Resurrected unified MUSIC thread.

[barelyawake]

As a side note, Doc, check this out. One of the funniest things I’ve heard this year. It’s Serch telling the tale of how Hammer put a hit out on 3rd Base. It’s like cartoons with real bullets...

Watch on YouTube

[pancakes3]

lol, mgk.

edit: the comments, not the pic.

basically

Spoiler:

MGK was the opener for fallout boy and after his opening set, he asked for a selfie w/ the crowd with their fingers up, took off his jacket (revealing the killshot tshirt), and promptly got boo'd off stage when he turned around and the crowd saw the shirt

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Not surprising actually since MGK admits his target audience is “too old for the club” dentists.

I'm clueless as to who MGK is. I'm clueless about a lot lately.

Well, you need to catch-up because it’s the best soap opera in town. Let me preface this by saying that I’m a sucker for the moments when art forms police their own. I love grunge looking and glam bands and saying, “You’re ruining rock.” Punk looking at Disco and saying, “What happened to the revolution?” Miles Davis listening to elevator music and taking on the entire genre to refine it back to its roots. So, I’m utterly addicted to the Eminem v mumble war. That said, it’s an exciting time for the true poetry of rap as well, with guys like Black Thought (check 215, what an amazing tune). But I digress...

So, mumble rap has taken over the scene, because millennials are all too cool for school, and what says I don’t care more than a rap song where they were too disinterested to write lyrics. So, several of the lyricist have been fighting back. Telling the industry that they are killing an artform. But, Em has taken that beef to biblical levels. So, to prove that lyrics are where it’s at, he’s creating his own competition, an exhibition of lyrical skills as it were. He hasn’t expressly said so, but that’s the upshot of calling out EVERYONE. He just called out Puff for god sakes.

So, for about three years, Em has been killing it with lyrics (his game keeps getting more complex), and he’s pushing himself to show the artform as he attacks mumble. Check the song Caterpilar. Some of his best work ever imo. So, then he drops this bomb Kamikaze, where he attacks mumble and everything else. And only one guy responded (with bars and that’s all that matters).

His name is Machine Gun Kelly. Young Em wannabe but more thug, and much less skill. He’s fine, but he’s not going to challenge anyone in the top 50, and Em debatably sits at the top of that list, and undebatably within the top five. And, like Drake, he has ghost writers who help him. But, all that said, he did a good diss track. Several good lines. Em’s knees are so weak the real slim shady can’t stand up. That’s funny. But, I’m fairly sure that beat and many of those lines were sitting in a can somewhere waiting for this moment.

So, then Em released Killshot. And the thing is, I wish Em would get off the homophobia kick (trust me I was raised that way too). But, it doesn’t make him sound tough, it makes him sound old. Like I’ll knock your teeth out with my gramophone. But, the complexity of his rhymes and jokes are so layered. He goes back to old Shady to call the kid Stan (and this is what he’s been doing a lot of, sonning these kid rappers). Stan killed himself because Em wouldn’t write him back (in the song). Looping that into the diss the way he wrote it... brilliant. The “it’s your moment” line, that is gut wrenching. And “Give him my sandals, because as long as I’m shady he’s gonna live in my shadow.” That’s Dave Attell level funny. Btw, I’ve been butchering lyrics in this thread. Top of the head. Anyway, you asked for it. That’s it. I’m edge of my seat with the popcorn invested.

Thanks, barely. I'm off to YouTube...

I listen to Ass Like That ... (pretty often!) Obviously, I'm an Eminem fan.

Rap battle? I'm already not feeling mumbling millennials!

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

em's best line was

"It's your moment
This is it, as big as you're gonna get, so enjoy it
Had to give you a career to destroy it"

[doclinkin]

I'm clueless as to who MGK is. I'm clueless about a lot lately.

Well, you need to catch-up because it’s the best soap opera in town. Let me preface this by saying that I’m a sucker for the moments when art forms police their own. I love grunge looking and glam bands and saying, “You’re ruining rock.” Punk looking at Disco and saying, “What happened to the revolution?” Miles Davis listening to elevator music and taking on the entire genre to refine it back to its roots. So, I’m utterly addicted to the Eminem v mumble war. That said, it’s an exciting time for the true poetry of rap as well, with guys like Black Thought (check 215, what an amazing tune). But I digress...

So, mumble rap has taken over the scene, because millennials are all too cool for school, and what says I don’t care more than a rap song where they were too disinterested to write lyrics.

