Max B The Thread

lmao @ deej's pitchfork review just out of nowhere going "Max's lyrics don't have the opulent imagery of Gucci or the poetic minimalism of a rapper like the Jacka."

yes that was totally "that's our deej!"

jacka & max b sound alike imo

idg whats 'out of nowhere' about that

max b & jacka are like inverses of each other; one's a west coast rapper integrating east coast & the other is an east coast integrating west; they make total sense to compare.

i 'lol' at al shipley saying noe is worth anything, dude is a bogus jay-z clone

it also makes sense to compare those dudes bcuz of their rapping styles, which i did in that para

no it doesn't, pretty much the only connection between those 3 artists is "these are people that the author of this review loves and has to bring up at every opportunity"

i dont usually like to get into this because i think the writing stands on its own & i address that within it. if you need more, i still disagree with you.

both rappers i was using as examples because they are both max b's contemporaries and have a similar delivery style -- cool remove vs. the more emotion-on-sleeve style of z-ro or boosie

gucci was brought up primarily because hes the main pitchfork-acclaimed street rapper in the style from the last couple of years, so it makes sense to use him as a reference point

max b & the jacka are basically mirror images of each other, born less than a year apart, one incorporating west coast rap into an east coast style & the other incorporating the opposite. they both have relaxed, sing-song flows that are very melodic. of course, there are lots of differences too, but the framework to both their styles is very similar

also, have you even listened to the jacka? do you even know what you're talking about?

its not like these are 'artists i bring up at every opportunity' because i have some single-minded obsession w/ them, its because i think they are three artists whose significance to the art of rapping is real and observable & evident, that they are important rappers for the form. its beyond 'personal favorites.' there are lots of rap artists im into that don't fit into this -- an example is someone like AZ.

but you have it backwards -- my taste often tends to be more driven by what i think feels important vis a vis rap's development & my values w/r/t aesthetic choices made in that history; its not that i like an artist & try to justify that after the fact by making wild claims for them

i realize that this perspective on criticizing rap is very anti-some dude (sorry abt using your real name when shit got heated i wasnt paying attention) bcuz your style tends to be, & if im wrong correct me, very into rappers who dont make a lot of grand arguments of importance for themselves (something max b & jack & gucci all do) but are sort of workhorse low-key dudes like styles & post-roc freeway. which is cool; but i dont appreciate being told my approach is somehow not thought out or is simply about pushing my taste on other people when theres a lot more to it

but you have it backwards -- my taste often tends to be more driven by what i think feels important vis a vis rap's development & my values w/r/t aesthetic choices made in that history; its not that i like an artist & try to justify that after the fact by making wild claims for them

― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Sunday, May 1, 2011 2:02 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i should say, my taste as represented by rap arguments on the internet with people who care about that sort of thing often tends to be driven ...

bcause my entire taste isnt represented by the kinds of artists we all talk about in these debates, necessarily. a lot of times i see what im doing as a corrective, which means im working on championing artists that i like who may not have as much of a critical profile but imo are doing something observably significant that deserves that kind of profile

sorry if this is just whiney-style trolling that im falling for here but it seems like a serious argument on your part so u got a seriouscat.gif answer

it was a cute "rap album reviews v much in character" that is lol to us bc ur (prob) the only person we've ever heard/read talk abt The Jacka & in such great volume so using him as a reference point in a review intended for general audience is funny to your internet rap friends, like if i were to introduce you to my grandparents & walked back into the room a half hour later and the topic of conversation had somehow shifted to corny wu similes

yah i get that thats fine, some dude seemed to be implying something more

no it doesn't, pretty much the only connection between those 3 artists is "these are people that the author of this review loves and has to bring up at every opportunity"

― hong does your geirden gro (some dude), Sunday, May 1, 2011 10:57 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i saw u dudes lolling @ it in advance but it passed a 'smell test' to me that it wouldnt be inappropriate in a review bcuz contextually, there are a lot of similarities between the artists mentioned & it made sense to my wider point about his rap style & how it differs from other rappers who approach rap w/ a similar style of insouciant, making-the-difficult-look-effortless style

but whatev i prob should have just left it at 'the writing stands on its own'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ3YB9pZx_U

song sampled by pete rock for 'we roll'

skip to 1:46

sorry if this is just whiney-style trolling that im falling for here but it seems like a serious argument on your part so u got a seriouscat.gif answer

― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Sunday, May 1, 2011 10:09 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

nah i was just out all day -- flopson otm pretty much but i'll print out your other posts and read them instead of a few chapters of a novel tonight before bed and see if i can process and respond to them

ho ho

what you said is diff than what flopson said, fyi

they didn't contradict each other or prohibit me from saying he's otm though

btw you wrote 729 words this morning in response to my two one-line posts (your album review was 674 words) fyi

btw i post all the time on ilx are you interested in zinging or discussing this

youre kind of being a dick? address what i said or stfu

they killed bin laden

& fwiw its not like you havent been making lil jabs along these lines for some time now, about how me focusing on a particular artist at one pt or another is somehow bad criticism, bcuz im not the eternally cynical objectivist you are

ok i read your 700 word response and sorry dude i don't have enough wind to respond in kind. you win! i'll leave your Max B thread alone, i just thought that line in your review was hilarious and if you can't see why i (or flopson or j0rdan) felt that way i dunno what to tell you.

