« Across the web | Main | Who is Stirling Newberry? »
Rap music
A loyal MR reader (this is the guy who likes Friends, by the way) writes:
For a lover of contemporary culture, I've never heard you talk about hip hop. Do you like any? Are you at a stage where you can tell good rap from bad rap?
As loyal readers will know, this is an "under the fold" question...
Don't they say "demography is destiny," or something like that? Basically I like the rap CDs that all the other overeducated middle-aged white guys like. That means rap which is musically complex, often ironic, and innovates with rhythmic patter and postmodern pop culture references. Here are a few favorites:
1. Outkast, their entire ouevre. They have mastered soul and funk as well. Their new album is due August 22, but this time around the advance reviews are quite critical.
2. Eric B and Rakim, Paid in Full.
3. De La Soul, especially their clever early material. They ran out of steam quickly, however, as have most rap groups. But their "Jenifa Taught Me" cut might be the most fun rap song ever.
4. NWA, the Compton album. A mini-opera, visceral like Verdi.
5. Control Machete, Mexican rap is generally worthwhile.
6. Nas, Illmatic. A classic.
7. Dr. Dre, The Chronic. The best parts are when SDD cuts in singing.
8. P.M. Dawn, most of all Jesus Wept, if you consider that rap. Hits the sweet spot between gospel and Prince.
9. Kanye West, his last CD. He has the talent to rival Outkast as the most important rapper(s).
10. My dark horse pick would be Schooly D, The Adventures of Schooly D, especially the stripped-down cassette version with only the album's highlights. The next step after Varese.
If we can count Robert Ashley, Perfect Lives is the best rap of them all. He is in any case a pioneer for integrating voice into music.
The most overrated bad rap group is the snotty and execrable Beastie Boys. The most overrated good rap group is Wu Tang Clan, who had gobs of talent but doesn't stick in my memory. Run D-M-Z and Public Enemy are both overrated, but I am not yet sure which category they belong in, good or bad underrated.
For more on the history of rap music, see my In Praise of Commercial Culture, chapter four. Here is an article on rap music in the Middle East.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 20, 2006 at 07:00 AM in Music | Permalink
Comments
You should give Little Brother's "The Minstrel Show" a spin. Ten bucks says you'd love it.
Posted by: LB at Aug 20, 2006 9:30:56 AM
Run D-M-C
Posted by: ElamBend at Aug 20, 2006 9:40:54 AM
What, no Jurassic 5?
Posted by: Paul Gowder at Aug 20, 2006 9:56:35 AM
1-4 are excellent (especially 2+3). de la soul had a great track on the 1999 prince among theives album, ot shouldbe noted, though i agree their early stuff is best.
Don't know 5, but curious.
Disagree on 6. Nas' hip-hop lacks any raw qualities. His samples are obvious and the lyrics mostly juvenile.
7. Good.
8. Also good, as good as Prince in some cases, but not rap.
9. Kayne is good only in a qualified sense -- he's high quality given that he's a mainstream commerical success. Outkast in contrast is good period.
10. will have to check out.
The Beastie boys can yell and come across as punks, but (a) Check your Head was really very creative and (b their drunken cover of 'Benny and the Jets' guarantees them a special place in my heart.
Same (lack of) impression re Wu Tang. Public Enemy definitely falls into the good but overrated camp. Run DMZ falls into neither. One appreciates them as one appreciates the pre-socratics -- for the ground they broke and their subsequent influence.
If I were making a list of the top 10 I would have included: Quasimoto (aka MadLib aka Yesterday's New Quintet). He is producing the most interesting stuff that I know of these days. As lucid as Outkast, his rare jazz + funk layered loops, and helium-inspired rapping are unique + compelling (i should write cd blurbs).
The Stonesthrow record label Quasimoto comes off of has a lot of good lesser-known west coast artists including PeanutbutterWolf and Dudley Perkins. Bpth recommended.
More:
Kool Keith
MFDoom
Blackalicious
Souls of Mischief
Del the Funky Homospaien
Vic Vaughan
Mos Def
Posted by: catchy at Aug 20, 2006 9:56:53 AM
The last comment was a spelling correction, not a vote.
Posted by: Jeff Brown at Aug 20, 2006 9:58:57 AM
Whoa, I mean second to last.
Posted by: Jeff Brown at Aug 20, 2006 9:59:37 AM
Whoa, I mean second to last.
Posted by: Jeff Brown at Aug 20, 2006 10:02:21 AM
Little Brother is jammin, LB, and Minstrel show is a great album.
Heaven is a fun tune that takes you through a bunch of old skool hip hop samples, from tribe, biz markie, to common. downloading it could be a good way to spend part of your sunday.
