You think Doom will be the last hip hop artist you'll write about? Because Kanye is a dick? Did you flip and quit the game when ODB said Puffy's good but Wu Tang's the best and for the children?
I love what you have to say about hip hop and think your voice is an important and necessary one, but if you just give up on the art, when there is so much out there, even if it's outside the mainstream...? Well, it's just disappointing, TNC. And I'd really love to see you backtrack on that retirement, Favre-style, and come back and play the game again.
But I guess from the writing on the blog it just seems like you don't feel hip hop anymore, or that you've outgrown it...is that it, outgrown? Because I don't see how, if you really loved it, you wouldn't be able to find stuff out there that speaks to you. You just have to hunt, you won't find it on the radio. Yet here you are writing about Doom, so obviously you get that...
Anyway, your post saying you were done with hip hop sort of pissed me off, and I wish you would take it back.
This has been an ongoing process for me, as readers of this blog know. But the process isn't a statement or recommendation. I haven't been to the movies in over a year. That says a lot about me, and maybe something about the movies. From that perspective, I'm not sure why there's such a strong reaction to a personal opinion. People love things all the time, and then move on to other things--I don't collect comics or play Madden anymore, either.
My reaction Kanye was really a kind of fatigue with ego and the "I'm the best thing out" pose which hip-hop is built on, which hip-hop has always been built on. As younger man, that pose meant something to me--I needed it. As an old-head, not so much. I'm half-curious about the Rae album, but I just don't know, at this stage in my life, that I want to hear more about the crack trade. Cuban Linx changed my life ("And when I slept I dreamed Gs son/I need some..") I'm fine with letting that be. Hip-Hop will always be foundation. That's enough for me.
This is a deeply personal choice. It is not a declaration about the state of hip-hop. This is a blog written by a guy who lives in a small Harlem apartment, with his spouse and kid. It should never be taken as anything more than that.
UPDATE: It's important to add how much I appreciate the compliment, also. It means a lot. I hope I don't undermine it by saying the following. I'd hope that people who like what they see here, but wish I did more of XXXXX, would be inspired to do it themselves. Writing has never been more democratic than it is right now. If you're looking for a particular analysis of hip-hop, which you aren't seeing right now, grab the pad and go knock it out. Now's the time.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Last graf, second sentence. Is there a 'not' missing?
Yes, thanks.
Not just here, but across the Net, the Hip-Hop die hards who are in their late 20's and older seem to feel betrayed by those of us who aren't in it the way we used to be. That reply was actually very mild and respectful compared to some of the stuff I've seen others say when you talk about having moved away from the music. My guess is that for some folks, it's interpreted as some sort of assault on their tastes and maturity, hence the counter-lash about how you (in this case, me) weren't really Hip-Hop (true in my case, I think), you're not looking hard enough (maybe, but so what), or you're just a fuddy-duddy now (probably.)
Our generation saw Hip-Hop as their personal expression (even though it was invented adn in it's rawest, most living form in the 70's in the Bronx, when we were being born.) It was a virtual friend, that some of us seem to be abandoning as it struggles. Only thing is, I can't force mnyself to listen to stuff that bores me and no longer moves me.
There've been some shots taken by people in my bracket, also. So I think when you say, "I'm out" the sense is that you're making a declaration. I don't know. I remember loving Nas and Black Moon, and there were people ten years older than me who came up on T La Rock and Run-DMC. They couldn't take "Killing Every Nigger In Sight," and they bounced. I'm fairly sure it happens in almost every music form.
This is an important point, and one I should remind myself of more often. When Illmatic dropped, my whole crew left school mid-morning to go cop it. We demolished the city bus that took us there with tags. We hit the park, rolled some blunts, and proceeded to have our minds blown.
Older heads at that time thought Nas was just aiight (Nas! Illmatic! Just aiight!). That's not even touching on some of the other stuff that was so meaningful to me, then, at that age, that these cats would just dismiss outright.
Hip-Hop fans should check out yesterday's NYT Book Review. Some English professor and John Jay wrote a book saying that rap should stand alongside Shakespeare and such as poetry, and the reviewer took him to task for trying too hard to defend Hip-Hop, saying he didn't need to try so hard; Hip-Hop was already accepted as an art form.
I don't really buy the first argument*, but I mention this hear because the reviewer's position ought to assuage the concerns of the commenter Ta-Nehisi quoted. Hip-Hop will survive Ta-Nehisi listening to other stuff. It apparently has plenty of prominent, articulate advocates.
