The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

Lee — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:17:12 -0000

I am 27 years old and when I was younger I loved the misogynistic side of hip-hop. I grew up in Los Angeles and everything from NWA to Too Short I would devour. Then when I turned 14 I listened to Wu-Tang and everything changed. I was one of the few cats in Watts that would throw on my Timbs and a hoodie and bump the new Ghost or Rae. Mainstream hip-hop has turned into nothing more than a nobody with a nice hook and a club beat. The hip-hop I fell in love with is still there. You just have to dig for it a little more. Today I was frustrated at work. I got in my car and there was a little bit of traffic so I started listening to dead prez Let's Get Free and went straight to Mind Sex. It mellowed me out and just made me reminisce about the first time I fell in love with real hip-hop. Don't give up on it because it is just as introspective and beautiful as it was when you fell in love with it also.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

Jonathan — Thu, 21 May 2009 08:21:33 -0000

Indeed - I was disappointed by that, as well. I disagree with this statement

the only hip-hop I'm listening to these days is Doom and the occasional Ghost. I'm basically done with the music for reasons I haven't yet figured out. And if you're done, you kind of give up all right to make big pronouncements about its future.

in principle. This is part of growing older as hip-hop heads. We have to figure out how to make it through our 30s and onward without divorcing ourselves from ourselves or just leaving it to the players Gartrelle mentioned above... or worse yet, the souljah boy crankin, sidekick beat makin, rap twitterin kids! (roffle)

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

sjb33 — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:03:22 -0000

Ha, may exact same reaction. But I will chime in...

In these download/iTunes/zshare times, I wonder how anyone can be expected to find good Hip-Hop? It used to be even when radio was bad, there was Rap City or magazines or some other "middle man" that covered the full range of the genre. Now there's either the top of the top (Jay-Z, Kanye, Wayne, T.I. etc.) or nothing. There's a million other artists out there, but no good system to sift through it all for the average fan. I am completely Hip-Hop obsessed, so I dig, and dig, and dig until I find the good ish, but I know the average doesn't put in that effort.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

gordon gartrelle — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:17:55 -0000

When people like you opt out of these discussions, the discussions are framed by either:

1. (mostly white) rock/pop critics who don't know or care much about rap beyond what appeals to (mostly white) rock/pop critics.

or 2.) rap revisionists, KRS-type 4 elements zealots, hip hop "activists," simpletons who think in binaries ("conscious vs gangsta...underground vs. corporate...hip hop vs. rap"), and out of touch hip hop academics, who care so much about hip hop that they have an unhealthy and unrealistic view of its history and importance.

The absence of voices such as yours is why mainstream rap criticism is so terrible these days. Even worse than the music.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

odub — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:37:33 -0000

Eddy raises a very important point - if someone wants to argue about hip-hop's roots and traditions, then hip-hop's roots are in *party music*. That doesn't make it apolitical, rather, it pushes us to remember that the politics of pop culture extend far beyond just textual content or polemic intent. What made hip-hop vibrant in its early years was the social context from which it was emerging rather than some well-defined, 10 point manifesto for revolution. As party music, it could be political without having to *perform* politics. Indeed, when, in American history, has the specter of brown and black bodies moving en masse ever NOT been weighted with social meaning or been responded to with fear and loathing? See Martha Reeves' "Dancing In the Streets" or Funkadelic's "One Nation Under a Groove" for examples of what I'm talking about from earlier generations.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

TKOEd — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:49:18 -0000

The other thing about people talking about what hip hop is and is not supposed to be is that sometimes we forget who some of the biggest acts were during the early years. Guys like Busy Bee used just come out and rock the crown. Didn't even rhyme really. There also no real lyricism to speak of. There seems to be inability nowadays to just enjoy music Sometimes it's silly and stupid like Soulja Boy but that stuff has always been a part of hip hop. Guys like him have always been making money. They just weren't plastered all over the tv because media coverage wasn't what it is now.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