I think its more about the rise of the producers to epic level. Showing virtuoso skill that you can put any mf with an instagram page on top of a track and make them famous. They just have to be kinda controversial. Wild. Atract eyeballs. And the truth is there's a lowest common denominator thing that has always happened in music where you dont have to be brilliant to understand lyrics that are that dumb, it just has to be catchy with a hook. Cause even smart people will nod they heads to it and smirk that they smarter than and better than. But now we have EDM festivals etc where you dont even need an MC to move the crow, and the dude behind his technology is the superstar, not just a DJ in the background while the rap personality stalks in front of them soaking up the glory.

So you have dudes like suede who can make instant celebrities outta trailer bred dimwits:

Watch on YouTube

or innocent hick kids yodeling in a walmart

Watch on YouTube

due to a talent for making head nodding earworm tracks that bounce and lope and make any dentist hop out his seat and shake whatever he's got at whatever his money clip can attract.

But that's pop music. That's society. We can capture nostalgia for three weeks ago and loop it in clips and elevate idiocy to positions of supreme celebrity. Or power. And the smart **** are the ones who are finding wasy to constantly profit off it, not the ones who are sippin lean or whatnot. Or commodifying legal drugs and driving big demand for pharmaceuticals over whichever drug is produced in whichever country we have most recently invaded. So we can commodify drug use to drive up shares in that stock and repatriate those foreign drug money dollars in american corporations.

Watch on YouTube

Eminem vs MGK I guess they both win? Now we know MGK's name. And Em gets out in front reminding people of his unquestioned cleverness as a phonetic samurai. But. I dont really know that it really makes either of them happy, or really relevant, unless Em does something with his renewed crusade. Wouldnt put it past him to do some new Magnum Opus.

Thing is about him, yeah he's insanely obessively good, but the thing he ever did that showed the most heart was 8 Mile itself. And the anthem of the soundtrack. And I'm not saying he will never be more relevant than that, or that times have passed him by, I mean the concept of a Stan is now a cultural thing, he invented the term for obsessive fan. And people claim it for themselves. BUT sometimes you can be too clever. And it doesn't resonate as loudly or clearly as something earnestly felt. But yeah. I sit up and listen when he releases a diss track vs our president. I will play it once.

But then I think I'm about to go back and loop that yodeling kid again. Because thats uncannily catchy, and 2 minutes is not enough. So. Yeah. Em needs a better producer than his homemade dis track work. Because its rare that I want to hear his stuff more than once. I admire it. Its insane the rhyme schemes he can manage. But its like, um, juggling. Even if I can't do it, doesn't mean I want to watch it on loop. But god. Really. Wow. I guess I press pause and am impressed with how insanely smart he is at that skill. But I don't learn something about myself, you know? Don't have any powerful feelings about it. 'Lose yourself' though, that one I felt. I dunno. And there's a ton of folks now with their own production unit on their phone or computer who have something they damn well feel and need to say it and they find their way to sound cloud and some find an audience who feels the same. Even if all they feel is incoherent and kinda lost. At least they get it off their heart.

Its kinda why I quit rhyming. I could be clever but had nothing I NEEDED to say. He does.

But to MGKs point, dudes out here with far less skill, no doubt, but at least they doing something? Why take food from their family and shut them down. Kelly irritated me, that song, no urge to track down more. But if its not to your taste, okay. Buy one of the massive radio corporations and pump out better smarter music yourself I guess?

So, for about three years, Em has been killing it with lyrics (his game keeps getting more complex), and he’s pushing himself to show the artform as he attacks mumble. Check the song Caterpilar. Some of his best work ever imo. So, then he drops this bomb Kamikaze, where he attacks mumble and everything else. And only one guy responded (with bars and that’s all that matters).

His name is Machine Gun Kelly. Young Em wannabe but more thug, and much less skill. He’s fine, but he’s not going to challenge anyone in the top 50, and Em debatably sits at the top of that list, and undebatably within the top five.

What's your top five. Or ten.

I guess I think I'm tired of dis tracks and rap battles. Its breaking no new ground. What am I gonna learn from it. All I learned from this was that MGK exists.

What's been on my mind recently is: yeah mumble rap sucks. But can you tell a complex story in a simple or clever enough way, catchy, that is worth repeating, and that even the simple, or inebriated, or drunk, or whatever, can get it, understand it, think its cool, admire it. Like what philosophy will help us transcend this neck deep cultural sewage pit we get stuck in.

Like can we get like a redneck bhuddism. A streetsmart Kierkegaard. Teach me something. Make it make sense. What's next.

[daSwami]

What's your top five. Or ten.

I guess I think I'm tired of dis tracks and rap battles. Its breaking no new ground. What am I gonna learn from it. All I learned from this was that MGK exists.

