[Rob Instigator]

louder, in terms of pure rhyme, who is your top MC these days?

[louder]

ohh, good question.

first of all, there are rappers like Hopsin and Tech N9ne who rap really fast with complex rhyme schemes.. but i don't feel them, they're corny to me.

so my top MCs these days are:

1) Nas - as opposed to Jay-Z, getting old doesn't seem to affect Nas. in fact i think he's even better than he was a few years ago. i recall on one of his songs he said he was "on some Jet Li shit".. well, to me Nas always kicks rhymes like Jet Li. he's so raw, always on point.

2) Jay Electronica - doesn't have an album out yet, but he's pretty much the god MC. almost every time i hear him rapping i get chills. it's enough to listen to Exhibit C and Act I: Eternal Sunshine to know he kills every other rapper today lyrically.

3) Kendrick Lamar - i saw people comparing him to 2Pac just 'cause he's from the West, but he's really more like Andre 3K, Pharaohe Monch and old Em. extremely diverse and talented, can switch flows like nothing. his technical ability is just crazy.

4) Freddie Gibbs - a gangsta rapper who can go neck-and-neck with every top rapper today, including those i mentioned above. listen to Deeper.

5) Big K.R.I.T. - Scarface said he's his favorite newcomer and it's not hard to see why. KRIT is a guy who grew up with Scarface, OutKast, UGK, MJG & 8Ball, etc and it shows, dude is soulful. listen to his verse on 1 Train - there are 6 other rappers on this track, but Krizzle shows up at the end and outdoes them all.

H.M: Danny Brown, ASAP Rocky, Chance The Rapper, Earl, Ab-Soul.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

I disagree with this analysis, hip hop like all other musics is simply recycling and revisiting and remixing previous incarnations of sound and style. There is nothing "new" just renewed ways of looking at the same things.

I kinda agree, but...

With "rock" you can find something from any era of rock music right up to 2014 that sounds almost indistinguishable from material from the 1960's.

Hip hip has been around less than half as long and already it's a completely different beast than it was in the late 70s and early to mid 80s. No new hip hop artist sound like they could have jumped straight out of hip hop's early years. That, to me, shows that the genre has com full circle and rather than looking back for inspiration, has looked forward or at least sideways.

But I don't know shit about shit and it's really late.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by foreverasskiss

mmmm. i'd rather hear someone rap about a strange dream they had instead of the old 'guitar' like 'rock' bravado or how sensitive u are about yr mommy or that girl u lust after and her thick ass and thighs than anything else.

if only more people were more open minded about sounds.

True dis.

I actually think I prefer music where the lyrics (which are almost always bound to be at least partly nauseating or dumbassed, are drowned out to the point of barely being recognizeable.

I remember sending my dad Sonic Youth's rendition of "Within You, Without You" way back when, thinking it might help him understand that his entire generation's idols and the godfathers of the iconoclastic art/post punk scene, to which I believed myself to belong we're not so different that they couldn't be simultaneously appreciated.

He replied that the lyrics were a bit too hard to make out for him.

(Eye roll: he's known the lyrics since he was fourteen; the point is in the paradoxical interpretations, and the enduring spirit of experimentation)

I hope I never sound like that to my children.

What does this have to do with anything? Fuckall. But I'm sure it's significant somehow.

My dad LOVES the Run DMC "Walk This Way" cover, but is neither an Aerosmith fan nor a person who knows the first thing about hip hop. Go fucking figure.

Btw: floating slowly, I can't figure out if you're agreeing with me or not above, in that post where I wrap things up by admitting that I know nothing. Just sayin.

[Severian]

Magen it comes down to it, I'd rather hear someone rap well about anything than play an impressive solo, or write a catchy tune.

That said, my heart is in punk. I'd rather hear Lou Reed turn "This Magic Moment" into a distortion soaked bohemian mess than ... Well, just about anything. I'd rather hear the VU play the fuck out of "Sister Ray" until my ears can no longer tell the difference between trebly guitar and snare slap, or hear Teenage Riot played so violently that the sheer jubilation over the slacker punk lyrics is barely masked even by the expert too cool for school delivery of Thurston at his most droll.

I think listening to "Good Morning Captain" from start to finish is pretty much the most productive thing one can do with six and a half minutes of their life.

But the only genre that even comes close to equaling that is hip hop, when an emcee is spitting and a beat is going so hard that even my white ass starts throwing signs. (Yeah, Kanye... Wu... Jay... Keith).

No idea what I'm saying anymore but I like left of center proto-and-post punk, and I like rap, and I spend way too much time thinking about the fact that I feel this way.

Goodnight

[guest]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

regardless of how far I move away from rock music in my listening, there really is nothing more awesome than listening to say sister ray or a dead c/lrd record, where it's just unadulterated joy, not so much in that it's bright but rather in how totally unpretentious it is. no context to it, just guys and gals jamming out shit in a room. of course, it's the most simple, basic form of musical expression but it's telling that said form is the most effective & universal in its outcome. that's what saddens me about this current downturn in rock music, that a kid of like 10 will no longer get to hear like when the levee breaks or sweet leaf or something and just go "fucking hell, that's sick, that's what I want to hear" and instead listen to fucking real estate and think "man, mellow vibes, let's just sink into the goddamn wallpaper". ehhhhhhhhh

[Severian]

Yeah, Real Estate is just awful.

