has hip hop been "aesthetically brutalised"?

gumdrops

Well-known member
i like time out, i buy it regularly, i actually enjoy its music coverage (i think they have some very good writing)more than the likes of Q, but they are more likely to be into say, dalek or diplo, then the likes of dj smurf. i appreciate they have a lot to cover though, but even then, i dont think their reggae/rap/soul/jazz coverage is anywhere near as strong or well informed/commited as their pop/rock coverage is. but anyway, back to morley.
 
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Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
time out along with every other mag is lead (sic) by music marketeers / p.rs and advertisers.

perhaps your inadequate spelling and grammatical ability was the reason they turned you down for a job.

and fuck it stelfox, i'm not going to sit here as a professional and be slagged off by a bunch of jealous losers.

you want to improve things, go write to john lewis, ask him to give you some work. if you don't like what we do in time out then go and read the source or start your own fucking magazine where you can write 60,000 word treatises on diplo and wank yourself silly if your bank manager will let you.

otherwise start showing me some proper respect. it's about fucking time people here did.
 

Culla

Cog Diss
Aesthetic brutalisation

What I took from Morley’s comment was as much visual as to do with beats and lyrics – the whole spectacle reduced to big pimpin/in da club/honeyz on my arm, the black-american community exercising their right to have a good time. Or rather pop music directors serving up and perpetuating these obscene stereotypes for a white audience. Come down, we’ll get you a ho, but don’t annoy us as we still be Gs. Disgusting. Even on the recent 101 Dvd of Stones Throw videos, too many of the acts had to resort to this kind of programmed overexuberance in front of the camera. I still like a lot of even chart-based hip-hop but the overall presentation is embarrassing…
Ps – I took great pleasure informing my family when Snoop came on Live 8 that he wasn’t even allowed in the UK 11 years ago. Not so much “kick this evil bastard out” as “kick this entertainment whore out”.
Ps II – Time Out is a well laid out “go out and consume” mag aimed not at the early adopters – who never need to be told what to do and where to go – but the next set down on the awareness scale; those who won’t settle for a life in the Slag & Lettuce but need some informing…
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
Rachel Verinder said:
perhaps your inadequate spelling and grammatical ability was the reason they turned you down for a job.

and fuck it stelfox, i'm not going to sit here as a professional and be slagged off by a bunch of jealous losers.

you want to improve things, go write to john lewis, ask him to give you some work. if you don't like what we do in time out then go and read the source or start your own fucking magazine where you can write 60,000 word treatises on diplo and wank yourself silly if your bank manager will let you.

otherwise start showing me some proper respect. it's about fucking time people here did.

what a fucking twat. i only hope for your sake that this is some kind of 'joke'
 

cooper

Well-known member
Rachel Verinder said:
otherwise start showing me some proper respect. it's about fucking time people here did.

is that you, rodney dangerfield?

jabbranim.gif
 
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D

droid

Guest
xiquet said:
i only hope for your sake that this is some kind of 'joke'

It has to be!

Could have done with a better punchline though... :confused:
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
Rachel Verinder said:
and fuck it stelfox, i'm not going to sit here as a professional and be slagged off by a bunch of jealous losers.

that's why i said for everyone to calm down and i'm sure as hell that none of the criticism of time out was directed at you.


Rachel Verinder said:
you want to improve things, go write to john lewis, ask him to give you some work.

i might think about it but i honestly don't think they pay enough to make it worth my while.

Rachel Verinder said:
if you don't like what we do in time out then go and read the source or start your own fucking magazine where you can write 60,000 word treatises on diplo and wank yourself silly if your bank manager will let you.

i'm more of a vibe man, myself, diplo i'm not really keen on, re wanking, you should always go for the old classics like the 1988 razzle school dinnerladies special edition (yes this does really exists, no i don't own it and never have), re the bank manager, i should imagine that he'd have a fit if i approached him about starting another magazine.

Rachel Verinder said:
otherwise start showing me some proper respect. it's about fucking time people here did.

pure vintage. i happen to be in an extraordinarily bad mood today, for reasons *way* more important than someone saying they don't like a magazine i write for and this has made me laugh like a drain, which i really needed.
 
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Tim F

Well-known member
I don't really think about the lyrical/thematic concerns of hip hop or how they might be limiting any more. I kinda remember vaguely wishing it wasn't all post-gangsta but that was when I was just starting to get into it, the same way I thought house was "too repetitive" when I was first getting into it.

Thing is, saying something like "house is too repetitive" is simultaneously sensible and non-sensical:

sensible insofar as the speaker might like another, less repetitive style more

but nonsensical insofar as repetition is the <i>point</i> of house: a lot of the enjoyment comes from seeing how the music works within those constraints.

