What Hip Hop are u diggin now?

[jamester]

I wish more kids could come up and spread a more positive message, but it's really culturally arrogant of me, as a middle class white dude to sit in my comfy loft and dismiss the other kids who are just telling it like it is.

Ah, but that's the whole point, isn't it? There's no such thing as "keeping it real" anymore. And I'll add to that, I wish more people would act like artist's and dare to re-define reality through the art. Artists function in two ways; one is to act like a mirror, reflecting/shedding light on our lives and society. The other is to present fresh new perspectives and challenging viewpoints in order to further both the art they are involved in and the culture that surrounds it.

Hip-hop's got the first point locked down, but it's stuck there. The problem is that everybody's spinning their wheels rehashing the stereotypical negativity ad nauseum, sounding like a broken record. If you're from the hood, then you already know all the problems in the hood. If you're from suburbia, you still know all the problems in the hood - it's no secret jack, nothin' new since the 80's...

The question is, what are artists gonna do about it? So far, most have said the same thing - "Cash in on it, cuz that's the image that's makin' money and hip-hop's making a WHOLE LOT of money". It's not about honest struggle anymore; it was once, but that was fifteen years ago. It's not "gangsta", it's "ghetto fab": rims, ice, coke and ho's.

So I don't care if I'm middle-class white guy, I'm an artist first and foremost and I'm gonna keep saying it: Get out of the gutter hip-hop, it's tired played-out bullshit. I don't wanna hear about slinging coke and big pimpin' anymore. It's done. It's been done.

Instead of "keeping it real", create something "fresh".

[thesmallisbeautiful]

No, that's not the point.

What mostly bothers me here is that everyone feels perfectly confident dismissing so much music based based on complete ignorance. You think nothing has changed in the streets since the 80's? What are you basing that on? The entire paradigm of hip-hop has changed in the last 10 years. There is absolutely such a thing as "keeping it real" it means that when you say something happened to you, it did. It means you talk about what's real to you. It's just as easy to play the artist card and tell other people that they need to present different perspectives and challenging viewpoints, but you chose to ignore what they say or complain that the new viewpoints aren't what you wanted them to be. The problems associated with the brutal poverty in america and around the world may be old hat to you, and a bit boring, but they are a constant fact of life to millions of people and there have been countless wonderfully creative reactions to it that go way beyond big pimpin'. Conversely, the drug world might just be another topic for a song to you and maybe you're tired of it, but if it was a constant fact of your life and you were face to face with it every day, or furthermore if you actually were a drug dealer and lived through years of hustling drugs in the streets every night to try to make enough money to get by, it might have a bit more resonance with you and might actually be fertile ground for self expression. li'l Wayne lived through Katrina and saw his whole world reduced to rubble and has reacted by retreating to a constant drug haze and some of the most insane abstract wordplay since Hugo Ball. I can say that it's unhealthy, but it's certainly legitimate art. You say that "everybody is rehashing the same negativity" but is that really happening. I don't expect you to back up your claims with references, but it doesn't seem like you actually listen to the music you condemn, so how are you so sure that it's such a broken record. Seriously, "ghetto fab"? I haven't heard that term used since Puffy was running the show (and still called Puffy).

Also, you aren't first and foremost and artist, you're a human being first and foremost. I'm sure we're all familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Millions of people are born into a situation where they're deprived to a large degree of the two most basic needs, nutrition and safety, as well as other needs like acceptance and recognition. Once you work your way up the ladder and can provide those basic needs, you can enjoy the privileged position of pretending that art comes first. You are incredibly lucky to have had all of those things but other people don't have them and as a result maybe have different priorities than you. Telling hip-hop to "get out of the gutter" is also one of the most culturally ignorant statements I've heard in a long time. "forget the ghetto hip-hop, white middle class 'artists' are bored with it". Unbelievable.

As a side note, I'd like to hear what the strong lyrical content is of any of your musical tastes (open invitation to the board).

Hip-hop is not just about lyrics anyways. It's club banging musical content as well, and as such has been more consistently innovative in the last 10 years than any other form of music. It has also been the most broadly influential music since rock and roll. It has worked it's way into every scene from opera to balkan gypsy music. Hip-hop producers are hired for most major pop albums now, but i will also be seeing the rapper High Priest perform with two freejazz musicians at the center for improvised music in park slope for this year's CMJ. The genre is huge and to dismiss it in one broad stroke is really effectively saying "I am totally out of touch"

I thought I'd post a lyric, it's not that up to date, it's from Cannibal Ox's album "the cold vein" which came out in 2001, but I think its somewhat appropriate.

