catapult magazine

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discussion

Hope for Hip Hop

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grant
Jun 16 2003
07:47 pm

I am by no means an expert on or participant in hip hop culture, but a few months ago my wife called me away from brushing my teeth to see a most amazing performance on Conan O’Brian’s show. It was Bone Crusher. The guy seemed to be laying his whole soul on the line. It was so refreshing after seeing 50 Cent’s passionless performance on Saturday Night Live a few nights before.

A recent Father’s Day edition of Chicago’s “Rolling Out” magazine featured the fatherly advice of Bone to the hip hop community concerning the way to beat media stereotypes about slacker fathers in the African-American community: “The media definitely is going to over exaggerate [negative images] because it’s black folk. That’s just real. Black men are definitely slacking in areas, but a lot of black men aren’t. So, it’s just a situation where those that are doing well, we have to commend them and those who aren’t, we have to help them get to the point where we can commend them. That is what it is all about…It is not a situation where we should be pointing the finger and say, ‘Yo man, you need to be doing that and that.’ You got to show them how to be a father. They may have never been around a man to know how to be a father.” Bone Crusher displays his fatherhood proudly in the magazine with pictures of him and his 5 kids and talk of the importance of giving children opportunities to grow by sending them to camp, ballet and karate classes. Hip hop needs to be reminded of its fathers, as The Roots’ newest album indicates, if it is to sustain what has made it great in the first place.

So maybe this would be a good place to mention some of the great hip hop fathers that some of the *cino listeners have discovered (D.C. Talk does not count, unless you’re talking about the early stuff—“God is doing it, yo who’s doing it?”) Who are some of the hopefuls in hip hop of today and yesterday? Let’s see some lists.

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grant
Aug 03 2003
12:19 pm

I’m on the near north side of Chicago. Lakeview Neighborhood. Do you ever come out this way?

I’ll look into finding more info about the Urban Youth Conference. Our church is sending several people there in a few weeks.

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JabirdV
Aug 07 2003
05:32 am

Great Hip Hop band I had the pleasure of working with was a Chicago band by the name of PoetX MisterE. The beats were happenin’ and the lyrics were in your face. There is a true art form there that goes unreckognized by many.

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grant
Aug 11 2003
08:55 pm

I’ve been getting my Rolling Stone Magazines second-hand so I’m a bit behind. But the July 24, 2003 issue with (a rather strange drawing of) Eminem on the cover talks about Em’s first album, Infinite, which features these lyrics: “In the midst of this insanity, I found Christianity/ Through God and there’s a wish he granted me/ He showed me how to cope with the stress/ And hope for the best/ Instead of moping, depressed.”

This must have been before Eminem was banned in Christian bookstores and taken off the shelves (like happens to all the other good music with swear words in it).

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Lo G
Aug 12 2003
07:48 am

I particularly admire the work of Lauryn Hill. Her Album “The Miseducation…” is one I can listen to straight through without skipping a song. I think her style is fresh and different and her lyrics meaningful. I think she is a hip-hop artist worth admiring.

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DvdSchp
Aug 12 2003
09:54 am

Is that 1st Eminem album a bootleg? Never heard of it.
Does DJ Shadow count as hiphop? He’s my recommendation.

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lopez
Aug 12 2003
04:55 pm

so grant (or anyone else that might have an opinion) what exactly is the difference between hip-hop and rock and roll music?

certainly no the actual musical structure. or was bob dylan just decades ahead of his time when he wrote and performed “subterranean homesick blues”?

“you don’t need to be a weatherman to know
which way the wind blows.”

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grant
Aug 13 2003
12:11 am

yeah, there definitely are some commonalities, I think, between the beat poets (the early Dylan included) and rap music. Joel would have much more to say on this topic. He was telling me that much of the design ideas in early graffiti art, which was closely affiliated with rap music, drew inspiration from the New York avant guarde art scene. You can really see Andy Warhol’s pop art stuff in the lettering and colors. And since rap grew out of New York City, it makes sense that hip hop would share some common elements with other New York art and artists (the Greenwhich Village Dylan, Warhol’s Factory, which included Basquiat and others, the seventies N.Y. dance scene all could have influenced early rap music).

As far as the difference between the spirits of rock and rap, I think we just know it when we hear it. Just like how we know that something is punk rather than metal music. I’m not sure it’s defined by instrumentation or song structure (there are so many variations, like RATM, the Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers) that we don’t quite know what to do with. I think there are elements of the rock’n’roll spirit in hip hop, but there still is a definite distinction between something done in the spirit of hip hop and something done in the spirit of rock’n’roll.

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lopez
Aug 24 2003
01:47 am

yes, but can “spirit” alone account for the obvious lack of musical training and ability that these people have?

i enjoy the beastie boys and the chili peppers when their sound moves toward the hip-hop style, but i still don’t really consider that music hip-hop. it’s funk music with lyrical structures to match the style, but the organic root is still there. it’s still real beats made by hands and feets.

when that true base is taken away is there still substance there? is it still funky because it doesn’t feel that way to me (an avid james brown fan). or is it just so much producer manipulated smoke and mirrors falsely validated by semantic implants and “attitude”?

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joelspace
Aug 25 2003
10:30 am

You should check out The Roots if you’re looking for a more performed style of hip hop.

With a lot of people it comes down to an issue of taste. Making a good beat with sampling and electronics is incredibly difficult and tedious. Not just anyone can do it well. There is something amazing about throwing bass, kik, and snare sounds through filters and eq’s until they ooze and snap. Listening to these manipulated sounds is an aquired taste and as people play with loop programs in the way that previous generations played guitars, I think an understanding of hip hop music will grow.

It also takes a lot of work to come up with a rap. A well written rap snaps, grooves and communicates something meaningful. Good rappers have a way of making the lyric flow.

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arkitekt
Aug 25 2003
10:53 am

back again….

interesting convos… I was gonna ask Joel if you’ve heard Mars ILL before? They are releasing a new record on Gotee.. a very different group for the label… but they just launched their website I think you might like them… although I have to say if you like The Roots.. those are some tough musical standards to live up to… I can’t front… Roots were probably my favorite group… Blackthought as an emcee is a pleasure to listen to… mind you I don’t listen to them anymore these days… that’s a long story in itself but I’d be interested to see what you think of Dust’s production and manChild as an emcee… http://www.marsill.com

I personally think they are better LIVE… but this new album captured some more of their liveness…

Arkitekt