CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Yeah, I suppose more rappers are openly aspiring to that level of 'sophistication'.

Crowley have you ever read this thread on project covo about writing pools in rap music? Guy who started the thread says he has been signed to a major and names loads of rappers who apparently use ghostwriters (who are lesser known rappers who are signed to write for the big boys without ever getting a record out). Dunno how true it all is and to what extent rappers like Nas/Eminem/Jay-Z etc. are supposed to use these writing pools (just for hooks? for whole verses?) but its quite an interesting read.

Links in with what you say above in terms of rappers portraying a false image...

Do I ever.


This guy was a former friend of my family. After his album flopped, he was ghosting throughout the industry for years. Dude fluttered in and out of labels writing for artists who both made it and never came out, His big career highlight was insulting my father's rap crew through K-Solo's mouth on that one record with Redman. He STILL ghosts for K-Solo now, to this day.

Also recently, it was announced that "Gucci Gucci" was ghostwritten by Speakz, this hipster rapper who's fluttered around the LA rap scene. It's so crass that they just came out with it... Whenever that happens with a big 'regular' rap hit (see: "Turnt Up", "Racks") there's always this debate of "Nah man, we all came up with that song together... Nobody wrote that hook and shopped it around..." That unsettles me.

So many posts in this thread to consider though, it's all overwhelming. AND I'm distracting from the point.
 

Phaedo

Well-known member
The whole hipster thing just makes me wonder what the London working class/black youth are doing musically. Have they been this quiet before (I wasn't alive for it if so)?

Blaming this and that on hipsters/middle class is all a bit weak though IMO, not to say loads of them aren't annoying and fake, but if you took them out of clubs atm then is anyone actually gonna be there?
 
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Benny Bunter

Well-known member
this is true. it applis i think to journalism as well as gentrification. i think there are intersting parallels. (this is in response to padraig by the way)

again, off on a tangent, but I just read this on a blog post that quite neatly sums up the negative effects of todays journalism on scenes. Definitely chimes in with what you've been saying about boosterism on here recently:

Once upon a time, there were journalists. These near mythical creatures expressed talents creative, critical, crafted and vocational. They developed their chops over many years. And they understood the difference between editorial and advertising. They thought advertorial was something disgusting, something glocal, something grownups expressed quietly on the toilet. Perhaps it was always a big ask for d&e to produce a culture of journalists and journalism, let alone a milieu that fostered, cherished, loved and respected proper journalists. You know, the kind of people who asked tough questions, did research, brooked no bullshit, and got to the bottom of things, even if it broke them. These days, almost without exception, what we have is a bunch of wannabes who are so starry-eyed from getting tweet highfives from the artists that they love, and so addicted to the promo .zip files they receive, and so utterly compromised through their cosy relations with promo, that they either cannot and/or do not ever say anything critical. The surface effects of this are subtle, but the long term implications might be profound: no critical horizon, no contextual frame, just one big anus that a bunch of invested boosters are morris dancing around, alternating between circle jerks and high fives, waiting for the next ‘release’

The whole post is here. Well worth reading and relevant to this thread even if its not specifically london-centric: http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/2011/06/d-we-need-to-talk-about-blandoscattered.html (via blissblog)
 

mrfaucet

The Ideas Train
Regarding boosterism, I think part of the problem is it seems a lot of music journalists are also friends with the people making the music they're writing about with obvious consequences. This is a case in point - http://thequietus.com/articles/06490-sonar-festival-2011-review. Don't know if the whole dubstep positivity thing encouraged this boosterism tendency, although in fairness Blackdown was still calling out wobble as being shit so it wasn't all like that.

As for the whole native Londoner thing, I know a few and can only think of one of them who has said they would want to move out given the chance (to Kent), but none of them are really involved with post-dubstep, uk funky, grime or anything else though they might listen to a little bit of it. They all grew up with garage though and you can see their faces light up when they talk about it, but they haven't really carried that feeling through into something in the present. A fair bit of this post-dubstep thing has been driven by students (or recent grads) which probably explains quite a bit of the demographics.

Don't think the accusations of oldness and/or bitterness really hold much weight with this to be honest. Places do lose their vibrancy and you only need to look at history to see this. It could happen to London too so I think it's worth considering rather than being ad hominem about it.

I don't think the internet has to kill the development of new scenes like some have suggested. I'm moving to China soon and so I've been trying to find out what I can about the music scene there, but the obvious difficulty is the language barrier (my Chinese is nowhere near good enough) and there doesn't seem to be anyone covering the kind of music that might be of interest to Dissensus in English and the stuff that does is often quite expat driven (i.e. not really 'Chinese'). For all I know there could be some really interesting stuff going on but it's not really crossing over despite China having such significant online activity. Obviously it might not even be there at all, but it doesn't seem right to just dismiss a massive country managing to produce interesting dance music based on the internet - it's about how you're using the internet more than anything, which I guess also links in with the boosterism thing too. Bubbling also links into this - you can only find a lot of these tracks on Dutch social networking sites, but that doesn't seem to be hurting the music.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
the journo thing was talked about a bit in the post dubstep thread. but the thing with a lot of underground scenes is if you want to find out about them and get involved the logical thing *seems* to be to infiltrate it full on. which unfortunately means you lose whatever scraps of objective journo cred you had.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
the journo thing was talked about a bit in the post dubstep thread. but the thing with a lot of underground scenes is if you want to find out about them and get involved the logical thing *seems* to be to infiltrate it full on. which unfortunately means you lose whatever scraps of objective journo cred you had.

