when swordsmen of different styles connect

[shakahislop]

@shakahislop alright so go ahead with your Drake theory then, one thing i've noticed in our talks on rap so far is that maybe barring Dababy much of our discussions on rap have tended to focus on the rappers at the very very top in terms of acclaim,number of streams,hits etc

yeah. i mean that's what tends to reach my ears, like everyone else's i guess. it's also something to do with being in the US where that kind of hiphop is everywhere, all over the place, very much part of everyday life, hear it in the shops etc. i think there's a couple of things going on in terms of my interest - one is that i genuinely like some of it, not loads of it or the sound in general but i do like some of it, and the other is that there's something really interesting to me about it having such a big audience given lyrical themes, affective themes and so on

mr k punk said it best with Drake i think. I mean he's obviously shit, almost everything he's done is shit to me, and he does has this kind of faux wet romantic mode which is hard to deal with. but to me Take Care came along at exactly the right point in my life that i got a huge amount out of it. i don't think it's particularly deliberate but i find it listening to him trying to deal with these internal conflicts, over those hazy kind of beats, trying to do the really vulnerable macho thing that he totally can't pull off, all of that i think makes it this incredible bit of art

i think i've said before that it captures Dubai so incredibly well, no idea if he's ever been there, but it's this thing of luxury shit, driving in cars, air conditioned hotel rooms, references to planes and travel, not totally dissimilar to some of those US cities that you can't really walk around

 

[shakahislop]

as i said, aside from how much that stuff resonates with me, it's also still sort of amazing to me that there are literally millions of other people who get something out of it as well, or at least got something out of it at the time. given that it's quite a bleak way to feel

 

[shakahislop]

i mean the reason why is cause his first album was when he got annointed the crown and the 2nd album netted him the Pulitzer so its no surprise it gets lost in the mix.

i liked Section 80 but there's definitley certain songs that haven't held up over time either due to the beats or just the weird narrative touches he puts on them,Keisha's Song and Tammy's Song have a weird kind of scolding parental quality to them when you listen to them now

@DannyL you ever listen to Overly Dedicated? that's the mixtape that netted him his deal with Dre if i remember right

two other things i think with Kendrick aswell is 1) most of his features have been very bad and 2) i feel like if he were to put out an album now it wouldn't do too great for him both in terms of what's expected from him and how much the rap landscape has shifted

interested to see what the next one is like. given that he hasn't put out anything i thought was that good since TPAB (although that is basically just one album). hope he gives in to his arty tendencies

 

[Benny Bunter]

Love it or hate it (I'm not a fan) it can't be denied that Take Care was a hugely important moment for popular music, massively influential over the last decade. Music still hasn't really recovered from it.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Since you mention Dubai here's a song I really really like, are you into it Shaka?

 

[shakahislop]

Since you mention Dubai here's a song I really really like, are you into it Shaka?

i'll chuck it on the playlist. sounds good on first listen

 

[IdleRich]

yeah. i mean that's what tends to reach my ears, like everyone else's i guess. it's also something to do with being in the US where that kind of hiphop is everywhere, all over the place, very much part of everyday life, hear it in the shops etc.

Possibly a digression which doesn't interest anyone, in which case just ignore it and carry on....

What thing that interests me is the degree to which music that you hear in shops etc registers with people. Some people are at the most open end of the spectrum and soak it up like a sponge, they hear......

Edit: I've decided that that was too much of a digression - I've deleted the post and created a new thread called Ignoring Popular Culture in case you do want to read it and even have something to add to my directionless rambling. As you were.

