Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

I can already tell this book is going to lead me down several rabbit holes. The most obvious one being to go back through all of Wu-Tang's, RZA's, and GZA's work. The other one being to go back and see how many of the guys labeled as "conscious rappers" fall in line with RZA's core tenants from 5 Percenters/NOI.

A quarter of the way in it is a fascinating and empowering read.

[KG]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

Ya'll are upset at the #'1s.

Shhhhhy*t, I'm mad that 100% is a #16 seed.

[trobinson97]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

It's weird thinking of Young Thug as having influenced a new generation of hip hop. It feels like it wasn't that long ago that he was he was coming up. The guy is 28, which I see as still so young but with regards to "the culture" it's getting long in the tooth. I realize it's just me feeling old. I wonder how many top-ten all time lists he's on and what those lists look like.

[DieHardYankee26]

Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

Talking about young legends, Chief Keef blew up at 16. He’s 24. Looking at Wayne’s age in comparison to other people is always wild. Only 4 years older than Drake, same age as Nicki.
Thinking of top 10 lists, it reminds me of Joe Budden saying “people talk about a top 10 but it’s got 25 dudes in it”. I don’t know how I would try to rank everyone I’ve heard. I could probably do a top 10 in a region, or of an era, but overall? Can’t see it. We need sub genres. I now understand more clearly the issue with comparing athletes between eras lol. How do I rank Thug next to Big L? They’re doing completely different things.
Side note, samples...There’s a song out now called Blueberry Faygo my little brother sent you me that samples My My My, I’m like I wonder what percent of people under 20 would recognize it. I listened to Common Man by David Ruffin, the song Kanye pulled the Never Change sample from. It’s amazing. How do these guys hear from the original what is going to be the final product? It’s nuts to me.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

We swarmin today.
[ATTACH]176671[/ATTACH]

Finished it this weekend.

Spoiler

Fantastic read. It's basically a memoir chronicling RZA's life through 2005ish - obviously doesn't cover everything in detail as it's not that type of memoir instead focusing and following his spiritual path of enlightenment (and apparently one of the inspirations for the Hulu series).

Over in the Book Club thread I've nicknamed this year my Jesus Year since I turned 33 years old back in December. A bit tongue in cheek, but I also wanted to read with more purpose and focus. Suffice to say this book came at the perfect time and was an incredible read. RZA basically gives you the foundation and framework for Knowledge, Wisdom, and ultimately enlightenment. Obviously it still depends upon YOU to learn, study, and act upon it.

Easily one of the most powerful books I've read. I have a whole world of knowledge to explore - which isn't exactly a revelation for me, but the pursuit of ALL knowledge is the spark here. For RZA his movies, comics, and music* are his sources of knowledge, but knowledge is everywhere. RZA basically preaches from the perspective that EVERYTHING has value because there's some kind of knowledge to gain. He uses mathematics to break things down, tie them together, and decipher meaning. At points, it is, admittedly, a little corny, but it somehow ****ing works and you can follow that line throughout everything. It may not work for everyone, but that's the point. RZA shows how he found HIS formula for his Knowledge of Self - and part of the quest is discovering your own formula of the universe.

I've long held the conclusion that mathematics is an essential part in understanding everything. I always point to music as my favorite example. To the extent that this book has already sunk into me is to say like a rock dropped into water. Deep and descending quickly. Yesterday, towards the end of my workout, I found myself thinking about the book, 12 Jewels, the 12 notes in music, etc. Knowledge is a fast moving revelation and this book exemplifies that fully. God, I can feel myself splitting itself and diving into separate rabbit holes already.

If anybody has any suggestions for further study in any of the tenants RZA mentions please hit me up.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

Partymobile is pretty decent, it's good for a playlist listener, has a pretty consistent vibe, I can take what I want and shuffle through the rest. My favorite songs of the ones that weren't released as singles were leaked almost a year ago (Another Day and Savage Anthem) so that hurts, but what can ya do? After Hours on the other hand, just keeps getting better. This is probably my favorite non-Trilogy release from my guy, I will be listening to this for a long time.



I got so caught up in listening to Never Change like it just came out that I ended up turning my Jay run into a Jay and Ye run. It's always said how far Evel Kanyevel has fallen off but you really gotta go back and see it, **** hurts. MBDTF is his magnum opus to me, Late Registration not too far behind, Graduation behind that. College Dropout, out of everything that came out through MBDTF, was actually my least favorite but still good, just goes to show the level of quality he was at.



