Modern Gangsta Rap, what you know about that?
Mangoman
549 Posts
Gangsta rap nowadays aint as dope as the Moderen Gangsta's of yester year:
Mangoman
549 Posts
Comments
you crazy man
i think that has less to do with the general content (violence/drugs/misogony) than it does an across the boards dulling of the specific phrasing/imagery. "chop your head into 88 pieces" has far greater impact than just "spray your crib". the best hardcore rap writing creates an image of the dirt that's being done, it doesn't just involve announcing what's being done. in short, gangsta rap has gotten lazy and consciously (or perhaps unconsciously) restrained.
really the only I>great/I> top to bottom lp of gangsta shit released in like the last ten years is I>the fix/I> (anybody got another example, i'd say that I>get rich/I> was really good, but not quite on thae level) and that's because face is a fuckin vet. he knows how to make graphic and emotional rap the right way.and even that was done with a certain restraint - face of '03 is a very different rapper from the face of ten years prior.
there's also that whole duality where many of the classic acts (nwa, gbs) were more politically charged than most so-called political acts of today (kweli won't ever make anything as scathing and powerful as "fuck the police" or "fuck the war")
Which probably explains why the shit I was feeling the most in the last 3 years was Dead Prez, both "Let's Get Free" and "Turn Off the Radio."
That shit is
crutons on the futon
sorry, nothing against them but...
dead prez = not gangster rap
mind sex does not offend noz's mom in the slightest.
Word. These guys are on some political uplift the people type steeze right?
you must be looking in the wrong places ...plenty heat out there
and saying that because it was the politically charged aspects of NWA and GB's that I appreciated, I therefore get more out of DP and their political stance (and "uplift the people type steez" makes them sound way less hardcore than they are, their politics are more militant than righteous, their approach is more NWA than Talib Kweli) than the modern Gangsta acts who only talk about gangbangin'. I don't see why this earns a litany of
So, is Dead Prez not like "Soul Strut Approved" or something? I'm pretty surprised if headz on here didn't dig that shit when it was new, I thought it was pretty fuckin' rugged.
http://www.ohhla.com/anonymous/deadprez/get_free/mind_sex.prz.txt
Pardon me love but you seem like my type
What you doin tonight? you should stop by the site
We could, roll some weed play some records and talk
I got a fly spot downtown Brooklyn, New York
Now I know you think I wanna fuck, no doubt
but tonight we'll try a different route, how bout we start
B>With a salad, a fresh bed of lettuce with croutons
Later we can play a game of chess on the futon/B>
probably the corniest two bars i've ever heard in the history of rap city.
that's cool you like thier shit (well not really, but whatever) but let's stick to the script
Whatever is right. Sorry I had the audacity to reply to your post, man.
Oh yeah, Ice T ain't never had corny lyrics either, right?
This place is a trip.
i'm not trying to beef, i'm just saying that dead prez are so far removed from what we are talking about that i was surprised to see them mentioned.
Dead Prez playing to a room full of white people = revolutionary?
Then tying on rags for "Righteous *BUT* Gangsta"*
Shit is terrible god
*What the fuck is that??? I'm righteous, but wait. I gotta do a drive by. Hold on. Let me pour a libation to the ancestors. I'm bout to ride on these slobs with the fury of Chango!!! I only buy fair trade hennessy, I buy AKs from the Taliban, but I had to stop wearing Chucks cause they were exploiting children in southeast asian sweatshops. I'm a gangsta, but I'm keeping it righteous, too.
That is humanity though, full of contradictions that aren't supposed to fit into some perfect order. It's what makes Dead Prez worthy, that their music comes from raw enthusiasm, where ever it may go.
i think what paychecks is hinting at is not a simple as contradictions. it's the fact that their approach is so self defeating while at the same time so self glorifying as being a politically superior one.
the most obvious example (and i know i've cited this here before) is that song with jay-z where they advocate robbing a pizza boy. i can understand the natural need to "get paid" that would be the driving force behind this action. but if they've actually given more than a cursory glance at the leaders that they so often name drop they would approach this differently. that pizza boy is on their side of the struggle. and i'm not saying that so called revolutionaries never did dirt like that. but mao, the panthers, et al. understood the importance of the message. the ramifications of every word, every image were delicately considered. and a message like "rob a pizza boy" is absolutely counter revolutionary.
"Rob a pizza boy" is reality though. I'd rather have that in its honesty than a perfectly consistent zeitgeist front.
but reality is counterintuitive to revolutionary ideology. you CANNOT be revolutionary and gangsta. something's got to give.
Tell that to Angela Davis, Yomo Kenyatta, Ernesto Guevera, Toussaint L'ouveture, etc.
Somebody give these Folls a copy of Lenin for beginners.
Workers of the world unite!!!
h
But for a bunch of revolutionaries they sure did shackle themselves on their last album... get away from sony, take meetings with every label under the sun, and then run back to sony when nobody would play on their ridiculous terms. Dudes had no grasp of how to "Control their destiny", word to BFAP!
I just copped Black Mafia Life and Livin' Like Hustlers LPs within a weak of each other! SHIT YEAH!!!
And... Dead Prez? That's heavy company for a couple rappers who complain about getting pushed by female cops.
allow me to clarify - i'm talking modern standards of what is considered "gangsta" in the hip hop community, which is the territory that dead prez aims for with their "RBG" ethos. i'm talking rocking jewels, pushing drugs, black on black crime. parttaking in these things (or at least doing so on record) is counterrevolutionary.
i can't argue with that either...
nice!
That's hogwash. Revolutionary means taking all rules, even yours, and dismissing them with the quickness. Whatever it takes, by any means necessary, guerilla warfare, etc.
A revolution is about the ends not the means.
It is my contention that a lot of the controversy around groups like NWA and Public Enemy (obviously not "gangsta rap" in the traditional sense) had a lot more to do with the abrasive, often-discordant, in-your-face production than people really give credit to.
-e
revolutionary action and revolutionary propaganda are two very different things. making records would fall on the propaganda end of the spectrum. and the message that dead prez presents on their records works against their cause. and thus, counterrevolutionary.
and exactly how does robbing the pizza boy equate to a means to an end of this revolutionary movement that exists in the minds of dead prez?
And guess what? Dead Prez STILL isn't gangster rap....back to the topic
DJ Quik is STILL one of the great classic gangster rappers and he's got an album comin out in a month or so. YES!
and Young MayLay?....maaaaan ya'll aint ready.
Your conception of revolution seems very square and textbook-derived to me. In fact it almost seems Communist in that you appear to be saying that MC's are only "revolutionary" when they are using their music within a strict parameter of utilitarian perfection. That's inhumane as far as I'm concerned.
That money could be doing all sorts of more productive things than lining the pockets of Domino's executives. A redistribution of income, yep.