Hip Hop

vilding · « **on:** 14 Sep 2020, 09:32 pm »

Time to get a nice little hip hop thread going on AC.

So what are your favourite songs, albums, DJ's, rappers, producers etc? And why? what makes a certain track so amazing?

I'm gonna start with one of my all time favourite albums, NAS "Illmatic".

I first heard this album when I was maybe 13 or 14, and it blew my mind! The deep, deep, heavy beats and great storytelling, delivered with that raspy unmistakable voice with perfect flow just resonated strongly with me.

I had listened to hip hop before; some De la soul, Snoop Dogg, Public Enemy, ATCQ and others. But it was just that dark rawness of NAS that got to me. "Life's a bitch and they you die, that's why we get high cause you never know when you gonna go" And the beats from that album are sublime! Jazzy, suggestive, a bit romantic and like nothing else from that time. With Primo, Q-tip, Pete Rock and Large Professor in the drivers seat and on top of their game, that's a giventhough, right...? I mean the piano/bassline from "NY state of mind... It is also a very well engineered album. Crisp yet dreamy.

More then twenty years later I still come back to it, and it was in many ways the starting point for my dive in to the magic realm of hip hop.

One love!

marvda1 · « **Reply #1 on:** 14 Sep 2020, 10:14 pm »

why is rap considered music? shouldn't it classified as poetry set to music?

vilding · « **Reply #2 on:** 14 Sep 2020, 10:24 pm »

Quote from: marvda1 on 14 Sep 2020, 10:14 pm

why is rap considered music? shouldn't it classified as poetry set to music?

Naaah.... It's a valid musical expression in it's own right. And rap is hardly contained to the musical genre of hip hop or really a musical genre in it self. It is though an elemental part of hip hop music, which I hope to celebrate and discuss in this thread.

toocool4 · « **Reply #3 on:** 14 Sep 2020, 10:33 pm »

I think I would have to choose artists like Ice Cube, 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G, Digital Underground, Boogie Down Productions ect. You already named some of the ones I like in your list.

Tyson · « **Reply #4 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 12:35 am »

For modern rappers I really like Die Antwoord and the rapline from BTS. Older artists I like are KRS-1, Big Daddy Kane, NWA, Tupac, Jay Z, 50 Cent, Eminem, Ice Cube, Biggie Smalls, Nas, DMX and Run DMC.

Bob2 · « **Reply #5 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 12:42 am »

Not much into hip hop but I'm impressed with Dre's Chronic on vinyl. Well mastered and a great pressing.

RDavidson · « **Reply #6 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 01:33 am »

OK. No proper hip-hop thread can be started without mention of Wu-Tang Clan. Huge fan since 1994 when I first heard them while I was in Rhode Island for summer art school. I was also introduced to Nas at that time as well, all on cassette tapes! Amazing. A large portion of Wu-Tang's massive catalog of solo stuff is equally great. I almost don't know where to start.

Other favorites include Atmosphere, Czarface (Inspectah Deck's most recent solo stuff), Run The Jewels, Outkast, Guru and Gang Starr. Man there's so many greats, but I'd say music from these guys (including all of Wu-Tang and Nas) is what I almost always have somewhere in rotation at any given time.

Wu-Tang forever!

vilding · « **Reply #7 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 09:37 pm »

Quote from: RDavidson on 15 Sep 2020, 01:33 am

OK. No proper hip-hop thread can be started without mention of Wu-Tang Clan. Huge fan since 1994 when I first heard them while I was in Rhode Island for summer art school. I was also introduced to Nas at that time as well, all on cassette tapes! Amazing. A large portion of Wu-Tang's massive catalog of solo stuff is equally great. I almost don't know where to start.

Other favorites include Atmosphere, Czarface (Inspectah Deck's most recent solo stuff), Run The Jewels, Outkast, Guru and Gang Starr. Man there's so many greats, but I'd say music from these guys (including all of Wu-Tang and Nas) is what I almost always have somewhere in rotation at any given time.

Wu-Tang forever!

Indeed! Wu-tang is like a universe on it's own.... To many great tracks and albums to list. If I had to choose on stand out, probably GZA's "Liquid swords". Bet you had a nice and hazy summer.

Quote from: Bob2 on 15 Sep 2020, 12:42 am

Not much into hip hop but I'm impressed with Dre's Chronic on vinyl. Well mastered and a great pressing.

"One, two, three and to the foo..." Awesome, awesome album.

wushuliu · « **Reply #8 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 09:43 pm »

Quote from: marvda1 on 14 Sep 2020, 10:14 pm

why is rap considered music? shouldn't it classified as poetry set to music?

Rap is not necessarily the same as hip-hop. Hip-hop embraces a broader culture, of which rap is a part. So 'hip-hop' music doesn't mean rapping is required.

wushuliu · « **Reply #9 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 09:52 pm »

Wu-Tang will always have my love since they grew up watching the same kung fu (wushu) movies as me especially my favorite kung fu director Liu Chia Liang (hence my username). I know all the movie samples from their early albums.

