blissblogger

Well-known member
this is what enthralls and thrills me about all this nu-psychedelic trap'n'B

the words are saying the opposite of the music - or rather the music (and the vocalisation style) is undercutting and gainsaying what the lyrics are saying

the lyrics are like character armour, a residual element, a hollowed-out signifier of rap-as-was

but the truth of the music is this fey woozy gaseous quality of the vocals - the listless wistfulness

the vocals have more to do with PM Dawn or the ghostly unbody in A.R. Kane

the discontinuity between the two elements - lyrics and vocal grain / affect / mode - can get pretty jarring

for instance in this gorgeous midtempo tune by Migos, this serene elegaic mood of instant nostalgia is set up and then it ends with the mood-dissonant line "she got my kids on her face"

 

blissblogger

Well-known member

this is another example, but here it's the sample at the start that undercuts the serenity and carelessness

unless i'm very mistaken that's the little girl from Poltergeist trapped in the TV saying "please help me"

although actually the fey melancholia creeps into the lyric too - "for some reason I can't cry"
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
my #2 favorite thing in music these last couple of years - the Migos ad ilbs

my #1 favorite thing in music these last couple of years - the wordless rolling vocal drones in Migos (Luka's "gurgling bliss" in excelsis)

there are moments in "T-Shirt", "Auto Pilot", "Top Down on Da NAWF", "Bosses Don't Speak" - shivers and shudders and dilated moans - that seem to be cut from the same cloth as this:


a song i once described as being like the 'space' of orgasm expanded into an environment, into a maze you can walk through

that's what the Migos backing gurgles and the entirety of Young Thug's vocal sound like - coming, endlessly stretched out

so while the lyrics are the usual alpha male, warrior male, gangsta, hardest working etc stuff - the vocals are saying "I surrender"
 

luka

Well-known member
the truth of the music is this fey woozy gaseous quality of the vocals - the listless wistfulness

yes, for me the lyrics are not helpful. same with drill. but this is how this stuff always works.
lyrics are the ego and the ego is always the very last person to know what's going on.
 

luka

Well-known member
yeah i think i may have meant to reply in that thread, but the comments work just as well here, so no matter!

it's all one big thread these days. i encourage the confusion. i just assumed it was a coincidence you were homing in one the same thing.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
yes, for me the lyrics are not helpful.

i love the lyrics (they are like some terminal hyper-decadent state of gangsta-thug-playa-izm - beyond even rap in its hair metal phase of the 2000s - just fragments of triumph, flaunting, disdain, glory, etc - no continuity from line to line) and i really love the disjuncture effect between the lyrics and the "message" of the music itself

but it is like some kind of residual element, like 'this is trap so this is what we must rap about"

there is a mini-meme in trap - "supposed to be" - there was a song with that title, forget which, and then in "Bosses Don't Speak", Quavo goes "this is how it supposed to be" - i.e. this is how we roll when we are rich super-successful rappers, but also a sense of this was ordained, God's Plan unfolding etc, how i could not be this famous / wealthy

but "supposed to be" also gives a hint of "going through the motions", this are the rituals, the prescribed topics, the cliches we must maintain, the stereotypes we must uphold and in fact exaggerate even further

but then there's little moments that suggest transcendence and floating up and away from it all - "feel like i can fly" in "Motorsport"

like you go through hyper-materialist to the point of absolute absurdism and then out the other side

perhaps the sad-rap, hollowed-out hedonism phase ("i should be enjoying all this money and trophies and girls and drugs, but i'm not really") was the disenchantment before a kind of serene indifference to all these things

that you can hear in the mode of delivery and the textures even as the lyrics keep banging on about lamborghinis and blow jobs and expensive watches and so forth
 

luka

Well-known member
before i forget i know barty felt wounded that corpse never gave a nod to this here

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=14165

luka
luka is online now Beast of Burden

Join Date
Oct 2004
Posts
15,983

Default

barty dont get despondent enthusiasm is infectious. sometimes all it takes to 'get' music is another persons enthusiasm for it. as a listener you need to keep changing the angle of approach with music. different perspectives till you find the one which reveals the centre. tuning the dial till you get a good reception.
 
Last edited:

luka

Well-known member
very important thread that tbf.

crowl and barti both on top form. having an argument in which both of them
are actually right. also one of the few times where i've been very happy to be
totally wrong about everything.
 
Last edited:

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
yes, for me the lyrics are not helpful. same with drill. but this is how this stuff always works.
lyrics are the ego and the ego is always the very last person to know what's going on.


but that very egoising was what was liberating for some of us in older forms of hip hop. like take no shit, i don't have to conform to white persons infantilisations. people might think im a clown but that's only on the surface. I'm a person of dexterity and a man of science.

Otherwise i agree with nearly everything else u n blissblogger have said, i just don't see any revolutionary potential in todays rap. yeah you're going to bitch about marxism again but it's an inevitable cycle isn't it really given the current configurations.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
the trick is to ruthlessly cuss out music you even like or greatly admire. This is where adorno went wrong.
 

luka

Well-known member
but that very egoising was what was liberating for some of us in older forms of hip hop. like take no shit, i don't have to conform to white persons infantilisations. people might think im a clown but that's only on the surface. I'm a person of dexterity and a man of science.

Otherwise i agree with nearly everything else u n blissblogger have said, i just don't see any revolutionary potential in todays rap. yeah you're going to bitch about marxism again but it's an inevitable cycle isn't it really given the current configurations.

im white but it was liberating for me too. the lion phase in camel-lion-child.
it was enormously important for me.
 
Top