non-rap artists who repped for rap back in the day and non-rap artists who did not.

thinking about sinead a lot obviously. and how remarkable it was back then that she was such a big rap fan! i don't know why it seemed remarkable to people. because she was a white pop-rock woman? that can't be it. that was probably it. she was young too! she needed rebel armor, duh. i'd been hearing rap in rock and pop since...1980? wait, was there a rap song on kings of the wild frontier? anyway, new romantics, new wave, dance-y bands embraced or just ripped off rap since forever. but those old grizzled rockers. they went out of their way to be horrible about rap. also since forever. my memory is that 60s and 70s freedom rockers could be the worst but maybe there was badness all around. and by badness i mean racism. punk and metal might have been worse. and country...well, now country is in the flowering of a rap renaissance so all's well that ends well. though there were of course people who embraced rap in every genre. but not a ton anywhere. wait, who were the r&b artists who HATED rap? i used to think madonna was a big rap fan. but then i heard her rap! sorry. i had to. man, the negativity felt way more pervasive here. lots of hate. i still get lots of rap hate in my store to this day. its the only really visceral distaste i witness in people who come in! isn't that crazy? some of it is the instinctive hatred for things that people think are talentless fads for suckers. like punk. but there can also just be distaste for the culture. for the people. for the voices. but fuck that darkness i'm just hoping tarfumes has a choice anecdote about neil young, mc shan, and steve swallow stuck in an elevator together after a phillip glass concert.

anyway, i just wondered if you could remember examples of times where you felt surprised by a non-rap artist being a rap fan or surprised by someone being really negative about rap in general. i feel like non-american artists just took it in stride more in the 80s and beyond. whether as a novelty or yet one more example of african-american genius that they could worship. things are different here.

you don't have to read that long thing at the top. you can just read the short thing. you won't miss much.

i also searched for a thread like this and i didn't see one. but there may be something.

i seem to remember late 80s Macca being dismissive of rap on some chat show, and showing how easy it was by saying “well my name is Paul and I am not small” or some terrible shit like that, and winked and thumbs upped and the crowd laffed and applauded at how he’d really shown them uppity rappers

maybe it wasn’t exactly like this but it was close

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nguaFTE7WYg

Paul changed his mind and did something with pre-MAGA Kanye IIRC

There are several late 70s/80s black artists that have the same arc as Prince. At first he was pretty against it. Thought sampling to be unoriginal and lazy, if not outright theft. Rappers are not musicians, I believe he called them all tone deaf. Once it became popular in a mainstream sense he started to incorporate it into his music, but basically completely abandoned it after a few years.

Did he evolve as listener or was he dabbling in a genre he hated to stay relevant?

another strike against the Dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnIbSeIDSUM

I don't see why that is at all a bad opinion. Describing rappers as essentially poets, not musicians is a totally valid stance

Fuck that, he sounds like exactly like a bigoted boomer asshole.

Dylan did a track with Kurtis Blow and writes in his memoirs how he felt over the hill when comparing his own work to that of Public Enemy, Ice-T, etc.

Paul Simon had Big Daddy Kane intro the "Me & Julio" music video.

Bo Diddley's stance from the one interview I remember seemed to be "this lacks originality but hey, as long as they pay me".

I suppose Rodney Dangerfield was an early adopter of the music

comedians definitely saw the appeal right away. which totally makes sense.

i love hearing jazz dudes from 50s 60s taking a huge dump on rocknroll, its nice to hear your favorite music just completely obliterated, kinda keeps things in perspective. yeah yeah there were a few guys from that era who sort of got it but this is very much to be expected, just learn to love the hate.

I was surprised and happy when night-music / tranq pop masters HTRK covered “Hit ‘Em Wit da Hee” on Venus in Leo. Transformative cover but grounded in respect.

Dylan did an intro to a Kurtis Blow record way back in 86!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfi7ME_Y5Vs

bbq at 2:15 13 Aug 23

I don't see why that is at all a bad opinion. Describing rappers as essentially poets, not musicians is a totally valid stance



no it's not a valid stance in any way unless you are as dumb as Garcia. rapping is a musical element within the track, drums (& space) are music......

John Entwistle: “I can't stand rap....people who can't sing do rap....you can sing rebellion as well as talk it....Hitler would have been in a rap band.”

Pete Townshend:

When asked about what he felt about rap and hip-hop’s “stranglehold” on the pop charts, Townshend answered, “Rap and hip-hop is the music of the street today. The street is where rock came from. When the white rock players and their fans stopped hanging out on the street, and started hanging out in restaurants, the reality shifted.”

Townshend added, “This is… a ‘loaded’ question. You assume I will agree with you that rock has lost its grip on the masses. Firstly, it never had a grip on the black audience, they’ve always had their own music styles and special coded language which rap has now formalized. I also reject the use of the word ‘stranglehold’ — it suggests a noble rock ‘n’ roll tree is being starved of air and nurture by the weeds of rap. I am a huge fan of rap — even Eminem has a real connection to the work I did when I was young.”

