Are Y'all Dead?

Don't make me join the hip-hop subreddit you nerds!

so what will happen to Travis Scott now that he is married to the Kardashian?

Here is what Christgau said about 4:44
Jay-Z: 4:44 (Roc Nation/UMG) At its frequent peaks, this unusual album nails the understated mastery it's going for—the calm candor of a titan with plenty to own up to hence plenty to teach. He's so discreet you may not notice that he can still outrhyme the small fry—"fuck with me"-"cutlery"-"butlers be"-"hustlers be," say, all parsing as "The Story of OJ." But clever's not his program. From the subtle beats No I.D. builds from Sean Carter's all-time playlist, he means to pretend he's just talking to us, nowhere more than in the painfully detailed "4:44" a.k.a. "I Apologize" a.k.a. "I suck at love." But just as "4:44" resorts for no discernible reason to an "I cut off my nose to spite my face," "The Story of OJ" is marred by a pun on "Dumbo" that's funny twice max and very nearly wrecked by the deplorable "You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America?" The answer, in case you were wondering: "credit." Which is an OK principle—Jay-Z isn't the only rap elder advising youngbloods to buy property instead of Lambos. But there are plenty of similar lapses on an album where "Legacy" celebrates his money, some of it secured by other people's artworks, rather than his art. He's teaching black capitalism, not weighing every word much less manning up and learning to love. Compared to white capitalism, I'll take it. But unlike learning to love, it has plenty of downside. A MINUS

https://twitter.com/chancetherapper/...21220759355397

SoundCloud just got saved (update: not because of Chance, apparently), a platform that helped a lot of rappers rise to fame and influenced the current rap scene as a whole.

Oh no. Don't do it, man. Seriously.

Interestingly, there was a time that I liked 50 Cent to the point where I legitimately bumped his music quite a bit. I also had a Rick Ross phase, a Tyler phase and probably a bunch of other weird phases. Now I can hardly bring myself to enjoy their music. I respect Tyler a bit more, because he has some production skills, but meh.

Chance the Rapper and Young Thug Share Surprise New Track “Big B’s”: Listen
Released on SoundCloud the same day that Chance announced the platform was “here to stay”
https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/big-bs

Chance flows like Busta on this one.

That's a pretty good review. An A- is a good review, wherever it came from. You hate Jay. Why would you post something that (generally) praises him?

Anyway, there's no denying the "Jewish people" line is in poor, poor taste regardless of the intention. As is, I think, trying to "teach" a systemically disenfranchised and marginalized people how to live their lives by spending money they don't have on things they don't have access to. I'm not a fan of the "Jay as financial guru" thing he's doing here. It's fucking really, dangerously, brazenly oversimplifying the greater issue of racial income and living condition disparity that is a fucking plague on the American infrastructure, and it makes Jay sound a little bit like the Donald motherfucking he-who-shall-not-be-named-but-I'm-doing-it-anyway-because-if-he-appears-in-front-of-me-like-Voldemort-I'll-beat-him-with-his-own-sad-cock-so-bring-it-on Trump of black America.

That said, the album is still really good on the whole. And I am still listening to it. If a modern rap album comes out and disses Kanye and Jewish people and makes me think of Donald Trump with the first five minutes, and I listen anyway... ME... that's a Fucking achievement.

Me too! Look thorough these very pages we've been typing on for the past 6 years and you'll see! We have all been there bro (by "all" I basically just mean you, me and NR, and I'm generalizing that to "most" adult hip-hop fans).

When I first came onto this board officially and stoped lurking behind my girlfriend's account, I was ALL ABOUT Tyler and OF. Now, I can't imagine a scenario where I'd listen to an OF project. Only Frank Ocean and to a much lesser extent Earl Sweatshirt have maintained my interest.

Same with the others. Mastermind was an album I was really looking forward to, but after hearing it a bit, I realized that "Sanctified" was the only really great track, and it was great because it was basically a Kanye track with a Ross feature. He's a sad old fuck, king of a wasteland empire where Wale and Meek Mill are his hottest commodities (hotter than Ross himself). He trades in basic ass shit that I have no patience for anymore.

When I first got back into hip-hop, I bought and listened to everything I could get my hands on for a while. I bumped 50 constantly for a while in like '07. Just constantly. But he had his time and now he's basically just a ghost tied to a dead era. No legacy there.

Hip-hop has to have some musical ingenuity to it for me to maintain interest. I'm no longer compelled to listen to the violent shit, and I no longer get excited when I hear a new rapper who can rap. Lots of people can rap. There needs to be some vision, some personality, something really powerful about the music and the experience of listening to it. Dropping bars or saying weird shit isn't good enough anymore. My money and time are too valuable and scant to be wasted on shit that nobody will remember in two years.

