Road Rap
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Corpsey
bandz ahoy
This is true but it wasn't the case with grime, or it doesn't seem like it. Wiley, Trim, D Double, Doogz etc. - all of them had distinctive voices, flows, attacks. I wonder why that was? I mean I'm sure there were/are plenty of generic grime MCs who sounded identikit but the top dogs all sounded like nobody else but themselves. And they all came from London, many from the same postal code.
Again, I can't really chat about road rap much cos I've heard so little, but I don't really hear that stylistic variety and vibrancy in it, from a rapping perspective. I wonder if its not so much to do with an english sense of false modesty or social restraint as it is to do with the idolising of a sort of humourless macho coldness? I dunno, it seems quite generic... in thrall to an American blueprint, perhaps.
On the other hand I do think the ridiculously big characters you get in US rap is something to do with the culture of America - the showbiz, consumerist, larger-than-life side of it. You can't imagine Gucci Mane or anyone like him coming out of London, can you?
slackk
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Nah they're not all the same, don't really think that applies tbh Corpsey. Just look at the contrast between Danger Da Realist & Fix Dot'm, for example.
I'll post some stuff up tomorrow, there are a lot of stylistic differences between the good rappers- just haven't got it in me to do it right now to be honest. Too tired
I'll post some stuff up tomorrow, there are a lot of stylistic differences between the good rappers- just haven't got it in me to do it right now to be honest. Too tired
That J Spades guy is good in that video above. Listened to a couple of his Youtubes but they just don't seem as compelling to me. I do wonder why I find most of this stuff a turn off - too close to home maybe(weird seeing someone talk about areas I frequent with US derived trap slang)? Something about the voices? Lack of emphasis on lyrical skills? It's funny, in that vid everyone goes crazy when he drops a good image or metaphor, yet this lyrical showboating doesn't seem as built into the music as with US hip hop.
outraygeous
Well-known member
UK Road Rap is hard to call it UK seeing as most of the slang/beats/imagery are borrowed from the states
Calling places traphouses or the trap, shotting on the strip and a controversial one and perhaps where im out of touch is young black kids talking about moving large amounts of coke.
Again, I am probably wrong but from experience, the coke trade in London is a mainly white affair based around pubs? When I were a lad, my black mates wouldnt go into pubs. This was a while back so things have probably changed?
Its all predictive punch line bars and slow delivery where any rapper can be subbed for another one. Anyway, I know shit about the kids these days. They let youtube teach them and think everything is illuminati
Calling places traphouses or the trap, shotting on the strip and a controversial one and perhaps where im out of touch is young black kids talking about moving large amounts of coke.
Again, I am probably wrong but from experience, the coke trade in London is a mainly white affair based around pubs? When I were a lad, my black mates wouldnt go into pubs. This was a while back so things have probably changed?
Its all predictive punch line bars and slow delivery where any rapper can be subbed for another one. Anyway, I know shit about the kids these days. They let youtube teach them and think everything is illuminati
rubberdingyrapids
Well-known member
http://www.factmag.com/2012/04/27/e...uncertain-future-of-the-hardcore-continuum/1/
hmm. i just see road rap as the new uk hip hop, just more gangsta. sure, theres similiarities with grime, but only in that its a uk/london rap scene, so of course some of the same settings in videos and slang in lyrics are going to crop up. but for all that people took the piss out of older ukhh, road rap is basically its new generation, with a similar degree of faithfulness to the US original. ukhh has basically been dead/momentum-less for a while, road rap has come along and revitalised it, with grime as a bit of an inspiration, if one road rap guys dont respect (cos theyre hip hop to the core!). theres WAY more in common between someone like klashnekoff and giggs than giggs and wiley.
hmm. i just see road rap as the new uk hip hop, just more gangsta. sure, theres similiarities with grime, but only in that its a uk/london rap scene, so of course some of the same settings in videos and slang in lyrics are going to crop up. but for all that people took the piss out of older ukhh, road rap is basically its new generation, with a similar degree of faithfulness to the US original. ukhh has basically been dead/momentum-less for a while, road rap has come along and revitalised it, with grime as a bit of an inspiration, if one road rap guys dont respect (cos theyre hip hop to the core!). theres WAY more in common between someone like klashnekoff and giggs than giggs and wiley.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I have opinions, but most of them involve my conjecture about the UK, so it's probably invalid?
