For Your Listening Pleasure
Various Artists – Soundbombing, Vol. 1
Keeping with the whole hip hop/rap theme, I thought I’d take this here little portion of my column where I recommend an album to pick up and listen to, and point you to an EXCELLENT compilation from NYC underground hip hop label Rawkus. I still remember Fernando, a friend from my college days, breaking out a hot 12″ piece of wax called “Universal Magnetic” from Mos Def, which got me hooked on the guy long before he was collaborating with members of Living Colour, guest starring on “NYPD Blue” or starring on Broadway. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg… check it out.
News to You
“Welcome to the O.C., bitch. This is how it’s done in Orange County.”
Okay, so I loved “90210” and never watched “Dawson’s Creek”, so don’t look at me if you want an academic compare/contrast of the three very popular shows about overly pretty/rich high schoolers and their exploits. Yes, that’s right – I said “three”, because even though “The O.C.” has only been on less than a month, after three episodes I’m ready to declare that this new drama is, in fact, the “Next Big Thing” … and quite possibly smarter than it’s predecessors in the same genre. Admitting that I never watched “Dawson’s”, I guess you can argue that I’m not qualified to make that judgment, but this is my column, and you can argue all you want, but there’s really nothing you can do to about it. Nevertheless, at the VERY least, “The O.C.” is one of this season’s best NEW shows, and right off the bat there are three things it’s doing right that I’d like to point out:
1 – The show is written by a 27-year old who isn’t as far removed from actually BEING in high school as, say, an Aaron Spelling; the majority of the “high school students” cast in this show were ACTUALLY BORN IN THE EIGHTIES; and – get this – the dialogue actually feels like stuff teenagers would say, and you have something very rare: a SMART show FOR young people WRITTEN BY and STARRING young people.
2 – Starting the show in August, well before any other season premieres, may very well have turned out to be a brilliant move. Now don’t get me wrong, this may backfire once those of us already hooked on the show realize that – once the “regular fall season” begins – the show is moving to the Thursday 9pm ET timeslot (that’s right, FOX has so much confidence in this show, that they are putting it up against “Will & Grace” and the very-hyped “Coupling” on NBC, “CSI” on CBS, and of course, “WWE SmackDown!” on UPN). This could be a HUGE mistake, but for now, I’ll do my best not to complain about it, since 1,000,000 different scenarios can play out between now and then (i.e., FOX can wise up and keep the show earlier in the week, someone can buy me a TiVo, etc.).
3 – Since this IS a music column, here’s the tie-in: the cross marketing of the music that is featured in this show has been brilliant. Okay, maybe “brilliant” too strong of a word, but just hear me out. The show takes a page from “Real World”, “Tough Enough”, “Undressed” and other MTV-style shows by featuring specific “new” artists throughout the program, specifically running commercials during each episode or while the credits run telling you all about “what you just heard.” But it doesn’t stop there. While it’s hard to find much positive to say about AOL if you have even the slightest bit of experience with more sophisticated email and/or Web surfing programs, our friends at America Online have done a great job offering special features to subscribers, especially broadband users such as the kids that are watching “The O.C.” Just log onto AOL after any episode of this show, and you’ll be welcomed with a window telling you what songs were featured on that particular night, with links to view the scenes that the songs were found in, get more information about the performers, download the songs themselves, and even buy the CDs these songs are found on. I won’t swear on it, but for some reason I wouldn’t be surprised if the songs featured on the show were primarily from Warner Brothers (the label owned by AOL Time Warner) artists. Pretty smart if you ask me…
Hip Hop vs. Rap, Part 2
Speaking of pretty smart, all I have to say is I have some of the most intelligent readers on the Internet. I have plenty of morons reading my columns as well, but I can’t really say that because then they’ll stop reading, and we can’t have that, now, can we?
Actually, if they really ARE morons, they probably wouldn’t realize I was talking about them, and would, in fact, keep reading. So scratch that last thought. Uh, and the one before that. Thanks.
