Dudes making HipHop - where to?
4YearGraduate
2,945 Posts
Last week Double and I were on tour in Colorado and our sweet ass chevrolet Cobalt had XM, which i had never really had the chance to enjoy. So between trips to Casa Bonita and Jimmy Johns, I had a good chance to delve on it and basically came up with this: There are 2 channels i could listen to. One was the channel with Mizz Kitty that ocasionally played something i could dig on but for the most part the high hats were blazing my eardrums off and i get tired of hearing about dudes selling drugs, knowing damn well they aint selling drugs. Next door on the other channel it was breakbeat fest and there were no high hats to be found. Alot of "classic" stuff that, to be honest, just doesn't hold up that well anymore with a few listenable joints here and there. The new stuff was iffy, if not rehashed "classics". ... I know you guys know all this.The point is, if you are making hip hop right now, I'm curious - where you headed? Do you think there can be a middle ground or is it all or nothing with whatever direction you move > is it really as simple as there being only two channels with no variation? One or the other? Is the middle ground production wise
?lets rap.
?lets rap.
Comments
The beats are more or less loop based but with a lot of subtle instrumentation added; very particular focus on the loops and the emotion those passages convey. The lyrics are pretty heavy and reflective. I do not want to do anything remotely close to a battle rap... just kind of want to talk about my life.
I know, I know...
That's where I'm at though. A return to Ambershine, for those in the know...
That's interesting.. we been kind of moving in the same direction. I guess if you do you with no aspirations to appease any fan or listener, people can only be critical to a certain point, beyond that, it's untouchable.
Maybe the move is back to making "music", ie. structure, writing, changes, melodies, etc. without getting to
I mean, I want people to like it but I'm not trying to pitch it or anything. The Sklu is too slamming for these cold killin labels. Fuck a rap critic. He talk about it while I live it. Etc.
That's pretty much where I've always been, but I'm in a different situation from you in that I've never made music (be it DJing or production) my career, and I doubt that I ever will. I would insist on doing it my own way, and as such, a career is very unlikely to happen.
Basically, I make music that I want to hear, knowing full well that its marketplace appeal is going to be severely limited. But I'm OK with that as long as I can still listen to whatever records I put out and say, "Yeah, I'm proud of that." I make music that satisfies me and hope that it might satisfy some other folks as well. To me, the best feedback is when a DJ tells me, "I played your song the other night, and the crowd dug it and danced to it."
I do find it interesting that the Great Democratization of Music (i.e. the incredible ease with which anybody can make and distribute music these days) has created such an either/or situation. I like to think that eventually, people will tire of the either/or shit and start exploring that vast middle ground in between en masse, but that may be wishful thinking.
oh yeah, make it Frickin' good and worthwhile as well. and bust your ass promoting and letting people know about it. Looking at the artists that are doing "well" with theirs it's not so much talent, it's more of the believing in their own product, hardwork and focus.
but I just work like this.....I start messing about and if I get excited by what I hear I continue with it. If I don't I move on. And from moment to moment what will excite me is so completely different. As long as that spark of excitement/intrigue is there is worth investigating what it will lead you to creatively. Sometimes its hard if you feel like you need to focus on a certain sound or style but I think trusting that moment of excitement generally is a good thing.
I think the key is to just make music and make music and make music. then at a later date consider what music you want to select to put out and what will stay in that lab for only you to hear.
I guess im saying to ignore the middleground, the two channels on the radio.....
Stylistically it's very exciting to me. In terms of the musical approach (ways of playing instruments) that makes hip hop, it has always been an amalgamation of Music as a whole. Hip hop acts as a distillery of sorts. A producer is a music historian whose work is carried out in practice, rather than writing. You get some drums from this sixties kraut record, and a bass line from a seventies dub record, and then a melody from some folkways record of Tuvan throat singing. Somehow, even though all of these pieces are incredibly separate there is something that is common between them, and the beat documents and expresses that. When you're digging for samples you're listening for stuff that has a particular sound, and there really isn't anything that is off-limits; it's less about 'making' something new, and more about conveying the fact that there is already something incredible out there. Producers are really good listeners, and know how to make sounds get hyped together.
