Is it just me...

Dustaz

Im not really big rap fan, but the first single i ever bought was The Message by Grandmaster Flash in er, 1981? not sure.

I Liked a lot of the early pioneers like Afrika Bambata, Run-dmc etc, plus i bought most of the "golden era" stuff from the first PE stuff to ERIC B and EPMD to BDP and NWA and De La Souls 3feet.

Unfortunatly since then the genre has gone from bad to worse, except for the odd bit of gold from tupac and dre, rap and hiphop has turned into utter fuicking dross as far as i can tell. Mind you, The most 'underground' i get these days is knowing who Jay-z was before Beyonce.

Even so, as far as i can tell the only interesting hip hop in the last few years has been the Streets which i think is bordering on the truly great.

So can anyone enlighten me, what IS good these days

First person to mention Emenem gets a slap :P

Kold

Well I dunno, hiphop has gone a long way since back then, it's divided into several genres within itself and some may accustom to some tastes whilst others to others. To be honest I can't listen to that 80s retro rap. I'm too used to my hiphop not sounding like funky nursery rhymes to jiiiive to. I love Nas' stuff and Tupac, it's stuff that makes you think.. Whilst Luda and redman and mef etc stuff gets me goin "skilllllllz". Beats are class these days, tbh I think rap is better than it ever has been although the commercial stuff on the surface can be pure sh1t.

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

echomadman

/me shakes zimmerframe at Dustaz.

Its the cycle of life Dusty, You used to be with it, then they changed what "it" was, now whats "it" is wierd and scary to you.

I agree for the most part, you have to wade through a lot of dross and utter shit to get to the good stuff in the genre at the moment.

Spearhead are still continuing the political angle that Michael Franti started in The disposable heroes of hip-hoprisy, leaning more towards reggae but worth a listen.
As you said there's still bit of gold, I think there just seems to be less quality stuff as the SNR has increased exponentially since the mid 90's.

Also a lot of good stuff is coming out of the UK these days, eg Roots Manuva, despite his Dre-like ubiquitousness is also worth checking out.

Makaveli

Originally posted by smiaras
that guy who does stuff with the wu tang clan (kicking myself cause I can't remember his name)

Do you mean Rahzel from The Roots?

adnans

Originally posted by Makaveli
Do you mean Rahzel from The Roots?

nah, hes thinking of Michael Winslow from police academy.

adnans

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

][cEMAN**

Personally I can't think of anything decent to come out of the UK except the Streets. Some people say Dizzy Rascle but i'm not 100% on him tbh.

Mostly I prefer gangsta rap, but I actually like some of the older stuff as you say Dustaz. There's nothing wrong with being retro in Rap, some of the best stuff has already happened. Atm they're just trying to reinvent it over and over again - to make it NEW AND SHINEY!!!

Most people are just sounding generic because of it and it's usually bull****. Though as you say you don't like Eminem, but think of everyone associated with him and around him. Dre, Snoop, Xibit, and to an extent D12 is nice n funky, with a twist of humour. 50 gets a lot of hype but although I like some of his stuff he's not great. He's just very public.

To answer your question what's good these days, you'd have to give examples of which area of Rap/ Hip-hop you like from the american scene or anything else apart from the UK.

/me remembers East 17 and shakes his head low and heavy

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

check out Dj format, he's very good

or jurassic 5, or gang starr, arrested development.. all good hip hop

Kali

oh dear someone asking what IS good.. its all subjective

Boom Bip, Swollen Members, Blackalicious, RJD2, Dilated Peoples, El-P, Ty, Runaways UK, Sage Francis, Sole, Buck 65, Roots Manuva, Lyrics Born, Aesop Rock, Cannibal Ox (or anything else on Anitcon, Mush or Def Jux).

Cannibal Ox

Follow that list.
Add Company Flow (El-P's old band) in there as well, Funcrusher Plus is a must for any collection.

][cEMAN, not a fan of Roots Manuva then?
I think hes one of the best emcee's out there, far better then most of the stuff you get out of the States anyway.

Tha Gopher

My god,gasp,Im agreeing with what Dustaz is saying!

