License to Ill Trill

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Can anyone tell me what's been happening in hip-hop this year? The only things that have crossed my radar: that Lil Wayne (?) essay that everyone linked to a couple of months ago, but I've no idea where to start with his stuff; the Cool Kids' 'Bake Sale' (which I really like but is v. openly retro); an album by TI I never listened to; a ropey Fannypack collection of odds and sods; and Roots Manuva a sole concession to the UK.

So I basically have no idea what is hot and what is not; what the trends are or what the big tunes are. I blame this on being a bit distracted this year, on living in a part of the world where the only place you can hear hip-hop being played is in clothing stores whose playlists are sent up from London. If anyone has recommendations for places on the web to keep up with this sort of thing - other than the New Yorker which seems a slightly perverse direction from which to view the world of rap - that would be helpful too!

Help me o cosmpolitan poptimists!

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Agh no time to answer now! but will get back to you over weekend.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

if you need A+ top-drawer recommendations to tide you over til then - Young Jeezy's The Recession is the best non-Wayne album of the year (maybe even better than Tha Carter III), and Gucci Mane's Back To The Traphouse is hella fun ("Ha-choo! I’m rich/Say gesundheit, bitch/Please excuse me, miss/Excuse my French/My necklace look like Cris/Your diamonds look like piss").

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I figured you would be the poptimist most likely to lend a hand! ta - would be v. grateful for advice. I have actually already, erm, obtained the Jeezy, since someone mentioned it somewhere, but haven't listened to it in full yet.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Only hip hop on my top 20 list is Lil' Mama's album -- fairly somber, mostly songs about growing up in the ghetto, struggling to find role models, etc. Along with stuff like "Shawty Get Loose" and "Lip Gloss" and "G-Slide Tour Bus."

On my radar: K'naan "Dusty Foot Philosopher" is an album by a Somalian-Canadian rapper who blends fairly straightforward live hip-hop beats with some interesting Afropop/African music touches without it seeming hokey or forced...has a flow not dissimilar to Eminem's, smart 'n' sardonic but not really my cup of tea (Robert Christgau wrote a review in August (http://music.msn.com/music/consumerguide/2008/8/)).

Roots album is scrappy, angry, good recession album! (Haven't heard Jeezy's "Recession").

piratemoggy will probably be able to vouch for Gym Class Heroes and alexmacpherson will probably be able to vouch for Wiley. Haven't heard the former (but like their last album), need to listen to the latter a few more times before I'll have an opinion.

The Knux ("Cappuccino") is coming out with an album within the next week or so, forget whether or not its out, but I'll be checking that out soon.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

oh! ta for the Lil' Mama suggestion, and thanks for reminding me about the k'naan - I remember looking this up on emusic, presumably after reading the Christgau thing. I should also look up the Roots. Have just you-tubed the Knux: I like it!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I thought the Lil' Mama somehow added up to way less than the sum of its parts - also tilted way heavier than suits her. It feels very bogged down in itself.

Wiley's Grime Wave is really terrific.

[koganbot]

Xhuxk thinks highly of the Knux album, which I have yet to hear, though I like the single.

[spazhammer.livejournal.com]

another vote for young jeezy here.

and as much as i love Tha Carter III, i spent a couple of weeks in the US earlier this month, and by the end of it i was sick of hearing lil wayne due to massive overexposure on the radio.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

So does that mean wayne is basically the headline story in US hip-hop this year? (for good or ill!)

Basically what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine

[koganbot]

I'd say so, but note that T.I. is dominating the singles charts right now, "Whatever You Like" on its seventh nonconsecutive week at number one (the significance of its being nonconsecutive is that when something else jumps up for a week and then falls, "Whatever You Like" is still there to take its place; is on its third stint at the top), "Live Your Life" is at number two (having been one of the tracks that bumped "Whatever You Like," but its airplay is still building, so it could always bump back). I'm actually a bit meh on "Whatever You Like," tired of rappers who can't sing glinting themselves up with AutoGizmo and singing (the only rapper who's pulled off the singing for me this year is Kanye).

