Tom Petty Dissin' Hip-Hop!

"well disco killed you dead you pustulant tick on the asshole of rock history."

hi. um Tom Petty.

On the next E! True Hollywood Story!

But he's right, you know: the current state of contemporary hip-hop isn't exactly a progressive think-tank.

Thanks, Tom.

(ha ha this is why "Boys of Summer" *is* good!)

Cube needs to make a real comeback.

Remember how hip hop has sucked for the past 10 years?

*disclaimer: i'm not assuming that all (or even most) hiphop is dumb... especially since i'm not defining dumb... i am, however, implying a general atmosphere of dull/repetitive lyrics and themes (bitches, money, weed, bitches, money...ummm...weed) in most popular hiphop....

It's funny you say this because my friend and myself have had this as a running joke for ages, screaming at Billy Nasty and others "oh you play that thump thump crap don't you? God if you think I'm dancing tonight you're sorely mistaken".

if you will read the sentences that follow the * at the bottom of the message, you will see that i'm not implying that "bitches, money and weed" are dumb topics... just that they are played... but to answer your question, the "bulk of canonical works of western literature", although often about women, is certainly not focused on women in the role that they play in hiphop or on weed or money... rather the bulk of western literature since joyce has focused on the existence and expression of the self in the presence of an increasingly dominating society...

"good" = a relative term.

Likewise from the outside mainstream hip hop looks like an unindividuated morass of indistinguishable commentary on bitches, money and weed. On the "inside" (by which I mean from the perspective of listening to a lot of the stuff), this intentional restriction acts as a positive force, because the challenge of self-promotion becomes "how do I create a recognisable persona for myself when I'm rapping about the same thing as both every gangsta in the charts *and* every Lil' [x] on the sidewalk?" What I respond to strongly in gangsta rap is this very thing - just when you think everything has been done there *is* a new twist to the formula (and I'm no longer foolish enough to assume that everything's been done anyway).

I don't think characters like Busta Rhymes or Mystikal would thrive outside the context of gangsta rap - certainly indie rap as a whole puts very little effort into persona-construction, preferencing lyrical complexity and a very limited idea of what constitutes "flow".

The specific subjectival consistency of gangsta rap is also what allows its music to be astonishingly varied.

to make tim's fine point flip -- there are many ways to express yourself through relationship to bitches, money, and weed. those being the defining traits of late 20th century society anyway.

Ko also pulls a really fucking hypocritical trick by saying that western literature is not "about" the actual content but about "the existence and expression of the self yadda yadda yadda." Is it really so impossible that rappers are using the same old subject matter as at basically any point in western history to do their own "expression of the self?" Isn't the whole wealth-and-power conceit of rap precisely exactly an attempt at the construction of a "self" based on the same material terms in which black Americans have been long denied the opportunity to create that self? How is what Nas says any less intelligent than what The Godfather says?

Is it really so hard to just say you're not interested in it, rather than making ridiculous moralistic arguments about its intelligence?

although it's completely unsurprising that said statement had to come in the issue featuring christina aguilera's 'fuck the pretty' manifesto/naked-came-the-guitar spread ...

Yes, probably.

this is only a quasi-related question but i didn't want to start a new thread...
what distinguishes the personas of jadakiss, styles p, fabolous, cam'ron and the clipse guys?

This has actually started to breakdown a bit with the rise of Anticon etc. who seem to leave all three potential essences open-ended - which is perhaps why there are such debates as to whether Anticon constitutes rap or not. I'm not sure if this choice is the best way to go - having fun in the world of endless difference is all very well but it creates very little friction or tension (arguably created in all other forms of rap - and music generally? - by the tightening of certain rules and the relaxation of others).

"(did any of the 'oh no! ROCK! oh no!' chorus read the rest of this article, or are you being as pick-and-choose judgmental as you're accusing TP of being, hm?)."

Maura, is the rest of the interview online? I can only go by what is quoted.

tom petty making "rock" music is a red herring anyway.

Hm, y'think? From what you're saying the tension has to exist inside the genre as broadly described (correct me if I'm wrong). But obvious it doesn't exist in a vacuum in general, much less a more specific musical one, so can't there be play and difference inside one boundary that still rubs up against something outside? This is assuming the friction and tension you describe always needs to have a certain predominance, and I'm not sure that's actually supposed to be the case. Music as aural comfort food can and does have its place, much as it might be seen as something to kick against at the same time.

did any of the 'oh no! ROCK! oh no!' chorus read the rest of this article, or are you being as pick-and-choose judgmental as you're accusing TP of being, hm?)