One of the great underrated albums of hip-hop is Mos Def's 'Black on Both Sides'. I classify it as a perfect album.

iowa · « **Reply #10 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 12:56 am »

I’m pretty old school. Most of my hip hop listening was done in the mid-eighties. I still like to revisit artists like Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Sugarhill Gang, Beastie Boys, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5, Nucleus, Kurtis Blow, Boogie Down Productions. You get the picture.

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #11 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 02:03 am »

Glad I dont know what hip hop is, continue to listen Steely Dan, Frank Zappa or Bach.

RDavidson · « **Reply #12 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 04:50 am »

Quote from: wushuliu on 15 Sep 2020, 09:52 pm

Wu-Tang will always have my love since they grew up watching the same kung fu (wushu) movies as me especially my favorite kung fu director Liu Chia Liang (hence my username). I know all the movie samples from their early albums.

One of the great underrated albums of hip-hop is Mos Def's 'Black on Both Sides'. I classify it as a perfect album.

Yup. I really enjoy old Kung Fu movies too! I know most of the movie samples. In college, my buddies and I would rent the movies on VHS. Five Deadly Venoms has one of the best, most iconic, character introductions of the genre...which Wu-Tang sampled extensively. A friend introduced me to that film while I was still in high school. I loved it immediately.

Agree Mos Def's debut album is about as pure hip-hop as it gets especially around the time it came out. 1999 was a significant year for hip-hop : Chronic 2001 came out, Eminem's debut, The Roots album Things Fall Apart came out, as well as some REALLY great underground stuff from Blackalicious and Handsome Boy Modeling School. Talking about them makes me want to break those albums out and listen.

As far as hip-hop music that isn't rap, I'm a big DJ Shadow fan. Endtroducing is a truly legendary album. El-P has some amazing instrumental mix albums as well. I'll Sleep When You're Dead is fantastic as is Cancer 4 Cure. RJD2 has some great music as well.

Letitroll98 · « **Reply #13 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 12:51 pm »

Rather than spew out a bunch of perjoritives about rap or hip hop, what's the difference between the two? I had no idea there was any difference and won't be listening to either to find out, but how would the fans here describe the distinction?

RDavidson · « **Reply #14 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 03:48 pm »

Hip-hop is really a culture, which rap music is a part of. Where things get confusing is that I (and many others) don't consider all rap music hip-hop music. There's a lot of rap music that's just commercial garbage and not connected to nor progressive to the culture of hip-hop.

Whether folks consider rap/hip hop "music" or not is not what this thread is about. It is sonic and vocal art. In other words it is definitely music. There's no arguing that regardless of one's personal contempt for it.

Mag · « **Reply #15 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 09:29 pm »

Having listened to Hip Hop streamed through the PA system at work I have to say I don't like it. I do have the album 'No Roots by Faithless' that I play occasionally at home. The closest thing to Rap that is ever going to play on my rig. It is classified as Trip Hop, Trance.

toocool4 · « **Reply #16 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 09:42 pm »

I find it funny that people that don’t like something, goes into a thread about that thing to say they don’t like it. If you don’t like something why not just stay away from it?

Mag · « **Reply #17 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 09:59 pm »

Quote from: toocool4 on 16 Sep 2020, 09:42 pm

I find it funny that people that don’t like something, goes into a thread about that thing to say they don’t like it. If you don’t like something why not just stay away from it?

I thought I should support the Thread being the Moderator.

vilding · « **Reply #18 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 11:06 pm »

Quote from: RDavidson on 16 Sep 2020, 03:48 pm

Hip-hop is really a culture, which rap music is a part of. Where things get confusing is that I (and many others) don't consider all rap music hip-hop music. There's a lot of rap music that's just commercial garbage and not connected to nor progressive to the culture of hip-hop.

Whether folks consider rap/hip hop "music" or not is not what this thread is about. It is sonic and vocal art. In other words it is definitely music. There's no arguing that regardless of one's personal contempt for it.

Well said!

+1 for Mos def. Listened to "Black on both sides" just the other day.

I think hip hop today is superexciting and there are a lot of great artists and producers out there to check out.
I really like Lil Simz, Big K.R.I.T, Westside Gunn, and of course, J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar. There are tons more of course.
I also like the more jazzy things coming out like the different offerings from the likes of Robert Glasper.
Check out his "Black radio"-albums and August Greene, which is Glasper, Kariem Riggins on drums, and Common on the mic. Dark stuff, but sooo sooo sweet.

RDavidson · « **Reply #19 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 11:08 pm »

I know, right? Hip hop / rap is the only music genre I know of where I've seen numbers of people so adamantly against it that they feel the need to voice their disapproval. Folks don't understand it or it is unrelatable to them, so they don't like it...like many things in this world. What's absurd to me is that I wouldn't go into a pop country music thread and bash it just because I don't like it.