REAL TRAP (/ TRVP) SHIT (SHITE?) 2013

[CrowleyHead]

i find this quite sad, still like most things i blame it solely on the internet, guys like odd future and the whole asap rocky clan were dreamt up by some complex reading, rapgenius contributing a&r

Hang on, hang on, I have to make a huge disambiguation.

A) Odd Future are essentially kids with lower-middle-class background who aren't typical of the rap continuum, and a self-contained entity.

B) Raider Klan was the fantasy exploits of an unusual kid from an actually rough part of Florida (Raider Klan didn't actually exist beyond Purrp's brain until after he left NYC)

C) That description of A$AP is on the mark.

Also, aside from A$AP, who are at least 1/2 male fashion models turned rappers, none of this has much to do with 'trap'. (Though watching kids make 'trap' records who are, in fact, "citizens", is frustrating enough when their 'manager who's not a manger' acts like they are innocent of profiting off the artistic struggles of people in poor communities.)

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

haha. i suppose HE cant know that consciously, but keef is a longline product/benefactor of the 'dont need to try' school of rap (even if he does have *something* about him). its weird, when i hear keef or the drill artists, they really remind me of old grime. they all have that sort of pinched, teenage, out-to-be-heard timbre/energy. the sonics remind me lots of grime too (young chop is seriously talented imo).

 

[CrowleyHead]

TBH, most of the real energy in rap isn't from these older 'trap' artists anymore. It's located in the people Keef's age in Chicago, or the post-Future teens in ATL like Kwony Cash, Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, Ca$h Out, Travis Porter, and to a significantly lesser but still respectable degree, the post-jerk/hyphy kids who've been grouped together as 'ratchet'. (Lil' B and Main Attrakionz are actually part of this group, but because of stupid blog politics and the indie-leanings of a key group of their fanbase, they don't get put in the same cloth. ASAP/OF/Raider are admittedly NOT of this grouping, for differing reasons).

I'd bombard us with examples, but I think I'll move that over to the Hip-Hop thread just for continuity sake.

 

[soloist]

^Lil B transcends genres.

The issue with this whole trap "wave" it's bastardized actual "trap" (i.e. gucci, waka, etc..) and sparked a whole new sub genre that is, yes, loosely based (in some forms at least) to the actual trap that it's named after (another negative). I remember back around April of last year when that RL Grime EP came out and I was a big fan of it and I still am, and reading in interviews him being inspired by dudes like Lex and such, and in my head I thought it should be cool to have some more experimental bangers that stems from the same vibe as a good Zaytoven/Lex (etc..) instrumental.

What actually happened is essentially what happened to dub-step as many of you are aware. A complete disregard of where the sound came from and the creation of a template for a sound that is completely over saturated, overdone, and just plain bad music in my opinion.

History seems to just repeat itself though, but there is still good actual "trap" music coming out these days, i.e. Chief Keef and Young Chop (the chicago scene basically) and I'm still waiting for Gucci's Manes album to drop.

 

[Leo]

crazyass degrees of separation:
the sample "do the harlem shake" is from an obscure 2001 single, spoken by a philadelphia rapper named jayson musson...who, as it turns out, is the guy now known as hennessy youngman who does those awesome "art thoughtz" videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/HennesyYoungman)!

details on his and another artists' attempt to get some of baauer's royalties is here:
Surprise Hit Was a Shock for Artists Heard on It
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/a...l=1&adxnnlx=1363019540-9QTrk+GpgZO7jP1YnE8zww

 

[trilliam]

not rele talking about trap anymore

"What actually happened is essentially what happened to dub-step as many of you are aware. A complete disregard of where the sound came from and the creation of a template for a sound that is completely over saturated, overdone, and just plain bad music in my opinion."

ima quote this for truth said it numerous times in so many words but maybe it will have more effect coming from this guy

"if purity ever existed"

ima assume this is rhetorical as this cannot be something u genuinely question

"keef might be authentic but idk if im comfortable with using that as a measure of his greatnes"

i dnt think anyone especially not me is trying to follow this line of thought

"A) Odd Future are essentially kids with lower-middle-class background who aren't typical of the rap continuum, and a self-contained entity."

lower/middle class isn't that the atypical background

the market that they catered too/aimed for/appealed to the most played just as big if not bigger part in their success as their music (talent is no measure for fame) did, and obviously the success of this image and the potential of this market was not lost on a&rs (see asap rocky)

