Members Li10 Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 I don't think it's the vocals that I don't like about rap music - it's the actual music I don't like. A Wolf at The Door by Radiohead is one of my favourite songs and Thom Yorke is essentially rapping... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 Funny you should mention the music beneath the raps... Long before rap had established itself in the American pop consciousness, I was listening to Jamaican dub and toasters like U-Roy and Big Youth, who were very much not singers. People don't often cite the influence of dub and toasting on rap -- and, frankly, back in the 70s, most of the folks I knew listening to dub were (er, um) white. (That said, while the first time I saw Marley [the famous May '76 Roxy show that was released as a live recording] the industry audience was mostly white, the second time I saw him, in '78, the audience was close to half black, which I thought was a big step.) Anyhow... me, I've enjoyed a lot of the music of rap. Sometimes the music and the vocal delivery is so good I can even get past (however momentarily) lyrics that strike me as "less than conscious." As they say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesway Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 I feel so old... for the record, i knew what spats were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesway Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 skempe only posted the thread; that's it, right? lol. ya think he was baiting us? a [dare i say it?] TROLL????!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 for the record, i knew what spats were. Yeah... sure. Poseur. I'm the OOG,* here. *(Original Old Guy) :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RadiationNation Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues (1964?), for instance. I defy anyone to listen to that and tell me it's not -- archetypally -- a rap vocal. Talking Blues in the hizzy fo' shizzy. Big ups to Woody Guthrie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members baron85 Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 I don't think anyone should steal intellectual property -- but there's also been a long history of tolerance for taking very small elements from other works of art and manipulating them through various means to create something pretty much entirely new. So while what's-his-name takes a 16 bar loop of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" and produces something already overly familiar and instantly annoying (no slag on the original song) other artists, like say, Hank Shocklee (Public Enemy) would chop all kinds of things into little tiny pieces and come up with amazingly new music. Wasn't that Chuck D from Public Enemy who was the one who rapped over "For What It's Worth"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesway Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 Yeah... sure. Poseur. I'm the OOG,* here. *(Original Old Guy) :D no, damnit! i knew because i saw it in a museum! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 Wasn't that Chuck D from Public Enemy who was the one who rapped over "For What It's Worth"? Oh, cripes! You're right! I'd ALWAYS thought that was Puff Daddy... that's horrible. The track gets a good write-up at All Music Guide but I've always thought it was a shameless pile. Pretty funny that I would use classic PE to "contrast" with the Chuck D track (which is apparently from the He Got Game soundtrack). Anyway -- it's only MY opinion, to be sure -- but I really think it's an annoying POS. Now I'm flippin' depressed. I feel so old and out of it... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 James Brown ain't no joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 P.S. The Hank Shocklee interview in Tape Op was the bomb! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 no, damnit! i knew because i saw it in a museum! I'm not absolutely sure but I think spats were part of the rental tux outfit I wore to be an usher at my cousin's wedding in Montana when I was 16. And it wasn't one of those retro/nostalgia outfits, either. (No bat-wing collar, though.) They didn't have nostalgia way back then. Let's put it this way... I remember buying gasoline in Southern California for 11.9 cents a gallon. That was a very good deal. It was usually 12.9 or 13.9 when I first started buying gas at the local self-serve. A Big Mac was 19 cents. And still less than a quarter with cheese. A brand new VW cost $1700 and a full-size Chevy with everything cost about twice that. Yet man had already been in orbit and would be walking on the moon within a year or two. It cost a couple bucks to get up there -- but what REALLY ran the country into the red was the seemingly never-ending Vietnam war... Ahem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Chicken Monkey Posted May 21, 2007 Members Share Posted May 21, 2007 Wasn't that Chuck D from Public Enemy who was the one who rapped over "For What It's Worth"? I think he had Steven Stills singing and playing on the track with him. Around that time, I read an interview with Stills in which he claimed he was going to start rapping. His logic was that he was drawn into contemporary black music in the 60s (electric blues) and that it only made sense for him to express himself in the 90s with contemporary black music. Definitely a flawed way to think about it, but it puts rap music into context, at least. And I not only know what spats are, but I've had to wear them, albeit in marching band. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dualmalaise Posted May 24, 2007 Members Share Posted May 24, 2007 rap might not be crap... but jeez its so damn boring.throw some odd meter in there once in a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members elsongs Posted May 24, 2007 Members Share Posted May 24, 2007 WHITE BOY ALERT!!!!! ive been meaning to start a thread on here about it....rap. no. sorry lil' shawtywhateverthehellyouwannabecalled, but youre not a musician.i just call it a disgrace. i cant stand how many radio stations you turn to and have rap playing.its not music. pressing a button on a keyboard and looping it for 400+ measures and just talking isnt making music. its...pressing a button,looping, and tlking. i hate it. they get payed so much too, and take upp all the top 40 spots! but seeing how many more of them today are criminals and society disgraces, i can totally seeing the rap world going under in 20 or so years. im young, so i really hope so...yalls thoughts?