*Before you call me a hater or whatever, bear in mind that I am similarly dismissive of most rock lyrics. There are exceptions, but most simply aren't poetry and wouldn't stand alone without the music.
Then you get into the whole "Is poetry separate from words with music?" question. I mean, in alot of cultures poetry first developed with musical accompaniment of some sort. I think we've gotten used to the idea of a poem being words on paper strictly, because that's how it's been done in the West for the last 1500 years, or so.
That's a good point, actually. I picked up a new translation of Homer's Odyssey a few years ago, and the writer (an English professor in the Midwest) mentioned that his translation was informed by his experience of speaking the poem at local coffee shops, with some musical accompaniment (e.g., maybe a drum or another percussion instrument), as ancient Greek poets would do.
Right, Homer is who I was thinking of. In alot of cultures, meter's were followed that prescribed certain beat patterns. So with Homer, who spoke a very tonal language which could be very sing-songy in the first place, you add certain beat patterns, a lyre and a drum, and you'ev got something that can basically be called musical, if not music outright.
The difference in that, as I see it, is that Rock music doesn't depend on lyrics to be relevant. At least to me. Hip Hop does. It's a lyrical form of music. I can enjoy most forms of music, even if the lyrics suck. But that's not the same with Hip Hop.
I grew up exposed to Run-DMC and the Sugar Hill Gang* going to predominantly black schools in the '80s. I was never overly impressed with the rap lyrics I heard back then. I can't say I've kept up with the genre much since then.
I agree that rock doesn't require good lyrics. I went to see one of my favorite bands Friday, The Cult. Some of their lyrics are OK, but they've also written some catchy songs with absolutely meaningless lyrics.
*The 6'2" son of the SHG's producers was a minor celeb in my school. By his age and his size I figured he was a teaching assistant the first time I saw him in gym class, but it turned out that he was an 18 or 19 year old who enjoyed hanging out at the school so much that he failed all his classes and waited for 'social promotions'.
I respect where you're coming from, but feel differently. I can enjoy hip hop, and rock for that matter, if the lyrics suck, as long as the music is good. Maybe its because my background is as a jazz musician, but i tend to pay closer attention the music and less to the lyrics.
It helps when the poor lyrics are made sufficiently hard to understand that its not immediately obvious that they are bad. This is true of almost any live show (lyrics are incomprensible usually).
for examples of hip hop not even needing vocals to be enjoyable, check out any of J Dilla's instrumental stuff, like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzBwd6nG7LM&feature=PlayList&p=FF83B3AEBE286E94&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=14
I woke up to the radio on Saturday morning, and for some reason, it was set to Power 105 instead of the usual WBLS. So instead of getting the usual classic soul and some current R&B, I laid there listening to current hip hop for a while. I heard music from a lot of artists whom I'd heard of, but never actually listened to, like Trey Songz and Gucci Mane. And I realized with absolute clarity that these guys were not making music for me. It wasn't a matter of whether I liked it or hated it. It simply was not made for my ears. And I can accept that. I'm not going to twist myself around trying to relate to it. I don't listen to that much hip hop these days, but the stuff I do listen to is generally from artists around my age (37) who are making music for my ears. The younger generation can have their thing, and I hope they enjoy it. I recognize -- with no bitterness or contempt -- that it's not for me.
This is how I feel too. Hip-hop has been a huge part of my life since I was a kid. I mean there were times that I don't know if I would have made it through without hip-hop, but now I'm 34 and most of it doesn't speak to me anymore. The swagger, the foolishness, the repetitive subject matter, it's just not my thing. I still check for some stuff on the low, and enjoy discovering older music I may have missed but as far as mainstream hip-hop I pretty much only hear what I hear on the radio, and I don't particularly like it.
The biggest problem I think is that in the mainstream especially, these guys all ran out of things to rap about like 15 years ago, so they just keep rehashing the same subject matter over and over again and in many cases just dumbing it down to a grade school level.
Hip-hop used to be all about "skills". Either you had them or you didn't and if you didn't, you got no respect. Now it's more about swagger, money and bitches and who cares if you can creatively put words together, you can make far more money being simple, obscene and ignorant.
In my eyes it started going downhill in '96. The whole East Coast/West Coast beef was in full effect, the Bad Boy sound started to take hold and took commercial hip-hop to another level. It was at that point people really started looking at hip-hop as more of a cash cow and less of an art form. That's cool I guess, but once artists realized they didn't have to be creative to be "successful", the quality of music really suffered, and still does to this day IMO.