For me, it's about taking this approach, adhering to the importance of drums, looking a little further back and broader for archetypes, and hustling to make something that is missing from my world. The music i make is music that I can't buy. I can make beats, and I can rap over them, but I'm more interested in how the approach that generated hip hop can generate music that is a little less explicit. There is still so much room for innovation, and just plain good music in hip hop. People just need to give it a little more thought.
I think this is key
WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT...Let's back this train up for a second...Thes, you two went to casa bonita? i was about to fly out there last year for my birthday so i could inevitably "raise the flag" all night long. my friend lives out there and said it's only for little kids but i could still see my self having fun.
sorry to get off topic, but pics or it didn't happen.
me personaly, i will not record over anything unless the beat hit's me hard. but the thing is i don't have a sound i'm looking for. i'm not trying to recreate 88 or 95, and i'm not trying to get kanye/just blaze style beats. i have 4 dudes i get beats from, and i will sit through hundreds of their track and not get motivated to wrte more than a verse, if that. which is why i only have a handfull of tracks recorded w/ dozens of songs that exist soley in my head.
i'm always looking for the perfect beat, and recently the more difficult it is to rhyme over the more i like it.
as far as my rhymes, i take my time to create each verse.they're revised many time before they're done at concerts, open mics, radio stations, studios etc.... they're mostly realy personal things, alot of "street reporter" style rhymes w/ alot of talk about racial injustice growing up hispanic and poor, and straight up battle shit w/ the very rare punch line thrown in. i don't deal w/ polotical subject matter at all.
all in all, a recipe to be an underground rapper w/ no chance of cracking the surface, oh well.
peace,x
At the end of the day, my goal is for those whose musical taste I respect, those who like some of the people on this board who have been listening to records and hip-hop for a long time, dig the music I make. If anyone else likes it, that's just icing on the cake, but to some degree I doubt they'd feel it the way someone who has plowed through millions of records and busted their ass to make the music they wanted to hear. Like Rodney-O and Joe Cooley said, this is for the homies.
This is all part of why I don't post up beats I'm working on or floss some Myspace garbage. I know I've got a lot of hard work and trial and error before I feel comfortable putting something out there to be judged by those who I've learned from and who push me to work harder every day. But when it does come out, I got a stack of blank Music City labels to unofficially add my record to the catalog.
As far as a middle ground, I think that's the wrong mentality - it's a higher ground. It's not in between ringtones and played-out "classics", it's on a different level.
When you put out what you've been working on, sign me up for a copy Paychecks.
I've always been a big fan of what you do Thes, and if I was gonna offer anything to this discussion, I would just say KEEP EXPERIMENTING. It's being brave and not giving a fuck what people think, as well as having confidence and talent, that makes the best music.
If I ever feel stuck when I'm working on some real organic funky dance shit, I try to leave it be and make a straight 808 track. Or vice versa. But that's just me.
And you know what? I think Kanye West is doing great shit for music. Not even neccesarily the music he is making, but the attitude towards trying new shit and mixing genres is dope. I think there was a strict adherence to "the rules" of hip hop, especially in the underground world (and fuck it, i guess in the "commercial*" world as well) and i think that is finally starting to disapear, thank god.
Sorry for the incoherent rambles, Im sober.
I think gamble hits it on the head when he says he brings his hip hop sensibility to his music even if isn't stylisticly hip hop.
just to shed some more light on satellite radio...sirius seems a lot more diverse. during the week you'll hear everyone from cipha sounds to lord sear and rude jude to muggs to clinton sparks to tony touch. and that's just on one channel (shade 45) pretty much every show with the exception of kay slay' and whoo kid's plays quality shit not just what's the hot shit of the moment getting a major label push. they played a few of puts records around the time stepfather was released and i've heard people call into jude & sear's show to request you guys shit.
i honestly think there is not enough middle ground stuff. with a few exceptions, things have gone to either one side of the spectrum or the other. either it's super polished/produced/instant just add water type shit or amateur hour super lyrical miracle cheeze whiz.
it's the same way that every Frickin' weekend party has to have some kind of gimmicky theme to it. what happened to just playing quality music that doesn't fit into the mold of the "80's vs hip hop" bundt cake party pan?
sorry to get off topic.
here
You sound paid.