"And it don't stop..." OFFICIAL Hip-Hop Discussion Thread

My friend has partially managed to convert me; at least to the point of giving certain rappers more respect, and occasionally listening to the music of my own free will. I like this group Atmosphere; the emcee has a very fun, energetic, poetic voice, and the song is structured very well.

<a class="postlink" href="http://hulkshare.com/ynpjik1qfh7d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://hulkshare.com/ynpjik1qfh7d</a>

Also, I'm becoming a fan of PackFM and Tonedeff. This was a humorous track;

 

Highly recommend Saigon's Greatest Story Never Told. It just came out today and I listened to it a few times through. As much as I love experimentation and innovation in music, I always return to the good old fashioned east coast boom-bap style. Saigon delivers that beautifully in this album. It's straightforward new york rap but the lyricism is superb and the beats will keep your head bopping. Definitely check it out.

 

Hadn't heard of this guy before, but this song alone makes me want to check out everything he has done.

 

I've gotten more and more into these guys, to the point that I'm checking for their new stuff pretty consistently. OFWGKTA.




(shit quality)

The energy is fucking insane. Rap's been missing this.

 

This kid has a lot of skill.....XXL is already pimpin' him and shit.

Him & Kendrick Lamar are two of my current fav's.

 

I don't know much about rap, but my friend wrote this really interesting technical discussion of Nas's time signature on one of his albums. Definitely worth a read for the more serious fans of the genre;

"27. Nas - God's Son (2002) (Hip-Hop)

Out of all Nas albums, God's Son probably has the most radio-friendly production. That's not to say that beats on it are commercial or generic, but they do so sound accessible and pleasant to an ear. The only terrible song on the album is Zone Out. Hey Nas is slightly mediocre too, but it's closer to being average.

My favorite song on the album, Heaven, on the other hand, is actually quite an interesting song to point out. As you should know by now, most of the time rappers flow over beats that have a regular 4/4 time signature, so having any other time signature is rare in hip-hop. I've witnessed people rap over 6/8 and 3/4 before, but beyond that I haven't seen anybody else rapping over any other unconventional time signatures at all.

Heaven is the song that uses 6/8 time signature, and between 6/8 and 3/4, 6/8 actually sounds more different compared to 3/4. With 3/4 you basically either have one less beat in one line (3 as opposed to 4) or add two more beats (6 as opposed to 4), but the overall convention is the same: you still have to fit four syllables in between the head nods (including the first accented beat).

However, with 6/8 you still have 4 beats (or head nods) in one line, but you do have to fit 6 syllables in between the head nods as opposed to 4, and depending on which syllables are accented, it can produce quite an interesting flow. So despite the fact that 6/8 flow is used less often in rap, actually theoretically the 6/8 flow has much more possible variations (I haven't calculated them mathematically, but I think this flow would have maybe 1.7 times as many variations).

What's weird, though, is that rappers do not exploit this advantage, and even those artists who are amazing at doing 4/4 happen to have quite an average 6/8. For some reason, they can't grasp how to flow masterfully over this kind of beat.

Looks like I got carried away... So what does it have to do with Nas? The surprising thing that I wanted to mention is that even though Nas does not have the best flow of all time (he's probably in Top 10-15), his 6/8 flow on Heaven is actually the second best 6/8 flow ever (right after Tonedeff's Champion Freestyle), which actually beats the 6/8 flow of Tech N9ne and Eminem, who both are much better at a 4/4 flow than Nas.

With this I can conclude that Nas actually knows how to apply the theory from 4/4 to 6/8 better than most other rappers. On a slightly related note and partially because of this, I can only laugh at people who say that Nas has a weak flow. They seriously don't know what they are talking about."

 

I've been listening to a lot of Yelawolf recently. He's a white/Cherokee rapper signed to Shady Records, and his album Trunk Muzik 0-60 is really fucking good. He's got a rapid-fire flow and can switch from talking about partying and the good life to rapping about his origins in backwater Alabama, and he does it deftly - there's no sense of disconnect to it - he carries the whole demeanor throughout. Party songs like "Daddy's Lambo" and "I Just Wanna Party" come from the same headspace as the more serious songs on the album - the outsider looking in. He's technically very good and can make a catchy song to boot.

 

Yelawolf spits.

First caught wind of him when he killed it on the 'BET Cyphers'.

 

This is because Royce himself has admitted that he prefers flow over lyricism. I enjoy Royce Nickel Nine but some of the things he puts together makes me simply shake my head. He's the counterpoint to Talib Kweli, who often tries to shoehorn lyrics into a beat that simply don't fit.

My favorite rapper for the last year (or longer) is:


I won't say Cole is particularly deep, but he's deeper (and more clever) than a majority of rappers, weaves his lyrics into his music well, and produces a lot of his own tracks.

This track:

faintly reminds me of a Dilla track. From what I can tell from Cole's website, he produced the beat.

He is one of the few artists I would actually support by buying his album. Royce is another such artist, but I was disappointed with his last solo offering, Street Hop.

 

Damn, I fucking loved Street Hop, but then again I pretty much love everything Royce puts out so I'm probably a little biased.

Another plug for Apollo the Great: Crazy flows on this one.

 

I've really been turned onto this one rapper called k-os; he has a really unique mix of singing and rapping. These next two songs are excellent;

 

Ironically, you don't even have to buy J. Cole; his Friday Night Lights mixtape is sponsored on datpiff, so you can get it without so much as an email address.

It doesn't get much more free than that.

I have a long post on Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover aka Troy aka Sick Boi etc. etc.). Anybody else check out Culdesac? My thoughts, in a nutshell: decent if amateurish rap, good wordplay and hipster cred = people who don't understand rap going squee!

 

Check out 'I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman'.

He's been around for quite a while, but dude's been struggling with alcoholism, since the dawn of time it seems.

 

Does anyone know if this song has been released anywhere?



Sounds tight!

 

I've posted about Shad here before, but he just collaborated with Dallas Green (of City & Colour and Alexisonfire) on a new EP "Two Songs."

 

Some of my favorite Royce tracks:

[/quote]
I listened to this:

And I understood exactly what you meant.

 

So my initial listen of Lupe Fiasco's L.A.S.E.R.S. left me gagging. The best tracks off this album were leaked before its release, the depth of Lupe's lyrics are noticeably absent, some bullshit filter was applied to the first two tracks to make them seem more gritty, and the beats sound like re-purposed British house music and rehashed melodies from the 80's.

I never thought Lupe would make something I despise so much.

 

This is fucking science:



One of my favourite all-time dancefloor songs:

 

Have any of you guys listened to Odd Future before? They're a group of rappers/producers from LA coming out with some very interesting sounds. Really taking hip hop in an interesting new direction. A friend of mine told me about them and I have been inhaling everything they have done the past few days. Best part is, they make all of their music available on their website for free.

Check out this song by their sort of leader, Tyler, The Creator. Very very interesting. Highly recommend:

I'd highly recommend Tyler, The Creator's album titled "Bastard", Earl Sweatshirt's "Earl", and Mike G's "Ali."

I haven't listened to everything the group has done yet but those are the albums I dig the most out of what I've heard. Nice to see hip hop get some fresh blood that is taking the genre into a new direction. I'm having visions of Wu-Tang Clan from the early 90's.

 

Read a page or two back, me and Jennitalia were sperging about them. And you actually posted about it...

This is one of my favorite songs from them.