Hip Hop '11
- Thread starter bandshell
- Start date
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
From your list earlier luka I hadn't heard and really like L.E.P. Bogus Boys ft. Gucci - Handlin My Bizness, Big K.R.I.T.'s - Dreaming and Jae Millz - Mean. You also reminded me why I need to get on with getting properly into 'Covert Coup (that beat for ''The Type''!) and the Richboy mixtape ('Street Champs').
I've got that K.R.I.T. tape too, just another one I've never really got into.
edit: Oh, and ''Bussin'' by Trouble is also big big big...
I've got that K.R.I.T. tape too, just another one I've never really got into.
edit: Oh, and ''Bussin'' by Trouble is also big big big...
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Corpsey
bandz ahoy
cheers!
bandshell
Grand High Witch
I always find it strange hearing him on beats other than Dre's, but this is big.
I've always liked Eminem. Got a soft spot for him. The Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers LP's are still great. Been playing them again recently. One of my favourite lyricists. Cracks me up.
kind of in that same kendrick lamar vein right?. like, everyday guy rap, without being overly soft, creative lyrics, mostly smooth but still some more street tracks.. thats the impression i got anyway. Nice but a little overly slick for my preferences, those south producers tend to do the glossy airbrushed studio production thing on more 'musical' projects (eg aquemini), plus his delivery isnt very angular so its like smooth + smooth. Kind of cool how he keeps that choppy gangsta bounce delivery even when he's being introspective and self depreciating. plus i need more everyday rap in my life after so long listening to fantasist* coke rap.
*compared to my average day anyway
i heard that old please stand up tune by eminem in a family cafe the other day, reminded me that he was once one of the most technically excellent rappers
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Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Had on marshall mathers Lp last night on a whim and was astonished by how great some of it still is, especially 'Kill you'..not so much Stan or 'Real Slim Shady' though. They haven't aged well at all.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
You have to admit he was good
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Don't get me wrong I love the old Eminem stuff (Slim Shady EP/LP, Marshall Mathers LP), just nowadays I find the way he flows quite strenuous - in the Slim Shady era he was technically brilliant but he managed to bury the technique somewhat (''The Way I Am'' was maybe the tune that brought back his ''Infinite'' era obsession with multisyllabic patterns back to the forefront, and the ''Renegade'' verse shortly afterwards). Most of his beats post MMLP have been shite too, I like the beat on that new Bad Meets Evil tune though.
Favourite Eminem = Role Model, his appearance on the High and Mighty's ''Last Hit'' (''My nine is lifting ya six feet when I spray rounds, hit you with twelve shots in mid air and four more on the way down... Slim Shady, a perverted version of birth, driving off - leaving the murdered virgin in church, the first person searchin the earth for the motherfucker that pulled the plug when they should have alerted the surgeon first...''), his appearance on Biggie's ''Dead Wrong'' (''I gotta Lion in my pocket, I'm lying I've got a nine in my pocket...'')... He was dazzling in those days, bouncing all over the place like a cartoon character (the voices/personas in ''Criminal'') with that underpinning of technical virtuosity... whereas on ''The Eminem Show'' the technical virtuosity seemed to take over and squeezed out the humour and vivid imagery. He became leaden somehow, too much hard work.
Mind you, I remember having to reload ''White America'' a couple of times the first time I heard it, despite the nu-metal histrionics and ''I'm a voice of a generation'' self-crucification schtick. ''Lyrics lyrics constant controversy sponsors working round the clock to try stop my concerts early, surely hip-hop was never a problem in harlem only in boston after it bothered the fathers of daughters starting to blossom...'' - doesn't look great typed out but when I first heard it it was almost head-spinning.
Here's an interesting (though extremely contentious) article by Armond White about Eminem, essentially taking the line that his music is worthless/evil.
Favourite Eminem = Role Model, his appearance on the High and Mighty's ''Last Hit'' (''My nine is lifting ya six feet when I spray rounds, hit you with twelve shots in mid air and four more on the way down... Slim Shady, a perverted version of birth, driving off - leaving the murdered virgin in church, the first person searchin the earth for the motherfucker that pulled the plug when they should have alerted the surgeon first...''), his appearance on Biggie's ''Dead Wrong'' (''I gotta Lion in my pocket, I'm lying I've got a nine in my pocket...'')... He was dazzling in those days, bouncing all over the place like a cartoon character (the voices/personas in ''Criminal'') with that underpinning of technical virtuosity... whereas on ''The Eminem Show'' the technical virtuosity seemed to take over and squeezed out the humour and vivid imagery. He became leaden somehow, too much hard work.
Mind you, I remember having to reload ''White America'' a couple of times the first time I heard it, despite the nu-metal histrionics and ''I'm a voice of a generation'' self-crucification schtick. ''Lyrics lyrics constant controversy sponsors working round the clock to try stop my concerts early, surely hip-hop was never a problem in harlem only in boston after it bothered the fathers of daughters starting to blossom...'' - doesn't look great typed out but when I first heard it it was almost head-spinning.