Just my opinion though...
I took your advice. I haven't gotten into a routine of blogging on the regular but I'm trying! sarahsosincere.blogspot.com. Please check it out and comment please...
It's tough getting into a routine. Especially when you want to write about serious things all the time... it can be draining! I challenged myself to do >750 words per night for 30 nights and I made it 7 days in before I had to get some sleep. It was good practice though. I'll comment on your blog in the hopes that you'll take a glimpse at mine, too.
I don't get this. Why would someone get mad because music (or movies or TV shows) doesn't resonate with another person?
One reason is they see it as an indirect critique of their own tastes. They think you're saying "the stuff you like is whack, and furthermore you're whack for liking it." I *know* that's what they're thinking. There's no other way to explain the reactions alot of these types have in these discussions.
It's funny, because as an old guy who doesn't give a shit about hip-hop as a genre (although I like a bit of it as raw energy and a zany kind of artful braggodocio) and who enjoys tweaking younger folks about what I see as its limitations, I'm kind of sad to see this from TNC.
Maybe it's because I resent anyone who threatens to take my job away from me.
I totally understand where you're coming from, dwhite10701. For me, though, it's rock and roll substituting for hip hop. I'm 41, wife and two young kids. I just can't keep up with the music. And in large part that's because it's not made for me. I'm also not bitter; it's just a fact. However, I am a bit embarrassed that I've resorted to downloading Jock Jams to fuel my workouts!
I was there even before I hit 40 - started not caring about R&R very much around the mid-70s after being a disciple starting with Elvis as a very young kid and being exactly the right age when Beatles/Stones/Dylan hit (although I actually bought the first Dylan album and loved it long before the "electric" stuff). I gravitated to listening more to soul, gospel, blues, hardcore country, jazz, whatever because R&R seemed to be getting stale or silly. But when the Clash hit, I just loved them because it was like the old energy combined with a rebellious intelligence I didn't hear in the first wave of punk bands. I still love the rock and roll greats, but I don't make any effort to keep up with the "latest." The good news is that if something is really worth heariing, it'll come my way. But I don't need a new-band-a-month like kids apparently do. And I'd rather spend my time going back and filling in the gaps in my knowledge of long-dead greats in jazz, blues, etc. than knowing what's on the radio.
In general, though, I feel like rock has aged with me. There's nothing that keeps me, who grew up with Sonic Youth and the Butthole Surfers, from feeling left out by the Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, and Bjork. (First two - younger than me; last - older than me.) Also, a lot of the musicians I grew up listening to moved on to various types of electronic music that I find eminently listenable-to. I still discover and buy new music.
I listened to hip hop back in the day, but didn't "grow up with it," (except for stuff like DJ Shadow, which I don't know whether it counts as hip hop) so I wouldn't know - are there sub-genres of hip hop that "age gracefully" with its audience, the way that indie and post-rock seem to?
Yeah I'm sad too because I remember looking forward to your critiques in the Hilltop and City paper. :( But hey, not much to even listen to these days, I know. At least continue to wax poetic on the good ol days.
I think this happens in a lot of genres: there is a particular sound or group of sounds a person loves as a kid, teen, and maybe that carries through, but the sounds evolve and the magic is no longer there, for that individual.
Another thing that happens - or at least, happened to this listener - is that priorities change. I still love music, and like to think I'm "keeping up." But with a household and a marriage and a child, not to mention a job, I'm just not as defined by what I listen to. I need it in different ways than as a younger person. It isn't worse or better, just different.
To go along with the less time point, I think at some point you also have a huge collection of great music and can keep yourself entertained without searching for new material. Why is music a priority when you have a large collection to fall back on?
To clarify, I'm specifically thinking of the commenter's stance that if you really loved it, you'd be able to find stuff. You have to hunt... I don't think love of the music and the willingness, or even ability, to hunt for the best new stuff, should be conflated. It's hard to find the time to hunt for the new thing, but that doesn't mean the love isn't still there.
Doesn't "hunting" just find you more obscure and upcoming acts that, for the most part, also speak more to the young, to its generational cohorts? Finding the new thing isn't hard, it's finding the thing that knows how to speak to you.