Here's what I think: music needs to have TEETH. Music can be mellow (CAN) or arty and homoerotic (Velvets, Smiths) or arty and seemingly homoerotic, but actually all about girls (The Cure) or even theatrical and exuberant and gawdy as all hell (Flaming Lips) or even downright low key and moody like Real Estate (Low) but as long as the music pushes you, or makes you uncomfortable from time to time, or tackles issues outside the "I'm lonely and love a girl who doesn't love me" pool of subject matter, and refuses to be ordinary, then TEETH will start to grow in.

Real Estate had no fucking Teeth. Nothing sharp. No lyrics from the real heart (which is a fucked up and deeply conflicted place) or from any kind of brain.

Flaming Lips have teeth, despite being a part time full-on billboard pop band, because they're also pulling third shift as acid heads from the deepest depths of the underground, where veins are collapsing and drugs do damage and death happens and life is an exercise in the blackest of humors.

The smiths have teeth because they don't care what you think about anything, they're going to shove their androgyny and bisexuality in your face , and make you sing along to a love song until you realize it's about a man and question everything you know about yourself. They also don't mind talking about murder and love as if the two are perennially linked.

Low has fucking teeth. Just read the lyrics to any song- fuck, pick one out of a hat- they're trying to bite the shit out of you.

Real estate, and so many of their completely personality free post post pavement brethren have no sense of danger in their music whatsoever.
I can't stand that shit. They're generic right down to their god awful name, but watch- they'll land somewhere between #4 and #9 in pitchfork's annual list, and they'll end up having the career that modest mouse should have had, before that band decided to defang themselves, and go the way of the declawed indoor cat (i.e. Sticking to the warmth and comfort of their owners condo, when they should be out slaying birds)

Rap doesn't really exist without teeth. It can't. I'm not saying every rapper has 'em but every rapper wants them. Except for Pharrell who's kind of a pussy.. let's be honest.

I just wish that I knew more people I my day to day life who were appreciators of both punk/underground/avante garde AND hip hop. Because when I'm chatting with someone about Sonic Youth or Nick Cave or Fugazi or Dirty Three or Lou Reed and I mention Ghostface or Kanye or Lil Wayne, they think I'm being ironic.

I fucking hate that. no you morons , can't you see that Lil Wayne was punk as fuck for years, and was a more exciting presence than anyone in the rock world? Don't you see that Kanye is blending soul beats with "Metal Machine Music" and producing some of the most powerful sounds in music? Don't you see that GFK drops a verse like its a mother-fucking brick on some ninjas skull, and that 36 Chambers is like the Raw Power of rap?

Fuck I hate real people.

[louder]

mastered version of SGP's tape is out: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/in...ed/id877748547

hard copy: http://raiderklanmerchandise.ecrater...catedpre-order

[louder]

1st single off the A$AP Mob album drops today:

 

[chocolate_ladyland]

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

I suppose hip hop makes white, jaded, privileged kids feel ok about their racism.

I have absolutely never understood this argument. I don't see music (or for that matter, the world) in terms or race or gender and never will. Listen to whatever the fuck you want.

[chocolate_ladyland]

Originally Posted by foreverasskiss

my prob with modern hip hop is the lyrics which have becum tedious in this day and age. that's whats being recycled and not so much the music.

this. I want more and more MCs to rape something fucking WEIRD over trap-ass beats.

[chocolate_ladyland]

Or just no lyrics at all. Instrumental hip hop (or just beat music in general) has soooo much potential. It's not like the focus of hip hop was always on the lyrics (i.e. the beginning)

[chocolate_ladyland]

and no, I did not mean RAPE I meant RAP hahaha

[chocolate_ladyland]

@foreverasskiss this is sorta something on that track. some dude from Chicago who calls himself GOD

http://www.reverbnation.com/YOUAINTG..._medium=widget

[Severian]

Originally Posted by louder

1st single off the A$AP Mob album drops today:

 

WHAAAAT?
HUUUUNH?

I have been so busy trying not to get fired and then being laid off that I don't think I've thought about music in 72 hours!

that's, like, so fucking pathetic. I would just backspace it away, but I want to remember how big of a fuck up I have been recently.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by chocolate_ladyland

Or just no lyrics at all. Instrumental hip hop (or just beat music in general) has soooo much potential. It's not like the focus of hip hop was always on the lyrics (i.e. the beginning)

Truth.

I think experimental instrumental hip hop is the music of the future. That patten album helped me realize that, as did my revelation about Kanye West not sucking (which immediately preceded my talking about Kanye west alone for several months)

Rap is limited, hip hop's unique take on "instrumentation" is not, and has crazy potential.

[louder]

Originally Posted by Severian

WHAAAAT?
HUUUUNH?

I have been so busy trying not to get fired and then being laid off that I don't think I've thought about music in 72 hours!

that's, like, so fucking pathetic. I would just backspace it away, but I want to remember how big of a fuck up I have been recently.

it should've dropped but for some reason it didn't lol. still waiting.

[noisereductions]

Originally Posted by louder

1st single off the A$AP Mob album drops today:

 

1st single? What about "Trillmatic" and "Xscape"?

[noisereductions]

Originally Posted by louder

mastered version of SGP's tape is out: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/in...ed/id877748547

hard copy: http://raiderklanmerchandise.ecrater...catedpre-order

yeah I got this, and I'm excited. I really liked Intoxxxicated.

[louder]

Originally Posted by noisereductions

1st single? What about "Trillmatic" and "Xscape"?

that's what they tweeted. maybe Trillmatic and Xscape were just promo tracks? who knows.