 

[forclosure]

yeah. i mean that's what tends to reach my ears, like everyone else's i guess. it's also something to do with being in the US where that kind of hiphop is everywhere, all over the place, very much part of everyday life, hear it in the shops etc. i think there's a couple of things going on in terms of my interest - one is that i genuinely like some of it, not loads of it or the sound in general but i do like some of it, and the other is that there's something really interesting to me about it having such a big audience given lyrical themes, affective themes and so on

mr k punk said it best with Drake i think. I mean he's obviously shit, almost everything he's done is shit to me, and he does has this kind of faux wet romantic mode which is hard to deal with. but to me Take Care came along at exactly the right point in my life that i got a huge amount out of it. i don't think it's particularly deliberate but i find it listening to him trying to deal with these internal conflicts, over those hazy kind of beats, trying to do the really vulnerable macho thing that he totally can't pull off, all of that i think makes it this incredible bit of art

i think i've said before that it captures Dubai so incredibly well, no idea if he's ever been there, but it's this thing of luxury shit, driving in cars, air conditioned hotel rooms, references to planes and travel, not totally dissimilar to some of those US cities that you can't really walk around

I mean alot of "bleak" rap has been popular over the last decade and a bit even guys like NBA Youngboy and Lil Durk despite being really melodic their music doesn't have any sense of "relief" in them.One of Uzi Vert's biggest songs is him melodramatically declaring all his friends are dead over a melody straight out a Paramore song.
Like imagine if Tupac still made all his other songs but didn't have say "keep ya head up" or "i get around" which showed he could loosen it up a little, with all the talk about mental health these days you come across people talk as though rappers didn't start addressing mental health until white guys started singing about it (Peep,Bladee,wicca phase etc) or until all the Black Middle class rappers started making their way in (Kanye,Cudi and of course Drake) which is not true in the least.

I'm with you there in regards to that Take Care seemed to have come out at a time when alot of people had alot of things going on in their lives so the resonance is there but at the same time when i listened to it (i was dared to) i just didn't like it at all, a guy i used to talk to described it as "adult contemporary rap" and that fits the bill right down to the fact he took the hook to Juvenile's back dat ass up and made it this slow plodding thing.

Yeah he's dealing with internal conflicts but its like rich kid internal conflicts "i'm sitting in the new Hellcat but i still feel sad about it" kinda thing Kid Cudi who i also don't like did this aswell, i think it's interesting you compare it to US Cities because all that you're describing is more so what i've heard about Toronto well maintained, metropolitian and "global" but it all low hanging fruit and imo whatever made Take Care special has dimished over time because he's put the exact same music out since then maybe added a couple outside genres into the to make him look more worldy but still the same. I can't speak on Dubai and despite the awful stuff that goes on there for somebody like me who can't really afford to go there it still has this "oasis in the middle of a desert" association that i know people still find appealing

 

[forclosure]

Since you mention Dubai here's a song I really really like, are you into it Shaka?

I'll never understand this forums fascination with this album, i'm sure part of it might just to do with my boredom with Atlanta rap now but all the songs i've heard that people have shared from this thing it's about as "psychedelic" as a Tame Impala album.

even before his debut album came out "Quavo mania" was already on the decline when the realisation hit everybody that he was better at hooks than rapping

 

[forclosure]

interested to see what the next one is like. given that he hasn't put out anything i thought was that good since TPAB (although that is basically just one album). hope he gives in to his arty tendencies

i don't i wasn't crazy about DAMN or untitled unmastered but i liked that he moved away from those tendencies like i said before TPAB was a album with "ideas" but no real perspective behind it and that overthinking and him trying to make sure every loose end is tied together is what makes it exhausting to go back to.

Reminds me of when Yeezus dropped how on first listen some people were calling in a stroke of genius but on repeated listens found the album abrasive and unlistenable.

