Hip-Hop Talk II

[cobl04]

I didn't realise Chance's Good Ass Intro bites this track. I knew it was a Kanye reference but I've not heard this intro. Anyone heard Kanye's early mixtapes? They worth downloading?

Kanye West - Intro (I'm Good) - YouTube

I still love Acid Rap.

[LemonMelon]

Somehow I managed to miss that Death Grips have a new album out. I think they suck, but the reviews have been glowing, so I'll give it a shot. It can't be any worse than the dick album.

[LemonMelon]

Holy fuck. This must be what all hip hop sounds like to my dad.

[LemonMelon]

Favorite hip hop albums of the year:

1. Kanye West - Yeezus
2. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels
3. Ghostface Killah - Twelve Reasons to Die
4. Black Milk - No Poison No Paradise
5. Big K.R.I.T. - King Remembered in Time
6. Czarface - Czarface
7. Pusha T - My Name Is My Name
8. Danny Brown - Old
9. Earl Sweatshirt - Doris
10. Flatbush Zombies - Better off Dead

Black Milk was a great late addition. I cobblered it with that one and have to hear some of their earlier work now.

[bono_212]

I've only heard 3 hip hop albums this year

[cobl04]

Originally Posted by LemonMelon

Favorite hip hop albums of the year:

1. Kanye West - Yeezus
2. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels
3. Ghostface Killah - Twelve Reasons to Die
4. Black Milk - No Poison No Paradise
5. Big K.R.I.T. - King Remembered in Time
6. Czarface - Czarface
7. Pusha T - My Name Is My Name
8. Danny Brown - Old
9. Earl Sweatshirt - Doris
10. Flatbush Zombies - Better off Dead

Black Milk was a great late addition. I cobblered it with that one and have to hear some of their earlier work now.

Chance is gonna land in my top ten, all genres. I loved Acid Rap.

[LemonMelon]

If I liked him as an MC at all, I would have loved that mixtape. Very good beats throughout and solid lyrics for the most part. I just found him annoying as shit to listen to. I'm definitely going to check out his subsequent work because I think there's a lot of potential there.

I had to get used to Kendrick's voice as well, and when I did, I fell in love with his work. It just hasn't happened yet with Chance.

[cobl04]

Totally understandable. Those hiccuping-type noises he makes are pretty annoying and that Na Na song with Action Bronson borders on ear rape at times. Personally though I found him (and to be fair the production mostly) to be a breath of fresh air.

[Imperor]

Chance The Rapper Performs 'Chain Smoker' - YouTube

Love this dude.

[cobl04]

That sounds wicked, thanks for posting... Weird that he didn't sing or rap like half the lines though.

This is good

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1oKA8v5aA

[LMP]

Because the Internet is way better than I expected.

[LemonMelon]

Lower peaks than Camp, but not so many terrible genre exercises. It sounded more cohesive. I didn't really like it, but it wasn't anything too bad. As before, I liked the soulful tracks more than his attempts to act hard, which were lame. I liked the song with Chance a lot.

[LMP]

Originally Posted by LemonMelon

Lower peaks than Camp, but not so many terrible genre exercises. It sounded more cohesive. I didn't really like it, but it wasn't anything too bad. As before, I liked the soulful tracks more than his attempts to act hard, which were lame. I liked the song with Chance a lot.

The Chance track is the standout here. It's a little too sprawling for me to agree that it's cohesive; it lacks Camp's brevity, though is an improvement on the spinning-the-wheels mentality of Royalty.

His "acting hard" / soulful divide doesn't strike me as disingenuous in the same way that a guy like Drake does, for instance -- though I do enjoy him in spurts. If anything, the bifurcation of ideas/emotions inform Glover's self-doubt or disgust in himself. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's presented in as nuanced or affecting of a way as Kanye -- I consider him the gold standard in the current pop rap version of that "divide" -- though there's still something to chew on.

[LemonMelon]

I'm still not convinced that the Childish Gambino/Donald Glover "where does one end and the other begin" storyline holds any merit or interest. I'm not terribly fascinated by the personality of either because, in my opinion, he hasn't done a very good job of laying out a mythology or narrative for either. Two LPs in, he still sounds like a dilettante, rather than a complex individual with a singular voice, like Kanye or even Tyler.