That said, since there's a lot more Ragga influence with a lot of these guys than in the US, grime and Road Rap have some parallels. Road Rap is a lot more about diversity, whereas US Rap is very based on region, not ethnic background.
That said, since there's a lot more Ragga influence with a lot of these guys than in the US, grime and Road Rap have some parallels. Road Rap is a lot more about diversity, whereas US Rap is very based on region, not ethnic background.
rubberdingyrapids
Well-known member
well sure theres going to be some parallells between RR and grime and some of the same influences just cos of where theyre both from. but if youve listened to any of the main ukhh artists from over the years, and im talking from the late 80s through to present day, theres always been JA/dancehall influence in a lot of the rappers. not really hard to find.
the only angle for inserting road rap into an argument about the numm IMO is to argue the idea that its sucking up some of the talent that previously would have gone into grime. i dont know how many ex-grime guys have gone into road rap (any?) or whether hip hop guys that previously would have jumped on grime cos it was hot are now going into road rap but far as i know, most road rap mcs are and have been hip hop to the core, and while you had a few hip hop scene jumpers in grime, most of them had backgrounds in rave MCing. also, grime was already going down a non-grime route before road rap. road rap just came along and took it one further. but arguably did it better, as these guys are so steeped in hip-hop so didnt have to struggle with a lot of the things grime mcs did when making that turn. and as far as old fashioned hype-the-rave mcs, there still seems to be mcs who are happy to do that. so the fear that mc talent is only filtering into road rap is probably unnecessary. grime was already on its knees before road rap got that big.
if you want to argue road rap is stealing potential production talent away from something 'nuumy' like funky, well if you listen to a recent marcus nasty show, theres still a lot of talent from a lot of the same areas making funky! so umm, i dunno.
the only angle for inserting road rap into an argument about the numm IMO is to argue the idea that its sucking up some of the talent that previously would have gone into grime. i dont know how many ex-grime guys have gone into road rap (any?) or whether hip hop guys that previously would have jumped on grime cos it was hot are now going into road rap but far as i know, most road rap mcs are and have been hip hop to the core, and while you had a few hip hop scene jumpers in grime, most of them had backgrounds in rave MCing. also, grime was already going down a non-grime route before road rap. road rap just came along and took it one further. but arguably did it better, as these guys are so steeped in hip-hop so didnt have to struggle with a lot of the things grime mcs did when making that turn. and as far as old fashioned hype-the-rave mcs, there still seems to be mcs who are happy to do that. so the fear that mc talent is only filtering into road rap is probably unnecessary. grime was already on its knees before road rap got that big.
if you want to argue road rap is stealing potential production talent away from something 'nuumy' like funky, well if you listen to a recent marcus nasty show, theres still a lot of talent from a lot of the same areas making funky! so umm, i dunno.
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outraygeous
Well-known member
Piff Gang rep UK Road Rap to the world
How do you feel about that?
How do you feel about that?
that was my angle!
rubberdingyrapids
Well-known member
sure, but it wasnt always like that. like i said, RR is of course a 100 times more gangsta, but thats just cos US rap has gone down that route. whats left of UKHH is basically like whats left of US underground rap in proportion to the rest of hip hop in the US. but my point was that RR is basically the same deal as UKHH: faithful replication of the source, but with just enough of a twist on that which makes it a bit more london/uk. musically, it just has way more in common with ukhh than grime. the attitude of most road rap guys to grime is basically the same one ukhh artists had/have. so imo, road rap is the latest development of the british hip-hop continuum, not the hardcore continuum.
road rap prob is sucking up talent that would previously had to have gone into grime, just cos grime was already moving towards something less dance-music based for years, road rap has just gone all the way with it. it seems the natural conclusion of that move towards the mc as artist. if you want to rap, most rappers who take themselves seriously (ie most of them) dont want to do it fast. they want to make hip hop. and maybe you could argue that dance music isnt really the sound of the streets anymore (though saying that, grime lost its popularity year on year didnt it?) - dubstep and post dubstep are more white and middle class arguably.
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slackk
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The thing that seems to have been missed with this discussion of rap and it's relation to the "nuum" is that all the road rap stuff really stems from South as opposed to East, where there has always been more of a rap thing anyway. Yes, there are rappers from East, but it's predominantly a South thing and if you look back to the likes of PDC etc, there's an actual lineage of street rap being a strong thing in Brixton and Peckham etc as opposed to this conceptual view that rap has separated London from the alleged path it should be on.