Like Jess says, Petty has long been spouting this type of stuff, and it's not anymore convincing than when Frank Sinatra talked about how rock was a pieceashit fad made by barbarians. And please don't mistake me for an "oh no! ROCK! oh no!" person. (nb I don't take Maura's comment super-personally, I just mocked Petty and want to make my stance here abundantly clear.)

"Hm, y'think? From what you're saying the tension has to exist inside the genre as broadly described (correct me if I'm wrong)."

Ned, I'm saying the self-conscious "no boundaries" approach of Anticon doesn't on the whole work for me b/c they're not positing a reference point from which they're moving out. It's self-consciously "way-out" music - at least in the context of it being considered hip hop - but once you establish that there are no rules, breaking the rules seems a lot less interesting. Or to put it another way: why does putting Indian motifs in hip hop work so well at the moment? Because they're not meant to be there. Once the trick is totally co-opted it'll sound a lot less transgressive (in the same way a Timbaland stuttering beat sounds a lot less transgressive in '02 than it did in '97).

Whereas with Anticon, the choice to use this strange sound or that strange sound has about as much transgressive value as wearing a g-string in a nudist colony even before it's used, because Anticon have essentially co-opted all strange sounds, conceptually if not physically.

Obviously you two then lezzed up.

Hm, I guess that means that you and I ultimately differ on the point, then. I'm seeing a potentially endless palette with a boundless canvas -- and I like it! -- while you'd prefer either palette or canvas to have a defined edge.

Busta Rhymes from 1997 to 2002 as gangsta... I don't know if that works. How do "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See", "Dangerous", "Turn It Up", "Gimme Some More", "What's It Gonna Be?", "What It Is" and "Break Ya Neck" fit into the gangsta scene? ("Pass the Courvoisier Part II" is the only thing that comes close to fitting and that's more with the video than anything else.)

"You don't see him wearing thousand-pound gold chains encrusted with ice," Manaury Reyes, 17, said of Eminem. "He's always dressed regular in sweats like us. The sweats might cost more, but he ain't frontin'. He's not rapping about clothes, cars and jewelry like all those other rappers. He's rapping about life — you know, stuff that we go through out here. Some of it's a goof, but some of it's real, and it sounds like it comes from the heart, you know. A lot of us can relate to that."

(if anything, em is a throwback, at least in terms of the sort of "progression" blueski implies in his gangsta-playa theory, back to a time when shrieking thugs like nwa wore the same clothes as everyone else on the block and talked about capping people.)

america has always been very disingenuous about what they want out of their popular entertainment and why. it's important to look at the source of the quote as much as what is said. tom petty has always been as reactionary as those who called duke ellington "jungle music", except he has the good fortune of the current generations of Jungle Musicians stripped of ellington's genteelity and poise and grace. his "arguments" are made for him: anyone he's going to be preaching to - largely lower-middle class/working-class, largely white, largely rock fans - already have the same "problems" with the content of hiphop that he does. people simply take tom petty more seriously because he's always come across as the working man's friend, so it's not as silly when he (a wealthy rock star) comes out against commidification and materialism as, say, keith richards or even eric clapton.

I know almost nothing about underground rap, but for somebody who does, is it more lyrically varied then just combinations for bitches, hoes, cars, money and weed?

And something Ive been wondering for a while:
Didn't rap get so big because it was "real" and spoke of what urban life was really like? I mean, how can these new rappers who have massive amounts of money still talk to an audience who doesn't have much? Or is it one of those, "Look what a black man can have", type of things?

A lot of underground hip-hop doesn't seem to talk about anything very much - much is very abstracted. That's appealing or annoying depending on taste. A lot more of it is bragging rap, just like mainstream hip-hop always has been and probably always will be. I never quite know what people who criticise the content of hip-hop want from hip-hop lyrics so I don't know what to 'suggest' as an underground (or mainstream) tune for someone looking for "lyrical variation".

David, mainstream rap doesn't talk about massively idiotic things, so it's not a given.

Do you want me to post some lyrics of rap that is currently on the charts? Cause I could.

Same with rock.

2. I wont bother responding to Jess, as no matter what I say she managed to post a responce within 30 seconds automatically disagreeing with me.

- saying that the range of mainstream rap is broader than Petty is suggesting.
- suggesting that the things Petty is complaining about aren't inherently idiotic.

To just describe the idiocy of mainstream rap as a "given" is completely ignoring these posters and their arguments, which have taken up a good 50% of the discussion so far.

Well, yes, if "I'm not interested in it" isn't what you're trying to say. If you actively dislike it, for whatever reason, you're not just disinterested, are you? You couldn't even posit the question to be answered without inserting your own bias (you called any related moralistic arguments "ridiculous").