Moving on… “Hip Hop vs. Rap, Part 1” got PLENTY of reader feedback. Enough feedback to give me plenty of material for “Part 2” – with some of my other thoughts on the subject no doubt being put off for now, but no doubt scheduled to appear in a “Part 3” of some sort somewhere down the line.
Let’s get to it…
I’ll start this off with some comments from my cousin Donna, who answers the three questions that I posed in the last column:
(1) What would you consider the core difference between rap and hip hop?
To me there is not much of a difference, but RAP is more OLD SCHOOL and hip hop is more commercial I guess.
(2) What “essential hip hop albums” would you include on your list, if you were trying to convert a “non-believer” and show them the difference between the “action movie” and the “documentary”?
I don’t really like HIP HOP…
(3) What did I leave out? I’m sure a “Hip Hop vs. Rap, Part 2” is in me, but I’d like to know what you think first.
You left out the Metal.
Well, I think you’re right. I DID leave out the metal, and how dare I? It’s kind of interesting to me how much rap and metal have crossed over to each other throughout the years. Run DMC’s smash re-make of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” put the kings of rock, rap and rhyme ON the mainstream pop cultural map, while putting Aerosmith BACK on the map. They busted through the wall in that video, and everything changed. You’ve got Public Enemy and Anthrax bringing the noise, the experiment that was the “Judgment Night Soundtrack”, the above-mentioned Mos Def singing that “Elvis Presley ain’t got no soul!”, Rage Against the Machine flirting with Cypress Hill, and of course all of this “rap-metal” from our good buddies in Limp Biskit and Linkin Park. But please, for the sake of this column and music history in general, remember: KID ROCK NEVER HAPPENED. I’m glad we cleared that up.
Gregory Wind, a good friend and fellow music snob, sent me a long one that I’m going to try to keep intact:
I personally disagree that hip hop is the documentary. Rap often fills that role — to the extent that Ice T can call rap the “black CNN.†I don’t even particularly like the “who you are†vs. “what you do†distinction. That assumes some level of credibility and that demand for credibility is a goose chase that nearly killed rap in the 80’s. Chuck D. came from the suburbs and went to college. Plus, how far down do you need to have been before you can call yourself hip hop? “As far or farther than me†is not an objective answer. Someone’s credibility might help you enjoy listening to them, but doesn’t help define the labels you’re using.
I see your point, Greg, but I think you’re confusing what I meant by quoting KRS One’s “rap is something you do, hip hop is something you live†credo. I’m not saying that in order to be a credible hip hop artist, one has to fit into any sort of lifestyle, has to rhyme about specific situations that they in particular have lived through even. Just because Chuck D is from the suburbs, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have honest, smart things to say about issues that are important to hip hop heads, and it doesn’t mean he can’t be a follower of the hip hop ethos. Same way one can have pretty normal parents, but still grow up to be a punk.
He continues:
The cop out is to be all-inclusive. If the Olsen twin flow, it’s rap. Stewart Scott claims to be a hip hop sports reporter. I guess he is. Chuck D. has to see Hammer as a peer because they rapped at the same time. Let’s not forget those classic commercials with the Pillsbury dough boy “kicking out the jams.â€
Want to call hip hop the rap cultural context? Try again. Rappers come from everywhere these days. Nenah Cherry even got away with being a rich London-based rapper a long, long time ago. Any stricter definition in that vein starts sounding like “ghetto†to me, which is dangerous ground and excludes some of rap and hip hop’s cornerstone artists.
Exactly my point. Rap being something you DO means that rap is, as I said in the last column, “speaking over music.†Some hip hoppers may rap, but not all rappers are hip hop.