Posted by: catchy at Aug 20, 2006 10:12:17 AM
Other artists I'd recommend:
* Dead Prez
* A Tribe Called Quest (especially The Low-End Theory)
* Boogie Down Productions (especially By Any Means Necessary and Ghetto Music), but don't ignore KRS-One's solo material
* Young Jeezy (his lyrics are kind of lacking, but he's got charisma in spades)
* Clipse (with every song, a handful of new drug metaphors)
* Digable Planets (hip-hop meets jazz)
* El-P (especially Fantastic Damage; loud, abrasive, abstract yet confrontational)
* Cannibal Ox (The Cold Vein is one of my favorite albums of any genre)
* Dalek (combine a bunch of rappers with noise rock)
* Black Star (Mos Def and Talib Kweli); Kweli's Quality is just that, while Mos Def's Black on Both Sides is a classic
* Esau (his only album is hard to find, but it's horribly underrated -- wry, self-deprecating, pointedly honest rap)
Posted by: Rob J. at Aug 20, 2006 10:39:22 AM
Anybody have anything good to say about Naughty by Nature?
Posted by: Richard at Aug 20, 2006 11:05:16 AM
The Japanese engineer (presumably at Roland) who programmed all of the (or just, the) drum track(s) is the most underappreciated musical contributor ever and deserves a lifetime achievement award.
Oh, and The RZA's sound track to Ghost Dog was appropriate for the movie (which I like).
Posted by: Eric H at Aug 20, 2006 11:14:49 AM
Catchy - I fully concur on MF Doom/Viktor Vaughn/King Geedorah/Zev Love X (Daniel Dumile). After MC Solaar, he is my favorite. You also mention Peanut Butter Wolf, he is a recent discovery for me and is great; also Quas/Madlib from the same label is great but as shown on the Madvillainy album MF Doom is a bit better. I have been meaning to try Del tha Funkee for awhile, need to get to that.
Also, Paul brings up a great point, Jurassic 5 is very good.
Some other good ones:
Jin
Eyedea and Abilities (duo)
NTM (French)
Saian Supa Crew (French)
Brother Ali
T.I. (same charisma factor as Jeezy mentioned by Rob J.)
MF/GM Grimm
In small doses: 50 Cent, Memphis Bleek, Jay-Z, Wu Tang
For Tyler specifically I would recommend MF Doom and Jin.
Nach Scratch is a good Spanish rapper I discovered in Chile.
Jazzmatazz - similar to Digable Planets (Rob J.) but IMO better.
Also, everyone should try out some DJ/turntable music, e.g. DJ Shadow.
Posted by: Sean at Aug 20, 2006 11:29:36 AM
Rob J.:
Oh, now, come on! You can't include El-P *and* Cannibal Ox while skipping over Aesop Rock... unless you don't like ace rizzle, that is. Heh, ;).
Either way, I HIGHLY recommend Aesop Rock's Labor Days and Bazooka Tooth. (and I second Rob J.'s recommendations for El-P and Cannibal Ox, and everything else on Def Jux records)
Also, everything that MF DOOM, Madlib, and Danger Mouse touch. Particular examples of some excellent collabs: Madvillainy by Madvillain (MF DOOM + Madlib), The Mouse and the Mask by DANGERDOOM (MF DOOM + Danger Mouse), and The Grey Album (an illegal mashup of Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles' White Album, by Danger Mouse).
Hmm, Ghostface Killah's Fishscale was excellent (even without RZA). If you care to venture into more violent/political hip hop, check out Jedi Mind Tricks (especially Violent By Design) and Immortal Technique.
And the standard Mos Def, Kanye, Common, etc.etc. that everyone knows about.
And that's just US stuff. You could venture into the UK with The Streets, grime, etc.etc.
Posted by: Currence at Aug 20, 2006 11:51:36 AM
Second Ghostface, Supreme Clientle was another great album. And Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which was more or less a Ghostface album as well.
Posted by: Van at Aug 20, 2006 12:43:55 PM
I just want to clear up one thing that *everyone* this world over is affraid to say: Illmatic is not Nas' best album. It is brilliant and prodigious (a great sign of things to come), but Nas was barely pubescent and had much to develop and refine. (I'm a huge fan of Nas, but I think Biggie's Ready to Die and Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt are better debut albums). It Was Written, on the other hand, is a flawless work from a mature artist in his prime, and has no parallel. The closest parallel I can make is to Allen Ginsburg's Howl, in that both incorporate everything that could be said/was said about the beats/mid-90s inner city, into a single masterwork.
I vote for Common as all time most overrated rapper.
Posted by: The Guy Who Likes Friends at Aug 20, 2006 12:51:07 PM
Blackalicious is good. He provides a positive message instead of the typically destructive messages of other rappers.
It's self-help hop.
