Best Hip Hop

[garth cartwright]

I own the first 2 Roots M CDs and while they're decent I can't say I find them compelling. I did pick up the Outkast CD Whiteb mentions only a few months ago and he's right - it's stunning. A year or so ago I set up something here on the godlike genius of Outkast - I think in response to K-Naan getting so much hype; me trying to say "this is the state of the art". Delve deep WB and you will find it in the archives of SOTW.

[matt m]

Well I’m certainly not pitting one against the other! OutKast at their best are great. (Though I disagree about ‘ATLiens’ – I don’t hear anything all that special beyond ‘Elevators’. It’s a lot more generic than their later albums.)

Anyway, out of Roots Manuva’s albums I would recommend his newie, Slime & Reason, and the previous, Awfully Deep as his best so far.

In terms of best ever hip-hop, well my personal faves are:

The first three Public Enemy albums
Ultramagnetic MCs ‘Critical Beatdown’ (and probably Dr Octagon from Kool Keith’s solo stuff)
KMD ‘Mr Hood’
De La Soul ‘Three Feet High & Rising’
The first four Gang Starr albums
The first Jeru tha Damaja album
(you’ve probably twigged that I really like DJ Premier’s music)
The first two Tuff Crew albums (‘Phanjam’ and ‘Danger Zone’)
Wu-Tang Clan ‘Enter the Wu Tang’ (and the first albums by Raekwon and Method Man)
A Tribe Called Quest ‘Midnight Marauders’
Doseone & BoomBip ‘Circle’
Clouddead ‘Clouddead’
Black Moon “Enta tha stageâ€

[matt m]

Haven’t listened to much hip-hop in a good few years actually. But I’ve liked quite a lot of the grime I’ve heard. I’ve been caning The Bug’s “London Zooâ€

[whitebeard]

Con I'm interested about your opinion of Aesop Rock and Eyedea. Do you consider Buck 65 to have that same deepness you describe Roots Manuva to have. What's your favorite Buck 65 album?

[Con Murphy]

Con I'm interested about your opinion of Aesop Rock and Eyedea. Do you consider Buck 65 to have that same deepness you describe Roots Manuva to have. What's your favorite Buck 65 album?

I'm going to have to disappoint you, whitebeard, and say that I'm not familiar with either Aesop Rock or Eyedea. My exposure to, and knowlegde of, hip-hop is really only at your typical 'white middle-aged provincial male with a surface interest in popular music' level. I like Buck 65 though, I guess 'Talkin' Honky Blues' being my favourite - there's a bt of that deepness there in the lyrics, but it's rustic and bluesy as well, which I like. He's a bucolic Bubba Sparxxx, a rapper Charlie used to play quite often. Do you know him?

[whitebeard]

Oh Matt M your list of Hip Hop greats is so predominately East Coast. With the exception of Dose One/Clouddead who's from Cincinnati but resides in Oakland, I'd have to say that your Hip Hop taste is rather, for lack a better term, "specialized." I guess that's good at least you know what you like. Dose One's Solo album Hemisphere is an under appreciated diamond in a sand dune.
As for saying that A.T.Lien's is generic, well that's just goofy because if that album hadn't of been exactly what it was, the whole wide world would be in a different place. Could you imagine if ancient Rome hadn't bit there style from the Greeks, where would civilization be today? We probably wouldn't be listening to Skeng the best song on The Bug album. And as for genius, come on man. The Bug isn't totally changing the face of a genre like A.T.Liens did for thousands or "million, trillion, zillion" of youth.

Unbeatable Buck 65 albums - Square, Man Overboard - Now these two albums are genius.
I bet The Bug can't juggle two breaks while rapping a verse word perfect. Just a guess.

P.S. oh Con I have heard of Bubba. He's just a UK black making UK tracks.

just kidding.

[Gordon Moore]

I like the new Pussycat Dolls single - man those gals are fit.

(a bit tongue in cheek this post, sorry)

[matt m]

OK, your prompt has just reminded me that I didn't mention Cypress Hill's first album or Freestyle Fellowship's 'Inner City Griots', or the great run of Hieroglyphics albums that were Souls of Mischief's '93 Til Infinity', Casual's 'Fear Itself' and Del tha Funky Homosapien's 'No Need for Alarm'. All of which I love. Should've mentioned Ice T too.

