The Semi-Official Rap/Hip-Hop Thread - Page 2

I get what you're saying to a degree, though I do think a lot of longtime, legitimately talented artists have been sort of overshadowed and unfairly lumped in with the crap that's on the radio. I mentioned a few earlier, though I'd like to reiterate Scarface and the Geto Boys. And yeah, loved Ghostface Killah's "Fishscale".

No, and I was meaning to fix that. He's a real talent, a sort of hybrid who bridges the mainstream with the underground in a pretty convincing way. "Real" is the track that sticks in my head all the time, though the whole album is very good.

Cee-Lo? Outkast? Lil Wayne? Haystak? UGK? Bonecrusher?

I hate the garbage on the radio just as much as anyone, but commercial rap has always sucked. I don't talk noise about NYC because 50 Cent is a fucking moron. Like in Born in East L.A. : 'Fuck me?! No, fuck you!'

I'm not trying to start an argument, but it's unfair to criticize the entire region on the basis of 'walk it off.' Cause that shit is really stupid.

Wu Tang is for the kids! And K-OS from Canada is really really good.

Commercial rap has always sucked? Speaking of blanket statements...

I really liked Rhymefest's Blue Collar last year. Not 'mainstream' in the sense of big success, but, well, it was trying to be.

There was no 'golden' age of radio rap music. The vast majority of it has always been terrible. Saying 'commercial rap sucks' and 'fuck the south' are two entirely different positions. I'd put the best rappers in the south up against Jay-Z and Kanye any day, of any week. Even Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube got soft when they hit it mainstream. My point was, you can't judge a region by the Lowest Common Denominator, and that's what invariably gets played on the radio. Remember Ma$e and Puffy? Wu tang was big, for a minute, when they had the video where they turn into bees. Outkast is mainstream somehow. I like 'Big Pimpin.' But these are the exceptions to the rule. Commercial radio sucks. Rap in particular. If I'm trapped in a car, it's 101.1 Classical WRR, the best fuckin radio station in the nation.

I heard this rhymefest track on the radio one night driving home from work and it was really cool, switching styles and samples in a way that reminded me of Shake Your Rump, but the fucking DJ never said the name, only the artist. Pisses me off to this day.

I suppose he's much more on the side of blues now, but I maintain a fondness for Everlast.

Canibus is still top five in my estimation. The better rapper doesn't always win in the media perception.

I liked 'Whitey Ford sings the Blues' a lot. Haven't heard it in a long time though.

Canibus is an amazing lyricist:

This next verse is the face of death
Me without lyrics is like a porn flick without sex
Illmatic, my lyrical skills are Jurassic
With more flavor then Skittles when I'm digitally mastered
I go off like a cannon and blow up the planet
with "No Fear," like them clothes white boys be wearin
I'm tougher than denim, lethal like venomous snake bites
The marijuana makes my eyes bright red like brake lights
There ain't a party I couldn't rock, believe that
There ain't a microphone brave enough to give me feedback
I'm strong, my word is Bond like James
Niggaz be tryin to test, but they 'week' like seven days
MC's run away when I kick it; they act so chicken
they should come with a large drink and a biscuit
My style's radioactive, massive atomic
I plan to push the Earth in front of Halley's Comet
Breakin the Facts of Life down like Tudy, I'm raw like sushi
with more Vocab, than three fuckin Fugees
So recognize or be hospitalized
cause lyrically on a scale of one to ten I'm twenty-five

Glad to see someone who knows what I'm talking about. 'Shove This J-O-B' is critical for anyone who likes 'Office Space'. And 'mechanical mandible.' Two words in a bar that are more clever than what most rappers put down in an entire verse.

New Rascal video. Can't wait for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsjFMw5tESY

I get really tiresome when I hear people say "oh yeah, commercial rap sucks, I listen to underground". I often want to reply with an "oh wow, you're fuckin unique, aren't you" type of answer. I understand there's a lot of garbage in commercial rap, but a lot of underground rappers sound like they're flipping through a fuckin thesaurus.

I agree with you 100%. When I say 'commercial', I'm not drawing a hard and fast line in the sand. I'm just talking about what I hear on the radio here in Texas, what's being promoted heavily. And it's terrible. There are plenty of rappers with talent and ability that don't get airplay. I'm not talking about Aesop Rock or El-P or Atmosphere or Nerdcore (I kinda like Atmosphere, but that whole 'let me spit a bunch of gibberish and pass it off as 'intelligent'' is weak as fuck). Wu-Tang is about as close to 'commercial' quality rap goes that I can think of, and that's only peripheral. Jay-Z is a good back-up rapper, but he's not the CEO of rap. Is NAS considered commercial? Even OutKast soundtrack album is hard to quantify as commercial . . . it might not be their best, but it's by no means a traditional 'commercial' album.