Once read an interview with Jim Dickinson where he went on about Dr Dre being a brilliant producer

Damn that's a great quote by Pete

ums very otm

I listen to Questlove's podcast a lot and there have been a succession of 70s r&b dudes who haaated rap at first, especially when they heard their music sampled and considered it theft...until the publishing gets sorted and the checks start rolling in, then they love rap. :)

ums otm seconded. For one thing, the guy who happily accompanied Pigpen’s utterly interminable babbling on 40-minute renditions of “Turn On Your Lovelight” needs to stfu about what is and isn’t “music.”

But “music” is not a qualitative term, like “weather.” When it’s raining no one says, “Pfft! This isn’t even weather!”

Thread forced me to listen to this, which I had managed to avoid hearing until ca. 5 minutes ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Am45JrwQ4

Debbie Harry insisted on having the Funky 4+1 as secondary musical guests when she host Saturday Night Live in early '81 (and by then Blondie had recorded "Rapture").

https://vimeo.com/512205663

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were one of the openers on the Clash’s 1981 Bond’s residency, and were getting booed by the audience. Then Joe Strummer’s voice came over the PA and said, "Cut the crap and give them a chance! The Clash picked Grandmaster Flash to play for you, and if you don’t treat them with some respect, then you don’t deserve to see the Clash!"

there's that great Dylan quote about PE and Ice-t -"these guys weren't bullshitting, they were beating on drums, tearing it up, hurling horses off cliffs. They were all poets and knew what was going on"

Got curious and looked to see when was the next time SNL had a Hip Hop musical guest, and it was in early 1990! Quincy Jones hosted and was the musical guest alongside a number of the guests from his then-new Back On The Block album (Big Daddy Kane, Kool Moe Dee etc.).

Run-D.M.C. was a musical guest in 1986. Spike Lee, as Mars Blackmon, introduced them (Malcolm-Jamal Warner was the host), and talked about how the recent violence at a Run-D.M.C. show in Long Beach was instantly blamed on the music, but no one talked about the violence (cherry bombs, people thrown off balconies) at rock shows.

Oops, missed that whilst skimming an episode guide.

this actually might be a good litmus test for sorting out smart vs. dumb classic rockers

maybe i should put this on the "second thoughts" thread but i tire of threads whose point is to call other less enlightened people bigots or racists or whatever. litmus tests. canceling people.

I remember McCartney actually saying good things about rap. iirc he said he discovered some of it thanks to one of his daughters. I think he singled out Eric B & Rakim and B-Fats as two acts he liked. Then years later he talked about going to the see the Eminem movie and enjoying it.

TSF I hope Jerry Garcia can recover from my post

sorry ums i really enjoy your posts. it's just my mindset right now. it just seems that our bigot detectors are set way too high these days. when you're two weeks away from your 65th birthday and you keep being bombarded by phrases like "bigoted boomer asshole" it has a cumulative effect.

Oops, missed that whilst skimming an episode guide.

I also missed LL Cool J, who appeared as dual musical guest alongside some Rock band called The Pull on a Sean Penn-hosted SNL ep in early '87.

The Pull = Sean's brother Michael's pre-solo career outfit.

...and it was in late '87.

TSF - no worries and I've always enjoyed your posts as well. I do tire of generational thinking, it's very tiresome and tends to paper over a lot of issues with race, class, culture etc. I've tried to remove "boomer" from my vocab because it's gotten tiresome.

I should apologize to bbq the way I phrased that was harsh and not fair to you.

honestly I just personally very much dislike Jerry Garcia as a person and the cult around him (do dig the Dead to a degree), so that was why it was so harsh.

lol I said tiresome 10 times who's dumb now

I didn’t know Dylan did that Kurtis Blow feature, that’s awesome…

I was always intrigued by the Xgau review of the first RHCP album:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers [EMI America, 1984]
As minstrelsy goes, this is good-hearted stuff (and as minstrelsy, it had better be). The reason it doesn't quite come off isn't that it's good-hearted, either: the band is outrageous enough, though probably not the way it thinks it is. Perhaps there's a clue in this mysterious observation from spokesperson Flea: "Grandmaster Flash and Kurtis Blow have great raps, but not that great music with it." In a bassist, that's serious delusion.

Meanwhile, Stevie Wonder in 1982:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6f6BOKXXxg

A lot later but still by today's vantage "back in the day," plus a form of repping:

The chorus ... (is) derived from the chorus of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A," which apparently irked Jack Thompson, the Florida lawyer who instigated the complaints about 2 Live Crew. On June 19 Thompson sent a letter to Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, warning that 2 Live Crew might "be about to rip off his song." Thompson suggested that Springsteen "protect 'Born in the U.S.A.' from its apparent theft by a bunch of clowns who traffic toxic waste to kids. If he does not, then I'll be telling the nation about Mr. Springsteen's tacit approval of the above."