I never really dug Dre's production (with the exception of 'Deep Cover' and 'Afro Puffs', both fantastic) and the era I was listening to hip-hop that was kind of the West Coast signature sound. I've liked the hip-hop I've heard coming from the South and elsewhere in the US over the last few years, but I don't really listen to hip-hop enough anymore to comment. Prefer dancehall these days.

I dunno, ATLiens is the album that has 'Elevators' on it, right? I'll give it another listen. But I have tried to like that album many times already (starting from when it first came out, feeling disappointed that it didn't live up to 'Elevators'). And about two years ago I gave it another spin, thinking that anything made by the guys responsible for Aquemini and Speakerboxx and Stankonia must surely be pretty special. But not really finding anything that truly measured up. It's still too embryonic for me to bother with.

I've never really been convinced by arguments about 'seminal', 'important' works, that are essential cos of their influence on people etc etc. For me it's just a question of what's better, and the later OutKast albums are better; a hell of a lot more varied with plenty of what the fuck moments.

Re. Buck 65: he could rap 18 verses simultaneously while juggling 5 technics decks, a monkey and a chicken, I couldn't care less. Virtuosity doesn't interest me; music interests me. (Actually I'm lying there: if he did that I would indeed be pretty damn impressed...)

Out of the anticon crowd, I like Dose, Boom Bip, odd nosdam, So Called Artists, and I remember listening to DJ Mayonaise's beats a lot and liking em. I quite liked Restiform Bodies too, even though they were unbelievably pretentious.

Re. Bug comment, replace "genius" with "dread". Although I think Kev martin's music (and indeed most grime and dubstep) owes more to dancehall and drum n bass in terms of formative influences. For US influences on grime and dubstep I'd say Timbaland's more abiding (whose production always reminded me of dancehall anyway). But I'm not in any way suggesting that the Bug represents the best of hip-hop or anything – I mean it's not a hip-hop album of course – just thought this was a good place to recommend it as it's the best thing in a related area I've heard in ages.

[whitebeard]

1 - Ahh Matt thank you so much I totally forgot all about that Casual album "Fear Itself." That album got a lot of play back in the 90's by the head community of graff writers and such. - 2 - What's your take on Aceyalone's "a book of Human language" or "all balls don't bounce." I love to listen to his evolution through "inner city griots" through "book & balls" to what he has become today. A rapper so deep in the well that most can't see down into the darkness to understand what his liquid flows look like. - 3 - As far as Outkast we're delving into a taste issue and it's totally funny cuz I was never really was into anything they did after Aqumini. I mean I listened to 'em and I didn't really talk s--t on 'em because everybody, I mean everybody was all about "Miss Jackson." Even my grandma was walking around singing the chorus. And to me, when someone who used to make fun of me for loving Southernplayalisticadillacmusik is professing the book of Outkast as the best new band since blah blah blah came out, I got a little sad. - 4 - Skeng, Skeng - 5 - That kinda happened with Aqumini also and that "Rosa parks" song but I used to work silk screening the day after being up all night and I'd listen to Aqumini on my headphone all E-tarded. Then and only then did I appreciate Aqumini mostly for the title track. Ahhhh man that song would make me feel soooo good while working for someone else's dream. - 6 - As far as seminal or virtuosic work I'm in the same boat as you. I was trying to understand your "genius" comment in the weird way I go about things and when you replaced "genius" with "dread" I understood. But "important," I would say that The Bug release London Zoo as well as A.T.Liens or Buck 65's Square are all important releases. Anything "solo Puffy" would not be. (that's just my tiny opinion) - 7 - skeng, skeng - 8 - I can't get enough of that skeng track on London Zoo for the time being. A friend of mine makes the same sneering dirty face I do when that track comes on, but he's the only one. Everyone else can take it or leave it. By the way, who's the vocalist on that track? - 9 - I was never really into anything south or Timberland or popular Hip hop post 2001'ish because well I guess I was just getting into other music. Now I'm trying to piece together any info about dubstep and grime and two-step and that whole piece of the pie chart as I can. Anytime I ask someone here about it they either don't know what the hell is going on, or they think they know all about it cuz they went to a rave once that had a dubstep DJ. Never anything of any substance. -10- phenomenon 1, phenomenon 1 - 11 - I could talk all day about Anticon and how Restiform Bodies are better live but I gotta go flip burgers. PEACE in middle where-ever beast.