 

[forclosure]

@Benny B i'd be interested to know what you and barty if he was still here think of Don Tolliver cause there's a few people out there who dislike Travis Scott but quite like him

 

[forclosure]

@shakahislop right now the big 3 major label albums that people are excited to hear are from Pusha T Kendrick and Future, Pusha's already leaked and i dunno if i'll give it a listen haven't cared about anything he's really done for a hot minute now (actually now that i think about it his verse on the track with Babyface Ray wasn't bad) oh yeah and it looks like there might be a new Young Thug too.

tbh i'm not all that enthusiastic to listen to them unless there's something on them that really warrants my attention all i can say for now is that Kendrick continues his streak of having not very good album titles

 

[Benny Bunter]

@Benny B i'd be interested to know what you and barty if he was still here think of Don Tolliver cause there's a few people out there who dislike Travis Scott but quite like him

Love him, I've mentioned him a few times on here before but not many people seemed interested.
And yeah, I hate Travis Scott's solo albums but he's got some good collaborations, seems to keep his overblown tendencies in check. That Huncho Jack album is probably the best thing either him or Quavo have ever been involved in, totally underrated album, not a bad track on there iyam.

 

[shakahislop]

i don't i wasn't crazy about DAMN or untitled unmastered but i liked that he moved away from those tendencies like i said before TPAB was a album with "ideas" but no real perspective behind it and that overthinking and him trying to make sure every loose end is tied together is what makes it exhausting to go back to.

Reminds me of when Yeezus dropped how on first listen some people were calling in a stroke of genius but on repeated listens found the album abrasive and unlistenable.

i think both of those fit into a category that exists in my head of 'arty rap'. where all things considered what they are doing is pretty divorced from the general thrust of hiphop, if its at all meaningful to think of things like that. particularly lyrically speaking. i mean there is obviously a load of rap which is much more interested in doing things within more conventional boundaries. i'm thinking about the griselda guys that everyone seems to love for example, i mean Benny the Butcher, i like some of his tunes but it feels more like a good version of a previously existing form than something like Yeezus, which feels like (well more accurately felt like) something new.

 

[shakahislop]

on TPAB the thing that i like about it is the lyrics mostly. the density of them and how conflicted internally he sounds.

 

[shakahislop]

I mean alot of "bleak" rap has been popular over the last decade and a bit even guys like NBA Youngboy and Lil Durk despite being really melodic their music doesn't have any sense of "relief" in them.One of Uzi Vert's biggest songs is him melodramatically declaring all his friends are dead over a melody straight out a Paramore song.
Like imagine if Tupac still made all his other songs but didn't have say "keep ya head up" or "i get around" which showed he could loosen it up a little, with all the talk about mental health these days you come across people talk as though rappers didn't start addressing mental health until white guys started singing about it (Peep,Bladee,wicca phase etc) or until all the Black Middle class rappers started making their way in (Kanye,Cudi and of course Drake) which is not true in the least.

I'm with you there in regards to that Take Care seemed to have come out at a time when alot of people had alot of things going on in their lives so the resonance is there but at the same time when i listened to it (i was dared to) i just didn't like it at all, a guy i used to talk to described it as "adult contemporary rap" and that fits the bill right down to the fact he took the hook to Juvenile's back dat ass up and made it this slow plodding thing.

Yeah he's dealing with internal conflicts but its like rich kid internal conflicts "i'm sitting in the new Hellcat but i still feel sad about it" kinda thing Kid Cudi who i also don't like did this aswell, i think it's interesting you compare it to US Cities because all that you're describing is more so what i've heard about Toronto well maintained, metropolitian and "global" but it all low hanging fruit and imo whatever made Take Care special has dimished over time because he's put the exact same music out since then maybe added a couple outside genres into the to make him look more worldy but still the same. I can't speak on Dubai and despite the awful stuff that goes on there for somebody like me who can't really afford to go there it still has this "oasis in the middle of a desert" association that i know people still find appealing

yeah. very much rich kid internal conflicts, that's dead on.