Capital “R†Rap and capital “H†Hip Hop are very hard to split. If you wore gold chains and black jogging suits in the early 80’s, were you dressed like a rapper or were you hip hop? I can’t remember the distinction even being in play until somewhere around the late 80s when rappers wanted to show respect for things they couldn’t honestly call rap. So rather than “Rap†being an expression or outgrowth of “Hip Hopâ€, what we now call Hip Hop is, technically speaking, an extension of Rap. Is hip hop only that which rappers respect but do not call rap? That would at least cast the two in separate camps and make them easier to compare. But is it possible to love rap but hate hip hop or vice versa? If you hate T.L.C. but love B.I.G., what does that mean, or does it mean anything? Fugees vs. Wu-tang, Destiny’s Child vs. Tribe Called Quest, Soul II Soul vs. Jurassic 5. Seems to me you can doowutchyalike and listen to the groups you want to, no matter what you call them. I don’t find myself listening to Lauryn Hill and asking myself “is it rap?â€
I don’t think any of what I said implies we shouldn’t all just listen to what we like. I also just noticed something interesting. My college professor that taught “Pop, Rock and Soul†defined hip hop and rap this way: rap is more street, hip hop is anything you can dance to. I hate that definition and think it totally misses the point. Destiny’s Child obviously aren’t rappers, but are they hip hop? Possibly, but I think you have to answer that question based on how they fit into the whole hip hop culture/ethos, not based on if the beats are “hip hop beats†and you can groove to ‘em. Lauryn Hill: is she hip hop or rap? Yes. But this is actually where things get very tricky and hard to talk about, even if you’re totally engulfed in this genre/genres of art: pick an artist and throw them in a category, and nine times out of ten people you ask will disagree with your classification. My thesis: there’s GOT to be a way to explain this all that doesn’t make things muddier the more you say about the topic. I like the way Greg finishes off:
But the task at hand is introducing the world to hip hop that isn’t rap so we do need to define our terms.
The best definition for jazz I’ve heard (to use your strategy of having a third party define your terms for you) is that it’s whatever a jazz artist does. By extension, if an artist calls him or herself a hip hop artist but resists the tag “rapperâ€, that’s your definition of the universe of “hip hop and not rap.†Most of these people are singers, but – Stewart Scott included – many are not musicians at all. What I like about it is that this definition is, for lack of a better word, definitive, but leaves the borders open, which is how it should be. It’s even possible for a rapper or rap group to do a hip hop song if they choose. It’s all in the intent and how people respond to the art in context. If Mike D from the Beastie Boys wants to sing, god bless him, he can do a hip hop song on a rap album.
And now the pay off: some music expressions of hip hop that are not, in my eyes, also strictly speaking, rap. It’s just a sample and off the top of my head, but the list gives you my read on artist’s intent and the paths traveled by the genre.
Bonita Applebum – Tribe Called Quest
Killing Me Softly – The Fugees
Let Me Clear My Throat – DJ Kool
Tennessee – Arrested Development
No Scrubs – TLC
Keep On Movin’ – Soul II Soul
Brown Sugar – D’Angelo
Gone Til November – Wyclef Jean
Just a Friend – Biz Markie
Tyrone – Erykah Badu
Real Love – Mary J. Blige
Get Ur Freak On – Missy Misdemeanor Elliot
Tell Him – Lauryn Hill
Note to self: have Greg make me SEVERAL mix-tapes. I still don’t agree with your definition of hip hop having to include more “singingâ€, Greg, but thanks for the great feedback (which I’m sure the rest of my readers will have a lot to say about in “Part 3â€, if I ever get to that!).
Let’s go to Dustin, who has a very practical way of viewing things:
Rap ‹ hip-hop. Words are words. These are different terms that mean different things to different people. Go find some thugs listening to Hot 97 on a street corner and ask them if they listen to hip-hop or rap. They’ll be like “what the f*ck are you talking about.” The whole branding of music does not interest me in the slightest and I hate terms that try to pigeonhole music into specific genres. When Public Enemy does a song with Anthrax, is it hiphop, rap, rock or rapcore? More importantly, who cares? It’s music.
