ah yes hip hop....even though this thread seems pretty much played out...i got interested in hip hop through bomb squad-type production, but what really did it for me from the start was eric b and rakim and dj premier.
from my viewpoint, the finest single hip hop album to date is dr octagon. the mid-point in the transition from turntablist to pre=fabricated beats as the underpinning for--in this case--- delirious rhyming.
i still listen to some hip hop, but frankly what i focussed on early was the turntablists--i used to have arguments with friends in which i would try to convince them that some turntablists were like contemporary classical composers who were working over beats that tended to disguise how complex the sounds generated were. the results: danger mouse made jay-z almost interesting for me; x-ecutioners remain amazing; i would love to see the beat junkies if they are still around; most commercial hip hop seems tiresome----i think dj shadow summed up the problem with west-coast hip hop quite nicely on entroducing: "why hip hop sucks in 96"...the problem remains....some outkast singles float around in my brain for days after i hear them, but i cannot determine if that is a good thing or not.
as for folk who hate the genre--the beat structures are quite simple--but often the drop are less so (the quality of the drop, for example)--the straight beats trick people into thinking that everything is the same--which is wrong---if you want to check out lyrical possibilities, i would suggest rakim's "in the ghetto" off let the rhythm hit em. wastes stuff like 2-pac.
and try to freestyle. i play what i guess you would call experimental stuff--not particularly beat oriented--the group has some very sophisticated players from a variety of genres in it--it is beyond fun when someone freestyles with us---seriously, it is an amazing thing to be around, and a skill that requires a huge amount of work. i do sometimes wish that hip hop would get away from reliance on rhymes, however--there is nearly a century of text/poetry that has managed it.
on the other hand, my brother is a bluegrass musician. i understand the skill required to play that stuff, but would rather listen to machinery run than to bluegrass. strange thing is that i can see how that music functions, but my brother and most of his comrades cannot see how what i do operates. sometimes you have to stretch your head, to explore music that you do not a priori like, just to understand other ways of thinking --- music is a form of thinking, not just in the way the words operate, but also (often more) in the way the sonic space is orgainized.
it is worth the effort to check out by hip hop by listening carefully to it, and not stand outside making clucking noises, saying this sucks this sucks.......of course after the experiments are carried out, you can still make clucking noises and say this sucks this sucks, but at least you will have pushed away from the comfortable for a little while.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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