TKOEd — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:37:37 -0000

Truth

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

TKOEd — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:37:11 -0000

Thank you Jonathan. I get so tired of people bashing hip hop. I'm so over it it makes me want hit myself in the head with a hammer. Everyone is all "it ain' what it used to be" blah blah blah. There is plenty of good ish out there. I'm 30 and been listening to rap for almost 20 years. I still love it and will listen to it til the day I die. If you think there is nothing good out there you're not looking hard enough or most likely at all.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

The Inkognegro — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:00:58 -0000

Ok...firstly. It wasnt a COVER...it was a remix. there is a difference.

If folk can't be bothered to be accurate in the facts, I can't be bothered to comment on their analysis.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

MPresto — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:36:01 -0000

Him and Vitamin D both produce some ill tracks for sure.

That White Van album is very tight.

Anything by DJ TopSpin is also worth checking out.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

thatgirl_b — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:13:48 -0000

I love that Ceasefire album as well. I don't have a credit card, so online shopping gets a little difficult, but I'm starting to figure out where to find what I'm looking for. Thanks for the tip!

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

Jonathan — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:28:02 -0000

Oliver, surely you remember the "college music" category!

I love talking/arguing about music, but I'm a college graduated music nerd record shop owner. Do less educated/gainfully employed cats working some corner of anyhood USA really not argue about who is a better MC ("Jay Z, Biggie or Nas?") or if a new song or trend is cool? That is not my experience. I've lived around plenty of corners and never found a lack of opinion about hip-hop. Might be a little less verbose, but it's not like dudes are too busy working a pack to play the radio.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

permazorch — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:13:11 -0000

I hope you're trying to be funny with the Country Western reference.

Fail, then?

I was trying to be witty, yes. I was referencing the scene in The Blues Brothers, they've arrived at a roadhouse for their (hijacked) gig.

Q: "What kind of music do you listen to around here?"

A: "We like both kinds of music, Country and Western."

The tragedy of any kind of music, genre, subgenre; culture, subculture, is, once it's fully assimilated, it is indistinguishable from pop music, the worst kind of pop music. But, just because Garth Brooks was the touchstone for country & western in 1990, that doesn't mean BR5-49 wasn't coming into existence, too.

Others have made the point I was trying for, and they've done it better. I meant no offense, Teknontheou. I would hope that folks want more than monoculture, whatever their background. Some of the best Country and Punk Rock comes from Australia. I'd wager some of the best Hip-Hop the world has ever heard is due out from Peru any day now. In fact, it probably is just a google-click away.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

odub — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:05:59 -0000

I respect the argument that hip-hop is a movement but for many - most, actually - it's a music style and assuming hip-hop still conforms to the same basic aesthetics - a beat, people rapping - I can't see how suddenly, people are going to start calling it something else than hip-hop.

Besides, most of those side-genres of rock music you named are simply marketing terms. It's not like there was an organic movement in the 1980s where people started saying, "you know...I don't like rock. What I really like is that 'alternative rock,' yeah!"

It's not the name that's the issue. If "Crank Dat" was classified as something other than hip-hop, I imagine the same people who liked it would still like it and the same folks who don't, still wouldn't.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

AM — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:56:29 -0000

That's not to say hip-hop hasn't changed...

In the beginning hip-hop was made up of young, poor inner-city minorities that started a social artistic movement, which served as an outlet from poverty, crime, drugs, etc. What did these kids on the block do? They bombed subways through graffiti, Breakdanced on cardboard, Spun some JB records on the record player, and spoke their minds and heart into a mic.

Now the rebellious faction has become the leader/king that holds power, and all the above stated aspects of hip-hop have diminished to some extent.

All movements and persons grow and run their course in time, and it's important to mature as an individual, and I think that's what I hear between the original heads and new heads. As an original, I just want the new generation to start their own movement and give it their own name. It seems like the new producers or industry heads use the word hip-hop to invoke the Golden Era images, when in fact there isn't a strong correlation between the present and past eras.

