Now We Only Care About Rap

[Antero]

Checking it out prrresently.

This already feels more natural than most of XXX.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

[shai faithe]

a million quotables:

Gucci Mane adjusts his glasses. “No sleep for a Brick Squad boy,” he mutters as he watches the clock strike midnight. It was now officially October 17th, and he had no song to offer the world on Brick Squad Day. He was distraught.

[fishjim]

Dear LPTJ hip-hop pops,

I've been trying to up my rap intake lately, but it's been tricky because Iris wants to know what all the words mean. What's a la di daddy to do? Hip-hop on headphones isn't my style.

Signed,

A Based God Pilgrim, Bitches

is the problem here that the words aren't very nice? it may make me a terrible parent, but i've been listening to all sorts of hip hop with my daughter since she was born. if she's maladjusted, at least she'll be cool and have good taste. that's all we can hope for right?

No doubt. Thanks for the message of hope!

I think the problem is more that Iris at this age is a language magnet, and repeats everything she hears, even song lyrics at inappropriate moments. "Oh my God Based God! You could fuck my bitch Based God!" is not something I want her busting out with at preschool.

[dieblucasdie]

Just train her to shout "SWAG WOOP SWAG WOOP" intermittently whenever the teacher is talking

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Just train her to shout "SWAG WOOP SWAG WOOP" intermittently whenever the teacher is talking

"SWAG WOOP ANDERSONCOOOPER WOOP BASEDGOD"

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

teacher will feel definitively placed among the levels of basedworld

[shai faithe]

Dear LPTJ hip-hop pops,

I've been trying to up my rap intake lately, but it's been tricky because Iris wants to know what all the words mean. What's a la di daddy to do? Hip-hop on headphones isn't my style.

Signed,

A Based God Pilgrim, Bitches

is the problem here that the words aren't very nice? it may make me a terrible parent, but i've been listening to all sorts of hip hop with my daughter since she was born. if she's maladjusted, at least she'll be cool and have good taste. that's all we can hope for right?

No doubt. Thanks for the message of hope!

I think the problem is more that Iris at this age is a language magnet, and repeats everything she hears, even song lyrics at inappropriate moments. "Oh my God Based God! You could fuck my bitch Based God!" is not something I want her busting out with at preschool.

yeah i have that going on now as well; she'll ask me what words mean. not to give advice, because god knows i have no clue what the fuck i'm doing, but i always tell her whatever she wants, and then let her know if it's something she shouldn't be saying and why, or why the person in the song said it, etc. that doesn't mean she listens necessarily, but that's what my parents did with me even at that age, and i turned out alright.

[Trousers and Pat]

Just train her to shout "SWAG WOOP SWAG WOOP" intermittently whenever the teacher is talking

"SWAG WOOP ANDERSONCOOOPER WOOP BASEDGOD"

Strings

[Thermofusion]

barang dang dang

[ellaguru]

I've been all about XXX, but that's that's been my only real hip hop love this year.

kind of my experience too

No Cohesive, even?

Cohesive is at or near the top of the "like" column - which also includes Jean Grae's mixtape (which is the best thing she's done in a while), and Pl3dge, and I'm Gay, and Angel Haze's mixtape (which is inconsistent and far too long but pretty fun), and Lady Leshurr and Goblin (which I liked better than Bastard).

But no. I know you guys are all over the moon about Cohesive, but I couldn't get there.

[Andrew_TSKS]

So, just to bum you guys out, I am going to talk about the new Das Racist for a minute. I thought Sit Down Man was the best rap album of the year last year--I can't remember if I voted it higher or lower than the Roots in my top 20 at the end of last year but it's stood the test of time better so fuck it--and Relax, which is an official album and not a mixtape, is not quite as good. I think the thing that threw me at first was the lack of ridiculous backing tracks--no songs based on samples from Enigma or Days Of Our Lives or with a sampled Jay-Z hook, because they actually had to clear all this shit. So the music is a bit more ambient and keyboard-drumloop based, which isn't my thing as much. I still feel like hip-hop in general was better back when samples didn't have to get cleared and every record had 1000 or so on it, but hey. It is what it is.

Anyway, now that I've gotten used to the changed musical style on Relax, I'm really warming up to it. The meta hip-hop in-jokes continue (speaking of Lil B, as we were earlier, they throw the line "I'm a fag, I'm a lesbian" into the title track) and there are a few songs that from another rap group I might think were attempts at booty rap crossover but from Das Racist I have to take as deadpan sarcasm, such as "Booty In the Air." Then there's an "autotuned laughter" motif that runs throughout the album that I find hilarious--though I'm betting some of you more uptight types would HAAAATE it. Ultimately, what it all has in common is that, samples or no samples, it's catchy as fuck. The lyrics are still genius, even when (especially when) they don't make any conventional sense, and there are some great guest spots on the record too--El-P is back, and Danny Brown is here too. I don't know who the other people are, but none of them drag down the quality of the tracks they're on. It's more of a grower than an immediate stunner the way Sit Down Man was, but I think this record has a pretty solid chance of making my year-end list.

