Coop MC - Blue Sunday (1995)
Money Boss Players - Yeah (199?/2021)
KLC ft. Mannie Fresh - No Place Like Home (2006/2021)
Digital Underground ft. J. Stalin - Hyphy Hump (2010)
P-Lo - Yours (2021)
City Girls - Twerkulator (2021)
Masters At Work - 69 Steps (1991)
Beabadoobee - Last Day On Earth (2021)
Other notables: fair play - Frankie Tha Lucky Dog's song with Level is a jam; two very unexpected comebacks this month with Snaggapuss and Pretty Tone Capone; Flo Milli's Back Pack (Flora The Explorer) gives me weird feels - like I'm far too old to be listening to this song; I'm bored shitless of new Rap songs which are under two minutes and have nothing resembling a chorus.
41 comments:
Is Ill Bill ill?
William Roach Gigz.
what makes you bored makes me excited. LOL
Step your standards up. 85 second run-on brainfarts of first-take punchlines are the most half-arsed Rap shit ever.
I keep my standards as low as the music I like!
Actual factz: the only time Rio Da Yung OG has made good music as a solo artist is on City On My Back where he actually made an effort to write songs with choruses and some semblance of concept. His solo music has devolved terribly into a lazy unfocused mess ever since.
You know I'm right 😂
City On My Back is basically his 'major label' album. It'd have sounded like that if he were signed to a major. This is Rio at his most conservative. What you describe as 'a lazy unfocused mess' is actually revolutionary af. I like to be on the revolutionary side))
Nah, if it were a major label album it'd been full of guest verses from French Montana, Big Sean and all the usual hacks.
There's definitely nothing 'revolutionary af' about Rio recording a buncha lazy first-take freestyles when he's fucked up on lean and passing them off as songs 😄
It's just lowered standards by rappers and listeners.
Am I right in saying that Beabadoobe song has Juliana Hatfield vibes, or like the Breeders? Need help sussing...
You could say that. Meself, I prefer to think of the songs I like by her as sounding like The Cardigans if they were signed to 4AD Records.
But look at the current crop of Cali/Bay rappers (Young Joc, Young Slo-Be). They mostly do these punk rap songs with no hook and your charge that it's a lazy songwriting doesn't stick to them.
I am also sick of these short songs. There's not enough to them for much replay value.
People comparing rap and punk is always corny as fuck. Those guys ain't 'punk rap' just because they make short songs. Plus, most punk/hardcore is verse/chorus/verse structure anyway because it's a genre based on singalongs/chantalongs.
As far as current Cali rappers go, Mac J's material has definitely took a turn for the worse now his songs have gotten shorter and he's stopped bothering writing choruses. It's pure lazy songwriting.
Valid points but honestly it was a relief to me when ppl started doing this cos its p shameful rap music had anything goes song structure up til like 93 then gradually everything was three 16 bar verse 8 bar hook. Like i was listening to tougher than leather the other day n it felt p stark
All the trading bars, no hooks, switching up flows etc too is all welcome after the 8 min major label posse cut excess w 10 min video trailer shit too, i do agree a lot of its become a v lazy crutch n needs to be reined in though. its more the lack of variety than lack of restraint that fucks w me though, fuck man even drumless rap was fresh at one stage a few yrs back everyone just runs shit into the ground now
Big organic in the studio together vibe off my fav rap from the past few yrs (michigan, baton rouge, the bay) cos of stuff like this
I like most of these new Detroit rappers and Rio has definitely shown he's capable of writing actual songs. As far writing actual full songs and making cohesive projects I'd say Eastside Peezy is the best of the bunch and FMB DZ but he's guilty of the lazy 2 minute songs with no hooks sometimes.
It's only corny for those who haven't listen to punk enough. LOL
Actually, quite a few of second wave US and Scandi hardcore bands abandoned this conventional verse/chorus structure.
So I see this as a positive break from the industry standards.
Ray, I was listening to Infest when you were playing in a sandpit, m8 😄
Donal, I do like some hookless songs where 2 people trade bars. But most of these one minute solo songs with no hook are just lazy shite designed for TikTok and IG stories, and people trying to pull the old 'but it's punk rock, man!" excuse are approaching Simon Reynolds levels of cluelessness.
Ultimately, it's sad to see so many rappers I like stop putting in the effort to write songs and just hacking out these 85 second brainfarts instead. It's the reason I don't check for any new 70th Street Carlos music.
City On My Back is Rio's best shit for real.
Fein Rental >>>>>
I think the rap= punk thing grates more for ppl on this side of the pond lol
Dunno if americans had the decades of shite brit media comparing everything possible w punk, bar the odd talking headry rollins type
Cheers for putting me on that Beabadoobee song.
The Cardigans! Right on.
Unrelated, but between Twerkulator, Payback 2.0 and Ballout hitting the Schooly D flow on Where the Hook Go (H/T Noz), this year's Bass revival is straight up giving me life.
Also loving the new P-Lo. Pure golden state gold.
Odd Future are the new Sex Pistols!
Honestly, nothing makes me cringe harder than when I see people talking about the 'punk energy' of some Brooklyn Drill rapper or some Soundcloud fraggle rapper.
