No, i only brought up Kanye because he is the symbol of contemporary rap. Sorry, his fans know EXACTLY what i am talking about and if they can't take the fair criticism than they really are absorbed in his own narcissism.

Rap today is a corporate ghost.. there is nothing new, innovative, expressive. WE ALL KNOW IT
Lets be honest, can we even call most of the new artists music rap? Are they even rappers?

i did get your point, SuchFriends.

it is corporate. but you're taking it to hyperboles and i just have to disagree.

yes. we've been through this in the last few pages. let's not again.

Here is the point. Rap music died in the 90s.. a few artists from that period kept it alive in the 2000s.. new rap is a reflection of new society, but that is entirely my point. Rap wasn't a reflection of society, it was a critique..

All your "albums" of the year selections prove my point more than yours...

this conversation has grown inexplicably silly.

I'll be back later.

interestingly, i'm confident about my taste and can go great lengths to defend each and every album on my list.

you're coming across as a hater to me..

Is it what it is.. all the new rappers are mediocre, and sure, if folks really love mostly rap music they will continue to listen. However many of us moved on to other genres.. there are few genres of "new" art and expression, but rap music hasn't been that in ten years at least

This is not an attack on anyone here for liking any of the new artists but rather in the spirit of what rap music is about, a critique

I think Kendrick is very obviously the most popular rapper in the game right now, which actually surprised me because his music is not rooted in pop song structures, and his lyrics are sophisticated and challenging and literary, and certainly beyond the comprehension of the average 9th grader.

So I'm guessing Eminem still reigns supreme with dumb little white kids.

But yeah, Kendrick is huge among music fans in general. He is too chill and unassuming to attract the kind of hatred that some folks have for Kanye. But if Kanye didn't dare everyone to hate him, he would be Kanye. Fewer people hate Kendrick... if anyone hates Kendrick besides Geraldo.

I just did some high school subbing a while back, and I heard a lot of Earl Sweatshirt/OF jargon. Random shouts of "Golf Wang!" and such. I also remember heading Young Thug's name pop up. Had a nice chat with one kid about Joey Badass. But I still saw as many Eminem shirts as I used to see Metallica tee's in '93. There needs to be some new blood in them hallways.

Again, its not about you or your personal taste. Im not intending to criticize you in my critique of the art itself. I don't think anything bad about you or anyone else for liking what you like, however i will always argue about the quality and integrity of the art itself (or lack thereof)

I don't remotely hate on fans of radio pop music, let them have their fun, but if they try to convince me that such music is some kind of profound statement??

Rap music has become exactly what many of us don't like about pop music, its lost its soul. Its not art, its corporate. And i don't blame these artists, college football is a soulless entity hhh but i totally get why kids want to play football or bball. However i don't think we can talk aboit football being an art neither can we talk about contemporary rap being such.


Today rap music is the Lakers

Yes, the stuff about 2 Live Crew was crazy. FYI youngsters, back then people were also scared of Public Enemy, Snoop and even the fucking Beastie Boys when Licensed to Ill was big. Here in the UK one national paper lead a campaign to get Snoop kicked out of the country when he was here on tour. I remember my Dad showing me a story in another national paper about PE intentionally injuring their fans at a concert by flinging coins at them.
I forget exactly what it was about the Beastie Boys.

Yep.

Maybe its time the kiddies invent their OWN music?
Its kind of sad, that the 2000s might be the first generation in past hundred years that failed to invent their own genre of music or contribute their own unique subculture.

Did we adults fail them?

Beastie Boys opened up for Madonna in mid 80's and in their concert in Houston tossed full beers into the crowd and were lewd as all fuck and were then banned from performing in Houston for almost a decade I think. This happened in other places as well.

