Things go in cycles...(Rap Related)
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
So I'm doing research for an essay I'm prepping and I'm reading this Jan 1991 essay by Bill Stephney from The Source. This shit is pretty funny in terms of both dating the essay yet sounding totally current as well:Funda-mental Hip-hopby Bill Stephney"Most of America sees Bill Biv Devoe, Hammer, and Vanilla Ice as the future of rap music. Hip-hop with a 'pop feel appeal' may be the worst threat rap music has faced thus far.Is rap now too commercial for longtime fans of hip-hop?Bobby Brown was Stage One in the Dismantling of Rap Domination. Stage Two was the importation of that musical drug of 1989: the Soul II Soul 'Club Classics Vol. 1' album. As we go into 1991, it's important that we all take some time, and truly analyze where this music is going. With idiot record label execs still throwing money at a music they will never understand, we will see even more artists that continue to mean nothing, and continue to push rap/hip-hop closer to the 'disco purgatory' that seems to be its destiny."
Comments
The Mind Squad's Top 10 (1990)
Albums:
1) Ice Cube: AmeriKKKa's Most
2) LL Cool J: Mama Said Knock You Out
3) ATCQ: People's Instinctive Travels
4) BDP: Edutainment
5) Kool G Rap: Wanted Dead or Alive
6) Eric B and Rakim: Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em
7) PRT: Holy Intellect
8) Three TImes Dope: Live From Acknikulous Land
9) Nice and smooth: Nice and Smooth
10) X-Clan: To The East Blackwards
Singles:
1) PE: Brothers Gonna Work It Out
2) Kool G Rap: Streets of NY
3) Main Source: Lookin at the Front Door
4) ATCQ: Bonita Applebaum (Hootie Mix)
5) King Tee: Ruff Rhyme
6) LL Cool J: Jinglin Baby
7) BDP: Love's Gonna Get 'Cha
8) DU: Humpty Dance
9) 3rd Bass: Gas Face
10) De La soul: Buddy (remix)
AAAH!! The good ole days of %90 pure east coast regional bias. I'm not really missing them days.
1) Ice Cube: AmeriKKKa's Most
Produced by...???
Hater !
It's only 85% .
Kind of an odd pick considering all the great albums that came out that year...
Regional bias.
By the way, speaking of which, this was the 1994 review of "Enter the Wu-Tang" that Rap Pages published. I'm assuming the writer was from Cali:
"This Wu-Tang joint is the whip! They comin' at cha straight from the swamps like shell-shicked Vietnam Vets. It's mo' heads in the Wu than they gots lettuce at the produce stand (it's about eight of dem muthaphukkas!). I ain't gon' front, when I first heard they name, I wasn't sure what was gon' be happ'nin'. But, low [sic] and behold, these Gods are all in. This is a crazy def tape, mad original on all levels, each one of the tunes (and MCs) standing on they own."
You know, people always talk about the golden age of the Source, but the writing in that publication was pretty much always crap... even as a teenager, I found reading it to be kind of embarassing. I know the above was drawn from RapPages, but it wouldn't have been out of Place in an old issue of the Source.
I actually think there was a vague "golden era" at the Source but it was never in review-writing and in general, there was never a rap publication that ever had consistent quality in writing with the possible exception of Ego Trip (and even then, I might just be looking backwards with rose-colored glasses).
The review writing in The Source, circa 1990/91, was uniformly terrible - as bad as that Wu-Tang/Rap Pages review above - but around 1992, a new generation of writers stepped in, including Reginald Dennis, and the quality improved considerably. We're not talking Greil Marcus-ian greatness, but decent, well-thought out reviews.
However, even in 1990, The Source had some compelling features. Of the issues I looked at, there was this long discussion of gangsta rap that came out in the Eazy E cover issue. I thought Bill Stephney's essay, which I quote from above, was a bit too long-winded but it's the kind of analysis that later publications like Vibe and XXL would never have considered publishing. I think one can make the argument that until the big editorial blow-out of 1994 (over Benzino of course), The Source was legitimately putting out some quality hip-hop writing (though notice, I say "quality hip-hop writing" rather than "quality writing") on several fronts.
In terms of a golden age for rap reviews though, the only place, other than Ego Trip, that I think can claim it would be the Village Voice in the 1980s but 1) obviously, it wasn't a rap publication and 2) it was more regional than national even if people like Adam Sexton and Raquel Cepeda (Rap On Rap and And It Don't Stop respectively) have tended to lionize it in hindsight as being of national import.
Alas, no Google in 1994.
I remember the gangsta rap roundtable you're referring to, but I'm not sure if that's "writing" in the sense that I'm referring to--it was a transcription of a panel discussion by artists (although there was undoubtedly some editing involved).
The Stephney essay was trash. Be for real.
Ego Trip was good--those aren't rose-colered glasses you're wearing. What struck me about the magazine when I first encountered it in high school was that the guys behind it were f**king smart and knew how to write.
thank you for posting this, i just laughed my ass off.
No one else is allowed to comment on this until James weighs in.
Can we get a ruling on the amounts of "fingerprints" left by the writer here?
I wish I could say that this style is a thing of the past, but sadly, I still see it, even in new mags.
1) It wasn't a roundtable - it was an essay.
2) I like the Stephney essay if only because it's on some super-nerded out tip. But yeah, the writing wasn't that great (more of a structural problem than prose but whatever)
Being a native Californian, I must politely take offense to this seeing 'whip' was never really in the Cali lexicon (at least not where I was from and lived). Now if he said 'hella fresh' that would be no contest.
The best though was the writing on news related stuff such as features on slaves in sudan and so forth. Informative and well written
1) Okay, then we're thinking of different pieces... and although I have no recollection of the one that you have in mind, I will still now proclaim it trash.
Its easy to hate on the that mag, but at one time it was the only thing out there.
Oh, hell... I wouldn't have the familiarity necessary to hate if I hadn't read it out of necessity for many years.
I'm just saying people getting nostalgic for it are forgetting that it was really never very good.
No doubt.
Right On Magazine w/ record reviews.
You're wrong as always. While their reviews had poor writing for the most part, the quality of the feature story was very different depending on the writer and the subject.
While some interviews were terrible ("I didn't listen to your record, so how would you define your style ?", "What make you different from all the new MCs out there ?"), they also had good journalism going on, like the story on the Hit Squad break-up, the cover story on LL Cool J (14 shots to the dome era), the LA riot coverage, Toure's story on the Jungle Brothers (I bet you hated that one), Run DMC cover story, Eazy E cover story and so on...
On the Go was better than Ego Trip, which was better than the Source.
That's a banging album.
You got back issues per chance? I think I only have one.
Regional bias.
I like the first one, though.
The review writing - like EVERY rap magazine in history - was uneven at times. Hell, I wrote a rather shitty Mad Skillz review for them at one point; embarassing really. But in general, their feature writing, especially by year two and on, was really solid for what it was. And conceptually, they were far, far, far ahead of the game compared to other mags. I can't speak for On the Go - I probably only ever read a handful of issues and I honestly don't remember anything from them.
Reading the old Rap Pages was painful. Decent features at times but my god, the review writing was insanely bad. I'm sure the URBs from that era would be just as bad, if not worse.