Bonecrusher, UGK, 8Ball and MJG, K-OS, Haystak . . . they are definitely not commercial, and that's what I'm talking about. Del, J5, Black Market Militia, PPT . . . i can go on endless. Just because MTV isn't playing your video doesn't necessarily mean 'underground.' Talib Kweli isn't commercial, but he in no way falls into the self-absorbed 'real hip-hop' demographic you're talking about. I am very vocal in my disdain for that kind of music.

I think we further need to distinguish a bit between "commercial" and "mainstream". When I hear commercial, I think of the truly artistically devoid stuff out there. I'm looking at you Bow Wow, I'm looking at you Mims "This Is Why I'm Hot", I'm looking at you Rich Boy "Throw Some D's". The only goal is to sell a few albums in the first week before people realize that there's no talent there. BigMac of rap.

Mainstream encompasses a lot, and I'd say just about all the famous artists out there are mainstream. Nas isn't commercial IMO, but debuting in the top 10 on the Billboard charts, he's definitely mainstream. I think UGK is mainstream at this point, and if they're not, their album this summer will confirm it. They're on a ton of tracks for big artists, and you can walk in and get Bun B's "Trill" in every Target in America.

Blast commercial rap all you want, and love the underground all you want. But I don't think it's fair to write off the entire mainstream.

Oh, and I don't know how missed seeing this earlier, but yes. Great song, great sample, really works.

I can second that. They are kind of big on campus (U of Wash) these days because they went here, but they are genuinely talented and awesome live as well.

I guess I'm out of the loop on the commercial, since I never listen to any rap radio stations, so that could explain a lot.

I guess I'm gonna have to bring up my favorite rap group of all time, the one and only De La Soul. Hilarious, incredibly skilled, fun and they're hippies. Even as recent as 2002, The Grind Date is a fucking great album. I hope they have another one coming out sometime this decade. That'd be nice.

I guess I'll be making your day, then. De La dropped a mixtape toward the end of last year called Impossible Mission. You'd like it.

Eee! Wonderful! Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

Not sure if they are hip hop in the traditional sense, but Subtle put out one of my favorite albums of 2006 with For Hero:For Fool which I guess is a concept album. DoseOne doesn't really rap about gangsta type things or anything along those lines but the album is filled with great production and he is definitely one of my favorite rappers working today. Though he does have a nasel type delivery which might bother some.

Also I didn't see them mentioned but the Cunninglynguists, despite the not so good name for the group are one of the better underground rap groups. A Piece of Strange and Southerunderground are both great albums.

I mentioned them, nobody reads my posts.

Here's a list of my most listened to hip hop acts...in alphabetical order!

3582 (Fat Jon & J. Rawls)
Abdominal
Arsonists
Atmosphere
Binary Star
Cannibal Ox
Cunninlynguists
Cyne
Dan the Automator
Del the Funkee Homosapien
El-P
Fat Jon
Five Deez
Handsome Boy Modeling School
The Herbaliser
Hieroglyphics
Immortal Technique
J. Rawls
Jedi Mind Tricks
Kool Keith
Mos Def & Talib Kweli
Mr. Lif
Non Phixion
Pase Rock
Substantial
Zion I

Even though I wouldn't call him exclusively a hip-hop producer, Dan's stuff is pure gold. Lovage is still one of my favourite albums ever, not to mention that it features the sexiest female voice on the planet.

Dan's been involved in great stuff, Handsome Boy and Deltron 3030 are classics. I think Jennifer Charles sings on Lovage, I checked out her band's stuff, they're called Elysian Fields. Very dour stuff that I couldnt get into, but still...great voice indeed.

Click on my sig and you'll see that Michael Mann used "Deltron 3030" for the openiing to "Robery Homicide Division", confirming for the umpteenth time that the guy has superior taste.

Okay, sampling. When done right, I love it. I think it's a lot of fun. Be it Wu-Tang sampling old kung-fu scenes, or the infectious audacity of Jay-Z's "Hard Knock Life", what are some of your favorite samples? Kanye West's "Through the Wire" sampling Chaka Khan always amused me. I recently also heard a surprising sample of Tom Petty's "Free Falling" by Pimp C of UGK called "Free". Either off the wall or otherwise, what samples put a smile on your face?