What's been on my mind recently is: yeah mumble rap sucks. But can you tell a complex story in a simple or clever enough way, catchy, that is worth repeating, and that even the simple, or inebriated, or drunk, or whatever, can get it, understand it, think its cool, admire it. Like what philosophy will help us transcend this neck deep cultural sewage pit we get stuck in.

Like can we get like a redneck bhuddism. A streetsmart Kierkegaard. Teach me something. Make it make sense. What's next.

Apart from Kendrick (who's in a whole 'nother league, imo), I've been off hip-hop for awhile now (and music in general, actually - depression). Migos, etc. are anathema to my white, old-ass ears, and I'm really cynical about "rap battles" - they strike me as marketing gimmicks. But Doc, there's a guy down here in Cville, A.D. Carson (a "hip-hop" professor at UVA), who I think you might dig. His dissertation was a 34-track hip-hop album.

[doclinkin]

What's your top five. Or ten.

I guess I think I'm tired of dis tracks and rap battles. Its breaking no new ground. What am I gonna learn from it. All I learned from this was that MGK exists.

What's been on my mind recently is: yeah mumble rap sucks. But can you tell a complex story in a simple or clever enough way, catchy, that is worth repeating, and that even the simple, or inebriated, or drunk, or whatever, can get it, understand it, think its cool, admire it. Like what philosophy will help us transcend this neck deep cultural sewage pit we get stuck in.

Like can we get like a redneck bhuddism. A streetsmart Kierkegaard. Teach me something. Make it make sense. What's next.

Apart from Kendrick (who's in a whole 'nother league, imo), I've been off hip-hop for awhile now (and music in general, actually - depression). Migos, etc. are anathema to my white, old-ass ears, and I'm really cynical about "rap battles" - they strike me as marketing gimmicks. But Doc, there's a guy down here in Cville, A.D. Carson (a "hip-hop" professor at UVA), who I think you might dig. His dissertation was a 34-track hip-hop album.

link?


wait let me bump the music thread

mods copy and splice?

[doclinkin]

bump for hip hop discussion

[I_Like_Dirt]

Em is going to keep coming (not just at MGK, but at everyone).

He's not coming at everyone. He even praises Kendrick. Not that there is any reason for anyone to target Kendrick. Honestly, he should be the King here, and is universally respected, but I feel he's far too easily taken for granted with all this other stuff going on because he largely stays clear to his message.

[trast66]

bump for hip hop discussion

Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter V finally being released this week?

[daSwami]

bump for hip hop discussion

Per earlier, here's A.D. Carson's Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwghRVa--Qjs33VJKQpvoog

[barelyawake]

Hmmm my top five? Currently? I’m sure I’m behind. I mean, I used to know the D.O.C. of groups (the hidden gem). Now, I’m lucky to know who Eazy is.

That said, my personal (current) top goes something like (in no order):

Mos Def (or whatever he is calling himself)
Busdriver
Eninem
Aesop Rock
Black Thought
Jay-Z
Rakim
KRS-1
Joyner
Kendrick
J Cole
Snoop

Here’s my criteria:

Speed
Poetry
Level of Entendre
Musicality
Wittiness
Percussive complexity
Freestyle
Ability to battle
Honesty in lyric

Poetry and Musicality are the only categories where I can’t clearly give a victory to Em. Rap God is the fastest. His percussive complexity is Neil Peart-level. His freestyles and battles take on whole sentences versus just end rhymes. Here’s Em to me:

“Stampin' out grasshoppers, you can't be no Rap Gods.
In fact, you're exact opposites, you make a whack song,
And can't hold a candle. But, even Daniel-son could wax off,
You jack-offs need to come to grips like a hand job.
The boom bap is coming back with an axe to mumble rap
Lumberjack with a hacksaw.”

Let’s just take “even Daniel-son could wax off, you jack-offs.” Seems a pedestrian enough line. Find the stack of entendres inside. Wax as in waxing poetic. Even this suburban shlub could wax poetic (or verbally defend himself) better than you. Wack as in awful rhymes. Whack as in masturbate. Your rhymes are masturbation. Wax as in car wax. Wax on. Wax off. Wax as in what a candle is made of. Wax as in to win/beat (as in a rap battle). Wax as in “we’re putting it on wax” — 80s rap record phrase to go with the 80s movie. Daniel son because Miyagi called him that. Son because Em is sonning the mumble rappers. Not only sonning them, he’s putting himself as their mentor in battle training, and them as a teen at the start of their lesson. And he’s dating himself with an 80smovie reference. All that in eight words.

No, he doesn’t have greater meaning beyond a mental case trying to deal with a screwed up childhood (and how that affects future relationships). But, the man is fast, funny, off beat and his entendre game is silly.