Ahhhh the Motley Crue approach ;)

There was certainly a clear and dramatic change in hiphop around about the year 2000. New York was no longer the focal point, regional scenes got more attention, groups became much less prevalent, sampling and DJs were being replaced by synths and software.
New York hiphop had become bloated with people putting out 20 track albums with 10 mins of skits, the New York underground was just a load of people rapping about how rap sucks, which sucks too. Rawkus lost it. Tribe split, Gang Starr faded away and Premier got boring, Wu Tang had spread itself so thinly with 1 zillion solo projects that they lost the trust of their fans, Mos Def became an actor, lots of other groups who had been dependable in the 90s kind of faded away or split (e.g. De La Soul, Brand Nubian, CoFlow, Kool G Rap, EPMD, Mobb Deep, BootCampClick). The biggest rap stars of the last 10 years had ended up murdered, plus a few others died. Nas never made another record as good as Illmatic (and nobody learned the lesson than less tracks on a rap record is more). Snoop hooked up with the Neptunes and became a pop star. All that was left were business rappers like Dr Dre and Jay-Z, and record labels were more interested in if a rapper had a six pack than rhymes.
It really did feel like the bottom fell out of the genre, and pretty much every hiphop fan I spoke to at the time and for years afterwards was at a loss as where to find good new stuff (aside from whatever involved MF Doom, Madlib or Ghostface or also OutKast).

Even Outkast lost their soul... i mean its a natural digression that when artists become mainstream they lose touch with the roots of their art but what is sad about rap music is none of the coming generation of rappers had that same soul and sense of purpose to be able to replace them...

Rap in the late 2000s is what music in the early 60s was, a pompous caricature of what it once was..

Hence why the kiddies need to create THEIR OWN GENRE of music, but they haven't.. so it again begs the question, did we adults fail them? Are WE the narcissists?

Ok, I like Vince Staples (or at least I like Blue Suede although I'm turning a deaf ear to that ticky drum thing). I just listened to about 5 songs by Joey Badass and one was very good and the others were fine, certainly better than most new things I've listened to in the last 10 years. Lupe Fiasco I already heard and don't like much. Kendrick is good.

@ Toilet & Bowels

listen to Shabazz Palaces.

I know them already and like them. But good choice.

man pfork's review of FWA raises some interesting points...

I think that we may have. Kids today had no real indie or punk inspiration like we did. and we, for our part, didn't go out and create anything revolutionary for them to glom on to. At least in '93 there was Nirvana, then after that was Portishead and Radiohead, plenty to get the juices flowing for creative kids. It's just that most of us just went out and made more of the same.

Also, I say electronic music has totally overturned rock, and electronic music is boring as fuck to younger adolescents who want their rage reflected back at them. We also had some really bad dub step that couldn't have helped matters.

Or maybe it's the opposite. While our generation went to great lengths to dig into what influenced Nirvana and Sebadoh and Pavement, this generation seems totally uninterested in the past. High school kids don't buy Butthole Surfers records anymore. Everything has to sound modern. So it's OF and Afrojack and Deadmaus.

when Madonna releases boring albums chock full of wack-ass EDM, you know the kids have moved on.

EDM is now for middle aged parents to go party on weekends.

I have been predicting the enxt big thing in youth music will be some sort of Latin/Tejano/narcocorrido mashup. It will scare white kid's parents (which white kids love) in a way that rap does not anymore. Hip Hop is the kid's parents music, and rock and roll is their grandparent's music now.

Are kids today even aware of the whole thing of trying to scare/piss off parents with music? Personally as a kid I was never interested in doing that even though it was pretty easy to do so with a lot of the music I listed to.

I do not think it was ever done purposefully, but as a kid you KNOW instinctively when you hear/see/read/experience something that you like but that you know only you would like (as opposed to things you like and you think, "mom would dig this!"

kids rebel against their authority figures, or they follow their example. oftentimes it flips between the two. I just know that as a kid, when I liked something, and my parents then said they didn't like it, it made it all the more special, partly because it makes one feel big to make your own tastes, and to choose your own things, and partly because it makes it feel "special."

