The Great Rap Purge
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
I finally started to go through my rap records, over 90% of which have been boxed since 2006, when we first moved from the Bay down to L.A. My current capacity simply can't accommodate all the boxes I have so I knew a purge was necessary but I wasn't sure how much I'd end up keeping or dumping.
Thus far, 4 boxes (roughly 350 LPs?) in and it's looking good. I'm throwing out around 60-70%. Of that, I'd say 60% are indie rap 12"s from the '90s, the remaining 40% are major label stuff. I've gone through all my "A" records and maybe half of the "B" titles.
Things I kept that surprised me: the majority of my Aceyalone records. Abstract Rude, not so lucky. More than half of my Atmosphere records.
Things I dumped that surprised me: half of my Blackalicious records, almost all of my Beatnuts records after the first album and First Priority singles by Audio Two and Alliance (why I ever bought them to begin with evades me). Most of my Afu Ra singles (his rapping on his early singles were terrible).
Things I dumped that didn't surprise me at all: Anticon titles, Aesop Rock titles, stuff produced by M-Boogie (sorry mang), hordes of "Sandbox Automatic randoms".
Thus far, 4 boxes (roughly 350 LPs?) in and it's looking good. I'm throwing out around 60-70%. Of that, I'd say 60% are indie rap 12"s from the '90s, the remaining 40% are major label stuff. I've gone through all my "A" records and maybe half of the "B" titles.
Things I kept that surprised me: the majority of my Aceyalone records. Abstract Rude, not so lucky. More than half of my Atmosphere records.
Things I dumped that surprised me: half of my Blackalicious records, almost all of my Beatnuts records after the first album and First Priority singles by Audio Two and Alliance (why I ever bought them to begin with evades me). Most of my Afu Ra singles (his rapping on his early singles were terrible).
Things I dumped that didn't surprise me at all: Anticon titles, Aesop Rock titles, stuff produced by M-Boogie (sorry mang), hordes of "Sandbox Automatic randoms".
Comments
i think those beatnuts records are A+ tho u crazy
For real, I kept "Off the Books" and I think that's it from their post "Street Level" career.
Hmm...I don't remember seeing that in the pile but I do have a blank white label that was on Grand Royal. Could be it. When I have everything purged, I'll probably create a database and let folks get a crack at what they might want to cop off it.
As in you are surprised you still like them? The only one I kept is "Book of Human Language"
I have a copy of Magnificent City on CD in a pile somewhere. Regrettably.
I've been getting rid of generic stuff... things on the Hydra label, Rawkus, random promo singles, later Gravediggaz singles, stuff of that nature... holding a record fair, helps keep the momentum up. Australia still has a huge amount of rap collectors and DJs who haven't got hip to Serato, which is a good thing when downsizing... the rest of the world, I'm not sure... at least when I was in Amoeba a year ago, it seemed like you could get anything CHEAP...
All Balls Don't Bounce and ABOHL are both great albums. And the rapping on Accepted Eclectic is pretty excellent. His output after that is more sketchy, but hating on Aceyalone is some too cool for school shit.
O, you're just putting them on discogs? The bay? Should I send them all to Australia? Cause Aceyalone is gonna be out the door...
only singles that have accapelas and instrumentals
that's how i first purged
I've purged a lot of the rap albums that came out before double vinyl became the norm.
They sound like ass. Too many minutes squeezed onto a single disc.
You sound Euroman
Who cares? That doesn't necessarily justify them as music.
Whatever happened to that guy?
And whatever on the Acey hate.
Fair enough, but I just don't get that with his earlier records at all. Even A Book of Human Language, his most "lofty" record, is pretty straightforward and simple at its heart (no complex metaphors or rhyming for the sake of riddling). A song about faces? Hardly the type of pretentiousness I associate with "poetry boutique rapping," Anticon or whatever. And his whole post-ABOHL career is seemingly focused on getting rid of that poetry stigma you speak of. So that dancehall shit he did should be right up your alley... Or maybe not.
And Faux, I never said rapping ability justifies those songs as music. But I'd be foolish to dismiss Twista as a rapper, just because I don't think of much of his song writing skills-- no?
a song about faces is as stupid as making a song about cupcakes.
I'm not sure how anything anyone has said in this thread conforms to your first point.
Agreed on the Acey hate point though. The singles I decided not to keep by him were mostly ones with lackluster production but includes both early and late-career material. I enjoy listening to him which is more than I can say about the dozens of super-scientific wanna-be rappers whose singles didn't survive the purge.
BTW: This goes back to the thread on The Tunnel classics but it was a bit of a time warp to remember just how many rap artists put out "anti-jiggy" songs in the late '90s (the vast majority of those went straight into the purge pile). I think if anything weakened the state of hip-hop of NY in that era, it was that much of the output seemed focused on this narrow conversation between rappers flossing and then rappers dissing the other rappers for flossing.
Wait, so we can judge an artist's entire ouvre based on a single song? (For the record: I never thought "Faces" was that corny. Then again, I'd probably also enjoy a song about cupcakes if the production was good).
I don't know about your local [del]rap[/del] human experience, but faces are pretty relevant in my daily interactions. Unlike cupcakes.
You yourself seem to be doing an honest purge...no issue there. It's the dudes piling on, like how dare I even liked this stuff in the first place that have hearts that IMO pump Milk Duddish stalemate.
In Faux's defense, I'm pretty sure he wasn't bumping "Hot Potato" back in the day. ;)
I have owned Innercity Griots and All Balls... for about 15 years.
ABOHL went in and out of the collection in about a year's time; it's just a boring record.
I was specifically addressing the person who was trying to justify the records on the basis of Acie's skillz or whatever, which I don't see as a valid defense of weak recordings.
You're missing out then. I was at a wedding on Sunday that had ube cupcakes in lieu of a wedding cake. TASTY.