Rap Songs of Interest

Nick wrote:This Danny Brown album is bonkers! I don't know that I hear a Joy Division influence but it is certainly a unique & impressive album in a year full of terrific rap albums.

pizzad a year just cause it was on point, and I wanted to give it my pizzas. Still dig the shit outta that album.

"Bodak Yellow" is an important moment for women in rap because it signifies that we are finally at a point where women can also score a number one hit with a song that is pure, disposable garbage.

holy hell that song fucking sucks.

I like it a lot but at no point did ever think "This one's going to the top of the pops".

this song is kinda "old now", but Mozzy is one of the hardest in the game right now and this is a 11/10 mob track:

I love some of the production this guy gets.

some real cold game for the middle of winter:

chrondog wrote:"Bodak Yellow" is an important moment for women in rap because it signifies that we are finally at a point where women can also score a number one hit with a song that is pure, disposable garbage.

holy hell that song fucking sucks.

This is the worst opinion you've ever heard. Goddamn.

This is one of my favorite tracks of the entire decade. It's so damn smooth and has both my favorite line ("mobbing like eye-tallians") and the probably the weirdest line ("i really hate niggas, i'm a nazi") in all of hip-hop.


She's great in this too. Dej Loaf is underrated as fuck.

Ҩ wrote:

chrondog wrote:"Bodak Yellow" is an important moment for women in rap because it signifies that we are finally at a point where women can also score a number one hit with a song that is pure, disposable garbage.

holy hell that song fucking sucks.

This is the worst opinion you've ever heard. Goddamn.

i stand by it.

i'll dance around to Bodak Yellow like everyone else, it's banging. but it's not a song i'd ever put on to listen to on my own. it's not a good rap song, it's a decent pop song with a big pop cultural moment.

Ҩ wrote:This is one of my favorite tracks of the entire decade. It's so damn smooth and has both my favorite line ("mobbing like eye-tallians") and the probably the weirdest line ("i really hate niggas, i'm a nazi") in all of hip-hop.

yeah bro, you don't have a leg to stand on here.

this is a very diverse and impactful album.

getting deep into Pac this week for the first time and his music is just a total mindfuck. i can't recall music that was so overtly political and personal ALL THE TIME and completely in your face about it while still being pretty bangin.



this shit is so fucking wild.

releasing "Brenda's Got a Baby" as your debut single is the most insane choice!!

this 03 greedo album is unhinged as fuck and i love it

Oh man, Skinny Pimp. Are you also on the Lady Bee tip?

jesus jones wrote:this 03 greedo album is unhinged as fuck and i love it

relevant: http://www.complex.com/music/2018/03/03-greedo-2pac-controversial-comments

i understand why 90s rap in general doesn't resonate in the modern climate. rap production is so busy and different now. rap is even more self-absorbed and nihilistic, but in a different way. Pac was self-mythologizing, haughty, and brutal, but he was also conscious and showed glimpses of optimism. he was a creative, intellectual type with a revolutionary spirit--full of failures and contradictions, but always connected to the wider world. he appeals to me in many ways because he's an atypical gangster figure, one who was self-loathing of the way he himself perpetuated negativity and destruction. hip-hop was something in '95--a spirit of America's cities and a society-wide exploration of urban decay, especially in the Black community.

now, hip-hop is dead. Nas was right in '06. i've been saying this for awhile and find it funny when old heads come out and try to talk about "hip-hop culture" like it exists or is relevant in any way today. now there's rappers and singers. there's street rappers, there's gangster rappers, there's soundcloud rappers, street singers, and pop rap singers. hip-hop as a unifying spirit and force has been dead for a long time though. while all these new artists have sprung out of the Black tradition of hip-hop in America's urban centers, the internet has divorced the music from the world we live in. modern rap has evolved with our society--it's now completely consumerist, mostly apolitical, and escapist. not that all rap from '85-'95 was super conscious or political (or that those are the only things that matter in music) and that there aren't some elements of that today, just that the general pendulum has swung towards increasingly levels of brutal, consumer-driven nihilism.

i haven't really dove into 03 Greedo's music before, but i've seen his name around for awhile. i'm skipping around a bunch of songs right now and tbh, i don't like his voice or his musical choices that much.

i prefer Yhung T.O from SOBxRBE

Not sure I'm quite getting my head around what you mean with "hip-hop is dead" but I don't agree. And I think what you go on to say connects well with this wider discussion of young folks dismissing Tupac's importance, and it's this: The enduring strength of hip-hop is its disinclination to look back (for the most part). Rap now isn't what it was like in '06, which wasn't what it was in '96, which wasn't what it was in '86. Which can in some ways be said about rock, etc. but I you don't really get the same revivalist movements in hip-hop, aside from the tut-tutting from "the old heads" at, like, what Rae Sremmurd are doing, etc. I feel like in 10 years 21 Savage will be aghast about the undue respect shown to Kendrick Lamar from some up and comer who is now in jr. high doing some shit we can't even imagine now.

I've been doing too many long posts lately so I'm clearly runnning out of gas here so whatever.

Duff... wrote:Not sure I'm quite getting my head around what you mean with "hip-hop is dead" but I don't agree.