Rap today is filled with bad producers,poor,overrated and boring lyricists. Then you have formerly decent artists who in the last few years have come out with some appalingly bad material. Just look at Snoop Dogg. He has been so braindead from weed post doggystyle that he is prepared to accept the first beat he hears from a producer and sick his vocals on it. Whether the beat goes with his voice seems to be academic. Why the hell he doesnt work with Dre often I dont understand.
I think the neptunes are actually harming rap with their useless production.
I quite like The Streets as well,though some of it is a bit silly tbh its quite good. But these days alot of rappers seem afraid to be controversial. The near collapse of Death Row records didnt help anything either. Of their remaining artists only a handful are any good,but for whatever reason(lack of money I presume)these artists like Kurupt have not released anything,in spite of Suge Knight telling any journalist that will listen twice monthly since he left prison that Death Row artists are about to take over.

But the likes of Nelly wouldve got nowhere in the mid 90s. As for Eminem,hes a great rapper,but just gets sthick from older dudes like yourself because of all the 12 year olds who have heard The Real Slim Shady and Without Me and think its fookin deadly bud.

Kold

Originally posted by ][cEMAN**
Personally I can't think of anything decent to come out of the UK except the Streets. Some people say Dizzy Rascle but i'm not 100% on him tbh.

ASHER D

ps i can't listen to dilated peoples or the streets at ALL

Kali

Originally posted by Kold
ASHER D

ps i can't listen to dilated peoples or the streets at ALL

And you obviously never have. Dilated Peoples are from the west coast not from the UK...

Kold

yeah but that was a seperate paragraph wasn't it.

red_ice

Originally posted by Makaveli
Do you mean Rahzel from The Roots?

He left the roots YEARS ago, infact i think he only did a couple of songs with them. The beatboxer from roots is 'scratch'

I wonder is there a beatboxing scene in ireland. I passed by a bloke beatboxin on grafton street earlier and he sounded like a bloke called 'white noise' on humanbeatbox.org but i wasnt sure.

Anyways....

Makaveli

Actually he's still credited as a member on Phrenology.

Tha Gopher

Red Ice-That was The Man and the Machine. Bought one of their CDs they were selling on the street. Theyre unspectacular on record but their live performance was pretty cool.
"Blame me if your dad smacks your mom"*fist flying noise* brilliant:)



I also realise that bares no relevance to anybody who didnt see them,but if you did you know how cool that bit was:)

Attreu

Check out Messiah J and the Expert @ www.mjex.com

Great lyrics over excellent beats, have to say the best rap i've listened to this year.

Been to see them a few times and they're great live. supported gangstarr, PE, Xzibit

Theres a few mp3's on the site and there album is only €10 in tower.

Executive Steve

i dont know all that much about hip hop to be honest, me and a mate flew rahzel over to play in the red box as part of the tour for his last album and he was amazing, but i think that to him and an awful lot of the human beatbox crew its more of a focus on skill with the human voice much in the way turntabilism is the abstracted form of the musical backbone...

all the def jux stuff is worth checkiing out, anti pop consortium were pretty innovative theres rumours that the wu tang are if not returning to form exactly at least not sucking as bad as they did for a while a few years back...

roots manuva is on fire jehst and a lot of uk hip hop are really doing it for me... i can sort of relate to their content an awful lot more. the streets of course i can relate to an awful lot more but i wouldnt call it hip hop at all it was just home produced [badly produced, if eccentrically and rather endearingly!] it was a product of the uk garage scene of which dizzee rascal is another more credible manifestation. the garage scene has been split asunder and one half of it is doing really intereesting things musically [get the phuturistics album on hospital recordings] and fusing with 4 hero's "broken beat" movement alongside old drum and bass luminaries as gforce and seiji the movement trades on fusing jazz breakbeat musciality to the syncopated hats and odd shuffle of uk garage. the grimey or sublow end of the garage scene is the one where all the tunes sound like really evil farts and only really serve as background music for crackhead london mcs to chat over. its enormously enjoyable obnoxious stuff! i'll post you up a link when i can find one...

in the meantime here's a link to a radioshow that blame [720 recordings] did on life fm a week or so ago, the mc is mc LowQui, he was in the metropolitan on new years eve along with a couple of other uk heads, he's pretty highly regarded as an up and comer in the uk drum and bass scene and he's got a hell of a lot more lyrical content than some of the bigger names who have been around since the early days of drum and bass. he's been praised over at www.breakbeat.co.uk where they might all be ignorant wee pikeys they know their mc's. its a big file but its worth it for the broadband massive!

http://www.lowqui.com/music/lowqui/DJBlameLowQuiLifeFM131203.m3u

safe, i'll lash up some more stuff in a while.