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Sorry guy but Grandmaster Flash has forgotten more about hip-hop than West will ever know.
Can't believe a thread about hiphop on AC got this far without being burned down by a mob of people who see it as some kind of threat to civilization...there may be hope yet ! Some scattered thoughts on the topic and coming from the likes of me, really that is all one could ever hope for:I have pretty much every Kanye album except 808's & Heartbreak - He's a huge talent. He's also a huge tool but really, is he breaking any new ground at this stage by being a pop star and a dick? You could say that about most of your rock'n'roll heroes - John Lennon certainly had his share of dickish moments, Bowie wasn't beyond riding around in an open car flashing the Nazi salute in a coked-up haze back in the day...Hell, even The Boss apparently has some history of dick moves and he's as close to sanctified as a pop star can be. At least Kanye admits it - self-awareness may some day lead to redemption. I would certainly rather listen to Yeezus for all it's flaws than to Jay-Z's latest or any of the assembly-line crap put out by the likes of Flo Rida or the Black-Eyed Peas. The first half or so is fantastic but then it sort of veers of into the weeds - I guess that means that the ultimate Kanye West album has yet to be made...Hmmm.For me , the gateway was the group that Michael Franti formed after leaving the Beatnigs - they were called The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy - one of the greatest band names ever. Intense, political and socially -conscious. I enjoyed a lot of his work with Spearhead as well but they've become a little too "Up With People" for my tastes now. Here's a shout-out for The Roots - I don't think I've ever heard a Roots album I didn't like. Great players, ambitious in their vision and fabulous ambassadors for the genre. Surprised that no-one has mentioned them yet. I guess we've begun to take them for granted and that is a shame.I think that trying to define hiphop in terms of containing one or more of DJ'ing, MC'ing or beatboxing kind of underestimates the breadth of the genre in 2013. Hiphop is a pretty big tent encompassing a lot of sub-genres and flavours. And it's more than that as it transcends the genre and is actually a cultural phenomenon with it's own fashion, it's own jargon, it's own disposable heroes and so on. Two turntables and a microphone ? And then some.And so thirty-odd years on, hiphop shifts more units than rock and the world hasn't burst into flame and there aren't riots in the streets with the raping and the pillaging and the looting and the kids with the baggy pants burning down the city. If Sinatra and Elvis and backwards Led Zeppelin and Dee Snider's pointy teeth or Madonna's pointy bras and Marilyn Manson's showing up all spacey and chubby on Talking Dead haven't reversed the rotation of our much-abused planet, I don't think Yeezus will either. And if he does, tell Commissioner Gordon to fire up the Bat Light and the rest looks after itself. We're gonna be alright...D.D.
Can't believe a thread about hiphop on AC got this far without being burned down by a mob of people who see it as some kind of threat to civilization...there may be hope yet ! I think that trying to define hiphop in terms of containing one or more of DJ'ing, MC'ing or beatboxing kind of underestimates the breadth of the genre in 2013. Hiphop is a pretty big tent encompassing a lot of sub-genres and flavours. And it's more than that as it transcends the genre and is actually a cultural phenomenon with it's own fashion, it's own jargon, it's own disposable heroes and so on. Two turntables and a microphone ? And then some.And so thirty-odd years on, hiphop shifts more units than rock and the world hasn't burst into flame and there aren't riots in the streets with the raping and the pillaging and the looting and the kids with the baggy pants burning down the city. If Sinatra and Elvis and backwards Led Zeppelin and Dee Snider's pointy teeth or Madonna's pointy bras and Marilyn Manson's showing up all spacey and chubby on Talking Dead haven't reversed the rotation of our much-abused planet, I don't think Yeezus will either. And if he does, tell Commissioner Gordon to fire up the Bat Light and the rest looks after itself. We're gonna be alright...D.D.
Don't really know how to define Hop Hop music - the tri-criteria thing was cribbed from Wikipedia.
Has Kool Keith been mentioned? Dr Octogon is a classic and Q-Bert is a beast on the tables. Half man alligator half shark...I also love Del and his stuff with Kid Koala.
For my money, I'd say that Eric B. and Rakim were (are?) without a doubt the best MC/DJ duo. Microphone Fiend just crushes from the first note, Rakim lays back in the pocket and lets you know he's a force to be reckoned with.
This thread is great.
Agreed! I no very little about any current rap, nice to have some direction to go a lookin'. Another that I always come back to is A Tribe Called Quest, more specifically the albums The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. Intelligent lyrics delivered expertly, their first album was ok but didn't seem to gel as well as the second. When they got to The Love Movement, to me at least, you could tell they weren't getting along as well. Kinda seemed like their vision wasn't as focused on the common goal. The Michael Rappaport movie about the group really gave some insight into their break up. Really liked their live act, caught them in a small club in Baltimore with Naughty by Nature as the surprise opener. Good times.
Funk Master Flex - Vol 1 - 60 min of FunkGreat call on Guru... Gang Star the Full Clip is unreal. Jazzmatazz Vol 1, 2, 3Mob DeepI got to see the FugesGood stuff.