OK, everyone cap on this post now.

By the way, for those who are curious, the video for the first single, "Michael Jackson," is here:

Das Racist - Michael Jackson

[elpollodiablo]

All of us uptight types hate autotuned laughter, it's true

[dieblucasdie]

I thought Sit Down Man was the best rap album of the year last year--I can't remember if I voted it higher or lower than the Roots in my top 20 at the end of last year

I mean, if this is dilemma re: a year like 2010, it's probably just fair to say that we want completely different things out of hip-hop and leave it as that.  Das Racist seem like good dudes in interviews; I just don't ever want to listen to their music.  It's a real trick to make something that grates on me WHILE ALSO boring me. 

But like I said, you're not crazy or alone in your assessment.

[Thermofusion]

I don't want to be the guy who lets certain prejudices affect his ability to be [musically] open-minded. I really, really don't wanna be that guy. But it strikes me as music made-by-and-for well-to-do Brooklyn hipsters, which ain't something I'll ever be able to overcome. Also they went to Wesleyan, which, ugh.

[dieblucasdie]

there are a few songs that from another rap group I might think were attempts at booty rap crossover but from Das Racist I have to take as deadpan sarcasm, such as "Booty In the Air."

I really, really hate the "booty rap"/"serious rap" dichotomy thing that people do.  It's a relic from the late 90s/early 00s, and doesn't really make sense anymore, given what's played on the radio, and what's actually used as dance music.

DeRogatis, for example, loves to dismiss things as "club rap," and I'm always like, "OH REALLY, SIR, WHAT CLUBS DO YOU GO TO WHERE THEY PLAY THIS MUSIC."

Anyhow, I'm sure there are REAL booties SOMEWHAT IRONICALLY in the air when Das Racist pulls that song out at shows, however sarcastic or deadpan they may be.

[shai faithe]

ha ha. post explicitly intended not to derail derails anyway.
my problem with das racist isn't so much the same problem that i had with that tiny mixtapes column (which may be thermo's issue), as it is that they're just talking a lot and not saying a goddamn thing. it's a bunch of pomo babble "intended" to meta meta meta crit crit crit. if you took a grad seminar equal parts solipsistic and boring, threw in the fact that the material was being confidently and excitingly covered by thinkers thirty to forty years ago, made it into a rap album, you could call it "das racist."
of course i've only heard "sit down man" and might still check out "relax" on your rec, andrew.

[Andrew_TSKS]

I dunno, man, how often are rappers really saying something? What's Lil B saying? You know? The idea that they're Brooklyn hipsters is one I cannot refute--that's clearly true. But hey, I like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs too. I'm not gonna dismiss something outright because of who the people making it are.

Personally I think all the pomo meta shit is really funny. And I think the fake booty rap stuff is funny too. I don't really even see Das Racist as being ironic (though I'm sure a lot of their fans do). To me, a lot of their material feels like jokes about rap from people who honestly love it but just recognize how silly it sometimes can be. That's not the best explanation but I'm not sure I can do any better than that.

And on a completely different note, I heard that Soulja Boy song "Speakers Going Hammer" song today and it's really quite good. Clearly he has changed producers since "Crank Dat," and thank god, since "Crank Dat" had possibly the worst beat I've ever heard on a hip-hop song.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

I dunno, man, how often are rappers really saying something? What's Lil B saying?

Lil B most of the time is invariably talking about class or positivity.

[Thermofusion]

I was about to say, Lil B says a lot, albeit between the lines. His output is one long, sprawling metafictional commentary on the devices (and artifice) of MC identity, expressed in a manner that aggressively engages the most dug-in tropes of hip hop language. For starters!

[fishjim]

I was about to say, Lil B says a lot, albeit between the lines. His output is one long, sprawling metafictional commentary on the devices (and artifice) of MC identity, expressed in a manner that aggressively engages the most dug-in tropes of hip hop language. For starters!

Yeah!

Also, Lil B says he's God. Listen up, TSKS!

[dieblucasdie]

Soulja Boy did the beat on "Crank Dat" himself.

[Antero]

Most rappers are saying something.  It's usually not a "something" like, say, Black Thought rapping about "something."  But it's absurd to say they're not saying something.  Especially if they're Lil B.

Ironic booty rap is anathema.  Actual booty rap is funny enough, why drag it down with hipster distancing?

DeRogatis, for example, loves to dismiss things as "club rap," and I'm always like, "OH REALLY, SIR, WHAT CLUBS DO YOU GO TO WHERE THEY PLAY THIS MUSIC."

Man blucas the boy young DeReGotti always up in clubs makin it rain on bitches.  You ain't heard?

[Antero]

Clearly he has changed producers since "Crank Dat,"

I think we need to give you a primer on the way the rap world operates.

[Antero]

Man, ASAP Rocky chose some great beats but I find him totally uninspiring as a rapper.

[shai faithe]

Man, ASAP Rocky chose some great beats but I find him totally uninspiring as a rapper.

seconded.

edit: on second thought, not totally uninspiring, just mostly. so far, he's little more than the sum of his influences, and relies too often on the same flow patterns.