i think toronto is more or less the same kind of thing as a lot of US cities, though i've only driven through it very hungover, in that it is a bit spread out, quite car based, big gleaming tall buildings and that kind of thing. dubai - i spent a load of time there coz my company had an office there and every now and then i'd get stuck there waiting for visas, it's also the main plane route out of afghanistan. its a thread in itself. dead interesting place. definitely not a nice place and its a bit weird that some people go on holiday there (but who am i to judge). i don't think you're missing out. but it is very similar to me to cities in eg Texas. hot and massively spread out, money everywhere, a real interest in the luxury thing, massive cars, self-expression through cars, no pavements.

i guess one thing that i find interesting about this kind of evolution with drake etc is that it is a class thing as you say. in terms of who's making it and in terms of audience. there's also something going on with how the US is changing as well i think. reading the raekwon book i can't help but think that, you know, of course NYC rap is going to be a different thing these days, compared to what it was then. because that mileu isn't really there anymore. in this city at least a lot of the violence and roughness that mobb deep etc would have grown up with and were expressing is gone, it's a different kind of place now.

 

[forclosure]

on TPAB the thing that i like about it is the lyrics mostly. the density of them and how conflicted internally he sounds.

i mean TPAB if we're keeping it a buck sounds like a Roots album particularly around Pherenology and when Common put out Electric Circus

if its density you like i'd reccomend that you check out the Freestyle Fellowship and those guys who came out of Project Blowed
1991 this came out

 

[forclosure]

i think both of those fit into a category that exists in my head of 'arty rap'. where all things considered what they are doing is pretty divorced from the general thrust of hiphop, if its at all meaningful to think of things like that. particularly lyrically speaking. i mean there is obviously a load of rap which is much more interested in doing things within more conventional boundaries. i'm thinking about the griselda guys that everyone seems to love for example, i mean Benny the Butcher, i like some of his tunes but it feels more like a good version of a previously existing form than something like Yeezus, which feels like (well more accurately felt like) something new.

i mean Benny and that lot are just doing Roc Marciano but with broader strokes and if anything less interesting to me him, Benny reminds me more of those mid 2000s NY mixtape guys who had promise but didn't ammound to anything, Ka who started out in thta mould but went and carved out his own lane are the peaks of that as far as lyrics if you ask me and the rest are just following suit Mach Hommy is like a close third cause he had his own identity before them

 

[forclosure]

@shakahislop
when Marcberg came out in 2010 it was the album that had all the deep in the know rap heads loving it but in the year of Dark Twisted Fantasy,Flockaveli,Teflon Don and of course Thank Me Later it got lost in the mix now its a classic

ahead of the curve in terms of say the trend of "drumless" beats that have been popular in underground rap for a decade now. but if Marcberg laid that ground then Reloaded refined that and added some extra experiments in the mix(came out the same year as good kid maad city and i listened to reloaded way more than Kendrick)

 

[forclosure]

i guess one thing that i find interesting about this kind of evolution with drake etc is that it is a class thing as you say. in terms of who's making it and in terms of audience. there's also something going on with how the US is changing as well i think. reading the raekwon book i can't help but think that, you know, of course NYC rap is going to be a different thing these days, compared to what it was then. because that mileu isn't really there anymore. in this city at least a lot of the violence and roughness that mobb deep etc would have grown up with and were expressing is gone, it's a different kind of place now.

I mean the irony is New York more than any other major notable city in rap are the ones who so pine for "the bad old days" but when you look at a city like Chicago which is now regarded as a major rap location they're still dealing with the result of 3 decades of neglect and a failed system its just that the music is not in a style that guys of Raekwon's age really recognise as rap but the dead eye nihilism and violence is all there.

It is a new place but that's also in part because of the actions done by the now disgraced Rudy Guliani who was more than vigilant on "cleaning up" the city that plus gentrification and ironically some of those gentrifiers feeling guilty for what they've done to the city so they resort to cartoonishly bigging up these things that supposedly represent NY and well there you go but this isn't just specific to NY it's happening everywhere

and not only that but when you factor in what feels like the growing presence and success of white rappers(Jack Harlow being hailed by Kanye as a top 5 rapper right now) that becomes a different can of worms