"stupid blog politics and the indie-leanings of a key group of their fanbase"

sickening rele how this kind of pitchfork shit has invaded rap, asap rocky and odd future were a part of that group until they blew up when u boil it down. ima assume ur not using 'rachet' is some kind of musical term or type of social group either for benefit of a doubts sake

"^Lil B transcends genres"

there's obvious explanations for this, imogen heap samples is one of them.

disc: i am not saying lil b, asap rocky, or odd future are bad rappers, or that they dnt deserve to be famous or maybe even applauded for being able to tap into something that resonates with a lot of people, just that unfortunately mainstream rap is very much a follow the leader thing and once labels see a potential "formula" they bleed it until it's dry (even rappers are guilty of this, the rise in early kanye west "everyman" lyricists, drake imitators, even flows bares the proof) and that this current "formula" is not doing anything for the art form, rather it's alienating a lot of it's core/original audience. trinidad james has a record contract because of this kind of shit.

anyway the only reason i addressed the above was so i could post this
50 Cent Says Hip Hop Has Become "This Little Hipster Thing"

 

[soloist]

I have actually been a member of the forum that Tyler used to post on and to be fair to him/the rest of OF they have essentially been the same people. The annoying thing about hip hop these days is that there are these tumblr driven "niche" rappers that aren't at all very good, just appealing (to mostly hipsters/young folks) at a superficial level.

I'm not really sure how to feel about this, at one end it's just a product of culture and how humans work in the modern day and how media is shared, and at the other end it's just an illustration of how mindless people really are, people who just tend to "like" what is relevant at the time. But I don't think that's too be confused with pop music. It does get quite annoying though when every white guy in the party is asking you if you like Kendrick Lamar and Asap Rocky though.

Not sure if any of this is trap related though seeing as none of the above really make trap music.

Lil B >

 

[UFO over easy]

my comment was as much about issues way larger than trap (urban segregation, access to higher education, etc) anyway, don't wanna get o/t tho

i don't think that's o/t at all

seeing as we've been talking about authenticity and 50 cent has said his piece


from 4 mins - "once you become part of the machinery of an advanced technological capitalism questions of authenticity become totally stupid and meaningless, because it's not anything that you can speak of anymore as indiginous. it doesn't have a marginal location anymore, so you can't talk about it as authentic to that marginal location, because it's simply not there. it is 'authentic' to what it is."

2013 edition would be interesting

 

[trilliam]

im done here

 

[UFO over easy]

"annual sales of rap music exceed 700 million dollars!"

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

seeing as we've been talking about authenticity

supposedly white, middle-class appropriation of supposedly, authentically black, urban, lower-middle class music

obviously that's a big oversimplification, things are always more complicated than that. at the same time it's not entirely untrue either, even if appropriation is less crude and more nebulous that it was in 1989 or 1965 or whenever. either way I'm not interested in authenticity rulings, nor in a position to make them anyway. all I really meant was that this

the audience for lex luger, bauuer, diplo and waka flocka can't be separated

is dead wrong. it confuses overlapping audiences with a single amorphous mass and in doing so obscures real differences (geography, race, class, etc) that still both exist and matter. talking about consumption patterns, access to media, and so forth. as usual noz's insight on the topic is much better than mine tho, so here it is

"I've talked to more than a few folks in both the music and publishing industries who will swear up and down that this demographic doesn't exist at all any more, that the tastes of all young music consumers have dissolved into a multicultural Tumblr-feed blur. But then most of these people haven't ridden a city bus in the 21st century, where kids are always rapping to themselves. This is precisely the sort of underrepresentation that rap fans are subject to now that they don't have the buying power on their side"

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

also, just on an influences of trap on grime tip, here's Royal-T complaining about this 2 years (!!) ago

Orangeade’ is just me having complete fun with grime without having to parade it as dubstep or ‘trap music’ in disguise. I just made the grime I think we all used to and still do love to hear. I made ‘1UP,’ ‘Hot Ones,’ my ‘Air Bubble Remix’ [original by Terror Danjah] all with the same vibe. It was my sort of statement to the scene about us nearly forgetting our sound. ‘Orangeade’ came about because Teddy mentioned on Twitter that ‘the best grime tune around at the moment is Gucci Mane’s ‘Lemonade’ instrumental.’ I just thought ‘eff this’ and ‘Orangeade’ was born"

not that it's all bad or producers can't do what they want or anything, I just thought that was interesting

 

[UFO over easy]

obviously that's a big oversimplification, things are always more complicated than that.