Really what's happened is that pockets of MCs have jumped on what South's been doing for years. These are the people who would have MC'd on grime and are instead spitting on rap beats in the absence of an active grime scene, which really only exists on twitter now as far as MCs go.
(Obviously the instrumental thing is doing very well, but it's not really "grime" in any traditional sense without loads of sets all over the place and crews of MCs)
As for grime MCs jumping on the rap thing, there are loads of them who used to spit on grime who do the rap thing now- Rugrat, Youngs Teflon (formerly Y.O.), even the likes of Chronik - and you can see that same influence, I think, going across onto the grime MCs who are still allegedly making grime. They're spitting over trap influenced beats far more than they are anything that's doing well on the instrumental side of grime.
But yeah, there are loads of genuinely good MCs and producers on this rap thing- and interesting things happening- but you only really see any vague press for the ones who've been picked up by management and have vague PR backing like Sneakbo or K-Koke, which is a shame I think.
People like Fekky, Blade, Youngs Teflon etc- they've put out genuinely great tapes in the last year I think, but in terms of media coverage etc, no-one's really trying.
Youngs Teflon especially, he's got about eight tapes out now and they're all brilliant- far better ratio than grime mixtapes ever managed bar possibly the Soul Food ones.
Didn't mean to type this much.
Really what's happened is that pockets of MCs have jumped on what South's been doing for years. These are the people who would have MC'd on grime and are instead spitting on rap beats in the absence of an active grime scene, which really only exists on twitter now as far as MCs go.
(Obviously the instrumental thing is doing very well, but it's not really "grime" in any traditional sense without loads of sets all over the place and crews of MCs)
As for grime MCs jumping on the rap thing, there are loads of them who used to spit on grime who do the rap thing now- Rugrat, Youngs Teflon (formerly Y.O.), even the likes of Chronik - and you can see that same influence, I think, going across onto the grime MCs who are still allegedly making grime. They're spitting over trap influenced beats far more than they are anything that's doing well on the instrumental side of grime.
But yeah, there are loads of genuinely good MCs and producers on this rap thing- and interesting things happening- but you only really see any vague press for the ones who've been picked up by management and have vague PR backing like Sneakbo or K-Koke, which is a shame I think.
People like Fekky, Blade, Youngs Teflon etc- they've put out genuinely great tapes in the last year I think, but in terms of media coverage etc, no-one's really trying.
Youngs Teflon especially, he's got about eight tapes out now and they're all brilliant- far better ratio than grime mixtapes ever managed bar possibly the Soul Food ones.
Didn't mean to type this much.
yeah, so i got this sense but what was confusing for me was that so many MCs in that Mashtown vid were repping east or NW. i know it's only one data point but it made me want to avoid saying 'it's just south'.
well this is always what happens, most journalists, esp the big ones, only listen to what they are sent. not sure that will ever change. so it's up to underground journalists and bloggers to lead the way on this.
so i'd like to openly invite you to write a "10 must have" road rap mixtapes feature for my blog slackk. go on, you know you're the only one who can do it!
outraygeous
Well-known member
if you youtube PDC there is a video from 5 years ago where PDC and USG team up.
I guess they must know each other from some road stuff? Stonebridge is a long way from south
I dont think the USG guys were ever gonna be on grime, location must play a huge part on if you aim to get in pirate radio and spit on grime or make mixtape and sell it in the hood?
I guess they must know each other from some road stuff? Stonebridge is a long way from south
I dont think the USG guys were ever gonna be on grime, location must play a huge part on if you aim to get in pirate radio and spit on grime or make mixtape and sell it in the hood?
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I think the biggest potential is that grime guys are actually leaving grime to make trap music because they've been shuffled about and ignored. Like this one Yung Meth track I keep returning to that Jamie Vex'd used on one of his mixes is produced by Virgo, but it's basically in the pseudo-3-6-Mafia vein, absolutely NOTHING to do with grime. It's good too, which makes me wonder if more of the people who got edged out of grime because they weren't where they needed to be after grime sort of exhausted itself, will turn to road rap beyond the rappers. Kind of like how Castro's comeback really seems to have more in common with Road Rap than Grime (which isn't that vast a transition for him, but you see).