But outside the terminology, yes some rappers or hiphoppers or whatever, write good lyrics about life, love, politics and the world around them, while others, especially in the mainstream, write about gold chains and 50-inch rims. But why bother trying to explain that to someone like Bill O’Reilly. This is an old stubborn white guy who wouldn’t understand a good uplifting hiphop song even if he actually sat down and listened to it – which he wouldn’t do in the first place. Most old people don’t understand “new” music. That’s just the way it is. But yes, the guy does have a point – most mainstream rap is about money, sex and violence. But that’s what sells – so don’t blame rap or hiphop or whatever. Blame the consumer.
I agree with you on the “who cares, it’s music†part of your email, Dustin. There are way too many classifications these days (just click over to the All Music Guide, and check out their definitions of rap, hip hop or anything else ranging from the 200 types of “emo†they distinguish between – it’ll drive you insane. But hey, I’m a music columnist, and I get paid the big bucks to think about interesting topics in the world of music. Just the fact that these classifications EXIST interests me, and – judging by my feedback – interests a lot of you, also.
The reason I emailed O’Reilly is simple. By not understanding that there’s more to hip hop than “gangsta rap†and songs about bling bling, bitches and beamers, HE was doing what I felt was an injustice to the great many hip hop records that don’t fit his description, and I wanted to point them out to him. Who knows if he listened? As you pointed out, there are plenty of consumers that I wish would listen, too.
Doctork86 is pretty straightforward:
rap is hard stuff, hip hop is soft stuff, thats the difference
rap is cool, hip hop is whack
imcheatingonmywife@msn.com has an interesting perspective:
I’m writing this at work and I’m not going to proofread it. Sorry for the run on sentences/fragments whatever in advance.
Anyway, I don’t think there’s any universal meaning on “rap” or “hip hop.” I think both refer to a genre of music which takes hardly any talent to make (and I know, I make it) yet is very popular for that very simplicity. However, for people who differentiate between the two, here are some things to consider:
a) People who make or are into the hardcore/gangsta rap culture want to distance themselves from the bullshit “true school/backpack/dictionary rap.” They take street credibility and “stripes” (experience in crime) as a must. If you’re going to rap about something, rap about the manly inner city life of an angry wayward sociopath. Life is about how much hustle you have, how much money you can get and the bitches which come with it. Rapping about anything else is for the weak minded faggot suburban white people and house niggas – furthermore if you’re going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. If you’re taking part in this exciting genre – you’re representing everyone who lives it. A real gangster will be mad if you’re a transvestite from the suburbs who loves gardening and you’re representing them. Everything in the preceding paragraph is usually associated and grouped into “rap” instead of hip hop.
b) People who make or are into the “hip hop” are people like Nas, KRS-One, Common Sense and Eminem early in his career. They rap about everything from androids in space to chocolate milk to inner city life. You’re judged on
not how many times you can say “I’ll kill you” – but how creative you can get in saying it among other things – and in this school of thought, you’re not meant to mean any of what you say. It’s all “metaphorical” [sic]…how many words you can rhyme in a bar are taken into account, how many syllables in a word, how many phrases – how creative you can get with the english language (even though 99.9% of rappers use ebonics anyway, but that’s besides the point). These people are typically elitist and only consider themselves “hip hop.” They think there’s a whole meaningful culture surrounding hip hop too – like wearing african looking hats and backpacks…worshipping the shitty dinosaur forefathers like doug e fresh.
It’s obvious I’m a bit biased towards the “rap” spectrum, but hopefully this will shed some light on the subject.
This seems to be the last of the three most commonly used definitions in the “rap vs. hip hop†debate. These three being:
1 – Hip hop is a culture, “rapping†is the art of speaking over music that some hip hoppers use to express themselves.
2 – Rap is street, hip hop is philosophical.
3 – Hip hop is rap music you can dance to.
As you know by now, and from my initial column on the subject, more often than not I fall into category #1, but just the fact that we keep coming across (at least) THREE common definitions shows that this discussion is anything but cut and dry.