I see hip hop as necessarily connected to a specific time and place--emcees, turntablism, street dancing and culture that grew out of New York in the 1970s and spread as a recognized subculture across America. I believe that lineage has been fractured enough that the contemporary generation of people making "rap music" should not be called "hip hop". Not as a way to denigrate them, but as a way to separate the influences and the culture of modern rap music from that historic culture. What's the point of the term hip hop even existing if it synonymous with rap music?

For those that want to continue to apply the term hip hop to large portions of music in 2018, what is the difference between rap music and hip hop?

I wouldn't even disagree that there are still artists today doing things that could be described accurately as hip hop and are indeed connected to that lineage, but they are increasingly marginalized and unpopular. "Hip hop is dead" insofar as it is not currently a very popular form of music or a particularly distinct subculture. I'd be open to the views of cultural anthropologists who study this shit way more closely than I do telling me otherwise, as I enjoy being wrong.

chrondog wrote:

Duff... wrote:Not sure I'm quite getting my head around what you mean with "hip-hop is dead" but I don't agree.

I see hip hop as necessarily connected to a specific time and place--emcees, turntablism, street dancing and culture that grew out of New York in the 1970s and spread as a recognized subculture across America. I believe that lineage has been fractured enough that the contemporary generation of people making "rap music" should not be called "hip hop". Not as a way to denigrate them, but as a way to separate the influences and the culture of modern rap music from that historic culture. What's the point of the term hip hop even existing if it synonymous with rap music?

OK, but then would what was going on in the 90's really be hip-hop? Or is hip-hop this malleable term like rock where it's largely divorced from its origins but can be traced linearly to that original specific time and place?

Duff... wrote:

chrondog wrote:

Duff... wrote:Not sure I'm quite getting my head around what you mean with "hip-hop is dead" but I don't agree.

I see hip hop as necessarily connected to a specific time and place--emcees, turntablism, street dancing and culture that grew out of New York in the 1970s and spread as a recognized subculture across America. I believe that lineage has been fractured enough that the contemporary generation of people making "rap music" should not be called "hip hop". Not as a way to denigrate them, but as a way to separate the influences and the culture of modern rap music from that historic culture. What's the point of the term hip hop even existing if it synonymous with rap music?

OK, but then would what was going on in the 90's really be hip-hop? Or is hip-hop this malleable term like rock where it's largely divorced from its origins but can be traced linearly to that original specific time and place?

Yes, the 90s was still connected to and referenced that culture in my view. And I also prefer the term "guitar music" to "rock" to describe what people are doing now. "Alternative" is also a dated term to me, no one makes alternative music anymore.

This is semantics, so if you want to say they should be malleable, umbrella terms that apply to everything that's fine. I just disagree. Like I asked, what is the difference between hip hop and rap music and why do we have two terms for the same thing then?

I was thinking we would never dream of referring to, say, Linkin Park or Kid Rock as hip-hop, and was hoping it wasn't simply an issue of melanin.

Can someone give me like a few artists/albums/mixtapes from the last couple of years that would help me get into contemporary rap music? I feel so out of the loop. I'm shocked how popular artists like 21 Savage or Lil Uzi Vert are. I honestly just don't get it... When your biggest music inspiration is Marilyn Manson, you are probably going to lose me. But I should give these artists more of a chance than I probably am and could use some fun new tunes in my life.

wp listen to this

CUPKAKKE.

Ҩ wrote:Can someone give me like a few artists/albums/mixtapes from the last couple of years that would help me get into contemporary rap music? I feel so out of the loop. I'm shocked how popular artists like 21 Savage or Lil Uzi Vert are. I honestly just don't get it... When your biggest music inspiration is Marilyn Manson, you are probably going to lose me. But I should give these artists more of a chance than I probably am and could use some fun new tunes in my life.

Even I can't get down with this new wave beyond enjoying a few superficial tracks.

"No Heart" by 21 Savage and "XO Tour Llif3" are (were?) undeniably enjoyable, but I'm not a fan of either 21 or Uzi in general.

Kodak Black had a few songs from his Painting Pictures project I liked: "Tunnel Vision" "Top Off Benz", "Patty Cake" and "U Aint Never", but he is also a certified lunatic and will probably be in jail for awhile.

I've enjoyed a Smokepurpp song. "Gucci Gang" and "Flex Like Ou" from Lil Pump aren't the worst things in the world. Somehow that stuff already feels old tough. The whole Youngboy NBA and Lil Xan and Rich the Kid new wave is already beyond me.

I greatly enjoy SOB x RBE which is kinda in this new wave of stuff, but they're Bay kids so I relate to it more. Their style is like the stuff I've been listening to since high school.

Definitely listen to the new Rae Sremmurd songs if you want some fire! They're gonna drop a (lol) triple LP with a group disc and a solo disc for each member. "Powerglide" and "Hurt to Look" are both tight.

The whole shitty rap x rock hybrid of people like Uzi and XXXtencion is why I think I've gravitated back to listening to Jacka/J.Stalin/Pac/Nas/Mobb Deep type stuff recently. I'm pretty open to new styles and I've always been a massive apologist for singing rappers and autotune, but the new shit just doesn't resonate with me. Like I said about 03 Greedo, I get where it's coming at from a lifestyle perspective, but the music isn't for me.

i love this J.Stalin project from last year:

i also fully endorse how popular this song/video are right now:



musically, this is barely "pop" but it's also one of the catchiest things i've heard in months and America agrees