it's bigger than hip-hop

[heresluck]

When I was in middle school, I assumed I hated rap, largely because I associated Run-DMC with Aerosmith. (Ah, the unforeseen consequences of bids for pop crossover stardom.) Ditto high school; what little I heard of gangsta rap I really didn't like. As a matter of fact, I still don't much care for gangsta rap (and a lot of the hip-hop artists I

Comments

[milly]

Jay-Z did a fabulous song using sampling from Annie's 'Hard Knock Life' ('Hard Knock Life(Ghetto Anthem)') that you probably have heard before. I'd heard it before I knew it was his, anyway, and I know it was used on tv a few times (including 'Popular', with Mary-Cherry goodness).

[sisabet]

She hasn't heard it, I can almost promise you this. She has shown remarkable skill and talent in keeping her earways free of anything uninvited.

If I thought she'd listen to Jay-Z, I'd send her some. As it is, she *might* listen to the gray album since the idea behind the mash-up is intriguing (and it is actually very good).

Of course, I don't help. I just stand behind her and threaten her with copies of "Umbrella" and not the one she thinks. The one with Rihanna feat. Jay Z.

[milly]

See, I always thought of Jay-Z as this commercial guest rapper (they reproduce faster than bunnies and make careers out of rap segments in random summer songs), but then I saw a trailer for 'Fade to Black' and I was gobsmacked. Other than 'Dirt Off The Shoulder' and 'Hard Knock Life' though, I haven't yet dug up stuff that explains the appeal, though. But I'm not familiar with the whole hip-hop/rap scene, as it's not a type of music that generally appeals to me (but I go more on a song to song basis than on a genre basis, so I tend to dwelve between styles), so I might not have dug deep enough yet.

[sisabet]

Jay-Z is arguably the most commercially successful and immediately recognizable names out there currently. More importantly? He is Beyonce's boyfriend which means I've had to adapt and accept that even though I personally think the mantle belongs more to Dr. Dre, Jay-Z is a very talented person. I still think Ghetto Anthem is crass commercialization (yeah, it is a catchy hook, but not very original) but after last year with Jibbs' "Chain Hang Low" and Bow Wow's "Shortie Like Mine," "Ghetto Anthem" does seem pretty damn genius.

It was a strange, strange world where fricking Ludacris has one of my favorite songs on the radio ("Runaway Love"). I know a lot of people are bored with the songs of this summer, but I for one am grateful - YAY UMBRELLA!!!

[heresluck]

Well, you're not alone -- I've seen a LOT of people saying that they find new music through vids.

And you know, ten years ago this stuff was all completely unknown to me too; I'm catching up only very slowly!

[coffeeandink]

Yay! Downloading nearly everything.

Thank you so much. A lot of the initial musical descriptions I've found reference so many other rap artists that it's like reading phrases in a foreign language. You have cleverly described things in terms of politics, which I actually get. :)

Can I ask a dumb question? What's the difference between rap and hip hop?

[boniblithe]

Not a dumb question- I have the same one *g*

[heresluck]

See my response to Mely. *g*

[heresluck]

Well, I don't know enough rap artists to do that kind of referencing; glad the ignorance works for you. *g* Seriously, this post is emphatically not the work of someone with deep knowledge; I've just sort of been wandering around for the last eight years on this giant beach of awesomeness picking up the occasional shiny thing and taking it home in my pocket. Thank goodness for Nathan Rabin at The Onion AV Club, who led me to at least half the tracks on this mix.

As for the difference between rap and hip-hop... Listen to the beginning of "Underground Vandal":
Four elements of hip-hop:
DJing, break[danc]ing, MCing, and graffiti

MCing = Rapping, speaking rhythmically and in rhyme, usually (but not always) over a beat (that's the DJing part -- hence the emphasis on producers in hip-hop; Kanye West was a HUGE producer before he was MCing on his own albums

[kassrachel]

About 10 years ago, yaoobruni made me a mix designed to introduce me to hip-hop. It was a cassette tape, naturally -- I was just saying the other day that I wish he'd remake it as a cd/playlist. *g* Oh, man, there was so much good stuff on there. He'd gotten me hooked on the Fugees during our cross-country drive that year, and I asked for more, and the mixtape was what I got.