[whitebeard]

Whitebeard you talk to much and you don't space your paragraphs and your to lay-z to use punk-u-nation and you write funny words, when will you grow up and stop listening to so much music. Buy an i-pod and stop playing those records you choad.

by the way Odd Nosdom the beat maker for clouddead has been doing solo instrumental experimental hip hop for a while and if your into a sublime journey through audio distortion, field recording, and drum breaks the album titled "Level Live Wire" is a very interesting/rad thing to come out of independence. You can hear pieces on Anticon.com.

[Gordon Moore]

hey whitebeard,

I hope you never think you are being ignored on this forum. I guess that few of us actually know much about hip hop, maybe only a few care for it, but I'm quite interested to keep hearing your views. My knowledge of hip hop comes from watching commercial videos on TMF etc. So not much knowledge from me then :)

[whitebeard]

Oh thanks Mr. G, I was starting to feel a little lonely. I was thinking about popular music and the difference between it and pop music. Popular music is music that some company went around and tallied numbers and based on the numbers decided what's best. Pop music is a genre. For example Ali Farka Toure's Savanne was popular but it wasn't pop music. Eminem at first was just making music and then it got popular. Because of his popularity, he and others helped to make Hip Hop bonafide "pop music." I estimate somewhere in the mid to late 90's this happened transforming hip hop from a sub culture to a mainstream culture. Eminem, Puffy, Jay-z, 50 cent, Missy, Timberland were all nails in a coffin that also makes hip hop even more commercial. Don't get me wrong these rappers (yes Timberland used to rap when he was in a group called Timberland & Magoo) have gotten me to shake a limb or two but so does an Earthquake. What I'm getting at is that the pop music we exchange is picked by companies based on sale & airtime/radio time, not on quality. These "sales" are not even, they don't take into account numerous details like maybe an album sold 100,000 in NYC but only 1 in the rest of America. Maybe a video plays a bunch on TV but not a single person bought the album. So Then we get into reviews. The thing that people forget about reviews is that taste is a relative issue. I could argue all day about the many many facets of music being better then other music, but at the end of the day people are gonna like what they like. Ah man I just went off... ah what does everyone else think about this?

[whitebeard]

The Hip Hop duo People Under the Stairs new album FUN DMC is very listenable. Definitely putting the fun back in Hip Hop.

[Dayna]

I've just now changed my AOL settings to have Barry White as the voice on my AOL. He says, "How you doin' baby? You've Got Mail."



It just reminded me of how Barry White was one of the world's sexiest voices. I know he'd belong under an R&B thread, if there was one for the more "Pop" type R&B but he was good with the things he put out like, Can't Get Enough of Your Love Baby.

[whitebeard]

Barry's voice is indeed sexy. I remember back in 1998 listening to Berry White on the Dead Presidents soundtrack, which by the way got played so much back then between De La Soul's The Stakes Is High and Black Star. I remember this girl I had a huge crush on loving Mos Def & Talib Kweli. Back then I was just getting into vinyl and "Black Star" was the first Hip Hop LP I ever bought. I listened to that album so many freeking times I would force my friends to listen to it.

I guess if someone asked me what the difference was between Hip Hop and Rap was I would say if you want to listen to East Coast Hip Hop from Brooklyn New York listen to this homie.

The Black Star album {type Black Star into Wikipedia then scroll down past Black Holes and the Heavy Metal band and the Indonesian Band to the (Hip Hop group)} as a whole has a broad range of Hip Hop featuring Old School Hip Hop to R&B Hip Hop and Story raps inspired by Slick Rick.

One ironic twist on The Black Star album is that one of Hip Hop's main tennents is that a DJ must be prevalent. When I saw Black Star preform both times DJ Hi-Tek (The main producer on Black Star) was a main part of the show. The Black Star album cover says on it Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star. I'm just curious because the album has some scratching and DJ Hi Tek preforms with them live as the DJ but he's not credited as an equal in Black Star, hmmm?

This album is one of the best Hip Hop albums of all time. Not the best, one of them. It led a transition of from mainstream back to the underground which at the time was centered on "Taking It Back To The Basics." A statement thought by many but said very prominently by Jurassic 5. There first stuff was surfacing at the same time. 1998.