has hip hop been "aesthetically brutalised"?

stelfox

Beast of Burden
depends in what context. if yr talking about tracks like what you goin' do by lil jon and the eastside boys or the whisper song by the ying yang twins, i suppose he might have a point, however this isn't a *bad* thing at all. hip hop's too damned big to make catch-all prononcements about, like this one, really - too many different strands, disparate scenes (true school, street rap, conscious, gangsta, blah, blah, blah) regional styles most people not from those cities have never even heard... you can't make blanket statements about hip-hop any more and i, too, would like to see where morley is supposed to have written this...
 
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qwerty south

no use for a witticism
he said that on a profile of public enemy's chuck d on bbc 4(?) - i watched a copy.

what does he mean? you tell me...

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....
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
well considering as how shocklee's bomb squad shit was some of the most confrontational, amped-up-to-11 madness ever heard in black music at that point, then adding pe's erstatz urban militia schtick, this sounds a bit potty - pe were *totally* brutal, that's why i loved them so much
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
i think he means that lyrically, hip hop has been aesthetically brutalised. personally, i wish the music was more brutal a la the bomb squad, thats why i lovethe production values of lil jon (and at the other end of the spectrum - el-p) so much.

xxxpost - why is it a silly thing to say mainstream hip hop has been aesthetically brutalised? many of the most popular and succesful rappers of today and thus the most influential are running on OTT post-gangsta auto-pilot. sure, you have the occasional artist like kanye to upset the balance but for the most part, hes the minority.
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
qwerty south said:
what does he mean? you tell me...

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....

well, you saw him say this, in some kind of context, so i reckon you're in a better position than me to have a go at interpreting it! if you're right in what he means, then it seems to have more to do with the media and the public mind than hip hop anyway

(this seems like an increasingly silly discussion, us trying to guess what morley means by what seems to me a fairlyl thoughtless statement, then discussing possible meanings)
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
the thing with morley though is that he only seems to regard hip hop as being of some worth when its either political, 'conscious', socially aware blah blah or infused with heavy attitude like PE, i wouldnt mind if the popular face of hip hop was so gangsta-obsessed if it was more interesting or at least, musically brutalised on some level.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
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, if the real truth be told
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
i thought everyone already knew that! the time out journalists do their best, but you know that underneath it all, they probably loathe it. you just have to look at their end of year picks. they just have to cover it a little more than they used to now due to its popularity. i still have no idea why morley was picked for that docu on chuck d on bbc2, there are a million other hip hop journos they could have picked instead.
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
the time out journalists do their best, but you know that underneath it all, they probably loathe it. you just have to look at their end of year picks. they just have to cover it a little more than they used to now due to its popularity.

bullshit. i'm a time out journalist. actually we don't loathe hip hop at all, just mediocre hip hop, of which there seems to be a surfeit these days. end of year picks? yes, taking OTHER TYPES OF MUSIC into consideration, how stupid and inconsiderate of us!

next time find out the truth before you shoot your mouth off, otherwise shut up about things and people you know nothing about.
 

qwerty south

no use for a witticism
time out along with every other mag is lead by music marketeers / p.rs and advertisers.

time out is m.o.r ...

gotta agree with stelfox re: general ignorance about hip hop - i met a musician the other day who seemed to think hip hop came from los angeles.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
Rachel Verinder said:
bullshit. i'm a time out journalist. actually we don't loathe hip hop at all, just mediocre hip hop, of which there seems to be a surfeit these days. end of year picks? yes, taking OTHER TYPES OF MUSIC into consideration, how stupid and inconsiderate of us!

next time find out the truth before you shoot your mouth off, otherwise shut up about things and people you know nothing about.

taking it rather personally, arent we?
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
calm down everyone, for god's sake.
marcello, *i* reckon time out is pretty wack in its coverage of hip-hop, grime, ragga, roots, soca and all manner of other musics
BUT (and this is a pretty big caveat), aimed at gumdrops (also, mate, stop winding people up), the thing is that it's not really time out's job to be right at the bleeding edge of this kind of stuff.
it's not what people buy it for and its remit is somewhat broader than that.
as a magazine it has some fucking shocking writing in it, but also some stuff that's easily as good as the bad stuff is bad.
anyway, in the sprit of pleasantness and reasoned debate, let's get back to the question at hand...
 
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