Edited to add N.W.A.'s "Express Yourself".

So many doubt cause he comes from the South,
But when he opens up his mouth, all bullets come out.

Lil' Wayne is a truly great lyricist, and anyone who dismisses him due to geography is a fool.

I actually think Deltron 3030 is my favorite rap album ever.

Black on Both Sides for me.

FieldMob ft. Ludacris & Jamie Foxx - Georgia (though, I guess it's really Mr. Foxx singing)

Da Backwudz - You Gonna Luv Me (especially after seeing Dreamgirls)

Ghostface Killah - Shakey Dog (ignore the video, just listen to the music)

Missy Elliot - The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) (to listen to the original, the use of the intro is pretty brilliant)

Touch the Sky - Kanye West feat. Lupe Fiasco (great song to sample from, and even though I hate how he slowed down the song, killing the energy of the real song, it's a great sample)

Nas - Hip-Hop is Dead (he already sampled this in Thief's anthem, which I feel is a better song (and it's featured in The Departed!) but I couldn't find the video for that.)

And I know you all hate Nerdcore as much as I do (a fair amount) but MC Paul Barman's MF DOOM-produced debut "Paullelujah!" has a lot of DOOM's trademark sampling style, and it seems to take voice samples from a bunch of children's records.

The fact that Kanye was able to make his 'Spaceship' beat from the half second of Marvin Gaye's voice that he used always blows my mind.

He has great talent for sampling. Too bad his lyrical abilities seem to be waning.

Kanye's a great sampler, and I've always liked his rhymes and still do. But for my favorite/most unexpected samples?

Lil' Wayne "Best Rapper Alive" (Iron Maiden "Fear of Dark")
Mobb Deep "Got It Twisted" (Thomas Dolby "She Blinded Me With Science")
MF Doom "Beef Rap" (Incidental music from an episode of "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends")
Busta Rhymes "Gimme Some More" (Bernard Hermann's theme to "Psycho.")
Puff feat. Biggie "Victory" (Bill Conti's "Rocky" score)
Nas feat. Jay-Z "Black Republicans" ("Murder of Don Fanucci" from Godfather 2")
Public Enemy "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" (the end to Prince's guitar coda from "Let's Go Crazy")
Beastie Boys "Pass the Mic" ("The Big Takeover" by Bad Brains)



...and my personal, superduper fave, Wyclef "Apocalypse" (Saint Preux "Concerto for One Voice").

Can't believe I forgot Gimme Some More. Herrman was never so smooth. Love that song, and it's got more "niggas" per line than damned near any other song I know.

The new Redman single produced by Timbaland has one at the end of EVERY line, thereby eliminating the need to think of actual rhymes.

See, that's just lazy. Busta can get away with it because he needs those extra syllables.

Great picks. I'm a big fan of these two Nas samples especially.

Oh, and if you haven't seen this video yet you need to. Bone Thugs~n~Harmony sampled Phil Collins' "Home" and the video comes complete with the participation of Thuggish Ruggish Phil. BTNH-"Home"

I got a question about Grandmaster Flash's "The Message".

"Crazy lady, livin in a bag
Eating out of garbage piles, used to be a fag-hag"

I'm not the best when it comes to slang, even if it's 20 years old, but what does fag-hag mean in this context? I assume they don't mean those girls in high school whose only friends were gay guys?

So I realize that one liners are a cheap freestyle gimmick, but I wanted to hear some of your favorite one liners because I still get a kick out of them. They at least have a bit of cleverness to them as opposed to lines like "I'm hot cause I'm fly, you aint cause you not." Here are a few one liners that aren't necessarily my favorites, but have stuck with me because I liked them at some point.

"In rhyme bouts you'll dial 9, just to get a line out" - Wordsworth
"Cause your style is like dying in my sleep, I don't feel it" - Eminem
"Got 20 ways to tell you shut the fuck up, 19 of them are 24 bars long, the other one goes, shut the fuck up" - Aesop Rock

If you haven't noticed from these quotes, I'm kind of stuck in late 90's/early 2000's hip hop.

Don't know if that flows directly into diss tracks, but there's where I'm taking it. There are plenty of retarded "beefs" in hip hop, usually between subpar MCs who no one wants to hear anyway. But when the heavy hitters go at it, the one-liners and insults can be classic. The Jay-Z/Nas conflict was good for this - you got a genuine sense that these guys really didn't like each other and for somewhat more substantial reasons than the usual rap beefs.

