I, Blasphemer
big knob blissblog:
more generally we need a comprehensive explanation of your attitude to canonical 90's rap. your opinion is in such stark contrast to the rest of humanity that it warrants detailed examination.
ah that's funny because a few weeks ago - i think there was a thread discussing that era on here, and i was also starting to read that Will Ashon book on the Wu Tang debut album - i pulled together a Spotify playlist called something like Nineties Rap Highly Rated that I Never Quite Got Into
so it was all the Mobb Deep stuff, and Nas, and I don't know what else - Black Moon, Notorious BIG, Gang Starr, Quest, Pharcyde, Pete Rock, EPMD,
however I only got so far into playing the list (it was like 732 songs long) before I had to turn it off
inspired by the Ashon book I specifically listened to Enter the Wu-Tang for the first time in an eon, and in all honesty, it just sounded a bit... tatty. i did really like some of the later Wu offshoot bits but overall felt that the RZA thing of a cool beat plus a moody sample, cycling over and over and over again, to be a little bit of a formula and a limited one. i mean, it's designed as a backdrop for the MCs so in that sense it functions - it's a heroic mise-en-scene - doomy, tense, baleful, whatever - for the sagas they relate - if the music was more interesting and active, then it would detract from the words and the flows and the personalities... in a sense, it
couldn't be as changeful or fractured or attention-grabbing as what the junglists were doing, given that they were freed up by doing near-instrumental music
i can't really hear this East Coast hardcore stuff differently from I how I heard that kind of thing at the time
with that Mobb Deep tune, as I'm listening I'm thinking "so you really
are just going to run that breakbeat in a loop
all the way through?"
i mean, it does snap nicely, with tasty bit of reverb around the snare crack, but...
if you heard things like that at the same time as you were hearing "Terminator" / Enforcers 3 and 4 / Omni / DJ Hype etc, and then followed through into the Droppin Science 12 inches, Paralllel Universe, Roni Size, "Dred Bass" etc, everything in that 92-95 moment... it can't help but sound really plodding.
even the use of the sample (again, nice choice - tasty, vibey) is linear and pedestrian compared to what was going on with a certain hip hop descended mutant in the UK at exactly the same time
i would compare that track to something like this
i'm not even sure that's the killer-est mix of the tune, but WOW! streets ahead of US rap on the beats and sonix and atmosphere level. and they're not even a major figure or force within jungle.
you should bear in mind (in re. Nas's or Prodigy's or Method Man's stature as street poets) that A/ relative to other rock critics, i'm much less interested in lyrics and B/ in mid-90s i was at my absolute least interested in lyrics EVER. so all of that bypassed me really.
i'll tell you who i did like in rap through that period - Cypress Hill, those first two albums ... the Dre and Snoop stuff... early OutKast... Onyx really just for one single.. a few others i'm probably blanking on... those Naughty By Nature hits...
in all honesty i would rather listen to "Jump Around" than any of the hardcore East Coast groups