I’ll close this up for now with chipchimney, who also falls into the first category:
Hip Hop is a mindstate. It’s an inner-city, urban perspective that comes with the turf. Whether black, white, latino or asian, it comes down to being poor. The Struggle. How can a white dude in Middleboro really relate to the pain? They can admire, and honor but they can’t relate. At first it was the poor black man’s voice. Now it’s the poor American’s voice.
Rap is the music most closely associated with the Hip Hop lifestyle. I mean really, have you ever taken a cruise down a Broken City street (I hail from Brockton, MA). Those roads are riddled with potholes in the lawn, like De La Soul. Rap music is LITERALLY the soundtrack to the streets. The way the car dips and bounces over the potholes and cracks in the road is the same way the body reacts to a bangin rap beat. Glance out your window at the wino’s, hookers, broken buildings and graffatti and tell me that Greenday goes with this picture. ANYWHERE you go in Broken City (I hail from Brockton MA) you hear rap music playing from SOMEWHERE. It’s everywhere.
As for your number 2, this is how I phrase it when I discuss rap with somebody I don’t know:
If aliens invaded earth and demanded (from you) to know what is “rap music”? What album would you give them, keeping in mind this would be their FIRST exposure EVER to “Rap Music”.
My choice is simple:
KRS-ONE: Return Of The Boom Bap. THE quintessential hip hop album. This IS rap music. Return of the real hard beats and hard rhymes. His topics cover everything from partying to politics. Black Cop? THAT’S TRUE GANGSTA RAP MUZIK! Madd Crew? Hip Hop music! Overall, this is THE GREATEST RAP ALBUM EVER MADE, coming from a hardcore rap fanatic here. If you don’t have it, COP…IT…NOW…
Oh, I’ve got that one, although if an alien asked me for a “starter†album from KRS, I’d probably just cop out and choose his Retrospective. It’s hard to talk about KRS without hitting up the old school BPD.
Let’s get into some of the albums readers suggested… “musts†of hip hop, if you will…
Robert Cady wants me to talk about the “future of†hip hop and rap in a future column, and that might be a huge undertaking, but I’ll consider it. As for albums, he lists:
–De La Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising
–Tribe Called Quest – Low End Theory
–Jungle Brothers – Done By the Forces of Nature
–Paris – Sleeping With the Enemy
–The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury
Drumsac adds this:
There is only one: RAISING HELL. It is the hip-hop answer to Kind of Blue and Revolver. The shot heard ’round the world!
I’d also have to include Fear of A Black Planet and Paul’s Boutique as desert island discs. There should be more, but I’m no expert on hip-hop.
And I am?
E.I. isn’t happy that I admitted watching O’Reilly, but liked the albums that I included in my letter to him – even though he thinks I should have stuck with specific songs instead:
Now, the songs I’d use (and add to separate hip hop from rap) are as follows:
(1) Tupac Shakur’s “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” a song that is a documentary of teenage pregnancy rolled up into three minutes and fifty-four seconds.
(2) Ice Cube’s “It Was Good Day.” Not only is this a song from N.W.A.’s most vile mouthpiece that doesn’t involve pimps, hoes, f*cking up a cop, or any of that other stuff, but it also illustrates that not every day in the hood is a walk through a warzone. And gets that point across without coming off as forced or contrived.
(3) I’d also add Jay-Z’s “Meet the Parents” from the Blueprint 2 album. Let’s face it, he’s a walking adman now, but this song is almost what you’d imagine the sequel to “Brenda’s Got a Baby” to be if it had turned out differently–a tale of fly-by-night, thugged out father bumping into the child he never cared to know in the streets who’s about to kill him. Only the kid pauses as the family resemblance causes him to pause seconds before daddy takes advantage of the hesitation and wastes the poor boy … never even knowing.
(4) Nas “If I Ruled The World” speaks for itself.
Those are three songs off the top of my head that illustrate the documentary and not the story. Also, you left out battling, the lost part of hip hop. Seldom do you see two emcees take each other to task, such as LL Cool J vs. Kool Moe Dee, KRS-One vs. MC Shan, or hell, even LL vs. Canibus, anymore. Noo, now we’ve got to break the DJ’s record if he plays the guy’s song you don’t like. Now we’ve got to shoot up innocent Busta Rhymes’ Land Cruiser because he did a song with that guy.
