The White rapper thread

F

forclosure

Well-known member
do you even listen to road rap/drill at all qwerty or do you just stick to this lot? cause i'd be interested to know what you think of Aitch and Ardee or even that Hazee yout
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
also lets face it unfortunatly for alot of these guys especially the ones who started rapping pre road rap there was always a glass cieling not their fault but it's just how the industry is built even somebody like Kojey Radical has to deal with it. people like Lowkey and Akala have found themselves stuck in the lane of the "not your typical rapper" rapper.

also i think UK Hip Hop people kinda shot themselves in the foot with grime because they saw it as something that went against the values of rap that they lived by so it was either that or like they were sympathetic AT BEST i say this because even in grime despite chatting the same content the feelings they have on drill are ambivalant at best ,the producers are more hands on considering dot rotten and maniac have ended up with placements and the like but its this thing where they focus more so on the differences between them rather than the similiarities.

that's why it was a shock to me to see Oceanwisdom have a spot on Carns Hill's most recent album cause his kind of rapper once upon a time wouldn't want ANYTHING to do with being associated with man who make beats for people like Youngs teflon and Reeko Squeeze

it's about damn time something like this happened but i didn't expect to see it happen here and now

 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
and this is why for as much as i've kicked him up on here @catalog is kind of this weird anomaly as a British rap listener man prefers English voices to American ones over rap beats but also still feels the embarassment over UK hip hop

it's this tension between the old and the new
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
There was always this obsession with doing things "properly" in UK Hip Hop. Due to time and distance, by the time people had gathered all the right information, equipment and resources, Hip Hop had moved on. A bunch of producers and MCs who were meticulously studying how to write, make, mix, promote early 90s Hip Hop emerged from their caves in 1997 with a product that was never going to make anyone rich or famous. They either gave up, switched lanes, or ploughed on regardless with massive chips on their shoulders. "I'm doing everything right! Why aren't I selling as well as Nas? Fuck Westwood - he can't even scratch!"

Perhaps the Beasties set the blueprint for white rappers - you can perhaps get a pass if you constantly demonstrate an exhaustive knowledge of Hip Hop culture. Name check the right people. Reference the right cultural points at every opportunity. Like the inverse of rap beef. Celebrate everyone else who paved the way for you as much as possible. Edan does it too - make a track where you make your voice sound like Kool Keith, rhyming like Kool Keith. Show them you know.


Some UK types stuck it out until streaming made it irrelevant when something was made, or how current it sounds. Lewis Parker is still making 90s beats on 90s equipment to sell to people who want to rap like it's the 90s. It's a thing now. Like Khruangbin or Greta Van Fleet, there's enough people who want old sounds but still want to feel like they're following / supporting / observing a contemporary, active musician.

Big Beat was birthed by those aspiring UK Hip Hop producers who had bought their MPCs and their Ultimate Breaks and Beats LPs like good little Hip Hop students, after reading about them in magazines and liner notes. They worked out how to make something without needing MCs, using the same loops and samples that were already played out in Hip Hop, but sell them in a new form. Wear the shelltoes and tracksuits. Give yourself a "funky" name like those crazy New York BBoys and DJs in the park jams you read about. You're doing something old, remaking Zulu War Chant or Party Groove over and over again, but you've found a way to get UK press to write about you and UK radio to play your music.

White Rappers ?!?!

I never tried to be a rapper.
 
Last edited:
F

forclosure

Well-known member
Edan does but i think the difference with him is that he's always been more respected as a cratedigger/producer than a rapper which isn't to say he's bad but that how he tends to be regarded

and that kind of reverence to raps forbares is cool but the flipside of that is where you end up sounding like the Jurassic 5 or as i previously mentioned ugly duckling where it's just the most lame after school special shit ever

side note @hint while i can acknowledge that Your Old Droog is a technically proficient and witty rapper there's a level of smugness to his rapping that really puts me off not only that but i'll never be able to shake the fact that the big question surrounding him when he first came out was whether he really was Nas or not? i remember when i first heard him i knew it wasn't Nas but still
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
Paul Wall is good but it horrifies me that people are willing to listen to the album he put out this year with Termanology JUST BECAUSE he's on it

Termanology is so awful
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
I wonder how the late 90s / early 00s crop of UK rappers feel when they see something like this:


Just a guy from the UK rapping over beats. No big hooks or poppy samples. 7m views. Unimaginable in 2002.

