Acid rap aka. dematerialised materialism

Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Started because I've got this in my head:



The title of the thread is a misnomer (and yes I'm aware of Esham), probably, because the stuff I have in mind is, I think, more inspired by ecstacy and prescription pills, but - when I did acid recently up on the heath we mostly listened to the obvious things like aphex and brian eno but we did listen to the odd rap song and this was one of them, and the production fitted.

Also this:



This dreamy, reverby, disintegrating, smudged sound was probably not inaugerated by Clams Casino but I feel like him and the 'cloud rap' scene was very influential as far as the current wave of neon-drenched xanax-popping rappers are concerned (production wise, anyway...)

The rappers themselves are of interest - the way the (ostensible) renunciation of control over the voice has become more prominent (Wayne, Gucci are two rappers who I think influenced this), but sometimes it might not matter what the rappers are talking about, it's the production and how the rappers interact with it.

Sidebar
Definitely ambivalent about Travis but I like this one



Rolling rolling rolling got me stargazing
Psychedelics got me gon' crazy
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
as the music has become increasingly ambient, the rappers themselves have becomes tasked with constructing contours. ad libs emphasise the first beat of the bar (and may interject elsewhere for emphasis), the rapping is more staccato, rappers increasing just em-ph-size each beat of the bar, the use of triplets is notably rhythmic; it announces itself.

'slippery' is a great track to analyse because it exemplifies migos' rhythmic language and contrasts that with an older style via gucci. gucci man's style on paper should fit into the aesthetic you describe more, but actually feels like throwback

 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
always enjoy an excuse to post this. mdma synth pads. everytime i listen to it, i'm always filled with pride when i remember you saying carti was not a rapper, but rather the first ad-libber.

 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I don't really like Migos but I can't argue that they fit in here

This doesn't fit in here probably



But it's an example of a rapper being 'dematerialised' by distortion. Distortion becomes dematerialising when it fractures and fragments the surface of sound. Distortion is big in rap music basslines now, I am inclined to give Kanye some credit for that ('Yeezus').

And the fact Gucci put it out in this state on his tape. It's that sloppiness (possibly artful) that I think is influential.
 
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Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Corpsey said:
I think the whole world's going insane
I fill my brain up with Dainy, and drink away the pain
Click to expand...

Drugs as an escape, a refuge, from the madness of late capitalism and/or poverty
(paradoxically enough - are the materialistic boasts/focus of lyrics just clinging to the old forms, is there any genuinely psychedelic rappers, rapping about universal oneness and sacredness of nature? And would that be less interesting than this double-consciousness thing of rapipng about lambos and bimbos over production that sounds like space exploration?)
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Mane, am I dense and have never noticed that 'Gucci Mane' sorta rhymes with 'Superman' or was that not deliberate on guwop's part?
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
though it has none of the druggy euphoria (and exemplifies quite the opposite), uk drill fits in texturally. low pass filters, reverb, slow-attack pianos are all ambient. in terms of what i was saying about contours, it's hard to see where they are constructed in drill. the vocals are fairly ambient; mumbled, little intonation, the flows flow so you don't get that sense of pronouncement as with the current crop of fragmented us rappers. likewise the drum sounds are week, often mixed low and routinely taken out of large parts of the song. they sound like raindrops against a car window, not like signposts. the angularity of the drum patterns in drill do however lend to a sense of shape; to physicality.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Filters and reverb and distortion are all ways of giving texture to electronic sound, making a synth sound as if you could somehow touch it. Or drown yourself in it.

Or perhaps it's just dramatic lighting?
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
the voice is very important. writing about thug a few years ago on here i zoned in on a particular articulation of swooning, gurgling bliss in pelican fly that had, to the best of my knowledge, not been heard in rap before, or not to that extent at any rate. oh god oh god oh gawd
surrender to bliss. subsumed, swallowed up. hitting that end of the emotional range, overwhelmed.

but that is not the upper end of the register for yachty in 66, it's a starting point. so it shows you how far we have moved in the last 3 years or so.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
im not sure how useful it is to think in terms of influence. its better to think of it in terms of foreshadowing, flash-forwards, intimations, of a series of movements towards a territory.

this place we are headed towards.
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
there's a range of frequencies in sound but there's also a range of frequencies of affect and drugs are one way (not the only way) to increase our range, of what we are receptive to, of what we respond to, and concomitantly, what we can communicate. this of course maps onto the feminine pressure thread and the this or that thread.

COSMIC SLOP.
In the Room of Cosmic Plumbing,
Recalibration is in Progress.
The Recirculation of Cosmic Slop/pissing in the amitotic fluid.
‘Ok, just tuning you in now.’ Mild mannered technician turns dial, frequencies replace one another on a CONTINUUM OF INTENSITY.
Delectable fluid warmth, flow into and out of, release.
TERMINAL SEWER,
In WORDS of Burroughs, William.
Wallow in terminal sewer,
rather pleasant, in actual fact.
Click to expand...
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
this is from the 'real hip-hop 2015' thread

It's timing. It's the suppleness of the line. It's the hanging back and then sprinting to catch up. It's the variations in tone, pitch and volume, it's the (precise to the point of prissiness)
placing of syllables, the open unfixed cadence, the micro hooks littered across every song- lines so rhymically satisfying that they act as stand alone hooks (eg this that, rich shit, I eat fish and grits in dream from barter 6 or, from the blanguage, I'm chilling at the studio these bitchs wanna fuck on the banana boat)

It's the swooning abandoned-to-bliss tone he can reach, gurgling bliss which is unique in rap as far as I know (pelican flys oh gawd oh gawd oh gawd is an example for you
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M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Young Thug is awful on drugs, amazing made on them but there's a difference between taking drugs to make music and taking drugs to make music to take drugs to.

Young Thug sounds amazing. Not on drugs.

Giggs sounds AMAZING on drugs

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mGalGN4bfFg" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Go widescreen.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
widescreen is a great word to use there. im going to take my anti-dematerialisation walk in the park now appropriately enough.
 
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