hint

party record with a siren
Rap music still undefeated for variety

Ayoolii - East Baby (ft. Real East Baby)
Lord OLO & Khrist Koopa - Charisma
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Been watching a few of those trap lore ross videos lately, guiltily, with my curtains closed, like I'm watching porn

Anyway, dipping into some chiraq music I reacquainted myself with my old favourite King Louie today





Also hadn't heard this one before

 

blissblogger

Well-known member
I wonder if it ever will stop?

I mean, all forms of music do eventually - they exhaust every direction available to them.

Like, ragtime ran out of steam, didn't it? Bluegrass likewise. If these exist at all, it's as a musical craft that people adopt as a hobby, something to master. A social activity. Appearances at local events or festivals. Bit like Early Music.

I mean, there's probably some horrible artist trying to combine ragtime or bluegrass with some other genre, or use a technology with it, but essentially, these things settled into static forms at a certain point.

Roots reggae likewise reached a point of formal stasis - you have bands playing that music all around the world, the original bands soldiering on, but also modern-day practitioners. But (admittedly I've done zero investigation into this, but judging by the odd whiff of it that's come my way over the years) newer artists have not added anything to it or extended it significantly.

They become traditional musics, to be upkept.

Perhaps rap, having a vital social function, that's the reason why it keeps on reinventing itself.

So something would have to supplant that social function, or society would have change so much, that the function would no longer need fulfilling.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
Sudden tremendous feeling of deja vu - the possibility that I might have typed these words, or words very similar, at some earlier point in this thread. Like maybe on page 6!
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I wonder if it ever will stop?

I mean, all forms of music do eventually - they exhaust every direction available to them.

Like, ragtime ran out of steam, didn't it? Bluegrass likewise. If these exist at all, it's as a musical craft that people adopt as a hobby, something to master. A social activity. Appearances at local events or festivals. Bit like Early Music.

I mean, there's probably some horrible artist trying to combine ragtime or bluegrass with some other genre, or use a technology with it, but essentially, these things settled into static forms at a certain point.

Roots reggae likewise reached a point of formal stasis - you have bands playing that music all around the world, the original bands soldiering on, but also modern-day practitioners. But (admittedly I've done zero investigation into this, but judging by the odd whiff of it that's come my way over the years) newer artists have not added anything to it or extended it significantly.

They become traditional musics, to be upkept.

Perhaps rap, having a vital social function, that's the reason why it keeps on reinventing itself.

So something would have to supplant that social function, or society would have change so much, that the function would no longer need fulfilling.
I think you could argue that's been evident last few years? A creative - if not decline, then hiatus. What I mean by that is I think it's hard to think of an album that embodies the zeitgeist in a way rap used to, for 2022/3. What you have instead is all these little microgenres and scenes and within that, rap's nature means a lot of what's being said is hard to follow and access i.e. the Brooklyn Drill stuff Corpsey has been posting - interesting but hardly accessible, and seemingly working on metrics others than commercial success.

Obviously, a lot of that has to do with changes in patterns of distribution. I always think distribution is an understated part of hip hop's history. It seems that distribution has levelled the playing field and giving access to ridiculous amounts of music but its hard for new voices to emerge within that because its so easy to get drowned out. A lot of people on the chats I follow are still talking about Future, for instance who has been a big star for nearly a decade now. All the other big stars still seem in place.

Billy Woods is maybe an exception atm. There's something about his sensibility that's appealing beyond normal rap audiences so he seems to be crossing over into Pitchfork world, with his new record.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I think there are types of rap music out there which are along those bluegrass lines - people mimicking the 90s boom bap style forever and ever. But hip hop is so huge that every conceivable style of it is being made.

I assumed the most streamed artists on Spotify would be rappers but that's far from the case, though there are big exceptions (Drake, obviously, Eminem, 21 Savage, Future, Post Malone - most of these are arguably as much singers as rappers, the other being Eminem).


But then perhaps that would always have been the case. Quelle surprise: Pop music is popular!

So maybe that means nothing.

Part of the strength of rap music is its a sort of inherently flexible form where a rapper rapping over ANYTHING could be considered a rap song. Maybe not if the tempo went too fast? But then look at the jersey type drill. Perhaps if UK Garage had originated in the US it would be considered a type of rap. (Certainly grime could be - I remember arguments about this in hip hop connection magazine back in the dizzee days.)

And not only that, but since autotune emerged and rnb and rap began to fuse, rappers are now 'allowed' to SING as well!
 
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