Have You Heard the Ocarina of Rhyme by Team Teamwork? (New Hip-Hop Thread)

[Antero]

I was surprised how understated the sex scene was, actually.

Seriously though, that last song kills.  Electronic gospel choir for the win.

[Antero]

Baracka Flocka Flame

The concept is inherently funny.

[shai faithe]

if that were his "barracuda," he'd get whatever he wanted.
a lot of those songs were great.  but i'm kind of disappointed that that was about half of the album.  so now we've heard 3/4's of the damn thing.  and i won't be able to disassociate it with deer and lambos.

[Antero]

I mean, can you really think of a better visual representation of yeezy's artistic existence than a lambo crashing into a deer?

[shai faithe]

i actually can't.  what the fuck that says about you, me, or kanye west, i have no idea.

so (partly) because of eyedea's death, i've been thinking a lot lately about the decline and demise of this past decade's avant-garde hip hop scene (anticon, def jux, mush, dalek, antipop, etc.).  does anyone know of labels today making music in that vein, or at least groups that one could call flag bearers of those genres?

[Antero]

Odd Future, of course.

[shai faithe]

right, so of course that would come up.  but how easily can you make that argument?  maybe i'm just trapped by the way art historians talk genealogies, but in visual art, each successive generation cites the previous one at least somewhat obviously.  in the very least, they revere them, and will name drop etc.  odd future and the based scene isn't apparently aware of the precedents set in the left-rap field.  honestly, this could just be a case of hippies getting mad at their kids for not being MORE hippy-ish, but i would have thought that the next crews to come along, because they're at least somewhat playing with the same signifiers as def jux was (gangsterism), would be doing so in a more avant-garde way than those before them.  but to me, odd future and main attrakionz and lil b, and EVERYONE in that camp really (whatever "that camp" is or is becoming), aren't doing anything that doom and madlib and stones throw haven't done already (though maybe they're flavoring it with swag or horrorcore or whatever).
can we please write a blog post about this? i've been stewing about with these thoughts for months, and i need someone else's perspective to work through it.  again, to make the hippy analogy, i kind of feel like the dream of alt rap straight up DIED and pretty much everyone that worked for it gave up making really challenging stuff.  the critics who praised moved on long ago (mainly because there wasn't much to praise anymore).  now it's become a situation where, if that's what you're into, you have to either jump on the cloud hop bandwagon, get back into regionalism, be one of those dudes who never lets go of those five "great years," or convince yourself that the mainstream is where it's at.  i'm doing all of those.  and REALLY, i just want to hear shit from someone that sounds like death breathing, and alludes to romantic poetry while reloading.

[dieblucasdie]

Maybe a weird comparison to make, but there was a discussion on here once about Be Your Own Pet that stuck with me for some reason--someone was making the case that they were juvenile, weren't really punk, how they obviously had no grasp of what the punk movement was, only got a shot because of their industry connections, etc, and TSKS said something to the effect of, "spoiled 17 year-olds thrashing around and getting into fights and writing songs about people they don't like at their high school is more punk than 30 year-old dudes aping Black Flag."

This is sort of the same thing.

To put it (maybe) a little bit more elegantly: when the genre you're working in is necessarily about novelty (we are talking quote-unquote experimental hip-hop, here), not bowing to your forebears is an asset more than a liability. 

[Ignatius]

but shai faithe said they weren't doing anything new either.

[shai faithe]

but shai faithe said they weren't doing anything new either.

dude! please!
not looking to get defensive on the internet, but i'm not not not saying that OF and based shit is not "new." i'm asking, is it really the inheritor of the can ox / el-p dada rap aesthetic?  it could be.  my immediate reaction is to say that it isn't.  but i'm seeking to challenge my assumptions and prejudices there.
blucas, i remember that thread, and you may be right.  however, i think that genre plays a role here that disallows communicating the same findings. that is, most of the guys making that music at the beginning of the last decade were being REALLY REALLY intentional about what they were doing, and when you go back and pick that shit apart, it's fucking intelligent stuff. (obviously not utterly across the board.) i feel that somewhat about lil b (as has antero it would seem), though not when i listen to him.  i don't know what to think of OF in that regard.  maybe it's so unreconstructed that i can't get around it yet.
this is basically the same conversation we had over in the lady gaga, where i defended reception theory, while others were screaming authorial intent.  now i'm on the other side, but more asking if their intent is there, not saying that it isn't. it's not really important to their "legitimacy" as left rap, just important to me. i just want lil b to make beats that sound like einsturzende neubaten okay?

[Ignatius]

This is what I was referring to, apologies for misreading:

but to me, odd future and main attrakionz and lil b, and EVERYONE in that camp really (whatever "that camp" is or is becoming), aren't doing anything that doom and madlib and stones throw haven't done already (though maybe they're flavoring it with swag or horrorcore or whatever).

[shai faithe]

oh shit.  yeah you got me.
so okay, i conceded that it needs to be new.  that does lend credence to blucas' reading of the situation, and perhaps invalidates the need to pay homage or whatever.  but then maybe it makes it impossible for odd future and the others, no matter how good, are truly avant?

[dieblucasdie]

Yeah, that's the bit I was going off of, too.  

