Hip-Hop 2012

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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Pandiculate said:
Is Kendrick Lamar's album any good? That track is amazing
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It's got good songs... Kendrick's album suffers from his attempt to make his album a lot more than it is. Some songs are brilliant: "ADHD", "Tammy's Song", "The Spiteful Chant", but other songs are either too malformed in their preachiness or he tries too hard to emulate Kanye's MBDTF. He actually routinely starts doing Pusha-T's flow on several tracks, and there's dozens of singers on bridges, and dramatic sounds...

He's an amazing rapper, but his ambition is his biggest foe. It's hard for him to understand that his greatest strength is that he's an amazing rapper, and the more he lets THAT be the focus, the better.
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
I posted it, but nobody reacted.

OF is in a really interesting flux point. There's been such a huge demand to shift the attention onto the more R&B and disarming side of them in recent months (The Internet, Frank), that nobody's addressed their rapping. The song has a lot of great rapping from Tyler and Hodgy (Domo Genesis will always and forever more be hot garbage), and the beat is fun. Video's absurd, but hey.
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
CrowleyHead said:
It's got good songs... Kendrick's album suffers from his attempt to make his album a lot more than it is. Some songs are brilliant: "ADHD", "Tammy's Song", "The Spiteful Chant", but other songs are either too malformed in their preachiness or he tries too hard to emulate Kanye's MBDTF. He actually routinely starts doing Pusha-T's flow on several tracks, and there's dozens of singers on bridges, and dramatic sounds...

He's an amazing rapper, but his ambition is his biggest foe. It's hard for him to understand that his greatest strength is that he's an amazing rapper, and the more he lets THAT be the focus, the better.
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I don't know man. I disagree with this. I think Section 80 is an amazing album, precisely because of it's ambition. For him to focus on just "being a rapper" (amazing or otherwise) would be a tragic diminution of a fantastic talent. The beats, the concept, just the hunger behind that ambition. I think that album is hard as fuck. I could go track by track why I like it so much, but I'll spare you. Well, just a few points - the range of the moods that the beats move through is incredible from slamming (the drop on "No Make Up" is when I knew I was sure the album was gonna be fucking great) to smoky melancholy ("Poe' mans dream & Kush and Corinthians). To me, the rapping sits right in with all this, and adds to the conceptual focus and musical range and extends them. Isolating him just down to just a "skilful lyricist" or whatever is missing out a hellvua lot.
 
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CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Maybe it's me, but a lot of the beats on that album are crap, save for a few. He is an incredibly technical rapper with a versatile nature that deserves music that pushes him. So to hear the majority of those beats, and the cheesy hooks, I was just not having it for the most part.

Also, he literally uses Pusha-T's flow at least 4 times on that album, which is UNBEARABLE for me when you weigh in how much he wanted to make his own MBDTF. "Ronald Reagan Era" and "HiiiPower" are basically two huge fucking misses. Schoolboy Q, by a contrast, basically has a much better ear for beats, but he's not as agile or cohesive a rapper. If Kendrick's album he comes out with now is improved the way "HnC" upgraded from "Setbacks" though, I'll be estatic.
 
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makethisrun

New member
CrowleyHead said:
Maybe it's me, but a lot of the beats on that album are crap, save for a few. He is an incredibly technical rapper with a versatile nature that deserves music that pushes him. So to hear the majority of those beats, and the cheesy hooks, I was just not having it for the most part.

Also, he literally uses Pusha-T's flow at least 4 times on that album, which is UNBEARABLE for me when you weigh in how much he wanted to make his own MBDTF. "Ronald Reagan Era" and "HiiiPower" are basically two huge fucking misses. Schoolboy Q, by a contrast, basically has a much better ear for beats, but he's not as agile or cohesive a rapper. If Kendrick's album he comes out with now is improved the way "HnC" upgraded from "Setbacks" though, I'll be estatic.
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I think Schoolboy Q generally sounds more comfortable in putting together his raps with the beats he uses, he knows what sounds good over the instrumentals and seems to have more of a feel for it. He goes into completely different flows/characters depending on the instrumental to create something that ends up sounding more cohesive/comfortable than what Kendrick does, like on that track There He Go where Q goes in on his ~nicki minaj flow. But I wouldn't go so far as to call Section 80 hit or miss. I think on the whole it's a really good album, he's just not entirely there yet, it feels like all tracks are 90%. It feels more like a mixtape that way, there was an interview where Pharrell where he commends Kendrick and his producers for Section 80 and calls it a mixtape like ten times, I thought that said it all lol.
 
D

DannyL

Wild Horses
CrowleyHead said:
Maybe it's me, but a lot of the beats on that album are crap, save for a few. He is an incredibly technical rapper with a versatile nature that deserves music that pushes him. So to hear the majority of those beats, and the cheesy hooks, I was just not having it for the most part.

Also, he literally uses Pusha-T's flow at least 4 times on that album, which is UNBEARABLE for me when you weigh in how much he wanted to make his own MBDTF. "Ronald Reagan Era" and "HiiiPower" are basically two huge fucking misses. Schoolboy Q, by a contrast, basically has a much better ear for beats, but he's not as agile or cohesive a rapper. If Kendrick's album he comes out with now is improved the way "HnC" upgraded from "Setbacks" though, I'll be estatic.
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I don't dislike those two tracks but I agree they're not the strongest. Re: cheesy hooks, I kinda like 'em (though ones man's fromage is another's catchy earworm), I felt it gave the album a more commerical feel. Reminded me of "Aquemini" at moments 'cos of this. I think the last thing I listened to by Pusha T was Fear of God, but I can't tell for sure, 'cos I thought it was pretty lame so deleted it from my iPod. No comparison as far as I'm concerned - Kendrick may well be biting his flow (don't know PT's music enough to tell) but he's so far a superior rapper in terms of skill and amibition, that I can forgive him.
 
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outraygeous

outraygeous

Well-known member
CrowleyHead said:
I posted it, but nobody reacted.

OF is in a really interesting flux point. There's been such a huge demand to shift the attention onto the more R&B and disarming side of them in recent months (The Internet, Frank), that nobody's addressed their rapping. The song has a lot of great rapping from Tyler and Hodgy (Domo Genesis will always and forever more be hot garbage), and the beat is fun. Video's absurd, but hey.
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Dudeeeeeee Domo is nice.

I will admit, his best work was on Rolling Papers. Hodgy can be a bit much for me sometimes
 
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Trillhouse

Well-known member
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