After that he brought me Mos Def and Black Star and the Roots. Like you, I can't say I've ever listened to most "mainstream" hip-hop, but there's so much here that blows me away.

Anyway, thank you -- nabbed several tracks which are new to me. :-)

[heresluck]

Oh, the cassette tapes of our youth. *g* But yeah, that's how I started listening to Michael Franti; a friend sneaked some Disposable Heroes of... onto a mix she made for me in 1992 or so, and that was really the beginning, even though it took me almost ten years to understand that.

There is so much wonderful stuff out there. I just recently got Psalm One's CD, and -- yeah. It's harder to cast a wide net where I'm living now; I need to start reading more reviews, because I'm getting a lot less by osmosis these days.

[kassrachel]

Man, I just went on a wild goose chase for the cassette tape in question, and it has completely gone AWOL. What a bummer. (Also, now I am all dusty from digging around in the garage and the basement. Whoops.)

I know it started with "Act Too (Love of my Life)" by the Roots, which knocked me out. And it included "Insane in the Brain" by Cypress Hill. And "Cumbia de los Muertos" off of Ozomatli's first album. And "Runnin'" by Pharcyde -- see, that helps me date the mix, because that track has a shout-out to it being 1995. (I'm going to have to invest in that for my iTunes library, now that I think on it.) And "You Got Me" by Erykah Badu and the Roots.

Mmm. :-)

[heresluck]

That whole Roots CD is so good -- and then some of their subsequent stuff is even better, which, seriously, how do they do that? ::loves::

[vee_fic]

I snagged almost all, for listening later. Thanks! Being a listener with practically no ear for lyrics, I've missed out on most of rap. Occasionally a beat will snag me (although, especially the stuff that was popular while I was in highschool/college, it would turn out that beat was from a disco classic), but without practice, I remain basically deaf to the artistry of lyrics. So the Jay-Z song that samples from Annie, that a commenter mentions above, is a song I've heard before -- but I'm damned if I could tell you what the song is about.

As a result, I always hewed toward the more melodic ends of the spectrum: Arrested Development, Lauryn Hill, some of OutKast, and the later noodlings (some of them lyric-free) of the Beastie Boys. And I always did like "Summertime," by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (i.e., Will Smith), which is my secret background music for summer goofing off.

[heresluck]

Yeah, hip-hop can be challenging even for folks like me who DO have an ear for lyrics, because the tradition of spitting out so much clever wordplay at such high speed... it's like learning to understand poetry all over again. I have to focus the first few times I hear a track. Which I actually love, but which is decidedly not the way I listen to a lot of my easy breezy indiepop.

Arrested Development and Tribe Called Quest were major players on the progressive hip-hop scene while I was in college, and they're artists whose back catalogues I'm always meaning to check out, but just keeping up with a small portion of current stuff stretches me pretty much to my limit. OutKast is really hit or miss for me -- brilliant stuff, but not always MY stuff. And I'm much more inclined to listen to Atmosphere or Eyedea & Abilities than the Beastie Boys, but I think that's a personal thing leftover from late '80s disdain, and I should probably get over it.

[vee_fic]

I think I might be just enough younger than you that my real introduction to the Beastie Boys was Ill Communication, which is a quantum leap from what they'd done previously. There are four instrumental-only tracks on that record, and I think the instrumentation throughout meshes better with the DJ work, so it's not "waka waka, and now for a guitar interlude" but the two flowing smoothly together. Hello Nasty takes that even further, I think, although I'm not convinced it coheres as much as a whole record as Ill Communication does. (I haven't heard their most recent record, which came out a month ago.)

As for OutKast, I read a bit about the creative process of Big Boi and Andre, and it started to make sense to me how they could come up with such schizophrenic music. They seem to work well together, spark off each other, but I'm not sure how much they are a group as two solo acts in tandem. So that would explain why Outkast appeals only some of the time, I think -- it's more than one group at a time.

[heresluck]

Yeah, my first introduction to the BBs was "Fight For Your Right" off Licensed to Ill -- it was all over MTV when I was in late middle school, in the brief period before I quit watching anything but 120 minutes. And clearly lots of people loved it! But not me. *g* I've heard that the group has grown up a lot in the last twenty years, which, yes, one hopes so, but my list of music to check out is really long and it would take a strong recommendation from someone who knows me well to bump them anywhere near the top of the list.