I think listening to the music, going to nights, listening to pirate radio and buying records should be enough for a journalist to go on, if they've got any talent and imagination.

For me the best London music has seemed to be made by people that are cut off, or have cut themselves off from the media and the outside world. Generally they are not the types who go on forums, read Fact mag and engage in deep critical debates. So they're less affected by all the empty hype, boosterism etc you get on the net. They are more focussed as a result. This is really important in this day and age. Walls have to go up.

I kind of think London would have to shut the doors on the outside world for a while in order to make it really good again. Like how jungle, garage and grime were truly 'London-only' sounds before the rest of the world picked up on them and watered them down. I think Funky hasn't took over the city in quite the way jungle or garage did because there's less room for it now. People have been distracted by outsiders' weaker takes on the London sound, so I do have a certain amount of resentment for post-dubstep and all the shit journalist hype that goes with it (and I treasure the funky scene all the more for it, as it seems to be the last bastion of great London dance music, however niche it may really be).
 
Kids from London make rap now, that's where all the producers and MCs are, where there were previously jungle or grime or garage producers or whatever. I don't think that scene's dead- it's in rude health really.

I'm glad no "hipsters" have jumped on that really, bar Giggs' popularity.

Just an aside, don't really think I'm qualified to comment as a scouser necessarily.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I don't think I know anyone who was born in London and still lives here.


Luka knows the importance of not being earnest...

Hello?

Me? Gary? Plenty of people still out where I'm from. It's just they don't have much overlap with the clubby/arty/Hackneyish/whateva stuff we end up going to. It's more about class/cultural divides - same going on with race, really.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I think Funky hasn't took over the city in quite the way jungle or garage did because there's less room for it now. People have been distracted by outsiders' weaker takes on the London sound, so I do have a certain amount of resentment for post-dubstep and all the shit journalist hype that goes with it (and I treasure the funky scene all the more for it, as it seems to be the last bastion of great London dance music, however niche it may really be).
But the traditional vector by which East London takes over the world isn't FACT magazine and XLR8R and Hoxton and Berlin, it's by spreading to big friday nights in Stevenage and Gillingham and Coventry. And if that hasn't happened, it's not because everyone's listening to James Blake or Alex Bok Bok instead or because the Guardian has been interviewing Oneman instead of Funkystepz...
 

FairiesWearBoots

Well-known member
But the traditional vector by which East London takes over the world isn't FACT magazine and XLR8R and Hoxton and Berlin, it's by spreading to big friday nights in Stevenage and Gillingham and Coventry. And if that hasn't happened, it's not because everyone's listening to James Blake or Alex Bok Bok instead or because the Guardian has been interviewing Oneman instead of Funkystepz...

exactly, I have wondered this - why isnt funky taking over the streets (en masse not just pockets of fans)? I dont know what the answer is
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
But the traditional vector by which East London takes over the world isn't FACT magazine and XLR8R and Hoxton and Berlin, it's by spreading to big friday nights in Stevenage and Gillingham and Coventry. And if that hasn't happened, it's not because everyone's listening to James Blake or Alex Bok Bok instead or because the Guardian has been interviewing Oneman instead of Funkystepz...

i said taking over the city, not the world! I'm not from London, but I'm assuming even at its height funky has never run things in London to anywhere near the levels that Jungle and Garage did. I'm not saying that the influx of hipster outsiders is the whole reason for this not happening, but its certainly watered down the london identity that united the city's underground in such a big way in the 90s.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I think it's just got less to offer, basically.

Partly because it hasn't got quite the same shock-of-the-new thing as UKG or jungle or hardcore had (being honest, who hasn't at some point spent time trying to explain to someone that Funky isn't 'just 90s tribal house' or 'basically a new version of broken beat') but mainly because the people that it's meant to be taking over have already got fairly energetic and well developed scenes catering to pretty much what they want to hear. 1997 wasn't a dance music vacuum, but it had much more of a garage shaped hole than 2011 has a funky shaped one...
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Also, there is still an affinity between funky and other outposts like you mention. Lots of bassline producers have been making funky (and doing a very good job of it too) and bassline has even been influencing funky in a surprisingly positive way, funkystepz and Champion being just two examples. Its all just obviously on a much smaller scale than Jungle taking over Leicester or whatever back in the day.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
i said taking over the city, not the world! I'm not from London, but I'm assuming even at its height funky has never run things in London to anywhere near the levels that Jungle and Garage did. I'm not saying that the influx of hipster outsiders is the whole reason for this not happening, but its certainly watered down the london identity that united the city's underground in such a big way in the 90s.
But the "are funky's core audience even aware of night slugs / kode 9 / Jam City" thing cuts both ways here...
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I think it's just got less to offer, basically.

Partly because it hasn't got quite the same shock-of-the-new thing as UKG or jungle or hardcore had (being honest, who hasn't at some point spent time trying to explain to someone that Funky isn't 'just 90s tribal house' or 'basically a new version of broken beat') but mainly because the people that it's meant to be taking over have already got fairly energetic and well developed scenes catering to pretty much what they want to hear. 1997 wasn't a dance music vacuum, but it had much more of a garage shaped hole than 2011 has a funky shaped one...

agreed. i love funky but we should be really be realistic. Its hard not to keep comparing it to the 90s as that was definitely the peak and it helps to keep things in perspective.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Also, there is still an affinity between funky and other outposts like you mention. Lots of bassline producers have been making funky (and doing a very good job of it too) and bassline has even been influencing funky in a surprisingly positive way, funkystepz and Champion being just two examples.

That's true - wasn't Do You Mind originally a bassline tune, come to that?
 
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