Here's an interesting (though extremely contentious) article by Armond White about Eminem, essentially taking the line that his music is worthless/evil.
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Corpsey
bandz ahoy
This from last year is great, too - Eminem, Royce and Mr. Porter (aka. Kon Artis of D-12) with Alchemist 'DJing' on Westwood.
this one too.
this one too.
luka
Well-known member
both 12 diamonds and covert coup deserve to be listned to from start to finish, multiple times.
in terems of big krits personna you could compare him to lamar i suppose but musically he is coming from a different place. specifically dungeon family.... its something that probably works better as an album than stand alone songs. it doesnt beat you over the head lik som lex luger type thing...
heres another video from trouble. this doesn't have someone toting huge illegal gun in it though.
in terems of big krits personna you could compare him to lamar i suppose but musically he is coming from a different place. specifically dungeon family.... its something that probably works better as an album than stand alone songs. it doesnt beat you over the head lik som lex luger type thing...
heres another video from trouble. this doesn't have someone toting huge illegal gun in it though.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Trouble vid/tune is brilliant, seems somehow weird how him and Alley Boy (Duct Tape) are simultaneously the scariest gangsta/rappers around and yet make such emotive and heart-felt stuff about their outward and inward struggles. I suppose this might actually be down to the fact that they are living the life, as opposed to someone like - say - Rick Ross who glamorises the gangster lifestyle while reputedly being unconnected to it. But then, 50 seemed pretty 'real' in that respect and didn't really make tunes like 'World Goes Round' and 'Lift The Load' so who knows?
Funnily enough, was just wondering if Alley Boy/Trouble has any connection with Z-Ro (who flaunts his misery/pain all the time) and found this tune on Noz's tumblr. Reminds me of what luka said about Boosie being comparable to a Delta blues singer - perhaps the blues tradition informs southern rap in a unique way?
Funnily enough, was just wondering if Alley Boy/Trouble has any connection with Z-Ro (who flaunts his misery/pain all the time) and found this tune on Noz's tumblr. Reminds me of what luka said about Boosie being comparable to a Delta blues singer - perhaps the blues tradition informs southern rap in a unique way?
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Probably cos he makes abysmal emo-rap tunes with Rhianna nowadays.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Wasn't it always thus? Apart from Nas, there's no rapper comes close to Eminem in terms of the gaping chasm between the quality of his raps and (lack of) quality of his tunes.
or between rap technique and lyrical content. his content is corny, always was.
corny can still be engaging, sometimes, in short bursts.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Yeah his best stuff is, content-wise, purely cartoonish, which isn't really a problem on a verse-by-verse basis. It's just the old bragadaccio/show'n'prove thing flipped more grotesquely and outlandishly than usual.
It's true, though, that the near-constant facetiousness of his classic music (coupled with the pop-culture references and sometimes so-so production) means that it doesn't seem as durable/lasting. I think he played up the sore-thumb aspect of him being white (the bleached hair, his voice - which has altered quite significantly over the years, the cultural references, talking about taking mushrooms and going to raves etc.) in that early stage to such an extent that his music never seemed 'serious', but really I much preferred that to the later stuff which was all self-pity, melodrama, chest-beating etc.
Going through old freestyles of his on youtube it seems like that was the perfect format for Slim Shady era Eminem (this was also true for Canibus, I suppose) - short, technically dazzling and funny verses in which nothing is really required of the rapper except showing they've got skills. Also nice to hear the hosts cracking up in the background, a bit like a laughter track in a sitcom.
''but I would like an award, for being the best rapper to get one mic in the source... everybody's pissin' me off, even the no limit tank looks like a middle finger turned sideways flippin' me off''
Anyway, suppose this is fairly irrelevant to Hip-Hop '11, except for the fact that Em still sells gigabillions of records.
It's true, though, that the near-constant facetiousness of his classic music (coupled with the pop-culture references and sometimes so-so production) means that it doesn't seem as durable/lasting. I think he played up the sore-thumb aspect of him being white (the bleached hair, his voice - which has altered quite significantly over the years, the cultural references, talking about taking mushrooms and going to raves etc.) in that early stage to such an extent that his music never seemed 'serious', but really I much preferred that to the later stuff which was all self-pity, melodrama, chest-beating etc.
Going through old freestyles of his on youtube it seems like that was the perfect format for Slim Shady era Eminem (this was also true for Canibus, I suppose) - short, technically dazzling and funny verses in which nothing is really required of the rapper except showing they've got skills. Also nice to hear the hosts cracking up in the background, a bit like a laughter track in a sitcom.
''but I would like an award, for being the best rapper to get one mic in the source... everybody's pissin' me off, even the no limit tank looks like a middle finger turned sideways flippin' me off''
Anyway, suppose this is fairly irrelevant to Hip-Hop '11, except for the fact that Em still sells gigabillions of records.