yah i get that thats fine, some dude seemed to be implying something more

― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Sunday, 1 May 2011 17:04 (Yesterday) Permalink

btw i post all the time on ilx are you interested in zinging or discussing this

― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Monday, May 2, 2011 4:07 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

guess i got my answer to this

i mean if u want to be a dick be a dick but dont front like its some serious critique of my writing

it wasn't, and i didn't say it was. you're the one who has to bring a gun to a knife fight and post 20 times every time someone says 1 or 2 brief things about/to you. do you want your thread back or not? say 'yes' and i won't post here again, promise.

dude youve been doing these drive-by sniping zings about my writing on artists that i focus on for months now, stop acting like this is out of nowhere. it seems like you have an issue w/ the way i approach it, & you absolutely do bring it up like its some kind of flawed approach to criticism instead of the kind of 'thats our deej' type ish flopson was talking abt.

and you prob read 20k words on ilx in a given day so you can stop acting like what i wrote upthread was some kind of dense essay too

ugh c'mon man i pointed out something i thought was funny with no hidden agenda and as usual you bring some "there are unspoken ISSUES we need to HASH OUT here i don't appreciate this THINLY VEILED ATTACKS" shit that makes this feel like we're in marriage counseling. we can talk about this if you want but not if you're gonna make it feel like a group therapy session.

no it doesn't, pretty much the only connection between those 3 artists is "these are people that the author of this review loves and has to bring up at every opportunity"

― hong does your geirden gro (some dude), Sunday, May 1, 2011 10:57 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this sounds likea point-blank 'what you wrote here was incorrect' criticism, not a 'lol, deej mentioned artist he talks about a lot' ribbing. youre backpedaling into 'just zings bruv' which is fine but when u first posted it read to me as some kind of disagreement w/ its relevence to the piece rather than lighthearted lols

remember when i made almost the exact same kind of crack about Whiney's Quik review like a week ago and it didn't become a federal case? good times.

yeah but that was correct

like, comparing the beastie boys to quik makes far less sense than max b & the jacka, for the reasons i outlined upthread

so you think whiney just quietly realized his error and isn't also just way more laid back and able to take a jab than you are?

did you think maybe there is no 'error' and that your entire 'i am the only rational viewpoint on ilx' schtick is often wrong?

like, my entire point is that i thought this through in advance & think there are lots of parallels between the artists & there is no 'error' here; its an easy zing but i made the point for a reason

did you think maybe there is no 'error' and that your entire 'i am the only rational viewpoint on ilx' schtick is often wrong?

― geeks, dweebs, nerds & lames (D-40), Monday, May 2, 2011 12:31 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

um, which one of us is famous for saying "i have been otm on this thread"?

I don't know any of these guys' music & I know D-40 will think this is just me takin a shot which it isn't it's just me talking about something I've been thinking about since I was a kid which comes up in this thread but FWIW probably nothing but other SoCal grampas will be able to attest to the following: the LA Times for years had a writer named Robert Hilburn for whom absolutely everything had to be framed in the context of the artists he liked best. He would have framed that differently: he would have said "these are the artists who are important and who frame the current pop dialogue" or something like that. Nevertheless, absolutely 100% of his readers lol'd at him twice a week because he was completely incapable of reviewing anything at all without referring at least once to Springsteen or Elvis Costello or X, and for a while there to Big Country and the Alarm. Once every review, it'd be like, "INXS are good, but, in lacking the vibrant optimism of Bruce Springsteen or the cutting worldly-wise wit of Elvis Costello, they come up short" and it got to be very, very lol. Growing up with this, back when I had designs on being a critic, I took this from it: no matter how certain you are that the artists you feel are most important in the current dialogue are, and no matter how certain you are that comparisons are fitting and apt, if you have some artists whose names you seem to mention in pretty much everything you write, people are going to clown you, either to your face or behind your back. If there are artists you namecheck regularly, people's radar will be up about it and they will clown even when you'd be likely to say "look I know I'm always talking about Springsteen but these guys really sound like Springsteen. D-40, I take from the way you talk about it that your writing is important to you, so I thought I would share this idea, if it's unwelcome, no harm intended, the end.

totally.

fwiw, I think it's OK to compare a track that samples "Paul Revere" to the Beastie Boys

i dont fucking do that though! my entire argument here is that these two particular artists, max b & the jacka, are actually very very similar and make total sense as reference points for each other! i dont refer to jacka in my other reviews! flopson agreed with me in this thread that it made sense to compare them!

yeah that admittedly got lumped in w/ the other 2 refs a little unfairly, sorry whiney (xpost)

Like sorry, I didn't load my 75 word review with comparisons to Compton's Most Wanted and WC or whatever, guys; but like the point I was making was "this is Quik's iconic sound with some cool detours that might appeal to alt types" and so I 100% stand by the way I wrote it.

fwiw my problem w/ whiney's review is, i see the reason he made those comparisons, but for me that kind of writing is pandering, that an artist shouldnt have to be justified on alt-rapper approved grounds to be worth hearing & can stand on his own two. its a different comparison than what i was doing, which was connecting lines between three seemingly unrelated artists who actually approach the form very similarly.