And I think that’s a shame. Radio stations and MTV won’t even play real hip hop since Biggie and Tupac died. It’s always a party. Whoo hoo! Paaaaaaaaaartay! Can’t air anything negative or serious, because someone might get shot, apparently. I hated Jay-Z for years because of that, as he’ll only get airtime for his ads with beats, same with every other rapper. It wasn’t until this year that I picked up his first album and discovered why everyone was shitting themselves over the guy.
The main difference between hip hop and rap to me is the subject matter. Rapping is bragging to brag. Hip Hop is bragging about how much sharper your skills are than your oppositions, and then proving it with a sick line, a tight verse and so on. Rap is “I smacked that bitch down the steps.” Hip Hop is “I would smack that bitch down the stairs, but why should I do jail time over a meaningless argument with someone I don’t know? Forget it.” Rap is “in da club with 20 nines.” Hip Hop is a block party that goes from 6 P.M. to 3 A.M. where no one leaves in an ambulance, the party doesn’t stop because of a shoot out, and the worst that can happen is the DJ skips a record a few times.
Lastly, my essential albums are probably Ice Cube’s “Death Certificate,” Nas’s “Illmatic,” and N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton.”
Jules wrote a nice, long email, and then threw down a hot list:
But, hell, forget 5 albums, I will list 20 albums that are worth a listen if you really want to get the full scope of true hip-hop. So here they are, in no particular order:
1. Gang Starr – Moment of Truth
2. Notorious B.I.G – Ready to Die
3. Mos Def & Talib Kweli – Black Star
4. Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek – Reflection Eternal
5. Scarface – The Fix
6. Any Wu-Tang Clan album, or Wu-Tang solo release prior to 1997
7. Big Pun – Capital Punishment
8. EPMD – Strictly Business
9. EPMD – Back in Business
10. M.O.P – Warriorz
11. The Roots – Things Fall Apart
12. The Roots – Do You Want More!?!!?!
13. Nas – Illmatic
14. Eric B. & Rakim – Paid in Full
15. Mobb Deep – The Infamous
16. Jay-Z – The Blueprint
17. Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back
18. Big L – Lifestylez of da Poor & Dangerous
19. A Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm
20. DJ Kayslay Presents…Best of Saigon (Volume 2: On the Go Back)
Ya know, Jules, I was going to say something about you including a DJ mix on there, but who am I to talk after recommending “Soundbombing†in the first part of this column? —–
From Frigid Air Ent:
Albums I would suggest to a first time listener (I’m a connoisseur of this rap shit), I can’t limit it to 5, but I’ll try to limit it to 30: (listed in the order they came to me):
1. Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to Die (for why hip-hop loves him and misses him)
2. Nas – Illmatic (the major influence of every rapper younger than 25)
3. Nas – God’s Son (lyrics written in blood and tears)
4. Rakim – Paid In Full (THE quintessential album of Hip-Hop’s first golden age)
5. Rakim – Follow The Leader (see #4)
6. Makaveli (2Pac) – The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (for why hip-hop misses 2Pac)
7. 2Pac – Me Against the World (for why hip-hop loves 2Pac)
8. KRS-One – Criminal Minded (probably the first “gangsta” rap album [I’m not sure if Schooly D came first])
9. KRS-One – Return of the Boom Bap (hip hop concentrate not watered down)
10. Canibus – 2000 B.C. (hip hop done for the love of the music)
11. Rah Digga – Dirty Harriet (just for yourself…listen to The Fugee’s Blunted of Reality, then listen to The Score, then listen to this album and see how much Digga Digga [first name Rashia] influenced Lauryn Hill)
12. Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers (just a good album)