I think it's very important for anyone who loves music as they grow up to expand their repertoire, learn more about the history and follow different strands. You won't be reading the same books - or even the same "genres" of literature - you find compelling while you're still striving to become an adult, so why should music be any different ?
I would advise anyone who really digs the energy of hip-hop to work your way back through the greats of R&B and soul, blues, classic gospel, the cream of R&R, a bit of hardcore country, the more complex voices who borrowed from damned near everything like Dylan and Van Morrison, sideways into the jazz of Miles and the rest of the modernss, then back to bluesy, high-energy Basie Band, and the compositional genius of Duke Ellington and don't stop at least until you find yourself listening to Louis Armstrong's West End Blues solo from 1927, one of the most genuinely mind-blowing pieces of music recorded in the 20th century.
We're the luckiest MFs in the world when it comes to musical heritage. It's all there for the listening.
Nicely put. I am lying on the couch right now, surfing the web on the laptop while that great documentary about "The Funk Brothers' is on the TV playing on Bravo. Such brilliant music. Motown era Detroit. Stunning. Even though it was way before my time when
I watch and hear a retrospective like this it almost makes me want listen to nothing but. Maybe this feeling will even last the week.
I used to like hip hop/rap a lot when I was younger. This music nowadays doesn't suit me. I like a few things that I hear but I don't rush out and buy CD's, etc. I don't rush out and buy music of any genre anyone. For some reason, the only rap group I still love is Bone Thugs N Harmony. I just like their style.
it takes a bit of time but if one moves beyond what is being spoon-fed to hip-hop consumers....there are a lot of great artists. personally, i think rap is still worth that investment. i look locally. out here in Oakland we have Boots Riley (formerly of The Coup) now with Street Sweeper Social Club, Hieroglyphics and Lyrics Born. They are amazing writers and rappers with complex, socially aware and creative messages. maybe this is just an extension of the "buy local" movement.
Boots may have some pretty radical politics, but it was born of these streets and it always gets me thinking. that's a good thing. i can still rap GMF's The Message and New York from start to finish :).
so watch Boots lay. it. down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jf_8pHCqf4
I saw Boots sitting in the Chase (formerly WaMu) bank branch on Lakeshore the other day talking to one of the customer service reps when I went in to make a deposit (yeah, I'm so old I don't like putting large checks in the ATM.)
It was weird and definitely "out of context." I like Boots - seriously Oakland. I'm not a hip-hop fan but I couldn't get enough of "Me & Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada Last Night" and bought a couple of their albums. It's definitely time to take 500 Ways to Kill a CEO out of mothballs...
I love Boots. He's high on my list of greatest MCs ever. But I couldn't get into the Street Sweeper Social Club at all.
Didn't even know about that - I don't really keep up. But Boots is cool.
i'm with you on that (SSSC), but i'm glad Boot's is keeping his hand in. whatever he's doing you can be sure it's not fluff!
brucds, i'm keeping my eyes peeled next time on on lakeshore!
You shouldn't sleep on Rae's new record. I haven't felt this way about the Wu since Supreme Clientele - a return to form and more. Amazing lyrics, even if in service of some gangster shit. That said, if you don't like the drug game approach maybe try Jay-Z's new record - though I think it's a bit corporatist, it's an attempt to push hip-hop past some old cliches (not always succesfully). This is a bit of a request, I guess: please listen to the new Rae, even if to confirm that you're beyond it (and make sure to blog about it - I'm definitely curious...)
Can we just talk about how amazing Wale is instead? Dude was the "house band" last night on the VMAs. I've been on that since the Seinfeld Mixtape. Lyrics are making a comeback.
I think the reason I will always love hip hop is it's unique ability to tell a story. As I write this I'm listening to Lupe Fiasco tell the story of a murdered drug dealer who escapes from his unlocked casket and returns to his old neighborhood only to get robbed with the same gun he was shot with. Ten years from now, Nas' "Got yourself a..." may not still speak to me, but songs like "2nd Childhood" will probably only have greater meaning to me when I'm in my thirties.
Hip hop - especially gangsta rap - is getting kinda played out. It had its peak, I think, in the late 90s / early 2000s, and has been slowly winding down the same way other genres of music have done in the past. Already you see the baggy jeans and white T's go the way of the mullet and the acid wash. Every art form eventually exhausts its possibilities and starts to get repetitive. Psychedelic rock, Heavy metal, 80s synth pop, and grunge all went out of style after about a decade.