These are the hip-hop albums of 2010-present that REALLY matter:

Kanye: MBDTF, WTT, Yeezus, TLOP
Kendrick: Section.80, good kid, TPAB, DAMN.
A Tribe Called Quest: We Got it from here...
Vince Staples: Summertime '06, and maybe Big Fish Theory
A$AP Rocky: LiveLove, LongLive
Danny Brown: XXX, Old, Atrocity Exhibition
Chance: Acid Rap, and I guess Coloring Book
Pusha T: MNIMN, Darkest Before Dawn
Shabazz Palaces: Black Up, Lese Majesty
Death Grips: Money Store, No Love Deep Web
Earl: Doris
Black Milk: No Poison, No Paradise
Frank Ocean: Channel Orange, Blonde
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Piñata
Ghostface: 12 Reasons to Die (first one, before he started repeated himself to a ridiculous degree)
And, yes, JAY-Z: 4:44

I'm probably missing a few, but my point is... like 99% of this shit is forgettable ass shit. Underachievers went nowhere. Run the Jewels have become pretty intolerable, so even though I do like their first and third albums well enough, I'm not about to say they really "matter," and I think they've gotten old and that their albums have little repeat-listen value. Denzel Curry went nowhere. YG bleh. The Game has overdone it by doing the same thing over and over and not seeming to give much of a fuck about quality. Even A$AP Rocky has slipped, and I'm really on the fence about whether or not he'll be able to pull another good album off. Wu-Tang bungled it. Future is largely a disappointment. Drake is... just... wow. Y'know? I was almost rooting for him when IYRTITL came out. Still think that's a fairly tight album, but the sounds are fucking so old and boring now and the face is more punchabke than anything ever. Young Thug has yet to impress me in a lasting way. Wayne is dead as fuck, or nearly there. 2 Chainz is just second rate, even if he's likable... none of his music has any lasting value. All the Lil Uzi and co. types are just boring, with the occasional good track, but nothing great. Migos and Rae Srummond are both pretty forgettable in my opinion, though they might grow into something. Haven't yet.

Why do I find Run The Jewels to be so fucking boring? Like, Rage Against The Machine boring....

Future and Rae Sremms and Young Thug will shine bright like a diamond for all time........

:)

They are boring. RTJ 1 and 2 had some good shit but I lost them at 3.

@Sev - would personally add Isaiah Rashad, Schoolboy and maybe a few other things, but generally speaking your list is pretty accurate.

Sev your list is so East Coast/West Coast centric that it hurts us peeps in the dirty dirty.

Sev makes sure to let us know he's NOT a trap music enthusiast. Haha.

I'm a pretty big Future, Thug, Sremm and Migos fan myself. Like it or not, they're an inseparable part of this decade in hip hop.

I'm waiting for any of them to impress me in a lasting way. I like plenty of Future songs, but I never play his albums. Rae and Migos might turn into something real, but they haven't yet. Trap is really quite boring and insipid musically. Like I said, it has to be musically and aesthetically appealing.

My neighbor was blasting Spotify rap radio the other night. That "damn i hate being sober" song, followed by a song about slamming pussies, followed by a song that interpolates Joan Osborne' ("What if God was one of us/ jus' a thug like one of us") and OMG it all sounded so Fucking shit. Like it was recorded by the same artist, in a tin can, with a iPad drum track (not even a good one, but something you'd get from a free app with Audible ads all over it).

Just... wow... so fucking bad. Sloppy drawling non-rapping. Chopped and screwed production styles so overused that they've lost all impact. Just really fucking abysmal.

Thi shit will die like gabgsta rap, with one or two classic albums, from two artists who die young, and then a data dump of bullshit nobody will remember.

Trap Trap Trap....

the first asian american rapper died and no one cares.

https://youtu.be/oNeRaQfuyMI


People cry bullshit about the lyrics of the trap rap but I remember....I remember....

Holy shit.

Good point, actually. I mean, not about trap because that has nothing to do with this, but nobody has said fuckall about Fresh Kid Ice. I didn't even know about it until I clicked your link.

:(

I tried with the new Tyler album. I can't. His rapping is too goofy.

Yeah, I listened to a few songs while having my teeth drilled on this morning (I have trouble with Kanye during procedures because I always end up dancing a little bit in the chair when I blast him — such is the visceral effect his music has on me). I thought one of them had some nice Pharrell-esque sonic textures, but I soon became bored.

Also, I just realized that Tyler's openly gay now. :eek:

Did you know about this louder?

I mean, I guess it doesn't matter much, but it is a bit weird. Pitchfork gave Flower Boy a sterling review (first time they've ever given Tyler a "Best New Music" designation) and it feels like they're "reviewing" his coming out, and not the actual music. How could they really NOT give him a glowing review on his coming out party album? Especially after all the homophobic shit. They're applauding his graceful-by-Tyler-standards expression of sentiment, and I guess his bravery.

I dunno. Good for him and stuff. Hope he apologizes for all the flagrant homophobia at some point. If he wants to be a "gay" figure, he needs to be ready to take on the added responsibility that position entails. The kids (if there are there any gay kids who like Tyler) deserve an explanation.

I will listen to the whole thing at some point, but it's certainly no competition for DAMN. or 4:44.

Hey NR ... 4:44 is out on hard copy now.

:) :)

I'd be interested to see how many of his knuckle dragging fans are outraged at him coming out (has he actually come out?) and took his homophobic lines far too seriously.