"And to all you other cats throwing shots at Jigga/You only get half a bar - fuck ya'll niggas." Jay-Z "Takeover" (Nas Diss)

"I'm about a dollar what the fuck is 50 Cent?" Jay-Z (slapping at 50 Cent when he was still on the mixtape circuit)

I don't listen to a ton of freestyles, but here's some of the more interesting rivalry tracks, all with some choice one-liners.

"Real Muthafuckin' G's" (Eazy-E lashes out at Dr. Dre)
"Hit 'Em Up" (2Pac rips Puff Daddy and Bad Boy a new one)
"Live By Yo Rep (Three 6 Mafia whines about Bone Thugs~n~Harmony)
"Ether" (Nas insults Jay-Z)
"The Takever" (Jay-Z simultaneously rips Nas/etc.)

I love that tune, he's on fire.

Substantial is one of my favourite lyricists, here's a sample of Think Different.

Just because kid rappers say the darndest things..

Ever hear the diss songs between Masta Ace and Boogieman (this is the only time I've heard of Boogieman)? It is featured on this old ass Underground Airplay Vol. 1 compilation. Boogieman pretty much just goes after Masta Ace for being old school and rips on his career. Then Masta Ace just destroys him, I think the last line sums it up nicely: "And don't answer back because this is hard shit to follow, and you can't spit nigga so you obviously must swallow." The songs are:

Masta Ace - "Acknowledge"
Boogieman - "Just You Wait"

That kid rapper show sounds terrible. I hope it gets picked up by VH1 and ends up in reality TV obscurity. From the small glimpses I saw of the Ice T Rap School and the White Rapper School VH1 would poised be to become a powerhouse of bad rap reality TV.

I know he's gained a helluva lot of new fans after his fucking phenonmenal verse in Uncommon Valor on Jedi Mind Trick's latest, but you all have to check out RA the Rugged Man's Die, Rugged Man, Die. It's been been in constant rotation since I picked it up- he really is an amazing lyricist. I know the content of the lyrics will turn a lot of people off.... but he did it before anyone.

Plus, he's producing a new film by Frank "Basket Case" Hennenlotter. How amazing is that?

Oh and I'm late on realizing that a new Deltron album is coming out. Man oh man. Like a lot of people here, it's one of my favorite albums ever... can't wait to see how the followup is.

I can second that, I haven't listened to the new Jedi Mind Tricks, but Ride Rugged Man Die gets regular rotation on my ipod. His lyricism is pretty fucking great. He did a pretty cool team up with J-Live on the Wutang meets Indie Culture comp. called "Give It Up" if you're a fan of either you should check it out.

EDIT: Oops, I meant it was a team up with J-Live. The comp. is worth checking out for a few key songs, but it is kind of uneven.

1. Introduction
2. Lyrical Swords - Ras Kass & GZA
3. Slow Blues - Vast Aire (of Cannibal Ox), Byata, Timbo King & Prodigal Sunn
4. Still Grimey - U-God, Sean Price, Prodigal Sunn & C-Rayz Walz
5. Skit
6. Think Differently - Casual, Tragedy Khadafi, Rock Marciano & Vordul Mega (of Cannibal Ox)
7. Informercial #1
8. Biochemical Equation - RZA & MF Doom
9. O.D.B. Tribute - DJ Noize
10. Fragments - Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
11. Intermission
12. Street Corners - Bronze Nazareth, Soloman Childs & Byata
13. Listen - Littles, Khalid & Planet Asia
14. Infomercial #2
15. Verses - Scaramanga Shallah, La The Darkman, Ras Kass & GZA
16. Preservation - Aesop Rock & Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
17. Cars on the Interstate - C.C.F. Division (Shacronz & Freemurda)
18. Give It Up - J-Live & R.A. The Rugged Man
19. Black Dawn - Bronze Nazareth

Stand out tracks are "Give It Up", "Lyrical Swords", and "Preservation", but those are kind of obvious picks based on the artists alone.

Man, you gotta hear that JMT song. It's available on his myspace page.

Definitely going to check out that comp- thanks for the heads up.

I've really been meaning to get the new JMT, I have most of their older albums, but I've been slacking when it comes to picking up some much needed new shit.

El-P's playing here in Atlanta in a couple of weeks. Anyone seen him on this tour? Anyone else going?

Also, new Deltron is very exciting news, indeed!