Hip hop will always remain an important market, but as far as Top 40 stuff goes now, its all about R&B (Ne-Yo, Beyonce, Rihanna), and a kind of R&B / Hip-Hop / Dance fusion (Akon, Flo Rida). Also Rock is making a comeback in a huge way (The Killers, Katy Perry). Country will always be a huge market and this is why you see Bobby Brown trying to break into that genre.
Kanye's latest album was basically synth-pop / R&B. He is going on tour with Lady Gaga, which sucks because I vowed to never give that douchetard another cent of my money after what he did last night.
Everything blogging about hip-hop offers TNC needs less of.
IMO. :)
Popular dance music is always going to evolve, and one's taste in music might evolve as well. One thing seems similar when it comes to pop dance music. When the genre is young, there's tremendous exuberance in its delivery, and that exuberance leads to a fan base by which some artists by popular demand make their mark. However, the recording industry, being what it is--a conservative industry that wants to be able to bank on product--as time goes on, the music that gets produced becomes somewhat imitative, and the weaker aspects of that genre, the cliches take over from the energetic creative blasts. Most popular dance forms after all are simple and formal as sonnets, and it becomes progressively harder to deliver flavor. Of course a few serious artists can overcome all that by virtue of their virtuosity.
Nonetheless, as an audience ages, not only do people become bored by the cliches, but they have less time and energy to frequent the source of the music, which is not in records but clubs and the streets, people's houses, basements, and so on.
Rock and roll was originally rebellious music, and it got a big boost in the 60s when it the rebellion became generational and world wide. People really believed that rock and roll would never die, but here we are in 2009, and the electric guitar as lead instrument has seen its day go by. That's not to say that there aren't great electric guitarists out there, even great young electric guitarists, but it's not like it was before the ascendancy of hip hop. Likewise, hip hop will go its way, too.
As someone who has followed many varieties of music, one thing I have been delighted to find is that there is always more. I stopped listening to American music during the mid seventies. I was bored by the music of my generation, for me, after Jimi Hendrix, I could not find anything interesting in heavy metal guitar playing; after the Who and being of an older generation, Punk--ho hum amateurs who struck me as self parody more than anything--rebels without a cause.
Then I got turned on to Congolese Rumba, a popular dance music that dominated the African continent for 30 years and had some power in Europe and Latin America as well. It hit me the way American soul had hit me as a teenager--sweetness and emotion to irresistable dance beats. When that music ran its course for me, and most longtime fans of the music today find most of it coming out today pretty cliched, I started listening to the music from Cuba first, then Guinea and Mali. While writing this, I have been listening to a very good compilation of 80s Afro-funk bands from Benin. Then, interestingly, I found myself going back to the jazz musicians of my youth--Trane, Miles, Bill Evans. I'll always have an affection for the lyrics of Bob Dylan in his youth, but really, there's so much good music in the world--follow your ears.
if i could take only one song to a desert island, it would be fela kuti's "gentleman". horns with a plot...it makes my day. he walked the line: politics before misogyny :). and broader west africa has provided us with many treasures, indeed.
I barely listen to music these days. It's been at least 2 years since I bought an album for myself. It's not because I hate how music has become the same 'ol, but because I prefer podcasts.
Anyway, TNC, I think the guy's comment was that you may say that ______ music is all about ________ but that's only true if you're listening to horrible music radio, only the hits. There are little artists and bands out there waiting to sing something good to you, ready to spit out something conscious.
You could go to Pandora, put in a song you like and get a taste of other good stuff. It's all out there.
I listen to a lot of music still, as I get to be an old dude. and I still love the music that built me up when I was young. but some of that music is up on the shelf, un-listened to for many years; some of the genres even are not of use to me anymore. no one is giving me hell for that. then again, you should be proud that folks want you to go on with it, because they want your input on the stuff they love.
Cadence Weapon - 23 yrs old. Edmonton, Alberta. City of Champions.
hip hop has and always will be a big part of my life, if it wasnt for hip hop i wouldnt be the person i am today. I can relate to most of what everyone is saying about hip hop and just music in general, fortunately im an 80's baby so i didnt hear garbage when i was growing up. Its a shame how much non-sense is being played now and the music i have out growned is just that but i will always connect with that im just lookin for something that is relivent to me now but with the same flavor.....
I think that everyone should recognize that music is wide open now, you can support and listen to who ever you want you have a choice thats what so great about it the one area in your life were no one owns and controls, the place you run to when the world doesnt understand you