You're probably right in positing that

most of the guys making that music at the beginning of the last decade were being REALLY REALLY intentional about what they were doing

is where the real argument is.  To me there's a point at which that sort of meticulousness clashes with a billed-as-alt (or "experimental") scene; part of what makes Lil B so great is the way you hear his thought process unfold right there in front of you, the way it goes from "ugh, that line was dumb" to "holy shit, how did he get three steps ahead of me?" in 20 seconds.  Sure, The Cold Vein is pristinely crafted in a way that's almost impossible to match, but that's also why it's sort of a dead-end, nawwhatimean?

xpost

[shai faithe]

i guess i was just thinking out loud.
i could've just said three words: more noise hop.
but no one would have responded.

[dieblucasdie]

haha, fair enough. Now that you've clarified a bit, I totally get what you're saying, and it's true that you don't see anyone doing that sort of thing on that level anymore.  But I do still think that part of the problem is that the scene you're talking about WAS sort of dead-end creatively, especially when you have a first-wave that did it THAT well. 

[shai faithe]

yeah that's absolutely true with regard to el-p and dalek (who are still making great records), but what about the anticon guys? obviously, they alienated themselves (ha) pretty successfully, but they based their hip hop around forms of art (ambient music and beat poetry [maybe?]) that are so wide open, that artists could conceivably keep producing hip hop in that vein ad infinitum without much of it sounding too similar. of course, a group like cLOUDDEAD was willing to go so far left that most of ten isn't really hip hop by any measure, but i see ample room within the genres that they established to exploit the signifiers of hip hop while exploring themes and sounds that would otherwise be ignored.
and on the noise tip, one of my favorite recent albums was erykah badu's new amerykah part one, and i think that it stands as a testament to the avant-garde spaces within deeply familiar genres.  just listen to tracks like "twinkle" and "the healer" and...well damn near any song on that record.  it's a modern classic because she understands so well everything that preceded her that she can infuse it with something distinctly futuristic.  call it the john cage school of music-making.

ALSO just copped EARL, which is by far my favorite wolfgang release so far. shit is good.  still can't over all the rape shit though.

and these bet cyphers are pretty worthwhile. so cool to see run's kids straight kill it.  never really listened to khalifa, don't care to, but i just realized that he's basically the new snoop.

[dieblucasdie]

(ambient music and beat poetry [maybe?])

Oh, I think there are plenty of people doing this sort of thing, just not very successfully.  What about that Dessa album that was getting some notice earlier this year (shudder)?

[Antero]

yeah that's absolutely true with regard to el-p and dalek (who are still making great records), but what about the anticon guys? obviously, they alienated themselves (ha) pretty successfully, but they based their hip hop around forms of art (ambient music and beat poetry [maybe?]) that are so wide open, that artists could conceivably keep producing hip hop in that vein ad infinitum without much of it sounding too similar. of course, a group like cLOUDDEAD was willing to go so far left that most of ten isn't really hip hop by any measure, but i see ample room within the genres that they established to exploit the signifiers of hip hop while exploring themes and sounds that would otherwise be ignored.

I mean, Subtle's still around.  A New White and For Hero For Fool were both excellent records.  I realize the latter of those was 2006, but you know... actually, thinking on it, that whole wing of Anticon is still active.  Jel, Dose, WHY?, Odd Nosdam, &c are all still releasing work.  I feel like the creative impulse is stagnating, though, and a lot of them have actually been drifting towards making middling indie rock with vague hip-hop tendencies, rather than anything resembling the more inspired fusion that they were dropping five years ago.

I think the scene just died, perhaps.

[ellaguru]

There's one after For Hero: For Fool, too. Although I haven't heard it.

[Antero]

I don't think anyone did, really.  I heard two cuts and never really thought about it again.

Going back and listening to the two mp3s from it that I have, yeah, they tilted further towards an indie rock sound.  There's barely any hip-hop left in it, compared to For Hero: For Fool where every rock impulse is filtered through hip-hop and recreated, and where hip-hop signifiers are openly displayed and confronted.

[Antero]

God, I forgot how awesome For Hero: For Fool is.

[ellaguru]

Yeah, For Hero: For Fool is great. I have A New White and have given it a few spins, but not as much of a hearing as it deserves.

[shai faithe]

yeah dose is still (always has been) doing great work.  the free houdini tape was batshit good.  check out "free and void." dose said in an interview with av club that he did the whole thing in one take, on the third try.  bonkers.  i'm listening to the new-ish themselves--crownsdown--right now actually (it's fucking aggressive; you can definitely hear for hero : for fool all over it).  i forgot that sage released a new album this year (though he never really developed after hope).  atmosphere i've heard has been making increasingly good music for the past two or three years.  i don't know.
the major sticking point, antero you're right, is that everyone that was vital to that part of the scene drifted so far towards indie rock / electronic music that the hip hop aspects of their sound were lost.  and secondly, more importantly, is that these are the same old names that cats were kicking around TEN YEARS AGO.  it seems like the scene died because no one was starting new labels, the labels that did existed weren't able to successfully supplement their stables.

this compilation of stretch and bobbito freestyles is cool stuff.

[Antero]

The fact that there's no fresh blood is probably incredibly important, thinking about it.  On the West Coast you have people like Flying Lotus and Nocando coming up, but Anticon is still the same chaps.

Atmosphere has never made good music.

[Metonymy]

What about that MF Based mixtape? I've been reading this thread and listening to Blue Flame and 6 Kiss a lot, so I figured I'd alert y'all, given the discussion above. Might be old news, I guess.