Plus, I remember one of Tom Petty's songs having the line "so let's roll... another joint"...

Class act.

Not automatically true, I'd think. Certainly boots have been doing their best to push that particular line, but given that it seems the best boots in fact aim at seamlessness, it can be less a change of expectation and more pushing a button directly.

Of course, if we really want to play around with this general idea (and I don't recall where Chuck said it, actually -- Accidental History?), the whole thing is obvious hyperbole, which he'd doubtless agree with. I know I don't agree with wanting to hear something radically out of context as somehow an improvement, and what the context is is important! Let's take environment -- is blasting some bass-heavy apocalypse in the middle of a serene, silent cathedral automatically an improved listening experience beyond the automatic snarkiness factor?

TP:"Filthy lyrics make me sick.
Okay. So far so good. Excessive profanity does tend to numb the senses and (if Kurt Vonnegut is right) "Give everybody else permission to not pay attention to you anymore."

TP:I'm frustrated by what I hear.
This is a bit vague, but I guess he's still ranting about the pottymouth people. (Their new single is ace, by the way)

TP:Maybe it's not meant for me.
Here he seems to be focussing his ire on a genre outside his own. I assume from the threads title that he refers to Hip-hop. I could cop out and say "Its a 'black thing' and you're not supposed to understand." but even I'm tired of hearing that excuse. Music is for everybody. It's 'public domain', and if the music you make says something unpleasant about you, you have no right to get huffy when someone starts asking hard questions about your intentions.

TP:Personally, I'm way too bright for a lot of the hip hop lyrics to affect.
Okay...nooooowwww he's being an asshole. Don't overestimate your intellect, Petty...you're nowhere near as bright as you think you are. (He also misses the point that 'makes me sick' and 'doesnt affect me' are contradictions.)

TP:I'm much too smart to think that jewelry or how cool I am is really going to change much about my personality.
Is this where I start singing "Imagine no possessions..." in a bad Lennon impersonation?

TP:If you're dumb enough that it entertains you, have a great time. But I am seeking more than that.
Hmmm. Not only does he think he's smart, he thinks the audience is dumb. Not a good combination.

By the way, you're completely misreading that line -- what I called ridiculous were "moralistic arguments about intelligence," not moralistic arguments in and of themselves. No one on this thread has yet made any argument to connect their aesthetic or moralistic uncomfortability with rap to anything having to do with intelligence: is anyone even going to try? Even on the moralistic front, no one on this thread has offered any argument why depictions of drug use and violence in rap lyrics are somehow more worthy of our outrage than the depictions of druge use and violence The Sopranos wins awards for: if you're going to tell me that rap just handles it unintelligently then make that argument, don't just spout the same old line about "money, women, weed, it's all so dumb."

(And David, from the rap I'm hearing on the charts these days a selection of lyrics would probably contain more romantic getaways and marriage proposals than caps busted: even Fabolus is talking about walking down the aisle.)

Well, to stray more to the original post, I just have to say that this whole thing reaks of publicity stunt. I mean, isn't Tom Petty just about to go on tour or releasing an album?

I'd say it reeks of a throwaway sentence and that merely talking to a young Hip-Hop fan (let alone reading this thread) would convince Petty of the daftness of those statetments (although he probably still wouldn't like Hip-Hop.) I doubt it he gave it much more thought than any middle aged over-the-hill fella gives to the average "kids these days with their filthy music" statement (which is not to excuse his behaviour, of course, but ya know, who's gonna expect open-mindedness from Tom Petty?)

Not really an argument... just wanted to state it for no good reason whatsoever.

Li'l Flip exempt, that guy roolz

Agree that they work well; don't agree that they're "not meant to be there." It's taken for granted that something from who-knows-where will be there. I agree with your overall point that musicians use restrictions (though I'm sure - even while not having heard them (him? her?) - that Anticon use restrictions themselves; just not the same ones as Fabolous et al.). Don't see any transgression in recent hip-hop Orientalism, though. Inventiveness and some surprise, yes. But no violation.

Of course Tim, I think you're basically on the money (restricted lyrics are not necessarily stupid lyrics, and mainstrean hip-hop has broad range of lyrics), but there've been interesting points above that could still be addressed: some indie rappers have very strong personas (Northern State! Northern State! Northern State!). And Maura and Mark raised some good questions in response to Nabisco: sure, wine, women, money, and murder are long-time topics in Western culture, but that doesn't mean that hip-hop isn't doing it differently, for better or worse. (No one in the rock of my youth was bragging that he wouldn't go down on his girlfriend, for instance.) So I don't see that this thread is played-out yet.