Just like Rock and Roll sprouted off into Alternative Rock or Emo, or whatever, the current Hip-hop era needs a new name, because it has changed, to the point of hardly recognizing the original from the current.

There's a Catch-22 in these forums too that I've noticed, and it's that the cats on the corners, those I know locked up or dead, or the kids in the ghettos w/ nothing running the blocks don't analyze tracks, discuss the state of hip-hop, or anything like this. But they're at the root. They put in a CD in their home or car and just bob their heads and pass the blunt. I'm definitely down for these discussions and I'm more the Coates hip-hop type than my friends working the corners. But that's hip-hop, I gotta represent for them too, just like Nas's Represent.

Art comes from struggle. Art is always original.

This is crazy, I'm on the right track I'm finally found

You need some soul searchin, the time is now

All I need is one mic.. yeah, yeah yeah yeah

All I need is one mic.. that's all I ever needed in this world, fuck cash

All I need is one mic.. fuck the cars, the jewelry

All I need is one mic.. to spread my voice to the whole world

One Love

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

MikeCee — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:35:45 -0000

Jonathan, totally agree with your larger point regarding the depth and breath of hip-hop.

I thought that particular quote was too general a statement and discounted raps ability to be seriously impactful and "politically minded". It Takes a Nation is just the ultimate expression of political activism in hip-hop and the prime example of why that quote just can't work for me. But, its far from the only example.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

Jonathan — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:29:21 -0000

Ah sh*t, my mans and them. O, you know... it IS a pretty good discussion about it. I didn't mean to fire a stray shot at anyone involved (or Coates either). I guess my point was that these discussions seem to follow a really predictable path, one that I think is uninformed and inspired more by nostalgia than research. I'm no journalist (I just blog a lot, haha) but it seems like a really trite story that's been written a million times across the history of American popular music and debunked at every turn.

But you know this, man - we have this argument all the time on soulstrut. heh heh.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

Eric L — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:24:44 -0000

"My President is Black" was the song that I liked the least on Jeezy's last album, and the remix didn't do much for me either. That said, Jay rapping about the color of his Maybach doesn't come close to depressing me because at the end of the day he's still an entertainer. I loved songs like "30 Something" off of Kingdom Come, but songs like that don't get a ton of radio play and don't help sell many albums.

As far as Jeezy goes, I even have a hard time explaining why I like his music, so I doubt that anyone who doesn't regularly listen to rap would understand.

The line that seems to be stuck in my today is "It's a blessing to spend a hundred thousand in a recession/with no second guessing," so I don't think I can legitimately feign concern over rapping about material goods during an economic downturn. In fact, when you're down, sometimes the last thing you want to listen to is someone singing about the troubles and difficulties that are in your daily life.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

odub — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:12:10 -0000

"This is The Atlantic, the writers and commenters tend to be pretty smart folks; yet I'm constantly disappointed in the one-dimensional opinions about the biggest cultural movement of our lifetimes."

In all fairness, when's the last time you saw an impressively intelligent and multi-dimensional conversation about hip-hop in mainstream press?

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

odub — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:07:10 -0000

Ta-Nehisi, I thought it was pretty funny that you opted to bow out of the convo because you don't feel like you're listening to much of it these days - from reading through that roundtable, I'm not sure anyone there besides Hua is listening to much of it either. I went through the exchange with my jaw dropped through much of it - there were some unbelievable things being said, not the least of which is this idea that hip-hop is supposed to be (and I can't even say this with a straight face): "dispatches from the ghetto" or that Young Jeezy - of all artists - has nothing relevant to say about contemporary urban experiences.

There's so much grumpy old folk-isms in the roundtable and these comments above and some of it is willfully revisionist (or else merely ignorant) of hip-hop and its history. It never fails to amaze me how people are so caught up on the Golden Era that they're incapable of trying to understand hip-hop on its merits outside of the politics and aesthetics of 88-94. Don't get wrong - that's my favorite era too - but the desire to fixate on that era, to the exclusion of the 10 years before and 15 years after, feels woefully myopic. When I was younger, me and other "heads" used to clown rock fans and their whiny ways but give us a decade and we've become the same curmudgeons, just with a different genre.

