anyway, as far as challenging the theory about how old it is, its bollocks IMO. just cos they had some rhyming text back in the bible or koran doesnt mean thats a genuine 'precursor' to rapping. that just means there was some poetry there.
He did seem to know more than you when it came down to it re: "35 Years." He made a very convincing argument: there are many people who in a broad way will trace hip-hop/rap all the way back to the Bible (this is a very literary hip-hop hermeneutics), but in general it is accepted that there is a time about 35 years ago when certain artists with all of these elements that go into the most common accepted formal definition of "hip-hop" emerged.
Big deal! He challenged you to challenge his definition and you didn't!
Bad argument. Grime is a purely British music form so the only way to compare to Hip Hop is in it's origins in the inner city during a time of turmoil and that it's an urban youth culture. After that, Hip Hop and Grime have little in common besides the fact that Hip Hop sort of influences it.
Oh yeah...The first element of hip hop started in 1968/69 and by 1972 all four elements (Grafitti, B-Boying, DJ'ing and Emceeing) were all in existence. This makes Hip Hop 35 years old as of this year....not 30. One.
Hm? I personally like what most people would call gansta rap. But you can't get past this "preachy" element in hip-hop culture if you listen to KRS One and Eric B&R. Sorry, but it's there. Has nothing to do with me, or what I like, or whether I'm liberal.
Where are you from, Gumdrops?
I've heard lots of people challenge Herc as the founder of hip-hop, because in the US, hip-hop culture sprang up very organically, simultaneously around a lot of phenomena. It wasn't as if there was "a" founder of hip-hop, so I understand why PD goes to the four elements...
im from london but my parents are south asian.
i wasnt talking about rappers like KRS or rakim. i was thinking more about popular rappers today, not in the early 90s. you cant say jeezy or TI or someone are simply educating white kids about the inner city experience. theyre not merely 'reporting' on it anymore (as if they ever were), theyre largely celebrating the more 'unsavoury' aspects of it.
that's the same as saying that the beatles existed in 1945, because all four beatles were already born. A thing only exists when it exists as such, not when it's parts exist, but it itself doesnt
i'd never say TI or jeezy were. i'd say the artists polz was listing were. and jeezy and TI still know more about living in the ghetto than I do, so i'll have to defer to them on that...
i think it's extremely literal-minded to see new bling-culture as fully celebratory, but that conversation is not worth having to me, since non-Americans almost never understand the ambivalnce Americans feel about these things (violence in media, etc.) not worth it.
So you want to define the beginning of hip-hop entirely formally? Ok. Good for you. I wouldn't, and most Americans I know wouldn't either...
[HIP HOP IS A RHIZOME]
no, lets say that everything already exists for hundreds, even thousands of years, and that todays manifestations are only one face of an everchanging same, that's really helpful when you want to make things clear and meaningful
Yes, and hip-hop is American music. Just because Jeezy sings in a sensationalized way about the problems in the ghetto doesn't mean that he's wholeheartedly trying to "promote" them.
oh for the love of god, selling crack is a HUGE REAL PROBLEM in the inner city. singing about how enticing it is for young men in the ghetto who don't feel or see any other way out, any other way to get money, to start selling, and rapping about that reality from the perspective of someone who has given in to the pressure, is not the same as sitting and telling people "i suggest you go sell crack." that's so literal and stupid.
Get ya hustle on, nigga get ya hustle on [4X]
We take the Pyrex and then we rock with it, roll with it
Take the Pyrex and then we rock with it, roll with it!
We take the Pyrex and then we rock with it, roll with it
Take the Pyrex and then we rock with it, roll with it!
Then you read interviews with Jeezy though and they're just really depressing, he comes across - stating quite emphatically - that he's just really depressed and paranoid and totally doomed, and it certainly lends the over-the-top soul celebration of his music a different power. I wish I liked his voice cos he can pick tunes. He's a funny one, that one, I'd like to hear him singing.