My rap single of the year, easy, is V.I.C.'s "Wobble." In general, one should always keep an ear open for anything that Mr. Collipark has a hand in producing.

The David Banner and the Trina albs are disappointing, and the V.I.C. album is too long without enough good stuff, which is standard for hip-hop. Tha Wayne is also disappointing but crucial anyway. As for the Lil Mama album, I think the heaviness helps it, while the pop tuneful attempts are where it goes into blah, and the thing is too long, of course. Another too long album with good stuff is Keak Da Sneak's Deified, like Halloween music, minimal eeriness and Keak whispering and croaking around the edges ("Ass Chauffeur").

But I haven't paid nearly enough attention to the genre this year. Good single that I heard about on livejournal is "Get Up Stand Up" by Vein f. Pitbull.

Re: Basically what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

'blimey' to the T.I. reign of terror - I really liked the singles from King so I'll check these out, although I never got T.I. vs T.I.P when I had a go at it. That V.I.C record seems fun from the video - I'd spotted that on your singles of the year so far listing as one I hadn't heard of. The 'too long album with good stuff' syndrome is possibly one of the reasons I haven't been following things much - I hear about albums but when I hear them I don't concentrate hard enough to pick the good stuff out so my impression is always more 'meh that was an hour wasted'.

Re: Basically what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

TI vs TIP is rubbish! Paper Trail may be uneven but it's much much better. Re: the TI singles, I love 'Whatever You Like', which is kind of like 'What You Know' recast for the laydeez; it has a similar effect to Sean Paul's 'Get Busy', in that it seems to be this unending melodic wave as one section flows smoothly into the next. 'Live Your Life' sucks because 'Dragostea Din Tei' sucks and not even TI and Rihanna can make it sound good.

RIZZIGHT

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Here we go then. Sticking to US hip-hop for the moment.

Albums
As I said the best hip-hop album of the year is Young Jeezy's The Recession - check 'Circulate', 'Vacation', 'Put On' and 'My President' especially. First credit crunch themed hip-hop album that I'm aware of ("lookin' at my watch like it's a bad investment"). Lil' Wayne's Tha Carter III is excellent too - most long-time fans don't think it's his best, but it's easy to see why it sent him stratospheric. Tha Carter II is better but I'd say both are essential. Last year's Da Drought 3 mixtape is a great showcase for Wayne too.

I mentioned Gucci Mane already - check 'Bird Flu' and its insane beat and the 'Freaky Gurl' remix (Lil' Kim at her nastiest best here) in particular. (Sorry, can't be arsed to link, but all of these should be easily youtubeable!) The other full length hip-hop LP I've really enjoyed is Bun B's II Trill - one of those albums which doesn't spring as immediately to mind as the ones above (it's played v straight and ungimmicky), but I'm looking at the track listing trying to pick out highlights and realising that's half the album. 'Damn I'm Cold', 'Get Cha Issue', 'Underground Thang', 'Swang On 'Em' and 'If I Die II Night', then. And 'Good II Me', which has Mya singing Beats International on the chorus. Oh yeah, was also impressed by the Guilty Simpson album but can't think of anything to say about it at all.

As for other big-name albums, TI and Trina both deserve a mention - both albums very uneven, too much so for me to endorse as albums, but the highs on each are SO ridiculously high. For Trina, 'I Got A Bottle', 'Single Again' and 'Look Back At Me'; for TI, 'Let My Beat Pound', 'Dead And Gone', 'No Matter What'.

People have also been hyping up the Nappy Roots and ABN albums but I haven't heard those yet. Downloaded the Gorilla Zoe mixtape I Am Atlanta the other day and am v impressed - 'Dope Boy' especially. The biggest rewind moment was on 'Talk Back' which features a DIRRTY female guest verse - I got v excited thinking that Roxy Reynolds could be a new ho-rap talent, so I googled her and...it transpires that she is an actual porn star :o Still, "Better eat somethin', this ain't Ramadan/I'm a princess, the queen to make you cum" is a great line.

