I was in HMV in Oxford, UK the other day and there is a whole section devoted to hip hop compilations that feature that Westwood (or a variation thereof) bloke on the cover. It was quite a sight and really stood out from the other sections in there. Pure dark colours and cars.
There is a also a fairly narrow rulebook when it comes the videos for hip hop. I find the lack of imagination with these (over several years now) slighty perverse and disturbing. The marketing departments are only interested in sales though and (teenage boys & impressionable girls?) must be buying this shit so I guess they just keep rehashing it and shovelling it into the back of distribution trucks. Surely this must come to an end soon. Doesn't look good for the artists/labels who are licensing their tracks to go on there. Makes a mockery of the true values of the scene imo.
I did however pick up an Stones Throw compilation hidden amongst all that MTV tat that is actually pretty decent:
I can't stand when people do this.
On topic: I think when it comes to house music, I find myself looking for something that has a lot of warm, heavy bass and has an intensity that you find in other dance music genres. This is why I liked 4x4 garage so much: it was summer-y, had that four on the floor, but also had that frenetic energy that makes it hype in a club, which is why it's no surprise that grime emerged out of it.
I should like electro (and do sometimes) because of the big b-lines, but I find it hard to get down with what I find to be a limited palette of sounds. I also am not a fan of big jagged square synths either. The sound does my head in. That Ramirez remix of the Bodyrox tune that they play in the background of every commercial on Rinse FM is really catchy though. You could call that electro right? It's weird to me people call that funky.
I tend to still really enjoy the euphoric, groovy disco-esque shit - is that what you would call funky house if you were actually talking about funky house?