Underground Hip-Hop

M

michael

Bring out the vacuum
crackerjack said:
Oh No's first (only?) album - the best non-Madlib/Doom rap album on Stones Throw and one I deeply regret selling every time I hear some.
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He's done 3 others I know of. The other ones are all based on sampling themes, and much more instrumental.

Exodus Into Unheard Rhythms = Galt Dermott or whatever his name is, the guy who wrote the music for Hair and stuff
Dr No's Oxperiment = "occidental" music, e.g. Turkish, Greek, Lebanese
Dr No's Ethiopium = Ethiopian

It kind of depresses me that I know this, because I'm not very interested in any of his music - just got at least one very enthusiastic friend. In fact what am I doing in this thread?? :)
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Best Antipop thing was the record with Matthew Shipp - that worked pretty well.

Madlib wipes the floor with most of this stuff, imo. Soundbombing is still brilliant too though.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Benny B said:
This seems a bit mean and cynical. Did DJ shadow really have big pots of cash to pay people off for using their samples? Are you suggesting he just bought his way into the hip hop scene (even though no one in the US really gave a fuck about him anyway). Is using 'obscure' samples somehow unacceptable? I'm genuinely quite perplexed by your post, you could have just said that you thought the DJ shadow album was boring or something, that would have been fair enuff.

And forgive my ignorance but who the fuck is John Harris?

edit: I definitely dismissed anticon/def jux there quite unfairly tbh. I think Its the style of rapping that puts me off in general, but I'm sure there's plenty of stuff I haven't heard thats cool. I just hate all that clever clever Clouded-type stuff, and EL-P should never have been let near a microphone.
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It was a little bit mean, yes, but I've never understood the veneration of Shadow and have a dislike of all that Mo Wax stood for. My comment was more a reaction to the dismissal of Anticon/Def Jux, who have some good records in their early catalogue which are much more worthy of any hip hop allocated time you have than Shadow.

Harris is the worst music journo in the world.
 
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connect_icut

connect_icut

Well-known member
matt b said:
My comment was more a reaction to the dismissal of Anticon/Def Jux, who have some good records in their early catalogue which are much more worthy of any hip hop allocated time you have than Shadow.
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To these ears, early Anticon stuff like Sole's Bottle of Humans has dated far better than Entroducing.
 
H

hopper

Well-known member
Thought first cLOUDDEAD album was amazing, can understand the clever clever criticism, find a lot of that kind of stuff very jarring. But there's something pretty timeless about the way it all interlinks together and floats from one place to the next in the way that I've never really heard from anything else. It's an endless tapestry for me - so hazy and imaginative. I did quite like ten, but for me it has none of the magic of the first album where Odd Nosdam is really running things. I love the haziness to the first album.

Boom Bip and Dose One had its moments as well, but is a pretty horrible listen for the most part as it has so many skits and annoying filler tracks. But when it got down to business it was pretty awesome. The cLOUDDEAD/Boom Bip & Dose One Peel Session is gold as well and well worth tracking down.

As far as Anticon goes - I think the Odd Nosdam albums were pretty cool, especially Level Live Wires
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
On the subject of pro/anti-Shadow; best thing about that early Def Jux documentary for the el-P & Lif tour (Other than Cage looking like a bloated tank) was El's numerous jokes about Shadow. "RJ here is one of the biggest DJs in Hip-Hop. NEXT TO SHAAAADOW!!!!"

My main issue with Shadow is that it totally turned hip-hop production into this torrid thing where sampling got turned into this pseudo-intellectual artistic grandeur. There was also a severe abandonment of MCing. Shadow's whole take on hip-hop was never EXPLICITLY anti-Rapper, but the vibe was there. I think it was fair of him to try to make this balance of restoring power of the significance of the DJ/Producer. That said, I think the record's also really cheesy and over-the-top with it's 'cinematic' quality.