Leaps in technology mean that their production can keep up with other music and video from anywhere else, of course. But the other thing that strikes me is that this newer wave of white UK rappers know how to look happy. They’re comfortable being funny. I was around enough of the 90s lot to feel like they were often moody or serious. I don‘t know how deliberate that was, or if it just attracted certain kinds of people. Performance divorced from entertainment. “I am concentrating very hard on doing this thing - rapping over beats - that your faves from the US make seem effortless and magical”.

The really early UK rap heads were more into the whole culture I suppose, and that helped them make more of a mark. Rap was adventure. So someone like 3D was into rapping, but also liked The Cure and Dub etc. So he was part of something that mixed them all together. You’re from the UK, you’re rapping. Rhyming crazy with lazy. But it’s mixed in with all kinds of other stuff so people gobble it up. You’re serving trifle instead of a bowl of cold custard.

 
Last edited:
Q

qwerty south

no use for a witticism
US hip hop and the major figures of that music have coloured people's understanding (particularly Jay-Z and Rick Ross).

I met a young Afro-Carribean guy from Barnet at a business networking event a while back and he seemed to believe a "real rapper" was one with a criminal reputation in the streets iirc. WTF?
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
qwerty south said:
US hip hop and the major figures of that music have coloured people's understanding (particularly Jay-Z and Rick Ross).

I met a young Afro-Carribean guy from Barnet at a business networking event a while back and he seemed to believe a "real rapper" was one with a criminal reputation in the streets iirc. WTF?
Click to expand...
you must be new to this cause dem kind of rap fans who feel like they can't listen to any rapper unless they actually have a rap sheet have BEEN around but the difference is they were just confined to rap forums and seen as weirdos(and probably assumed as white) now it's a fucking cottage industry there.
even long time rap listeners keep falling for the spell and trick of aunthenticity time and time again
 
F

forclosure

Well-known member
i wouldn't even say Rick Ross has coloured it but he definitly warped and changed it alot of it really stems from all the 90s stuff this amalgamation of things that did happen,stuff that was alleged to have happened with stuff that didn't

Jay Z have a hand in it but again altering it the idea that you can be "the boss" in the streets aswell as the corporate boardroom, which in part reflects his whole black capitalist thinking but i don't wanna go in here cause this is meant to be the white rapper thread
 
Q

qwerty south

no use for a witticism
WebEschatology said:
do you even listen to road rap/drill at all qwerty or do you just stick to this lot? cause i'd be interested to know what you think of Aitch and Ardee or even that Hazee yout
Click to expand...
I think Unknown T and Digga D are good rappers (only 1 Digga D song I actively like). I'm a big fan of grime (JME, Wiley, Devlin etc).

Aitch and Ardee can both rap (the latter comes across as likeable). Road rap / drill is generic imo.

One good thing about Uk rap is that great talents float to the top (Dizzee, Krept and Konan, Wretch) but not all (sadly)
 
Q

qwerty south

no use for a witticism
WebEschatology said:
you must be new to this cause dem kind of rap fans who feel like they can't listen to any rapper unless they actually have a rap sheet have BEEN around but the difference is they were just confined to rap forums and seen as weirdos(and probably assumed as white) now it's a fucking cottage industry there.
even long time rap listeners keep falling for the spell and trick of aunthenticity time and time again
Click to expand...
I've been a fan since around 1983 - a long time before "gangsta rap" became a "thing"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top