Posted by: Macneil at Aug 20, 2006 12:58:57 PM
Wow, Tyler, I can't tell if you're illiterate or just toying with us. You claim to like the "overeducated white guy" rap and then you hit us with some of the illest killas ever to rock the mic. (Schooly D makes tupac look like a young girl with a skinned knee.) Which is it, dawg?
Your comment about Run-DMC is simply unacceptable for anyone who claims to have an informed opinion. They invented modern rap music. They are perhaps 10x more important to rap music than the Beatles are to rock. I would try to say what rap would be like without them, but it's simply unimaginable. Go back and listen to Tougher than Leather twice and then say 10 Hail Marys and I'll see what I can do about getting the rap gods to spare your sorry ass.
I mostly agree with you about the Beastie Boys but, perhaps in an effort to cement your street cred, you overstate your case. Paul's Boutique is an undeniable classic that will never be replicated; Paul Revere is inimitable storytellng.
There are incredible ommissions in your list.
The biggest one is Slick Rick. Adventures in Storytelling maybe the single best rap album ever produced.
You need to listen to:
- Oliver Hart
- Eyedea (same dude, different pseudonym)
- Biz Markie (too often relegated to "clown prince of hip-hop" status, homeboy's got the skills to pay the bills.
- Black Star * Mos Def, Talib Kweli. yes their shit is socialist and they need to brush up on Fritz Machlup, von Mises, Bastiat, Herbert Spencer etc. But their flow is off the hook. Undeniably the best in consciousness rap.
- MC Paul Barman, the cleverest young Jewish boy from Fair Lawn NJ to ever bless a mic. Definitely check out "MTV Get off the air (Pt. 2)"
Alright, the lecture is over perfessor. But you really need to go back into the stacks. It's important to recognize the classics.
This post was spitting in the face of many of the most important rappers. I was afraid you were about to praise Will Smith which would have caused me to slit my wrists.
Keep it real, homey.
Posted by: c at Aug 20, 2006 1:21:24 PM
I always thought that Deltron 3030 was over-educated whiteguy rap.
Posted by: Timothy at Aug 20, 2006 2:53:31 PM
The Roots ?!!?
Posted by: ? at Aug 20, 2006 2:59:20 PM
I'd like to plug Prefuse 73, a one-man hip-hop/techno band. Heavy grooves that stay interesting; garbled, dark gangsta lyrics; glitchy accompaniment.
The album I own is Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives, the album on Amazon that had the best samples (that's the only way I buy music now). He's the only hip-hop artist on Aphex Twin's label, Warp.
Posted by: Jeff Brown at Aug 20, 2006 3:10:17 PM
Kanye's great. The new album is big and a mixed bag, but over half of it is phenomenal. I'm sick of Golddigger, though.
De La Soul's material after Three Feet High and Rising is interesting if you know where to look. I like mainly a select few songs, as opposed to entire albums, of the stuff that came later.
Eminem's the greatest, and I'll chalk your oversight up to hitting publish too soon. He was at the end in your list, right?
A Tribe Called Quest is great, as is the new Gnarls Barkley album, and Mob Goodie. You left Fugees and Lauryn Hill's Miseducation of Lauryn Hill off. Who's going to make something better than that album in the near future? I wore the paint off that tape from overplay.
And I think 50 Cent is pretty good, too. Some songs comes close to being great, but not quite. Like the one that starts with "Growing up saw my momma kissing a girl..." That could be a great song if it had more verses telling his story and less of The Game (I think it's The Game) telling him.
Posted by: scott cunningham at Aug 20, 2006 5:52:31 PM
Also, there's a mashup online somewhere of weezer and Jay-z's black album called Jay-zeezer that is really good. I liked it betterthan the straightup black album alone, though I think "lucifer" works by itself just fine.
Posted by: scott cunningham at Aug 20, 2006 5:55:28 PM
The Coup-Party Music. Smart, revolutionary, flowing music. Hardcore Marxists, but I can overlook that for the sake of hearing a good tune or ten.
Incidentally, Tyler, thanks for turning me on to XTC. I still have an iTunes playlist called "Tyler Cowen" from over two years ago.
Posted by: evariste at Aug 20, 2006 6:44:21 PM
Eminem was an inexcusable oversight, my apologies.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Aug 20, 2006 9:26:25 PM
ATCQ and The Roots are definitely the biggest omissions here. Kind of tells me that Tyler hasn't been to too many (any?) hip-hop shows.
I'm a huge Talib Kweli fan, but liked Reflection Eternal (w/DJ Hi Tek) better than Quality.
The Gang Starr team peaked with Moment of Truth, but then started to get repetitive. Dilated Peoples can put on a great show. Pete Rock is another brother that gets forgotten.
Hieroglyphics's 3rd Eye Vision is a fun album start to finish. High quality Del.
Posted by: Dan at Aug 20, 2006 10:03:53 PM