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesway Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 WHITE BOY ALERT!!!!!i'm white. :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bluesway Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 oh...and on 'blackalicious,' i went and downloaded 3 tunes after i read thru the thread....the beats are awful. really, really (in regards to the thread above this) WHITE. lol. there were piano hits that just didn't even come close to grooving.....just pure ass playing. the rhyming was actually very bright, but can you recommend anything for me to listen to, because from where i'm sitting, "paragraph president, chemical calisthenics and alphabet aerobics" just straight up suck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 I don't go to Blackalicious for hip beats. I go to them for words. And they got plenty of them. But, yeah... if you're looking for the latest sounds I wouldn't necessarily go to a 1999 album by Blackalicious (as Alphabet Aerobics is from) lookin' for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 FWIW, here's the All Music Guide write-up on them: Biography by Alex HendersonLike a few other West Coast rap acts, including the Pharcyde and Jurassic 5, Blackalicious has generally favored what hip-hoppers call the "positive tip"; in other words, its lyrics have often been spiritual and uplifting rather than violent or misogynous. Like a lot of experimental alternative rappers, Blackalicious can be quirky and eccentric; nonetheless, spirituality is a big part of the group's music. Although Blackalicious wasn't formed until the early '90s, its members had known each other since the late '80s. Founding members Gift of Gab (Timothy Parker) and Chief Xcel (Xavier Mosley) first met in Sacramento, CA, in 1987 when they were students at John F. Kennedy High School. Neither of them was originally from Sacramento; DJ/producer Xcel (who was going by DJ IceSki at the time) was a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, while rapper Gift of Gab was from Los Angeles' suburban San Fernando Valley.The two went their separate ways after Gift of Gab (also known as Gabby T) graduated from Kennedy High in 1989, but they were reunited in Davis, CA, in 1992. By that time, Xcel had become a student at the University of California at Davis and the Gift of Gab had moved to Davis to form Blackalicious with him. UC Davis was where Xcel had started working with a hip-hop crew named SoleSides, whose members included DJ Shadow, Lateef the Truth Speaker, and Lyrics Born. SoleSides Records was the name of the SoleSides Crew's Northern California record company and in 1994, that label released Blackalicious' debut single "Swan Lake." Although not a triple-platinum smash, the single was a small underground hit that fared well among alternative rap audiences. The following year, SoleSides Records released a Blackalicious EP titled Melodica. By late 1997, SoleSides Records had transformed into Quannum Records, and in 1999, Quannum put out another Blackalicious EP, A2G.In 2000, Quannum released the group's full-length debut Nia (whose title is the Swahili word for purpose). After being together eight years, Blackalicious finally signed with a major label when, in late 2000, the Californians were added by MCA. In April 2002, Quannum/MCA released Blazing Arrow, which boasted guest appearances ranging from vocalist Zack de la Rocha (of Rage Against the Machine) to the Roots' ?uestlove to veteran soul singer Gil Scott-Heron. After the requisite tour, both Xcel and Gab began developing solo material; Quannum released both Maroons' Ambush (Chief Xcel with Latyrx's Lateef the Truth Speaker) as well as a Gift of Gab solo LP, Fourth Dimensional Rocketships Going Up. The pair returned in 2005 for their third album, The Craft, with a contract in hand from the Anti- label. (Of course, they like Blackalicious at AMG, I'm thinkin', since their 2002 album, Blazing Arrow, was an AMG Pick, getting 4.5 stars out of 5.) BTW... don't think you'd necessarily like it, either, but Cut Chemist's mix of Chemical Calisthenics (from Blazing Arrow) is pretty damn funny...The brief mention of Gil Scot-Heron above got me thinking about him and I put on Winter in America and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (from way back when a lot of people on the left and right actually thought a revolution was right around the corner)... Great stuff. I think I like Winter even better, in a way... it captures that slo-mo freeway accident sense we all had then... just trapped in one endless, slo mo horror scene. We already mentioned the 1964 (?) Dylan track Subterranean Homeseick Blues as a rap precursor -- but The Revolution Will Not Be Televised -- and maybe the great recorded stuff from the Las Poets -- from the end of the 60s and early 70s was clearly pointing the way for urban youth to seize the instruments they had -- their own voices -- to make music and culture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RadiationNation Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 oh...and on 'blackalicious,' i went and downloaded 3 tunes after i read thru the thread....the beats are awful. really, really (in regards to the thread above this) WHITE. lol. there were piano hits that just didn't even come close to grooving.....just pure ass playing. the rhyming was actually very bright, but can you recommend anything for me to listen to, because from where i'm sitting, "paragraph president, chemical calisthenics and alphabet aerobics" just straight up suck. Blazing Arrow. I'm actually not a huge fan of Blackalicious, but that song is great. I'm sure they sampled the hook, but I enjoy the rest of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JoeyJoJo Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 James Brown ain't no joke. ... wasn't he arrested for bringing a shotgun into a school? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 ... wasn't he arrested for bringing a shotgun into a school? James Brown did many things you wouldn't want to try if you weren't James Brown. And plenty you probably shouldn't, even if you were. He famously did time for leading state troopers on a high speed chase (and almost running one down, IIRC, presumably inadvertantly, since he was high on drugs and alcohol). He also endorsed Richard Nixon for president in 1968 and 1972. I'll leave it to others to weigh the relative egregiousness of those transgressions. But he was an amazing guy, all in all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members elsongs Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 James Brown did many things you wouldn't want to try if you weren't James Brown. And plenty you probably shouldn't, even if you were. He famously did time for leading state troopers on a high speed chase (and almost running one down, IIRC, presumably inadvertantly, since he was high on drugs and alcohol). He also endorsed Richard Nixon for president in 1968 and 1972. I'll leave it to others to weigh the relative egregiousness of those transgressions. But he was an amazing guy, all in all. He didn't know karate, but... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members elsongs Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 i'm white. :rolleyes: I'm not. And I'm not black, either. Which means I don't exist in the mainstream, but it also means I can get away with saying a lot of things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DevilRaysFan Posted May 25, 2007 Members Share Posted May 25, 2007 Im not a big rap fan ( although my band does a lot of it), but I will say this much for it: Rap is honest and it IS the modern-times blues If Robert Johnson was born 100 years later, he wouldn't have sat on a street corner with a guitar singing about the crappy world around him...He would have had two turntables and a microphone rappin how the world around him sucks. No difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.