Well... he seems to be toying with people about it. But yeah. He's not heterosexual. That much is very clear. He's being deliberately coy, and then people are misunderstanding. Like his tweet: "I TRIED TO COME OUT FOUR DAYS AGO AND NO ONE CARED."

I'm not sure taking his homophobic lyrics "too seriously" is the right way of putting it. I guess it could be one of many things:

A) He's gay and he was disguising his confusion with a façade of homophobia
B) He's gay and legitimately didn't know it and was overtly homophobic because that's the image he wanted to present at the time
C) He's not "hard"-gay, or straight; he's bi, or omnisexual or demisexual or trans or something, and he did (A).
D) He's (C) but did (B)
E) He's straight and he decided he wanted to shift his image for some reason, and what better way to get away with past homophobic hate speech than to chalk it up to adolescent confusion (this sounds alt-righty, and I don't think this is what he's doing, but I suppose it's a dim possibility)

Whatever the case may be, the kids who follow him and look up to him deserve an explanation. I'm not talking about the bigots, I'm talking about the people who know the confusion of coming to grips with one's sexuality. THOSE fans deserve a fucking explanation. And he'll give one if he wants to be any kind of respectable role model.

Whatever. The point is that it's easy to take something someone says "too seriously" when said person is shouting their shit from the rooftops and publishing it in all caps, bold print, year after year. If he amassed a following that's anti-gay, he bloody well asked for it.

LOUDER:

I finally got my physical copy of 4:44 in the mail yesterday, and it has, like, THREE bonus tracks. Not just one, as previously stated in media accounts.

And, brush, they may be demo-quality in terms of fidelity, but they are fucking WORTH IT.

Since 4:44 came out, I have only had another album playing in my car a couple times. I mean, I always play Kanye on a fairly daily basis, and I've listened to some new albums just to hear them, and the other day I played DAMN. to see if I still thought it was better than 4:44 (which I do, despite it being less jubilant and enjoyable), but it's pretty much owned my speakers since it dropped.

I'm considering the possibility that this might actually be Jay's best album. :eek:

I don't think a gay person needs to apologize to ANYONE for having spouted homophobic things while in the closet. It is a form of self-protection in a warped, unsuccessful manner.

I'm not saying apologize. Don't misunderstand.

I'm saying explain. Tell people without dancing around the subject and sounding like a queer-baiting provocateur, "I am gay."

Explain why this should be taken seriously.

It's starting to feel like queer-baiting. A slightly evolved version of the kind of bullying he was doing before.

No, he doesn't need to apologize. But being clear about whether the fuck he's sincere or not. And whether he was sincere or not previously.

It's a matter of respect. He hasn't fully come out, or not come out. He owes it to his fans to explain.

Does he?

You know as well as I do how incredibly homophobic the rap scene can be. If he is coming out then don't underestimate how big a move it is for a male, black rapper to do.

Tyler being Tyler loves to get a reaction. But I suspect he's also doing ths to test the waters to see how it's gonna be for him

Ok, fair enough.


Eventually it would be preferable if he gave a bit more clarity on the subject. His home Frank did. Worked out fine for Frank. Staying in this "is he/isn't he?" space certainly isn't going to do him any favors withtje homophobes, who are already ripping him up on Twitter.

Makonnen came out and instantly the dipshits in Migos started talking mad shit saying they would never have worked with him if they knew and that it was fucked that he "lied" to them and all sorts of other blindly homophobic bullshit. Methinks those who complain the loudest like to have their gay sex the most, when it comes to these Migos cats.....

That was just incredibly embarrassing. Fuck those Migos assholes.

So, on that basis, are we to assume you're packing one helluva collection of Boyz II Men and Jodeci vinyls behind that pile of skronk?

do I complain about Jodeci? hahahahha

I have a large collection of 70's and early 80's soul/funk music vinyl, yes. Chi-lites, the Spinners, Ray Charles, Gap Band, Parliament, The O'Jays, the Ohio Players, Barry White, etc.....

More like he's a closet Kanye-case, and his room is covered with Union Jacks, Beatles posters and a TARDIS bed spread. Mug next to bed inscribed with Cartmen ranting about Gingers.

And whatever he's he professes to hate. I forget. There's so much stuff that Rob hates.

there is also so much I love......

Sure there is buddy. Sure there is. There's... codeine-fueled warble rap, there's not reading Book of the New Sun, there's mushrooms. Maybe Sonic Youth a little. Oh, and Watchmen.

See? You got stuff.

everyone needs somethin'!

Yeah, I know.

Btw: I at least 50% hate this guy (Anthony Fantano), but this is one of those other 50% moments where.. goddamn... I'm almost glad he exists.

Future - Hndrxx is NOT GOOD

I can't wait to lay my hands on a physical copy, man.

I'm actually with you on the possibility that it's his best album.

The link is broken, but HNDRXX got old fast, it's still pretty good in my opinion, but not great. The Thugger album came and went too.

The only three rap albums that really made an impact on me this year are DAMN., Big Fish Theory and of course, 4:44.

Here, try this: https://youtu.be/3kFmkDNp1fY


Yup.

1. DAMN
2. 4:44
3. Big Fish Theory

Everything else is a joke.