albums? that is the key q that tells you whether the artist takes the mixtapes as seriously as he takes the albums. of course that's auteurism -- you can say, how seriously the artist takes it doesn't matter -- but I'm not persuaded that the inverse of auteurism is as triumphant as its proponents tend to think

is that saying 'the mixtapes were better' is not the kind of strategic 'i was down when he was underground' type positioning that it used to be. that 'the mixtapes' now are the catalog, and anyone engaging with rap seriously should know 'the mixtapes.' no one should be 'waiting around for the album.' it just doesnt make sense. these 'mixtapes' are straight-up full albums.

admittedly this is a problem for me and the reason that i can't pay 100% attention to rap--i really don't listen to much music that i can't get a physical release of.

thing is, with the major label system as fucked as it is, barely releasing any major label rap albums at all, the mixtape circuit is often the ONLY outlet a lot of rappers have to release material until they have an established fanbase that the labels can exploit. unless someone has a breakout hit, it usually takes YEARS for this to happen, and often times by the time a major comes calling, they've already released their best work.

^^^ yeah how many major label rap LPs even exist this year? kanye, waka, gucci, drake, cudi, minaj ....?

ross

last physical release i bought not counting when i had a gift certificate was the portishead joint u_u

I think I got 200 bones worth of mailorder thru the slot today lol I'm old/kvlt

i keep telling myself to engage with rap more seriously. it has been sitting at the top of my to do list for the longest time and i just keep ignoring it and doing the easier things underneath instead like 'buy milk' and 'SB deej'. it is just making me feel bad about myself now. i am gonna do it. tomorrow. serious. serious about rap.

i got to a point where i realized i couldn't afford my cd habit.

buy some rap r s!

it's fun

i keep telling myself to engage with rap more seriously. it has been sitting at the top of my to do list for the longest time and i just keep ignoring it and doing the easier things underneath instead like 'buy milk' and 'SB deej'. it is just making me feel bad about myself now. i am gonna do it. tomorrow. serious. serious about rap.

― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, November 24, 2010 6:55 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its ok we dont want you listening to rap

dude

what's really funny/sad about that is deej is 100% serious about how stoked he would be if rap were a club where only deej & ppl deej thinks are cool could join

i dunno i want other ppl but not ppl who are clowning me / sbing me for suggesting they take mixtapes seriously?

like, i dunno guys, i think he mayyyy have been trolling!! is robert spirelli a dude who would even be posting in this thread if the first album wasnt a pfork bnm

because I like you as a person I want to try to explain to you why your whole stance here is platinum-level assholism but I know from experience you're incapable of understanding that :(

yeah but you realize "we dont want you listening to rap" sounds like an awful statement regardless right

like just think of it this way: on my worst day on a politics thread, I'm exactly as bad as you are about this kinda shit

yeah but you realize "we dont want you listening to rap" sounds like an awful statement regardless right

― questeon the answers (call all destroyer), Wednesday, November 24, 2010 7:22 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dudes. hes trolling.

thus the word "regardless"

i mean i just wrote an extended essay basically on why curren$y is dope & you should check his mixtapes & dudes just posting sarcastically about taking rap seriously ... but im the asshole for telling him to fuck off?

yes.

the essay part was great don't get me wrong but the snide shit is just so tragic

hey yall, i am in the burn ward, reading rap reviews on pfork. please come by and say hi. smuggle in some kfc.

deej, i am not trolling, i 100% sincerely think you are frequently an unbearable asshole when you post about rap and "anyone engaging with rap seriously should know 'the mixtapes'" is just such a beautiful illustration of that it is almost self-parody.

no, its the truth, because otherwise youre stuck with the 7 major label rap records released this year. i dont give a shit if u think im an asshole for thinking there are more than 7 good rap records & that thinking u should actually listen to what the genre is producing is, like, a basic part of caring about rap

But deej has a point, too, one I more or less agree with.

i agree with deej but his response just smacks of the type of exclusionary garbage that i despise on every level

hey guys, i was responding to trolling! read spiralli's post again. i dont post that shit if, like, dan perry shows up & asks why we like flockaveli, or if aerosmith asks about curren$y. i do post it when a dude is being a dbag

lol do u guys think deej heard [CONTROVERSIAL MODERATOR EDIT please don't do that ilxor] before aerosmith y/n

Mixtapes and albums are the same exact thing. They're both folders of mp3s that you get on google

brb, logging out to log back in w/6 other logins for sbanning ilxor. how many times must you drag that shit in from nowhere, dude?

confidential to ilxor: name dropping =/= funny joke

ty deej, we may scrap but you play straight & I appreciate it

smgdh @ ilxor--dude are you incapable of learning

"anyone engaging with rap seriously should know 'the mixtapes'" is just such a beautiful illustration of that it is almost self-parody.

― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, November 24, 2010

no it really isn't - i'm only just realizing that ppl here are "waiting for the album". u shouldn't do that anymore - the game has changed and you really have to consider mixtapes with original beats as as worth checking out as anything else.

i don't mean that with regard to "taking rap seriously" - just as a casual listener u shld regard the two types of release as having equal potential reward

i know deej is insufferable itt and kvlty elsewhere, but tbf he was bemused that pilot talk was a big deal when "dude went from nu-nas to 'i think wiz is better' over the course of one album :-/" and backed that up with utubes for u guys of what he thought currensy was capable of. pilot talk didn't interest me but what i've heard from pilot talk 2 is back to that niceness.

I would have thought that mixtapes have been pretty well absorbed into the casual observer's notion of current rap in 2010. To use the strawman example pitchfork has been writing about mixtapes for ages.

I think these days we're often just a little too quick to be proud of not getting our heads around the logic of how particulars operate as genres (including how they generate product) on the grounds of being anti elitism and gatekeeperism. Those things exist, sure, but in an environment where there is no substantial barrier to getting with the genre on its own terms (because the mixtapes are as practically accessible as the albums) the charge of elitism in that context is pretty hollowed out.

wtf is 'kvlty'

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=kvlt