Birds of the same feather flock together
Congested on a majestic street corner
But that's a short time goal for most of 'em
Cuz most of 'em
Would rather expand their wings and hover over greater things
That's what we call inspired flight
By the pigeons that gotta eat pizza crust every night
And "Let there be light" was understood
When a mic-stand descended from up-and-above into the hood
And if my face is worth a thousand words when it's scarred
I would only hope that two of those are coco and butta
To heal the wounds of the tissue scarred to mark the death of my womb
But I've graduated, got my wings
And you've got to let go of my constructed Lego egg-o-waffle halo
Eh yo, I'm a black man with an African
Drum in my chest that beats on the opposite of the right
Let me know I got a breath left
In this frigid fragile capsule
That allows you to fly south before the winter winds trap you
I wrap my "hell I made it" wetsuit stitch
So I can swim in elevators, crazy wet through piss
I'm just a pigeon with one mile left
That doggy-paddles through this bullshit ocean of death
And these rags-to-riches words will break bones
Like the assassination of two birds with one stone
That's why I don't associate with bird brains with their beaks in the air
Pelicans with wide jaws yap names for fish heads
You'll get tossed in the flames
Where some archaeologist will find your skeletal frame

[compositeone]

Not a big hip hop fan tbh, but last Thursday I went to a gig and saw/heard:

dan le sac vs scoobius pip (www.myspace.com/lesacvspip) I have enjoied the music of these guys for a little while now but I wasn't sure how these guys would go down live, but I loved it.

the anomalies (www.myspace.com/theanomalies) I had never heard these guys before but live they are really good. Great stage act and their freestyling about stuff people through on stage was some of the best I have ever heard.

[jamester]

No, that's not the point...

I feel you man, and I'm not really disagreeing. My point is not whether hard times still exist, or whether they should be reflected in the art - of course they should! But how? Realize I'm talking about "mainstream" rap; there's always an underground bringing quality, in every genre. But the mainstream is stuck up its own ass, and yeah that's my opinion. Producers are the only ones doing anything new or interesting, the rappers don't even care anymore.

You can say hip-hop's not about the lyrics, but that's your unfortunate opinion. I say hip-hop can be about whatever it wants to be. And right now it's all about ice, coke and ho's. That's the face of hip-hop today, are you telling me it's not?

I like CanOX too but I ain't gonna hear them on the radio. Camp Lo just put a new album out, I didn't even hear about it. And before you rag on my choice of using the term "ghetto fab" (tongue-in-cheek), think of Puffy next time you see Kanye. I like Weezy, but 99% of his lyrics are not about Katrina-style troubles, they're about his rims, ice, guns, and drug money. I'm not saying he isn't talented, cuz he is. But I'm allowed to be disapointed in the way these artists use their talent.

What artists do I like? Pretty much any who are bringing quality and evolution to the game. I'll listen to others as well, and often still like it to some extent. That's cuz I love the genre. But I can still wish/hope for better...

Gimme The Roots, Camp Lo, Ghostface, Aesop Rock, MF Doom, Dr. Octagon, De La Soul, Outkast, Talib...as well as old school shit like Tribe, Digables, original Wu, Del, GangStarr...like you said, hip-hop's changed a lot on the past 10-15 years. But that's not cuz time's are any harder! The artist's just choose to stay focused on one way of expressing themselves, and it's played out.

It's not what you got, it's what you do with it. I'm not trying to have hip-hop live up to my expectations of what it should be, I'm wishing hip-hop would try and bring some new expectations to the table. Actually, I'm really wishing that more fans would embrace the alternatives...but crap sells the most, regardless of what mainstream genre you're talking about.

As I said before, The Market Has Spoken.

[djadonis206]

good points by all

you don't have to be black or white rich or poor to understand what marketing is...that's all hip hop is now - marketing

whether you want to admit it or not but even the political rappers are being marketed towards the college level "no Iraq war" heads

"Oh you're into skateboarding...can you rap about skateboarding, we can market you to all the skateboarders"

for every niche sub culture there's some marketing exec out there thinking of you...and you specifically

[djadonis206]

gone are the days when Too-Short was selling tapes out his trunk and E-40 sold 100,000 units underground without no airplay

these were some of the original pimps, drug dealers and gangsta's - with little to no video exposure and word of mouth on the street distribution

but that's ok - it's natural progression in evolution