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Official Hip-Hop Re-education Thread
Starang and Stan got into this territory in another thread - so let's start it up anew . . .
Drop in your thoughts on rap here - think Nelly is the be-all/end-all of rap music? Hate Puffy? Haven't been exposed to anything other than Ja Rule's latest 23 tracks with J-Lo and/or Ashanti? Want to prop your cousin's new backpack/bleepbip fusion side-project? Drop it in -
I'll start:
First of all, "Intelligent Rap" is not an oxymoron - sure, most of what you hear on the radio entails shooting people or doing drugs or shooting people while doing drugs, but there is an entire underground rap culture most people don't even hear of - mostly dedicated to eradicating the "bling bling" atmosphere.
Essentially, I'm going to break it down into three classifications of 'intellectual rap' in a generic sense, each straying farther from the 'mainstream' - I know I'm oversimplifying, but consider it a 100-level course (for now) in hiphop.
level 1 - "Conscience-Hop"
This would be the "Mainstream Rap With Conscience"-type stuff. Nas is a classic example, if you look at stuff like "One Mic" or "New York State Of Mind" - not so much with "Take it to da house" or whatever. Others in this catagory would be Jay-Z at times (see: "Can I Live"), Tupac and Biggie.
These guys do the 'bling bling' but come back with an actual message at times, separating themselves from the empty "bubblegum and hoodlum" acts.
Level 2 - "Boheme"
Here you find the fringe stuff, but still relatively well-known - guys like Common, Talib Kweli/Mos Def, Jurassic 5, etc. This is "Rap With A Message" - very little "blingin" and a whole lot more emotion/insight/social awareness.
The beats here tend to be more experimental, often using many samples, and shifting wildly from mellow ("Put It In The Air", Kweli) to harder ("Speed Law", Mos Def). However, the real unifying factor is social/intellectual insight, rather than dubs on the escalade.
Level 3 - "Nerd Rap"
The least mainstream, these guys are basically whipping out the 20 dollar words rather than poppin the Cris. Guys like the anticon collective out of Minneapolis and the NYC Underground movement serve up hip-hop strongly influenced by jazz, beat poetry and the beatnik movement in general, among other things. A lot of times, they'll employ 'fusion' beats, combining styles then rapping over the top of it. Artists like Sage Francis, El-P, etc tend to take very VERY radical political stances, while others, like Atmosphere, perform almost "emo"-rap. This is the place to look for some really novel soundscapes, and the lyrical complexity tops pretty much anything else being put out, regardless of genre.
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Anyway, There's the start, kids - flame away with your hatred of all things rap, and maybe hit up your local illegal filesharing software to download some stuff you never even heard of - you'll like it.
Fire away with questions/comments, and maybe people will have answers for ya
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