Anyway, done with both. For Jay, I'm going RD > Blueprint = Black Album >>> Vol. 1 > Dynasty > Vol 2. >> Vol 3. > Magna Carta > Blueprint 2 >>> American Gangster > Blueprint 3> Kingdom Come. I feel like I picked a good time to start with Ye because listening to Blueprint 3 after Graduation it definitely sounded like Jay-Z trying and failing to make his version of that. Some of the sounds on that album are rough, I can't believe On to the Next One was as big as it was. Saw some people saying Biggie stole his whole style from Scarface so he's next (saw some other people saying he stole it from Pac...as a great American poet once said "I heard mother****ers saying they made Hov...made Hov say okay well make another Hov").



Meanwhile for cima's fun fix...


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[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

We've been watching the Wu-Tang Show on Hulu - about halfway through. I am loving it. The mid-tier boss that Raekwon is working under has to be trying to channel Stringer Bell, because that's all I can see when the guy is talking and standing. Other than that just watching everything come together is dope as hell. I get its dramatized and ****, but just watching Method Man start to spit and hit. Its just a supernatural feeling or something.

Anyway, I've been working from home for about three weeks so far. The upside is I get to spin my records a lot more. The downside is my rap collection is minimum and mostly releases from the last 5 or 10 years (and obviously Outkast). I just ordered GZA's Liquid Swords and Mos Def's Black on Both Sides to right that wrong. Unfortunately my local shops don't have much of a selection and tend to be more folk, country, and roots music focused.

Suffice to say I need to re-up my game which got me thinking:

If you guys had to start your library over - what would you 1) Get first and 2) Leave out completely?

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

Any of y’all been following these battles on IG lately?

Basically just rappers/producers playing songs that they wrote or produced on and last night they had Scott Storch and Mannie Fresh battle it out, which was definitely entertaining.

[DieHardYankee26]

Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

I don’t have a physical library at all.

I tried to write down my favorite 10 albums a few years ago (half of it would probably be different if I tried now) but just based on that the first 10 would be Kush and OJ (stand by that for sure, GOAT), Chronic 2001, Complexity of Light by Children of Nova (random band I found playing Rock Band), 12 Play (ruined smh), Trilogy by The Weeknd, Nothing Was the Same by Drake, Tha Carter II, MBDTF, Moving Pictures by Rush, and Back from the Dead by Chief Keef.

I don’t have IG so I can’t watch any of it. I just heard Scott Storch was playing a bunch of beats that he added a drum and a half or just played one instrument on.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

It’s on YouTube as well since you don’t have an IG.

Its more for fun so there’s no official score count going on but something that all music heads can appreciate with everything going on.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

I don’t have a physical library at all.

I tried to write down my favorite 10 albums a few years ago (half of it would probably be different if I tried now) but just based on that the first 10 would be Kush and OJ (stand by that for sure, GOAT), Chronic 2001, Complexity of Light by Children of Nova (random band I found playing Rock Band), 12 Play (ruined smh), Trilogy by The Weeknd, Nothing Was the Same by Drake, Tha Carter II, MBDTF, Moving Pictures by Rush, and Back from the Dead by Chief Keef.

Oh wow you went for everything. I'd have a hard time coming up with anything outside of a top 5 considering all things. I was just thinking about rap, though.

I guess my generation was really the last to really feel a need for physical media. Napster came up when I was in middle school. Hit its bubble. Then went legit. High-school was Kazaa and bit-torrenting, but I kept finding more and more illegitimate rips and ****. By that time I was working anyway so obviously had too much cash to hold on to and started my CD collection.

I also did the Columbia House/Sony CD club thing. I got a ton of **** from there. Some of the CDs were still in the cellophane when I donated them to Goodwill.

I never really went digital everywhere until Spotify. I had an MP3 player from highschool and through college, but I just ripped CDs on there.

[DieHardYankee26]

Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

I can’t get through these Scarface albums, he’s a great rapper but the songs are just so boring. Guess we’ll always have Hip-Hop with Khalid and Nas.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

Boring in what sense?

[KG]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

No IG??????

Man you need it for the thots alone!

Damn man, love be some Scarface.

The Diary>>>

Smile, Never Seen a Man Cry and one of the most slept on Face joints:

Mental Exorcism

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He has some songs that you instantly recognize when the beat drops, even if the song is like 20 years old lol.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: Official Hip Hop/Rap Music Thread

I quit halfway through The Diary. His first album is just old, might be the oldest non-Rakim project I’ve listened to so I’ll just give that a pass. It’s not even the songs, I like them (Diary of a Madman, a Minute to Pray, Jesse James). Ive gotten used to Never Seen a Man Cry (the Griselda version). Listening to the original is when I bowed out. He’s too cool for me, I could fall asleep to this. I put Wu-Tang on and all is well again. It just felt like a chore.

My main thing with Tupac has always been that I like his material but don’t like his style. This is like what if Tupac didn’t yell. I like Scarface on pretty much every feature I’ve heard him on so eh. I’ll skip to The Fix and see if anything is different there.


Low End Theory came out in 91 so I can't even give him that pass. Maybe I'm just too used to East Coast stuff.