But, if you don’t get that in Killshot, when he says Swayze, he’s not just saying Ghost, he’s referencing “Bring the Pain,” then you are missing half the genius.

[montestewart]

Moved a bunch of posts about rapping from Random Thoughts to the Music thread, sort of per Doc request, and it seems a better place to continue. The Music thread rarely gets such an extended discussion

[dobrojim]

Pretty much the opposite of Hiphop, my band is playing at the Farmers Market
in Great Falls (across Walker Rd from the Safeway in 'downtown' GF, not exactly Barry Farms)

Tomorrow, Saturday 9/22 from 9-12. There is no charge. We're just background music for
shoppers.

https://www.thestewartsisters.com/

pix is out of date - Our bass player has left the band due to moving out
of the area.

[montestewart]

Pretty much the opposite of Hiphop, my band is playing at the Farmers Market
in Great Falls (across Walker Rd from the Safeway in 'downtown' GF, not exactly Barry Farms)

Tomorrow, Saturday 9/22 from 9-12. There is no charge. We're just background music for
shoppers.

https://www.thestewartsisters.com/

pix is out of date - Our bass player has left the band due to moving out
of the area.

Gotta miss it this weekend, but enjoyed the time I heard you all play. She was a fine bass, got a new one?

[stilldropin20]

Cat Stevens was one of my go-to's as a teenager, but he stunk for about 30 years. Now he's back - hopefully for good. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-unlikely-return-of-cat-stevens?mbid=social_facebook_aud_dev_kw_paid-the-unlikely-return-of-cat-stevens&kwp_0=530310

never liked Cat but this is a great song buy his son sufjian. its old but never gets old to me...still love it. kinda indy. was very indy at the time...until indy became cool and therefore more mainstream. millenials ruin everything!!

great lyrics. great music. great message overall of renewal.

Watch on YouTube

[doclinkin]

Mos Def (or whatever he is calling himself)
Busdriver
Eninem
Aesop Rock
Black Thought
Jay-Z
Rakim
KRS-1
Joyner
Kendrick
J Cole
Snoop

Here’s my criteria:

Speed
Poetry
Level of Entendre
Musicality
Wittiness
Percussive complexity
Freestyle
Ability to battle
Honesty in lyric

Delicious post, will circle back when Im not being daddy and making art and making games pay. But just to provoke:

None of the Wu Tang?

No room for Busta? (whose percussive complexity makes his phonetics the driving beat of any song).

Biggie?

[barelyawake]

Mos Def (or whatever he is calling himself)
Busdriver
Eninem
Aesop Rock
Black Thought
Jay-Z
Rakim
KRS-1
Joyner
Kendrick
J Cole
Snoop

Here’s my criteria:

Speed
Poetry
Level of Entendre
Musicality
Wittiness
Percussive complexity
Freestyle
Ability to battle
Honesty in lyric

Delicious post, will circle back when Im not being daddy and making art and making games pay. But just to provoke:

None of the Wu Tang?

No room for Busta? (whose percussive complexity makes his phonetics the driving beat of any song).

Biggie?

Yeah, I shoulda added someone(s) from Wu and Busta. Scarface and Nas too. I said current, so I was leaving off guys like Guru, 2pac and Biggie. But, the list was kinda off the top anyway. Nothing written in stone.

[barelyawake]

Btw, those defending MGK, listen to his new album (what this nonsense has all built to). Defend that dreck. Eminem is right. The artform needs policing, and he’s the guy to do it.

[barelyawake]

Hey, Doc, a friend of mine just clued me into a quad-entendre I missed in Killshot, well actually two because I didn’t connect the other meanings of Ghost/Swayze. So, Swayze means Ghost. It’s also a “Bring the Pain” reference (with all the ways Method lists to torture someone co-opted and implied). It’s also a reference to Kells’ line in Rap Devil. I missed the implication with Kells’ tattoos and the Pac-Man video Em put out on Instagram. Making Kelly the Ghost — the one being chased/eaten.

And this one:

“The game’s mine again, ain’t nothin’ changed but the locks.
So before I slay this b’ I muah give Jade a kiss.”

So, I got the Jadakiss “Kiss the Game Goodbye” reference. I got the Mase “Ain’t nothin’ changed but my limp” reference. What I didn’t get is the shot at Diddy. The Lox (when Jadakiss was a member) left Diddy, so he kissed them goodbye. Kells is a Diddy property (as was Mase) that Em is killing off.

I got the Jade (middle name of his daughter) reference. But, I missed that locks is a hair reference as well. Ain’t nothin’ changed about Em but his hair color. So, that’s a quad-entendre as well.

How can one not find that genius? I just love lyrical puzzles. Nirvana. Elliott Smith. Etc...