(1) I don't see how you can make a general rule about whether things sound better or not where they're unexpected. The unexpected could be a total bore at times. This would depend on the particular context, the expectation, the novelty, etc. And (2) Sorry to be pedantic, but this is not what Chuck meant by the Gladys Knight & the Pips Rule, anyway. He wasn't talking about denying expectations. He was self-consciously re-stating (and saying it better!) Richard Meltzer's point in The Aesthetics of Rock: "The rock 'n' roll experience must combine both the awesome and the trivial for either to be potent." Chuck's version (in The Accidental Evolution of Rock'N'Roll):

In "Midnight Train to Georgia," which everybody I've ever met acknowledges as a great record, the frivolousness of the Pips doing their train-whistle ooo-woos (especially if you're watching it on TV and they're gesturing and spinning around in unison at the same time) is what keeps Gladys's soul singing down-to-earth. Without the Pips, Gladys would be merely "intense" - not catchy enough, therefore boring, therefore not intense at all, really. Calling music "intense" or "emotional" or "soulful" is usually a euphemism for "it seems like something I'm supposed to like." It's fairly obvious that the Pips alone would be an ignorable proposition; my point is that Gladys alone would be just as ignorable. And, in fact, the problem with most soul music is that it's all-Gladys/no-Pips: e.g., '60s Aretha Franklin subscribed to the fallacy that by removing shlockish prettiness from music (Dionne Warwick's "I Say A Little Prayer," say) you improve it, when really you just make it more reverent....

Then again, since rock'n'roll is a leisure time activity, there are inevitably people who act like music should be all Pips/no-Gladys. But that wouldn't work, either, since Gladysness is where music's tragedy comes from. As often as not, I need moroseness or violence in my disco. My sense of humor's fine, but the trash-aesthetic concept of forced insignificance (where ideas and passion and audacity are shrugged off as "pretentious") isn't fun - it's lazy.

Now, it'd be so obvious as not to be worth mentioning if Chuck were just saying that "awesomeness needs triviality to mean anything," but it's not obvious that Gladys needs the Pips, or that the Beatles need screaming teenies (the Meltzer sentence came in the midst of a description of the Beatles at Shea Stadium), or that the disco round needs terror and transcendence, or that the fun music on Radio Disney needs to come off to its prime audience as possessing intensity and deep emotion. The fact that this is all true doesn't explain why it's true.

Anyway, I'd welcome more detailed discussion about how hip-hop works, when it does work.

The rock 'n' roll experience must combine both the awesome and the trivial in order for either facet to be potent.

Okay, maybe quoted words are a bit strong - but I hink there has been (and still is pretty much) a frission between the pre-established attributes in hip hop and the "new" Indian influences that survives the ubiquity of the latter, the sense of being contra-association, if not quite transgression. I can't remember, but I imagine that retro soul-sampling had the same feel for quite a while too (and indeed by the time of The Blueprint had almost regained it).

And it's true, a lot of hip-hop lyrics are pretty explicit, and duh duh duh duh-duh, but that's not the problem. A lot of hip-hop lyrics are just dumb. I won't mention Fabolous or Nelly, wait, I just did. Maybe I'm out of the loop, but diamonds and platinum and Bentleys and Benzes and all that stuff can go directly to hell. I'm more of a fan of drug/beer/funny rhyming, like Red and Mef.

Tical!

Oh yeah, and Biz Markie. How come I can never find his album? Been looking in stores for months.

I mean now we have pussy-eating in the vocabulary of things pop music can address -- in all forms.

At the same time there has been a newer and nastier misogyny in recent years, and I think Kitwana captured some of it in a rilly problematic chapter of his "Hip Hop Generation" book. The rise of female voices has transformed a hegemony of male-ness into a battle of the sexes in a certain way which intensifies rather than reduces the direct manifestations of anti-woman sentiment. If that makes any sense.

Tom Petty's probably one of the last "rock stars" left that hasn't cashed in on his old fame to get played on MTV's retro flavor of the day. He actually is fighting for what music fans of any genre should want: the promotion of artists based on the quality of the music, rather than its sell ability to people who have an IQ under 70.

what did Tom Petty have against Joe Piscopo anyway

I think Dylan wrote that line.

people are confusing 'gangsta rap' with its successor 'playa rap' (Biggie, Jay-Z etc.) -

http://drdrestartedburningman.tumblr.com/

Yeah, Dylan wrote the Eddie Murphy, Piscopo and Vanessa Redgrave lines. The latter I understand, but I wonder what the former did to earn Dylan's ire.

Bob didn't appreciate Eddie's "Bob Dylan's Celebrity Hot Tub Party" SNL sketch.

Tom Petty Dissin' Hip-Hop!

did vassifer really go buy tom petty's album just because of that quote?