Clinamatic's venture to the rap dungeon

[forclosure]

don't worry mi nah done with @catalog (though his contributions would be valuable)

@Clinamenic agreed to do a rap thread so fuck it i'll do it might take this a bit slower but i'm gonna start you off with two "golden age" rap classics:

 

[Clinamenic]

One thought I have, listening to the first one, is how much of hip hop's history could be understood as a development of the artist's engagement with the gangster archetype and its accompanying cliches. Does the engagement evolve from earnest to critical or ironic? Or does the actual enduring reality give longevity to ongoing earnestness.

Here I'm relying on the paradigm of development we see in the metanarrative of western thought, but you could just as well use other ones, western or not. Hero's journey, blown up across the evolution of a culture, etc.

 

[Clinamenic]

I mean I'm sure the engagement varies widely, but I wonder if this variation can be seen as reflecting tidal shifts, as a cultural development.

 

[Clinamenic]

Listening to the second one, I consider just how relatively lacking in rhythm much of classical music is, and how rhythm (qua beats) as a musical feature is much more robustly realized across popular music.

 

[forclosure]

One thought I have, listening to the first one, is how much of hip hop's history could be understood as a development of the artist's engagement with the gangster archetype and its accompanying cliches. Does the engagement evolve from earnest to critical or ironic? Or does the actual enduring reality give longevity to ongoing earnestness.

Here I'm relying on the paradigm of development we see in the metanarrative of western thought, but you could just as well use other ones, western or not. Hero's journey, blown up across the evolution of a culture, etc.

it does vary and i'd say its a mixture of all three certain songs and rappers lean on some aspects on that engagement more than others

The enduring reality adds to that in as far as its people born from a situation who had nothing to lose seeing crime as a way out or a way to get a sense of ownership and black capital that wasn't provided in the past and in a particular way "freedom"

 

[luka]

it does vary and i'd say its a mixture of all three certain songs and rappers lean on some aspects on that engagement more than others

The enduring reality adds to that in as far as its people born from a situation who had nothing to lose seeing crime as a way out or a way to get a sense of ownership and black capital that wasn't provided in the past and in a particular way "freedom"

i thought it was quite a hard question to answer, which is why i thought i'd wait for you to answer it. my instinct is to squirm at the word 'development' there because you have all sorts of different treatments of that archetype from very early on

 

[Clinamenic]

I'll also note that the waning of my neurasthenia, my hyperintellectual neurosis, has left me better positioned to appreciate things without overthinking them. Deneuroticization, as a result I suspect of ongoing meditation practice. Like I can now see through the conceptual frameworks, in ways that I hadn't been able to, but they do still help.

 

[Clinamenic]

it does vary and i'd say its a mixture of all three certain songs and rappers lean on some aspects on that engagement more than others

The enduring reality adds to that in as far as its people born from a situation who had nothing to lose seeing crime as a way out or a way to get a sense of ownership and black capital that wasn't provided in the past and in a particular way "freedom"

One reason to treat this as a development or evolution is that a culture, with all of its various artistic products, can amass a sort of mythos or repository whereby you, as a member of that culture, can't help but engage with the history and way of thinking that the culture promotes. So in this sense the notion of a coherent development becomes almost self-fulfilling.

But all that aside, I enjoyed the second one more.

 

[forclosure]

One reason to treat this as a development or evolution is that a culture, with all of its various artistic products, can amass a sort of mythos or repository whereby you, as a member of that culture, can't help but engage with the history and way of thinking that the culture promotes. So in this sense the notion of a coherent development becomes almost self-fulfilling.

But all that aside, I enjoyed the second one more.

yes there's definitly alot of mythos and myth building at play in rap all even now

Kanye and Jay-Z are about as obvious as you can get but i also think of Tay-K the rapper who had a charting single while he was on the run after escaping house arrest for his trail on murder charges

 

[forclosure]

@Clinamenic so why did you prefer funky to road to the riches?

 

[Clinamenic]

I actually also consider sampling, and maybe even more covert homages, to be a major integration technique here, interlacing the different figures of a culture's pantheon, the different threads of the culture's history.

 

[Clinamenic]

@Clinamenic so why did you prefer funky to road to the riches?

I just liked the rhythm more, and it struck me that the second artist was able to better into a flow because of this, if even marginally in. the case of this comparison.

 

[Clinamenic]

I actually also consider sampling, and maybe even more covert homages, to be a major integration technique here, interlacing the different figures of a culture's pantheon, the different threads of the culture's history.

It also can serve to bolster the piece that includes the sample, provided the inclusion was pulled off. If it works, the power of the sampled work is partially inherited by the new work.

 

[forclosure]

I just liked the rhythm more, and it struck me that the second artist was able to better into a flow because of this, if even marginally in. the case of this comparison.

i mean Ultramagnetic were a crew the first really high pitched voice you hear is Kool Keith a pioneer in his own right, you've got Ced Gee who also rapped but also produced the beats, Moe Love their DJ and T/R Love who was the muscle and according to Keith was the guy who looked for tracks to sample

 

[luka]

It also can serve to bolster the piece that includes the sample, provided the inclusion was pulled off. If it works, the power of the sampled work is partially inherited by the new work.

although what happens in practical terms, a lot of the time (bob james) is that you hear the rest of it that isn't the 5 seconds they pulled and go, wtf this is awful!

 

[forclosure]

It also can serve to bolster the piece that includes the sample, provided the inclusion was pulled off. If it works, the power of the sampled work is partially inherited by the new work.

yep sampling has kind of sort of come back to rap but for a long time non-sample based rap was the mode of the day

funny how the thing at that point in time those songs came out which was considered the most "futuristic" aspect of it became seen as archaic over time

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah I'd imagine it can be a major crutch.

 

[forclosure]

although what happens in practical terms, a lot of the time (bob james) is that you hear the rest of it that isn't the 5 seconds they pulled and go, wtf this is awful!

Billy Joel is the example i go for, terrible AWFUL songs but the tracks that sampled him? amazing

 

[forclosure]

which is what the beat to Road to the riches samples(Stilleto is the tune that gets sampled if i remember right)

 

[luka]

Bob James is sort of unique for me in the way that the bits that are sampled are really good, dynamic, exciting, and everything on either side of those moments are the worst kind of schmaltz.