Even the anticon art-school take on MCing thing; it was a new take on MCing and for what it was worth, it helped prove what you could do under the guise of hip-hop. Especially since the guys who pioneered this stuff were all fucked up (FF couldn't hold it together, De La kept selling out faster than you could say "Native Tongues", etc.) When you make music that says "Okay, I'm going to completely remove this element of Hip-Hop, because it doesn't fit my vision", it's very easy to lose any sort of balance.
 
urbanite

urbanite

subnoto
Def Jux (2000) didn't come into the picture till much later than Endtroducing (96) though, did it? I mean there were the two albums on Rawkus from Co-Flow and one of them was fully instrumental and that's about it really. Anticon (99) showed up a while later after Endtroducing as well.

In many ways my feeling at the time was that Endtroducing opened up a lot of people to dig deeper into hip-hop and find Co-Flow and Anticon.

Just checked with discogs and Co-Flow's first release was around 95, but then it'd be fair to say that not many knew about it until it got rereleased on Rawkus and even then it was hard to get it in Europe.

Then again I'm quite a fan of Shadow, at least back then it was pretty much the only thing in my cd walkman for months.

Apparently he got loads of flack for filling half an album with hyphy from his fans though, which is pretty sad, since I thought it was the best part of his latest stuff... too bad he's been touring , playing some half baked d'n'b remixes for his old tunes... that last show I've seen with him was a bit of a bummer...
 
pattycakes_

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
he should have left it at endtroducing.

people are scrutinising it too much. everything up to and including endtroducing was just an anonymous hiphop fanatic in his bedroom trying stuff out and managing to come up with something original and unique. after that he became a victim of his own success and fell off.

you can't blame him for trying, though. it just would have been more advisable to exercise a little bit more quality control.
 
connect_icut

connect_icut

Well-known member
Just went out to get some lunch and noticed a Sonic Sum 12" in the dollar records outside the YWCA store. Haven't had a chance to hear it yet.

Edit: Listening now. It's called "Rocket" and it's great! Seriously, folks, don't sleep on this stuff. The solo album Rob Sonic did for Def Jux was crap but The Sanity Annex and this 12" are incredible.

Edit 2: Hang on... The cover says "From the forthcoming album Plaster Man". There was a second Sonic Sum album???? (Does a bit of Discogs research...) There was a THIRD Sonic Sum album??????? Has anyone actually heard these?
 
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Dr Awesome

Dr Awesome

Techsteppin'
Ntrly "underground" compared to some of the names mentioned in this thread - but Jehst's first album - Return Of The Drifter - is well worth a listen. Clever lyrics and good production all-round.
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Jehst is the dude who was in Atom's Family who later appeared on the Vex'd album this year, right?

With The Bug, I've always enjoyed how it went from a more noisy, almost clunky alternative to boring 'Trip-Hop'/instrumental stuff of the day, unto it's current form. And the Techno Animal/Ice stuff gets love from me, both instrumentally and MC driven. Him and JK Broadrick really made excellent music.
 
pattycakes_

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
connect_icut said:
Edit: Listening now. It's called "Rocket" and it's great! Seriously, folks, don't sleep on this stuff.
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yeah nice tip, that tune reminds me a bit of edan/justin warfield

tack #8 on plasterman uses the same sample as electric wizard used on "ivixor b / phase inducer" on come my fanatics

i wonder if he's into the wizard or just happened to find the same sample?
 
Dr Awesome

Dr Awesome

Techsteppin'
CrowleyHead said:
Jehst is the dude who was in Atom's Family who later appeared on the Vex'd album this year, right?
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Don't think so, but I'm probably not the right person to ask.

This was one of my picks off the album:

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Interestingly enough his most popular and upbeat track - People Under The Weather - isn't easily findable on youtube.
 
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soul_pill

soul_pill

Well-known member
Dr Awesome said:
Don't think so, but I'm probably not the right person to ask.

This was one of my picks off the album:

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Interestingly enough his most popular and upbeat track - People Under The Weather - isn't easily findable on youtube.
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No that was Jestoneart (on the Vex'd album), this guy:

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
 
T

Tony Flavourmore

Well-known member
'the quest to find my inner ugliness is over, the secret to my failure is easier than being sober'


i am currently enjoying G.O.D by cage and tame one, also known as leak bros.


 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I'm just going to isolate myself from this whole thread, but...

Cage is the greatest MC on all of Def Jux. No question.
 
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