is dead wrong. it confuses overlapping audiences with a single amorphous mass and in doing so obscures real differences (geography, race, class, etc) that still both exist and matter. talking about consumption patterns, access to media, and so forth

yep, sorry - my post was overly flippant - really just an excuse to post that video because i thought it was interesting to come across a piece of cultural criticism like that from that time period which addresses some of these same issues

 

[Elijah]

also, just on an influences of trap on grime tip, here's Royal-T complaining about this 2 years (!!) ago



not that it's all bad or producers can't do what they want or anything, I just thought that was interesting

Its influence on Grime was for different reasons though. Was to make space for vocals as sets basically werent happening anymore. Everything was track based. When Orangeade was made there were no Grime nights at all. That had effect on the music too.

 

[huffafc]

is dead wrong. it confuses overlapping audiences with a single amorphous mass and in doing so obscures real differences (geography, race, class, etc) that still both exist and matter. talking about consumption patterns, access to media, and so forth. as usual noz's insight on the topic is much better than mine tho, so here it is

fair enough, i was being polemical and overly reductive there. i certainly agree that within audiences for any given music (anything really) there are important economic, geographic, political etc etc differences. I would never say that music consumers have dissolved into a "multicultural Tumblr-feed blur."
And, there are many instances (see much of diplo's career) of one-sided appropriation of music produced and fostered in one community taken and cashed in on (culturally and economically) by another more powerful community.

but, with regards to this question, specifically with regards to trap music and it's edm transformation, I just don't see this dynamic. For two reasons, one because the biggest artists associated with trap (waka, gucci, lex) have been firmly installed in popular culture for quite some time now. This is just american/global pop music at this point. If there was an appropriation of trap, it happened well before tnght came along, and brick squad and warner bros. were big parts of it. Two, as I've already argued, regardless of background, the persona of the authentic rapper is a performance that, in order to be effective, speaks a language developed within American mainstream pop culture, it's no more disruptive than being a rebellious rock star was when that was still a viable thing.

Hip-hop is one of the most dominant genres of music in the world. I don't see anything inherently wrong with anyone parodying, ripping off or remaking it.

At the same time, are there complex and very problematic ways in which fantasies of poor, black rebelliousness are being referenced in edm-trap to add to its emotional pull (in a way that Said, Spivak or hooks might have something to say about..)? Absolutely! But the same thing is happening in the ways in which artists like waka and gucci are marketed to, well, everyone. As I discussed in my previous post, there's a long history here, and neither side of trap is outside of it.

Also this is interesting. red bull music academy is kind of a hotbed for edm-trap kinds of phenomena...
Chief Keef headlining with Baauer and rl grime (sponsored by ray ban). what's really really real?: http://boilerroom.tv/ray-ban

 

[Sectionfive]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/mar/13/harlem-shake-internet-killing-sampling

It didn't take long for Baauer, AKA Brooklyn producer Harry Bauer Rodrigues, to realise the downside of freak success. Almost as soon as his bass-heavy minimalist dance track Harlem Shake was propelled to the top of the Billboard charts last month by a viral dance craze and a change in chart rules that took into account YouTube views he was contacted by representatives for retired reggaeton artist Hector Delgado and Philadelphia MC Jayson Musson. Without realising it, both men were collaborators on a hit. It was Delgado who sang "Con los terroristas" on his 2006 single Maldades, and Musson who rapped "Do the Harlem Shake!" on Miller Time, a 2001 track by his group Plastic Little. Both vocal hooks were fundamental to the success of Baauer's record but neither performer had been approached or paid

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

as far as grime, darq e freaker does this kind of stuff well. grime producers' trap>>>'trap' (ie edm trap) producers' trap.

 

[Secundus]

as far as grime, darq e freaker does this kind of stuff well. grime producers' trap>>>'trap' (ie edm trap) producers' trap.

yeah it works a lot better when its grime producers swapping grime percussion for lex luger snares and 808s vs brostep/trance producers tossing lex snares and southern rap samples around the same music they've always been making

 

[jackjambie]

just heard the presenters talking about trap on Radio 1.

they read out the definition from urban dictionary and everything. context was iggy azalea's new single being described as "a bit trappy"

nothing cringey about that....

 

[jorge]

Jackmaster and Kode 9 were playing loads of this stuff when I saw them the other night. I do quite enjoy the tunes, especially when dropped at the right time but they played a bit too much for me tbh. Loads of people started moshing aswell which I really dont enjoy at that kind of party, too many sweaty men pushing each other around. The same happens with dubstep here aswell tho.