Hip Hop '11

[outraygeous]

its an excellent discussion.

The whole gritty/clean divide is a big one. Also with alot of newer hip hop is made from lets say, keyboard drum kits over actual real drums.

I saw Madlib at Fabric, some of the beats do knock hard. But nothing is really going to sound as powerful as a keyboard drum kit.

 

[gumdrops]

are you talking about keyboard drums as in what you hear in a lot of southern rap? or stock drums that are made in the old sampled 'breaks' style? cos those are pretty crap 90% of the time.

some good hard hip hop drums -

or more extreme -

tho the el-p ones are more like modern drums in new york rap - flat, thuddy, more rubbery almost than the cracking ones you used to get like on the mobb deep track. still hard tho.

btw outraygeous those old grime/garage tracks on your blog are good man.

 

[outraygeous]

To be honest, its hard to say where drums come from now.

There is the southern rap 808 esq beats. But then with things like Maschine and Battery, who know where the drums are coming from.

I know this track nearly knocked me off my feet


but then there is a 808 in that.

 

[outraygeous]

The dubplate drama tracks? Cheers man, if you liked them then thats dubplate money well spent. Thanks

I see where you going with the chopped up breaks. I dont really like them ones.

Some are good but a lot are so static.

They sound like MPC60 beats and an Akai s900/950

 

[CrowleyHead]

<object height="81" width="100%"><param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/17512346&"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/17512346&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed></object><span><a href="">Main Attrakionz - "Vegetables" From 808s & Dark Grapes II</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/bloglin">Мишка Bloglin</a></span>

To turn the talk away from backpacky retrospectives...

Main Attrakionz still plugging away. It is good to hear them rhyme to a more conventional (albeit a bit boring) rap beat, and not really go in on the record.

 

[DannyL]

Freddie Gibbs killing it. Got a new mixtape out but my fucking iPod is broke - arrgh!

 

[gumdrops]

that oh no track is hard...

that just sounds like sampled drums

but prob more in the style of mid-late 70s drums if its not sampled

i find hip hop drums and drums in general fascinating

 

[outraygeous]

No doubt, its all about the drums, in all genres.

Well programmed drum patterns for the win, or live drums, obviously.

which leads nicely onto

 

[gumdrops]

i need to check out death grips properly. but although i think it could be a better ep shabazz palaces might be my favourite hip hop album so far this year.

i was thinking which other mobb deep albums i like, and well although i couldnt actually think of that many cos after hell on earth i started to lose interest in them a bit, but id prob rank it as 1) infamous, then hell on earth, then murda muzik. after that im not sure. it might go blood money, then infamy, then amerikz nightmare. or they might all just be in joint fourth place. i have soft spot for juvenille hell in the same way i like common's very first album but i have left it out cos infamous is kinda like their first album proper.

 

[gumdrops]

the new killer mike album is decent but i think he needs better beats. if lex luger was producing mike, this could have been immense.

 

[luka]

is he doing his next project with el-p or am i confused? i think he is.....

 

[gumdrops]

el-p and killer mike? weird but could be interesting.

 

[luka]

 

[gumdrops]

id def like to hear that album - could be like a modern cube and bomb squad project if the samples anything to go by - but i think if mike had beats like wacka or gucci mane get his music would be a lot better. i think i just wanna hear him do a hard southern album but one with political lyrics.

 

[daddek]

something about el-p's sound nowadays. its very clear and digital. i read he switched to ableton
be quite nice if he switched back tbh.

I think he has a different engineer too. i mean it sounds "better" technically, more studio. less grime tho.

 

[CrowleyHead]

I think Mike will never rhyme the way we want him to rhyme. In all fairness, the Cube mantle is too beyond him sometimes. (Which is crazy, because I don't like Ice Cube LIKE THAT, but still.)

It's funny, there are so many rappers who fans can recognize their potential greatness in Atlanta (Young Dro is another example) but the rapper themselves never get it.

 

[gumdrops]

the other thing about mike is that - and this could just be cos its a mixtape - he just rants all over the place. i like the anger but ice cube made good *songs* which seems beyond mike.

 

[luka]

crowley told me off last time i posted new g unit but i wont let that discourage me.
lloyd banks!

 

[CrowleyHead]

I just feel like Yayo's the only listenable guy, but Banks still makes 'that record' over and over again. He's good at it. His voice always sounds like he's on a hospital bed recovering from throat surgery though.

Beat's so basic too. NYC really needs to develop a new style, this is something southerners with fruity loops scoff at.

 

[gumdrops]

Beat's so basic too. NYC really needs to develop a new style, this is something southerners with fruity loops scoff at.

i just wanted to say shabazz palaces.

but to be fair NYers prob scoff at all the southern tracks with 808s and handclaps.

its weird i really thought alchemist was creating a new NY sound on certain tracks he was doing a few years back but nothing really came of it. i think its also cos he was just doing a lot of more trad NY sounding beats too so no one really noticed.

like the essence with the lox is like southern trunk rattling drum sounds but made into something east coast and hardcore. but he hasnt done enough songs like that imo.