Hip-Hop and Punk Rock
It's nice to see any musician with a sincere appreciation for genres strikingly dissimilar, at least in sound, from their own. In this fantastic excerpt from an ALLHIPHOP.com interview, legendary rapper Bun B makes some keen observations about similarities between hip-hop and punk rock:
AllHipHop.com: Your musical tastes extend beyond Hip-Hop, tell me about other things you dig…
Bun B: I like a lot of early 80's Punk music like Black Flag and Dead Kennedy's. Some of the Ramones stuff too. I really dig Dead Kennedy’s, and I'm a Sex Pistols fan. ‘Cause if you think about it, the same timeframe of that music [was] when early Rap was breaking. Whether it was Hollis, or coming out of Queensbridge or coming out of the Bowery or Hell’s Kitchen - all of it was out of poverty. Whatever you want to call it, it's below standard living. There is a certain intensity and rage that come out of living in that type of world, and the way that they view the rest of the world, because it's not comfortable where they sit. That's the same mentality that Rap had in its inception. The same mentality that Punk had. ‘Cause I can feel like that, mothafuckas are pissed off. And I can buy it a little more from them than I can from Rap, because I'm too closely tied into the performance and the artist, and Rap music. ‘Cause I be pissed off, mad, and angry, and I be wanting to vent. But some of this Rap don't do that. I listen to Radiohead every now and then. I'm still trying to figure out how they make that shitt. There's really just an art of the music that they put together. I really have no clue on how they sit there and put that type of shit together. But I'm not going to sit there and try to decipher it. If I like it, I just like it.
AllHipHop.com: As far as Punk and Rap, the 80’s were an interesting time…
Bun B: Well, we all got our music from the same source in the 80's. There was no BET, there was no VH1. We was watching Friday night videos, the shit on USA that used to come on all night and fuckin’ MTV. So we would sit around and listen to Billy Idol and Rod Stewart and Michael Jackson. We all watched the same shit. White kids in New York. they went to the Black corners. They partied down town, walked through the park, they didn't hang in the park, but they walked past the park. Everybody was getting the same music from the same place. We all relate a lot better to each other than we think we do. That's why when you be at a concert you be thinking, like if you go to a Jay show or a 50 show, you see all them White boys. And you be like, “These White boys gonna get fucked up.” They don't. You always think they do, but they don't. They be the ones that’s partying too hard.
I've been known to call myself the Dumptruck, and Bun just earned himself an extra heap of respect.
AllHipHop.com: Your musical tastes extend beyond Hip-Hop, tell me about other things you dig…
Bun B: I like a lot of early 80's Punk music like Black Flag and Dead Kennedy's. Some of the Ramones stuff too. I really dig Dead Kennedy’s, and I'm a Sex Pistols fan. ‘Cause if you think about it, the same timeframe of that music [was] when early Rap was breaking. Whether it was Hollis, or coming out of Queensbridge or coming out of the Bowery or Hell’s Kitchen - all of it was out of poverty. Whatever you want to call it, it's below standard living. There is a certain intensity and rage that come out of living in that type of world, and the way that they view the rest of the world, because it's not comfortable where they sit. That's the same mentality that Rap had in its inception. The same mentality that Punk had. ‘Cause I can feel like that, mothafuckas are pissed off. And I can buy it a little more from them than I can from Rap, because I'm too closely tied into the performance and the artist, and Rap music. ‘Cause I be pissed off, mad, and angry, and I be wanting to vent. But some of this Rap don't do that. I listen to Radiohead every now and then. I'm still trying to figure out how they make that shitt. There's really just an art of the music that they put together. I really have no clue on how they sit there and put that type of shit together. But I'm not going to sit there and try to decipher it. If I like it, I just like it.
AllHipHop.com: As far as Punk and Rap, the 80’s were an interesting time…
Bun B: Well, we all got our music from the same source in the 80's. There was no BET, there was no VH1. We was watching Friday night videos, the shit on USA that used to come on all night and fuckin’ MTV. So we would sit around and listen to Billy Idol and Rod Stewart and Michael Jackson. We all watched the same shit. White kids in New York. they went to the Black corners. They partied down town, walked through the park, they didn't hang in the park, but they walked past the park. Everybody was getting the same music from the same place. We all relate a lot better to each other than we think we do. That's why when you be at a concert you be thinking, like if you go to a Jay show or a 50 show, you see all them White boys. And you be like, “These White boys gonna get fucked up.” They don't. You always think they do, but they don't. They be the ones that’s partying too hard.
I've been known to call myself the Dumptruck, and Bun just earned himself an extra heap of respect.