13. Public Enemy – Apocalypse ’91 (another good album)
14. DJ Quik – Safe and Sound (Live instruments on a West Coast tip)
15. The Roots – Do You Want More?!!!??!
16. Dr. Dre – The Chronic (What hasn’t been said about this album)
17. Run D.M.C. – Run D.M.C. (This is why they are Hip-hop’s group)
18. Ice Cube – Death Certificate (Pre-Hollywood AMAZING ALBUM, just a little too angry)
19. Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Niggas (see #9)
20. M.O.P. – Warriorz (gangsta rap as art)
21. Xzibit – 40 Dayz & 40 Nightz (want to see hunger in a rap artist?)
22. OutKast – Southernplayalisticaddilacmuzik
23. Scarface – The Diary
24. Gang Starr – Full Clip (I would include Moment of Truth, but this is a better representation of Gang Starr)
25. Gang Starr – Moment of Truth (f*ck it, it’s my list)
26. Mobb Deep – The Infamous (Young Black Men making good music
27. A Tribe Called Quest – People’s Instinctive Travels on the Paths of Rhythm (See #26)
28. A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory (See #9)
29. A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders (My favorite album… EVER)
30. Jedi Mind Tricks – The Psycho-Social, Chemical, Biological, And Electro-Magnetic Manipulation of Human Consciousness (See #10)
I know SOMEone that’s psyched about that rumored Tribe Called Quest reunion!
Finally, I’ll finish this one up with one last list from JJ Sexton, who taught me a little bit about “Christian Hip Hop†– now, I’m not surprised that such a genre exists, but it’s nothing I’m personally familiar with…
Something I think you left out, is the growing presence of Christian Hip-Hop as a legit art. Before, Christian emcees were subpar and were the laughing stock of the hip-hop world. They often were less talented and polished than their mainstream counterparts, but now, that could not be more untrue. With the recent albums put out by Verbs, Grits, Cross Movement and KJ-52, heck, even KRS-One has released a Christian album after his recent conversion, Christian Hip-Hop has stood up to mainstream and said “We’re not goin anywhere” Now, the beats are on par, the rhymes are up to speed, heck, between Christian Hip-Hop and the crap they call hip-hop on the radio, Christian Hip-Hop wins every day of the week. Pick up Grits “Art of Translation” or Verbs “Unlocked” and you’ll see what I mean.
My 5 albums to convert a “non-believer”, well, actually, a couple have that as their purpose in mind, but anyway, here goes:
Nas – God’s Son – basically, let a non-believer hear “I Can” and they’ll gain a new respect for hip-hop, believe me, I’ve done it
KRS-One – Spiritual Minded – never have I heard a more relevant take on some hard issues, but this CD is not only pleasing to the ear, but about as educational as they come
KJ-52 – Collaborations – you’ve never heard of this one, although you may have heard “Dear Slim” when MTV took it through the ringer, not for bashing Eminem mind you, but it simply challenged the MTV mindset, this guy has no problem with Eminem, believe me, a line in the song is “I hope you understand that I ain’t even dissin you”, but no one wants to hear that, now do they?
Beastie Boys – any album – these guys not only mastered their craft, but are about as peaceful as it gets, their music in and of itself isn’t gonna rally people to change the world, but it’s just fun, something that a lot of hip-hop artists miss out on, having fun with their art
Cross Movement – Holy Culture – this album basically sets a new standard for “Gospel Rap”, these guys just pour their heart out onto every track and with Holy Culture, their latest release, they finally hit a very professional level of production, this album could change your life and I mean that.
Oh, and since this is a hip hop column, let me give a shout out to 411 movies columnist Bill Doughty – make sure you check his stuff out when you get the chance.
Fun With Spellchecker!
Amazing. Over 5000 words on hip hop, and not ONE fun suggestion from Spellchecker that I haven’t used before… not even a recommended correctin for “Southernplayalisticaddilacmuzik†– crazy.
Until next time…
peace. love. moe.
– Matt
Till My Head Falls Off can be found weekly on 411 Music (old columns are archived in the pull-down menu below). Already hit everything on 411? You can find more from Matthew Michaels at moodspins and 1-42.
