Hip Hop: Yay, or Nay?

Nay.

However, Hubby has had the latest Hilltop Hoodz CD playing lately and I am liking it. It's Aussie Hip Hop though, which sounds soooooooooo different. Maybe that's why. I don't know.

Duke Ellington, in response to a journo's question about the scandalous rock 'n' roll that was corrupting teens' minds, said (and I paraphrase):

"There are only two kinds of music: good music, and the other kind."

I'll go along with that. Hip-hop, country, jazz, whatever: some is good, and some is terrible.

Me? I like some of it: Beastie Boys, some Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Dream Warriors, Grandmaster Flash. A lot of it, I've got no use for at all. But the same applies to pop music and rock.

I love hearing things I haven't heard before. But I do get sick of doof-doof cars driving up and down the street.

I agree with Poet...some is good, some is worse than terrible. I've never bought a hip-hop CD though. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like enough of it to waste my money.

I'll bob my head if it sounds good and the lyrics aren't nasty.

None of the choices really applied to me, so I chose the "bob my head" option. I like more than one artist, but most rap music is lost on me. I like Dre, Jay-Z, Snoop, Eminem, Kanye and (some) Ice Cube. And I also love the new one out by Chamillionaire and Krazie Bone, "Ridin' Dirty."

I listen to all music -- I like keeping myself open. And, in all music (like everyone else has said), there's good tunes and crap. Even my favorite artists have songs I skip over because I can't stand them.

What's the difference between hip hop and rap and where do Digable PLanets fit in?

You didn't have a button for 'Eh.....I'm forced to listen to it in my kid's car....'

Hard to believe the 'Go-Go' artists are all in their 50's 60's and 70's. Why mention that??? because 'Hip-Hop' is somewhat a rip of 'Go-Go'.

I'm really a hard core rock/metal/ blues person, but some of the 'Hip-Hop' is rather valid music. My son has a few Ice Cube CD's but I'm more familiar with him as an actor. If the music is playing and I like the beat, I'll listen...if you give me a couple beer, I'll dance. But I'm more of an 'Iron Butterfly' type of girl, ya know?

It's interesting that we don't really have a genuine need for a thread about how folks of a certain age (doesn't have to be a physical age) don't like hip hop. We can just go back to any publication from the 50s and 60s and get the same comments about rock. Just swap out "rock and roll" for "hip-hop" and you're good to go.

No, wait! I'm wrong -- We do have a genuine need for such a thread. This is the electronic version of the same ol' song. Folks in 40 years can use this thread, swapping out "hip-hop" for whatever popular music has moved on to at that time.

Not for me. Granted, there are some I actually don't mind. But in general, no.

Love the hip-hop but, like every genre, I don't like all the stuff that comes out. Eminem is consistently good, as is Kanye West, Snoop, and Dre. Everyone else, I'll listen to if it has a good beat and clever rhymes.

i listen to a great deal of rap, yes.

There's some music I like, and some I don't. Some of it is hip hop, and some is other stuff. I mostly listen to alternative rock, with a bit of metal and emo thrown in. However, I do like Eminem, the Beastie Boys, Outkast, Ice T, Snoop Dogg, and a few others. One of my absolutely favorite sing-in-the-shower-and-shake-your-*** songs right now is "Temperature" by Sean Paul, which is some kind of weird blend of reggae, rap, hiphop and salsa. Love it.

poetinahat said:

I like some of it: Beastie Boys, some Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Dream Warriors, Grandmaster Flash.

Click to expand...

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is not Hip-Hop. Sheesz.

That's like labeling Elvis Costello as New Wave. You should know better, Poet.

Rob

robeiae said:

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is not Hip-Hop. Sheesz.

That's like labeling Elvis Costello as New Wave. You should know better, Poet.

Rob

Click to expand...

Oops. But The Message is still the biz. Still unexcelled.
ETA: Or has Celia caught you out?

"I have excellent news for the world: there is no such thing as New Wave. There's punk, power pop, new underground sound, ska, rockabilly... but New Wave doesn't mean sh!t."
-- Claude Bessy, from The Decline of Western Civilization

Of course Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five are hip hop. They're pioneers to the genre in fact.

And, as an aspiring rapper, I'm sort of obligated to love hip hop, even when it's saturated in pathetic mainstream efforts, as in the present era.

Celia Cyanide said:

Digable Planets are definately Hip Hop.

Click to expand...

Then I guess I'm down with hip hop. *need a cross armed emoticon*

I mean. . . .doesn't anybody listen to John Coltrane anymore?


If somebody ever samples, My Favorite Things, I am going to have a friggin coniption. . . .



Okay, I admit that I don't mind rap. . . uh, hip hop. . . I have bought two albums in the last three years (I steal my friends music mostly) and they are Ray Charles and Slim Shady. . .

When done well, hip hop is the tops. Now on to my list. I won't rank them, but do sort of a tier system. BTW, Notorious B.I.G. > Tupac. I guess this could be it's own thread for us heads. And I'm partial to the east coast flavor.

The kings:

Digable Planets are the best
Beastie Boys
Cherrywine
Notorious B.I.G. (not my fav, but the man had skills)


Second Tier:

A Tribe Called Quest
De La Soul (mostly their earlier stuff)
Outkast
Wu-Tang Clan (ODB, R.I.P.)
Leaders Of The New School

I also like:

Eminem
Snoop
Ice Cube
Ludacris (sometimes obnoxious, but sometimes blows my mind)
Blackalicious
Gang Starr
Arrested Development
The Roots
Twista (not really my style, but he's good)
Jurassic 5


I may be leaving a couple out.

Jaycinth said:

I'm really a hard core rock/metal/ blues person, but some of the 'Hip-Hop' is rather valid music.

Click to expand...

Jay, I might suggest looking up some Ice T and Bodycount stuff. Very early 90s neopunk, but still pretty rockin'. (For those who don't know, Ice T was one of the originals in the gangster rap movement. In the early 90s, he started touring with a metal band and caused a storm of controversy with his song "Cop Killer.)

WerenCole said:

If somebody ever samples, My Favorite Things, I am going to have a friggin coniption. . . .

Click to expand...

Jazz has always been a give-and-take with popular music (Miles Davis's rendition of "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper is proof that it didn't die in the 40s). I would think you'd be pleased that now it goes both ways (there was a very popular hip hop song in the late 90s that sampled a well-known jazz tune, but I'm totally blanking on the name of the band. They were contemporaries of the Diggable Planets, but I don't think that's who it was).

For myself, I'm an old schooler, but I try to give it a chance now and then. Rigid thinking leads to senile dementia, so keep as open a mind as possible will hopefully keepe me rational into my old age.

pconsidine said:

(For those who don't know, Ice T was one of the originals in the gangster rap movement. In the early 90s, he started touring with a metal band and caused a storm of controversy with his song "Cop Killer.)

Click to expand...

Which why it's rather humorous that he now stars in Law & Order: SVU.