Another problem is that he continues to put too much stock in punchlines, which is straight out of Lil Wayne's empty calorie school of hip hop writing. Glover has put enough creativity into his concepts to prove to me that he has some good stories hidden away in there. But I'm just not hearing them as often as I would like, so I can't connect with him or his personality, whatever it may be. The first couple of tracks on Camp got me really excited for his career because there's a lot of personality in the writing. But he loses me on Bonfire. And maybe that's where the divide is. Danny Brown is doing the same thing on Old. But I don't think Glover has succeeded at making the conflict itself very interesting.

[LMP]

I think it's unfair to judge his whole persona based on the rap aspect alone. Drake's past as a teen actor at least partially adds a performative layer to the "sensitive misogynist playboy" mystique -- no one discounts that.

In Glover's case, his joke writing goes hand-in-hand with his wordplay and bon mots because they work textually and meta-textually. I don't blame you on being tired of it since he hasn't developed it much beyond a divergent side project. Either way, I dug it.

On an unrelated note, Beyoncé is better at releasing listenable albums than her husband right now.

[cobl04]

Finally picked up Doggystyle today. Holy shit the cartoon liner notes are fucking hilarious

[cobl04]

I realised today that I know nearly every single word of Madvillainy. Not off the top of my head (the exception being Accordion), but with the album playing I can pretty much rap the whole thing. It's firmly ensconced itself in my top five hip-hop albums.

[Imperor]

Danny Brown Performs "25 Bucks" with Megan Jones - YouTube

Fuck yes

[cobl04]

Quality gig tonight. All hip-hop gigs should be like that.

Each of the acts played 45 min sets... Run the Jewels were on first, the one I was looking forward to the most. They were fucking exceptional, hilarious and a stupid amount of fun. They came out to We Are The Champions, Killer Mike with champagne which he gave to the crowd, El-P with what looked like Belvedere Vodka. They played pretty much all of Run the Jewels as well as a few tracks from R.A.P. Music and Cancer 4 Cure. Run the Jewels sounded sick, and of the three acts had the clearest sound, which was wicked because there's a lot of neck-snapping snares on Run the Jewels which need to be heard. Killer Mike was drunk as fuck, and thought we were in Sydney before El-P was like "we're in Melbourne you fucking fat drunk bastard" and they both seemed really appreciative, laughing, playing it up with the crowd, saying funny shit, Killer Mike dancing. They had a better stage presence than Danny Brown and Earl, although they were both great too. Absolutely loved it. Pretty jealous of the Governors Ball goers, who will likely see an Outkast/Killer Mike collab at some point.

Danny Brown was up next and he was a lot of fun. I didn't recognise most of the tracks, because I only spun Old a few times. Must listen to it more. Was a largely party set, so filled mostly with his more trap-leaning stuff... I have to say though, as much as I don't really care for that sort of rap it's a hell of a lot of fun live. (Hell just before he came on the DJ played Waka Fuckhead Flame's Hard in Da Paint and even that was fun.) Dip was nuts and the dude is an absolute riot. Looks like he's having a great time, kept asking for dope and a molly, I was pretty disappointed no one handed him a joint. The place was packed during his set, I couldn't move, and out of the three acts he had the biggest crowd, there was plenty of room during Earl's set. No Grown Up, which was a shame, that's my favourite DB song, but it wouldn't really have fit the vibe anyway.

Earl was joined by Domo Genesis and Taco, who rapped and DJ'd. Again I didn't recognise most of the songs because I only spun Doris once or twice. There were some quality beats and it was a lot of fun, but you lose a bit of the subtlety live, so Earl's rapping doesn't shine through as much as it should. The three of them ad-libbed Ride Wit Me at one point, which was mad. The whitest thing ever happened during their set, when a bunch of douchenozzles created a circle pit and started throwing themselves at each other. A lot of the songs were short but it was a pretty consistently good set.

[LMP]

8tracks radio | Childish Chances. (14 songs) | free hip hop and rap music playlist