its a genre i never paid much attention to and all i'm familiar with is the mainstream stuff w/ lyrics about money and i feel kind of disconnected and bored w/ that.
whats good? any recommendations?
I don't dislike the whole genre, but I don't like 95% of the gangsta rap stuff. Fortunately, there is more than that. Hip Hop/Rap is often a good element in crossover styles like the one of Rage Against The Machine.
„Man can do what he wants but he cannot want what he wants.“
– Arthur Schopenhauer
some of my favorites from the 90s non-gangster stuff...
I was going to post a massive post and it turns out 2 videos is the maximum per post. To be continued.
Reason is a whore.
both these artists are fairly mainstream and you must have heard them already but i want to recommend these albums anyway.
Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon: The End of Day
Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
both are really depressing and well-made albums. both are genre-defying and veer away from traditional hip-hop cliches.
<3
/plebcore
as far as the fundamentals go, rakim and nas are untouchable. big l and big pun are also very skilled, though pretty grungy. jay-z will always be a bloated pos imo but reasonable doubt is a great album. eminem's older freestyles are some of the most lyrically dexterous tracks I've ever heard. also, talib kweli and mos def (blackstarr collab) are a must. immortal technique.
4w3-5w6-8w7
Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, The Fugees should be included if its hip hop and not rap you're interested in.
+1 for Nas, Rakim, Eminem, Immortal Technique, Mos Def and Talib Kweli as well. Atmosphere is also nice if you'd like a toned-down, more depressive but also more hopeful version of Eminem's angst. Joe Budden is similar and Royce da 5'9 is also good; these last two are more influenced by mainstream themes, but nonetheless vastly more lyrically creative than most current rap.
But, for a certainty, back then,
We loved so many, yet hated so much,
We hurt others and were hurt ourselves...
Yet even then, we ran like the wind,
Whilst our laughter echoed,
Under cerulean skies...
some of this stuff i've posted a bunch of times around the forum (or all of it lol)... but whatever...
^Originally Posted by Gilly
Le continuation. Some will be repeats from other posts in this thread because I can't be bothered to reformat.
Reason is a whore.
Reason is a whore.
Eminem tends to rap about things other than money ime. Sean Paul is good but does rap mostly about chicks and is nigh-incomprehensible that with the jamaican style of pronunciation. Some other classics include Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes (who is notable for being able to laugh at himself, imo clearest rapper out there, superb pronunciation), Missy Elliott (2 video links,) Royce da 5"9', etc. DMX for one gets quite angsty. The following also were recommended to me as smarter current rap: Jedi Mind Tricks, Wu Tang Clan.
Some Nigerian rap for stylistic variety:
Some funny songs made by this group:
Reason is a whore.
To finish some old Jamaican style:
Reason is a whore.
Some old french ones that came to mind:
Reason is a whore.
More in the "pure rap" style:
Reason is a whore.
I like to think that this use of spoilers is attributable to the thoughtfulness of people towards lungs bad connection(?) she mentioned in her thread for posting songs with spoilers.
“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life. - Osama bin Laden
Nas, Atmosphere, DMX, and Tupac all have some pretty incredibly deep songs.
Projection is ordinary. Person A projects at person B, hoping tovalidate something about person A by the response of person B. However, person B, not wanting to be an obejct of someone elses ego and guarding against existential terror constructs a personality which protects his ego and maintain a certain sense of a robust and real self that is different and separate from person A. Sadly, this robust and real self, cut off by defenses of character from the rest of the world, is quite vulnerable and fragile given that it is imaginary and propped up through external feed back. Person B is dimly aware of this and defends against it all the more, even desperately projecting his anxieties back onto person A, with the hope of shoring up his ego with salubrious validation. All of this happens without A or B acknowledging it, of course. Because to face up to it consciously is shocking, in that this is all anybody is doing or can do and it seems absurd when you realize how pathetic it is.
I CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO THIS!!!
"How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
maximum of two videos...? fuck
there are just too many branches in hip-hop's evolution, so it's a moot point to wax nostalgic over the gap between hip hop boys' humble hood anthems and rick ross' sloppy, southern grandiosity. for example, jay-z's reasonable doubt perfectly embodies the transition from grimy beatboxing to a higher-class swagger for black males as a whole (dead presidents...), and yet jay-z is a sub-par, self-inflating piece of shit; so a convenient pawn gets revolutionary status. nas's illmatic is a more fundamental exposition of the street mindset as it really pertains to economic success; the roots are too implicit to forget, and yet there has to be some compromise with ancestral masters if this genre is ever to be more than bottom-feeding indulgence. so that's why I prefer old-school shit. it doesn't matter if slaughterhouse has superior lyricism and million-dollar production; if em hadn't been recognized as the diamond bullet he was by dre, D12 wouldn't have even been brought along for the ride, so what would that say about the beef between him and royce and the inevitable resolution that allowed for quasi-mainstream underdogs to be realized? em's worked with jay-z, and utterly destroyed renegade. and what does he rap about? then all the black rappers get to bite rakim's shit like the stage is a copyright for actors, but who's the g.o.a.t.?
4w3-5w6-8w7
Jinx- Ganja
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