In all seriousness, like Ta-Nehisi, I find myself strangely detached from hip-hop these days and that's after having spent the last two decades listening to it, writing on it, spinning it, researching it, etc. And like him, I'm also not completely certain why that disconnect exists BUT I don't assume it's the music/culture that's changed so much as something about me.

That's not to say hip-hop hasn't changed - of course it has - but it's only become more complex and diverse with time. To me, if you can't find anything interesting about hip-hop today that says something about you, not about hip-hop.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

DP — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:59:15 -0000

My posse's on Broadway!

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

CitizenE — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:52:39 -0000

African beats have been world shaping popular music now all over the world for about a half century--Rumba soukous from Congo, and to a lesser degree Kenya and Tanzania; the Mande pop from Guinea, Mali, and Senegal; highlife and funk from Ghana and Nigeria. Of course hip hop has inflected the music more recently, and to those you mentioned above I'd throw out the Sudanese rapper, Emmanuel Jal, who has two cds out, Ceasefire, on which Jal, a Sudanese Christian (and former child rebel soldier) and the great master of the Sudanese oud, Abdel Gabir Salim, a Muslim, collaborated, and War Child, which was produced and released in the US last year. He is not the slickest rapper in English, but his message is powerful.

African music is more widely distributed in Europe, France and Britain, where it is far more popular than here, but there are African vendors in the US at Ivoire Records and PanAfrican All Stars, and several world music vendors, including download sites if you hunt around. The musicians you mention are all available on Amazon. Follow your nose on line, you'll find websites, critics, radio shows, galore.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

Stacy — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:26:02 -0000

Well, consider me that indie kid who has never played an instrument, because I love Animal Collective's last album. I didn't like the previous ones nearly as much. Brother Sport is my favorite song of the past year. However, I know a lot of people with really good taste in music who absolutely hate Animal Collective. So who knows?

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

thatgirl_b — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:00:00 -0000

The whole global beats for "Post-Obama world" thing seems a little presumptuous though, considering that much of this has been going on for last the fifteen years or so and has only recently become more visible to us.

I've been digging through of the "world music" section in the pulbic library and at the college radio station here on campus and there's amazing stuff coming out from all over... the aforementioned K'Naan, Mala Rodriguez (Spain), Daara J (Senegal), Sidestepper (Colombia), and the huge "bongo flava" scene out of Tanzania my refugee kids introduced me to that draws from American hip-hop, Indian & Arabic music, and African rhythms and instruments.

What does get frustrating is trying to find copies and support the artists that you do like that don't get the level of distribution that someone like M.I.A. does.

Re: The Atlantic Debates Hip-Hop

CitizenE — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:48:12 -0000

As someone who writes about music, albeit music from Africa, a fascination that came about because I found that the music of my generation had hit a dead end--seriously, after Jimi Hendrix, heavy metal guitarists--ho hum, I have had the opportunity to look at a number of popular music movements all over the world, and the arc of such movements are all pretty much the same.

There's first a period of innovation, a really exciting period, which becomes classic (is there a rock and roller on earth who does not love Chuck Berry?); then mastery, ditto. But then the genre not only becomes a bit washed out from overuse, but the cliches take over as the music business only understands what has made money for them in the past.

This period goes on for decades, while people grow up and find that music no longer is the sound track of their burgeoning consciousness, and meanwhile, new innovations begin; new styles rise up. In the US rock and roll and hip hop have been super dominant popular music genres, so they both have lasted and will continue to do so beyond their heyday.

For myself, I was a teenager when Soul music had its brief day on the stage, and I still think it is the greatest popular music that I have ever listened and danced to: "I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour/to see the twinkle in your eye."