And, yes, City On My Back is by far Rio's best shit. Contrary to what Ray thinks, it's actually Rio at his most experimental because it's his only album where he spent more than 5 minutes writing & recording each song.
Finally someone other than me enjoys a P-Lo song. When he gets it right, P-Lo is someone who really does know how to write a proper song.
Spart - Care and Coffee are great too.
Blue Hunnids by Kool John + P-Lo is a classic.
I never followed this parallel with punk, it only works for those who didn’t listen to punk. (I actually listened to hardcore when I was playing in a sandpit, it’s later that I stopped.) But we could find parallels with rap from a different angle. Early punk was still following rock’s rules, still doing clean records etc. It’s only with hardcore that the radical break happened when bad recording, poor songwriting, bad attitude, bad distribution etc became a thing of its own.
So getting back to rap. Yes, from a ‘classical’ viewpoint, these hookless songs are lazy songwriting, poor job, dirty recording. And here I have to go full Hegel on you: these elements got sublated into a whole new thing. Failure turns into success, if one changes the perspective. I already elaborated this point in my review on Rio’s tape:
https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/635693369433194496/rio-da-yung-og-accidental-shit-talkin-boyz
It’s not that these rappers were conscious of this move, looked at this artistically and pragmatically and decided to write like this. They were lazy, and fucked up, and bad at their job, until this formal move became a thing. Now, it is those who do ‘clean’ records who are lazy, still following the rules.
This turn can be explained artistically still. As rappers more and more took a ‘I’m not a rapper’ posture, they had to adapt in their music, too. Doing clean recordings, writing well-structured songs, making drafts of their songs on paper etc, this is what ‘rappers’ do, not trappers. So how to find a way out of this deadlock? To start doing the opposite of what a regular rappers does. This is what leads to freestyling on go, no hooks (hooks are for ‘rappers’), short songs (like you just dropped by to a studio between deals) etc. This ‘lazy’ songwriting is what stylistically points to a rapper being actually ‘on the street’.
P-Lo has to be the most exciting rapper on the West Coast right now.
Ray, i don't agree with any of that and some of it is just flat out wrong.
Early punk was still doing clean records? Lemme introduce you to 1977's Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols album lolz.
'Bad recording, poor songwriting, bad attitude, bad distribution etc became a thing of its own' with hardcore? Have you ever heard the Buzzcocks first EP or any of those shitty NY Punk bands like The Dead Boys?
As for you trying to intellectualise rappers being too lazy to bother to write songs, that's some pure sub-Pitchfork bollox, m8 😉 And it's factually wrong anyway because plenty of major label industry rappers and underground backpack rappers have also fallen into brainfart rap laziness.
P-Lo is a good producer too.
Never thought P-Lo would be the HBK member with the most longevity but here we are.
I want to live in a world where Yours and Get Me Lit can fuck around and accidentally become surprise global hits like Sage's Gas Pedal and Red Nose.
I definitely got worn out on hooks during the first half of the autotune era. I love melodic raps but the hit-miss rate was gigantic. Bloggers sifting through those 30 track mixtapes certainly helped mitigate this somewhat.
The sheer volume of Rio I listened to last year means I think I've gotten quite burnt out on the Flint style but by God I enjoyed it during 2020 more than I've enjoyed rap in years. Just the uptick in tempo, the humour and messiness was a welcome palette cleanser. He probably overextended himself a bit trying to do 10x the 2007 Gucci Mane output. Streaming content mill is a bitch. I'll probably still check for RMC Mike anyway.
When I went to the Bay early last year “Same Squad” by P-Lo came on at the function and it seemed like everyone there knew the words.
Personal fav from Beabadoobee https://youtu.be/laDnsiKURTQ
I don't think there's anything revolutionary about the hookless songs - I mean, it's not like Wayne wasn't blasting out endless no-hook mixtape bars all 2006-2008 and "a milli" went platinum and shit. The best of Rio and co is bouncing back and forth and playing with each other; the worst is just rattling off samey bars until they feel like they're done. Mostly I've become really bored with it, it's becoming repetitive and there's not much interaction with the beat.
I enjoy Sada's stuff even when he's just rattling off punchlines because of how he creates dynamic motion across the whole song, denser/sparser louder/softer. He's not just reciting, he's shaping a verse.
Jmil, I'd LOVE to hear Same Squad played out. Proper jealous.
Back to the hook again. Hooks come in various forms and 8 out of 10 Rap songs will be improved by some sort of hook. That's just a fact and anyone who disagrees is the sort of person who thinks Madvilliany is better than Operation: Doomsday.
Those people are wrong un's, emphasis on the word wrong 😄
Anonymous, I'd not heard Apple Cider before. Cheers.
Shout out to Bragg acv.
Hahahahaha
Woah there marty, im younger than you
a milli has a hook
Nyquil - evidently, my dear Galen.
Diligentz Punk Rock (remix) seems relevant to this conversation, if only for the skit at the beginning of the music video, but also for that fact that it has dope hook 🙃
I don't think Ray is wrong if u bracket certain moments in time but its kind of hard to create an orthodoxy around 'unorthodox'
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