And US hip hop - which, as stelfox says is actually astonishingly varied anyway - is kinda similar to that. The deliberate repetition of certain topics and themes becomes a frame for developing and showing off other things - a distinctive voice, great wordplay etc. And then there's grooves, sonics etc.

Guns and drugs and booty may seem like odd, arbitrary choices for frames but, well, afrofuturism doesn't seem to work any better. Probably any topic would become boring if elevated to the same level of predominance - that's the price of focus.
 

henrymiller

Well-known member
And US hip hop - which, as stelfox says is actually astonishingly varied anyway - is kinda similar to that. The deliberate repetition of certain topics and themes becomes a frame for developing and showing off other things - a distinctive voice, great wordplay etc. And then there's grooves, sonics etc.

this is quite ingenious, but sort of misses out on the way the music is heard and used; in other words everything outside the music itself. the lyrics have meanings, of course.
 

3underscore

Well-known member
stelfox said:
i tend to find that, although they wouldn't dream of saying it, most music enthusiasts/critics don't like hip-hop very much or know a great deal about it

Is it just me, or has Rachel Verinder kind of verified this point?! :p
 

Tim F

Well-known member
"this is quite ingenious, but sort of misses out on the way the music is heard and used; in other words everything outside the music itself. the lyrics have meanings, of course."

I agree! My stuff above was more of a mental exercise than a pronouncement of the sum total of the value of lyrics in hip hop. And I tend to find the topics of guns, drugs, booty etc. endlessly fascinating.

But I do think that - quite apart from being grounded in the actual life experience of rappers etc. - the focused nature of lyrics in street hip hop is useful from a stylistic point of view. It gives the music a sense of coherence and identity which allows it to be much more expansive and daring musically - i.e. if you take what is essentially a bhangra track and put a street rapper over the top of it it will be street rap, because the <i>identity</i> of the music is rooted in the rapper and the stuff he raps about.

Underground rap makes claims to being much more diverse lyrically, but this very (alleged) freedom contrasts with a limiting sense of fidelity to hip hop's "roots" which is expressed in very similar flow styles, production approaches etc. For the average underground rap track, the "rap identity" is expressed through the sonics (the papery breakbeat loop, the murky jazz or funk sample) as much as or more than the rapper.

When talking about genre there is always a tug of war between what is "given" and what is "up for grabs" - critics focus so much on the given in street hip hop without noticing how this opens up space for change and deviation in other aspects. And more generally I think people should pay more attention to the way that the relationship closed and open borders in musical styles really drives things. It's a much more useful way of looking at this stuff than in terms of purism and eclecticism I reckon.

(see also: why it always seems to be functionalist booty music from with functionalist booty lyrics from all the corners of the urban diaspora that ends up being on the forefront of musical innovation)
 

Melchior

Taking History Too Far
qwerty south said:
i think he means that hip hop is now predominantly in the media and public's mind gangsta shit, when it was new it was so much more....

Maybe he does, but he'd be wrong. To my mind the public understanding of all hip hop as gansta shit was some time ago. I know people who used to never listen to hip hop precisely because it was all gansta shit - hos and guns. Mostly these people were women, although not exclusively.

I know almost no one who says that now, inluding people who don't like hip hop. People like Missy and Lauren Hill demonstrated to people that you could be an MC who wasn't all about guns and hos and still have credibility.

Really, hip hop is too mainstream these days, and that's largely because so little of it is genuinely gangsta, even from the people who used to be.
 

soundslike1981

Well-known member
Rachel Verinder said:
and fuck it stelfox, i'm not going to sit here as a professional and be slagged off by a bunch of jealous losers.

otherwise start showing me some proper respect. it's about fucking time people here did.

This guy is the best.

If you were so deserving of "respect," you wouldn't get your shit so bent over "losers" failing to give you enough. I'm not sure I've ever read any of your literary gifts to the masses, but if they're as smug and solipsistic as your messageboard posts, I doubt many people manage to wade through them.

But seriously: why are you giving it away, here?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
soundslike1981 said:
This guy is the best.


I don't think he's joking at all.

one magazine is not enough... this guy has enough issues to start a magazine stand! (drum roll)
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
I'm not sure I've ever read any of your literary gifts to the masses, but if they're as smug and solipsistic as your messageboard posts, I doubt many people manage to wade through them.

you ought to read them. one of my blogs is coming out as a book later this year. still gets xxxxx hits a day two years after i stopped writing it. the other two blogs have some good stuff as well. about xxxxx people a day manage to wade through them. three of the most popular music blogs on the web.

since you asked.
 
Rachel Verinder said:
you ought to read them. one of my blogs is coming out as a book later this year. still gets xxxxx hits a day two years after i stopped writing it. the other two blogs have some good stuff as well. about xxxxx people a day manage to wade through them. three of the most popular music blogs on the web.

since you asked.

Daily Reminder: x is not a number. Numbers run from 0 to 9.

You're welcome.
 
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