Trackwise - ILM is counting down its favourite rap tracks of '08 (http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=66078#unread) and I'll be contributing to that (plus there are loads there I hadn't heard before). One which hasn't been posted there yet is Hood Headlinaz' 'Rollin', which is this awesome dreamy ecstasy rap based around Robert Miles' 'Children'.

Re: RIZZIGHT

[weasel-seeker.livejournal.com]

If we're going to talk about Wayne's output last year, Da Drought 3 is great, but I'm convinced that there's an even better weirder version of tha Carter III lurking amongst all the tracks that weren't over other people's beats.

Start with La La La, I Feel Like Dying, 3 N Morning, Something You Forgot and Pray to the Lord and go from there, I guess. Really drugged up and morbid and fearful/accepting of death and stuff. I want to try and figure out exactly what it is because I have no use for all the crap that accompanies the gold on the 5 billion mixtapes,

Re: RIZZIGHT

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha the only one of those I've heard is 'La La La'. I think once Tha Carter III came out I just subconsciously decided to hunker down with it and its (minor) flaws, rather than keep on endlessly chasing Wayne's mind around the internet. That said, 'Pussy Monster' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_cCtq2rJxQ) is some next-level shit for real, Trina-esque endless perverse quotables ("Now lemme get back to her, she called me Dracula/And I vacuumed her/Catfish, catfish, that cat tuna/I smack it up, flip it like a spatula").

Re: RIZZIGHT

[(Anonymous)]

Ok. I'll pass you my Carter 2.5 whenever I'm done making it. Because at the very least you gotta hear I Feel Like Dying (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuyEgvCVYd8) and Something You Forgot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tk1n6kukNk). A bunch of others as well.

Pussy Monster is on all the online versions of C3 b/c there was a clearance issue with the sample in Playing With Fire.

Re: RIZZIGHT

[weasel-seeker.livejournal.com]

that was me, clearly

Re: RIZZIGHT

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

And I can't think offhand of any other male rapper offering to rim a girl! "Baby, can I be the worm in your apple butt/Now gon' back it up, and if you back it up/I suck the front of that pussy from the back of ya/And I'm an urban legend like a black Acura." Trina clearly taught him well in their time together.

I'm not internationally known but I'm known to get your girl alone

[koganbot]

First credit crunch themed hip-hop album that I'm aware of

Haven't heard a Vein album or even know if there is one, but "Bring your ass down like a NASDAQ" is my favorite financial reference so far this year (though it's Pitbull's line, not Vein's).

[gingermint.livejournal.com]

This was, like, January I think, but Rhymefest's mixtape with Mark Ronson, Man In The Mirror, all based on Michael Jackson/Jackson 5 samples (and some great skits with 'fest talking to MJ) is terrific, and should appeal to many around here.

I've also enjoyed listening to Akrobatik's Absolute Value.

And in UK rap, the new Sway album (Signature LP) is really great, though maybe not as good as This Is My Demo. (not quite sure yet.)

New Black Milk just out (Tronic) sounds v. cool.

[weasel-seeker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Man in the Mirror is both hilarious and actually damn good. Still wish El Che would just get released already.

The Signature LP hasn't clicked with me like Demo did, but maybe it just needs more time.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OK I'm now listening to the Nappy Roots album and it's really really good, damn. I'd forgotten how pleasurable pre-crunk southern fried bounce was.

[pointyelbow.livejournal.com]

I think it's been a weak year for American rap. There have been, for me at least, some big disappointments. The Game is the biggest disappointment. It's kind of a boring album, which was never true on his first two records. Three 6 Mafia's album is ok sounding but the lyrics and the music don't really warrant repeat listens. I have mixed feelings about "Tha Carter III". It's ok and I understand what all the fuss is about but it kind of lacks the energy of his best mix-cd's. LIl' Mama is alright but I don't play it often. The one huge exception this year has been Bun B. His record is one of my favorites in any genre this year. Like last year's UGK album, whenever I think I'm burning out on this album, I discover another great song I hadn't yet focussed on. I also think the recent TI singles are fantastic, but they feel like pop songs more than rap. I'll probably pick up the album.

What this year is missing is more Houston rap.