I remember my Dad bursting into the room, whilst I was listening to Liars' They were wrong... album, yelling to turn it down then him saying "it's not exactly music, is it?". The grin on my face after he left would've made a Cheshire cat look like it was pouting.

And of course kids are listening to stuff that piss off their parents. I suspect Skrillex has pissed off more than enough.

BLAMMO!!! CORRECTAMUNDO!!! its like most young people are just searching for some Nirvana or Beatles and laying the crown on top of any head. ignoring the past is dangerous. this is way records exist and why they teach history in schools.

yeah I imagine the chemical bros and prodigy did the same too. that was almost 20 years ago and that shit was kinda lame. it's dated pop music. that Shrillex shit is played in Mcdonalds and Coke commercials. i'll be dated bullshit soon too. at least to me. it's fucking corny!! have you heard late 90's hip hop lately? fuckin dated as shit. unless yr 90's retro ironic.

once it becomes ingrained in the masses minds it's already old. im pretty sure parents aren't fazed by shrillex now. they hear that shit in commercials when they are viewing The View. that sound will become dated soon,.... then retro cool, just like all those 80's synth sounds everyone and yr grandfather digs now.

what im saying is..........it doesn't fucking matter anyway. im old, you'll be old, and we can have a big 'ol granny fuckfest!!! load up on lube and bring yr friends. we'll jam to Hank Williams and Skrillex and have a good 'ol time

btw, I remember PE getting played on the radio. they def were played on daytime MTV. I remember that much. the "Night of the Living Baseheads" vid was seen by my little self at 9. along with the Cure's "Just Like Heaven".

PE is corny old noise to young people today. the key word is NOISE!!!! it's doesn't make it relevent, just annoying just like Hank Williams. as long as it annoys younger people, im fucking happy.

My dad listened to sonic youth and nirvana (and introduced me to sleater kinney and bikini kill) and my mom let me listen to NWA when i was 4 so i never got the joy of "pissing off my parents" with my music.. i had to resort to more aggressive measures..

modern music only scares parents who don't work and stay at home and have too much time to think( about their mortality). or either they just have never got music in general. which is the majority of the world.

My pops listened to nirvana and sonic youth (and introduced me to Sleater-Kinney and bikini kill) and my mom let me listen to NWA when i was 4 so i never had the joy of "pissing off my parents" musically... i had to resort to more aggressive measures

some chick taught me to do the Roger Rabbit years ago. you best believe I can do it ace like. while listening to PE.

motherfucker!

Em is white trash dumbass shit. huh huh, you just said pop.

im never ever going to be down with his shit. i'll suck Bono's dick before I give Em a chance.

it doesn't matter. he's an old fart now. blowing in the wind. like Eric Clapton.

im tired and bored. why do I waste my time on trivia shit like this? mainstream music has mostly been shit since the 70's. you can pick and choose and argue but most of you can agree.

the masses are asses. it's a universal and generational truth. goddamn!!! im sure Madonna pissed people off just like Black Flag in the 80's. one was mainstream and the other was not.

listen to what you want!!

also, louder and Rob are the only ones that make any sense here. why argue what is hip hop or not anymore. louder likes what he likes.

great post!! couldn't agree with you more.

like it or not, louder nailed it.

Spread some rep for louder!!

Loving the new GFK. It's a totally solid sequel. I always end up loving GFK records though. It plays like a classic Wu-Tang golden era solo joint more than any Wu album in recent memory. And the tracks with Lyrics Born and Chink XL are just weird! Good though.. Just unlike what one would expect to hear on a Ghostface record. It better than sour soul, and the instrumentals are totally on point. Adrian Young & Goblin > BBNG, in my opinion.

sorry man, I don't know where you're from. your not from the south, I do know that. in my world everyone is living in a hippy pad outside where im from. I need to 'get out there more'. it's a knee jerk reaction to everything else im not familiar with. it bleeds off yr post. defensive I know. i could help it, but i live in the most conservative place in the world. that's why!!!!! fucker!!

TRTD part II? checkin it asap!!!