Actually, Campbell had sent a letter to Springsteen outlining the idea and lyrics for "Banned," requesting use of the song for "parody purposes." Landau says there are numerous requests to use Springsteen songs and "from time to time, you approve them, based on the merits of the specific proposal." (One such approval involved Cheech Marin's parody, "Born in East L.A."). Speaking for Springsteen, Landau said, "Bruce was comfortable with it. He's aware of Luke's situation, and to the extent that by approving this it helps in the area of free speech and showing support for freedom of expression, that is something Bruce is happy about and feels it's a good thing."

In a follow-up letter on June 26, Thompson sent a mock cover based on "Born in the U.S.A.," suggesting a title for Springsteen's next album: "Raped in the U.S.A."

"Mr. Springsteen, you're now harmful to the women and children who have bought your albums. You're also now a co-conspirator in the production of what Luther Campbell has said is an album that will be 'more obscene' than the last one and whose title cut will be 'Banned in the U.S.A.' Who's giving you legal advice? Luther's lawyers?"

Landau responds, "You can't even start paying attention to these things."

"maybe i should put this on the "second thoughts" thread but i tire of threads whose point is to call other less enlightened people bigots or racists or whatever. litmus tests. canceling people."

i totally get this and i am definitely guilty of going in hard on the woodstock set. i'm more interested in historical reactions to this explosive force that basically blew up the concept of bands and that traditional singer/songwriter model. it was a new thing (made out of old things) and what do people do when they hear a new thing? its interesting!

i have read a ton of 50s Downbeat issues and the pernicious threat of rock is kinda hilarious but also illuminating. it is seen as an invading force and rap created the same atmosphere.

one of my favorite books on earth is art taylor's Notes and Tones. interviews he did in the late 60s with various jazz artists. rock was STILL a scourge for a lot of the people he talked to at the height of civil rights tension. fuck the beatles and all that. and it also felt decadent and frivolous to those people. there was important work to do!

i don't see the rap haters as dumb. i do find their reactions to the music kinda bizarre and wild.

and like i said, i talk to people all the time at my store about what they love and hate. a lot of people i talk to who listened to rap in high school and college ONLY like the stuff they listened to in high school and college and HATE everything afterwards. and the reasons have a cliche similarity. "its all about bitches/hoes/money." "but kendrick lamar is okay i guess..."

i have had to hear bad freestyle raps about bitches/hoes/etc. from people who hate rap more than once and once was more than enough.

i should probably retire the boomer word too. but that cohort of middle to upper middle class white men hates rap with the most disdain. all these years later. i dunno. its maddening. and weird.

I talked to a cabbie a few months ago about music, he said he listened to hip-hop and grime in his youth but now realised that was "bullshit" and loved Elvis, Buddy Holly, stuff on oldies radio. "How many times can you talk about girls, cars, guns?". So I said well how many times can you talk about having a party and being in love. "Yeah but those songs are GOOD".

I thought of Neil Young right away, how he was plugged into everything at that time. I hope he wasn't dismissive, but I don't know--will try to find something contemporaneous.

the funny thing is sometimes I listen to old rap and get totally ambushed by how nasty some of that shit was wrt women and homophobia (really ruined this Nikki D album I was listening to on Spotify this morning walking the dog, which is mostly excellent) but like that type of person probably loves Slick Rick and some of the stuff he says, yikes

In 2012 Neil declared "Gonna get me a hip hop haircut," but to my ears, he sounded like he really did want to.

he embraced sampling with "doghouse"

Ripped from Google search results because paywall:

Neil Young Talks 'Harvest Moon' LP in Interview
Rolling Stone
Jan 21, 1993 — “I love rap!” he declares with a sparkle in those familiar, piercing eyes, professing a particular fondness for Ice-T. “It's speaking to the ...

what do people do when they hear a new thing? its interesting!

i totally get this too and i agree it's interesting. i was an early adherent thanks to robert christgau & vince aletti in the voice. i seem to remember a vince aletti "consumer guide" to the early 12-inches? or was that christgau? anyway it gave me a way in. i loved those records. i can sorta understand the bitches/hoes/money thing too though -- when rap became super popular and started appealing to white kids the subject matter did change and seemed to codify. seemed to, from the outside anyway. with a million exceptions etc. etc. for me it wasn't the subject matter so much -- i can relate to the concept of expressing an entire 360-degree worldview via a contained set of linguistic tropes. it's just that to penetrate that world seemed to involve an element of the type of suspension of disbelief that you would need to enjoy, like, pro wrestling. so intellectually, for those of a certain age, there's a certain amount of pushback. like, ok, you're going to erect all these barriers to my enjoyment then i'll listen to something else. which i have fought against but it would be untrue to say it isn't there. so i don't find it weird.

xp No paywall for me:

“It’s speaking to the people on the streets. It’s a whole new way of communicating that’s so open to saying exactly what the hell’s on people’s minds in a clever way, a way that you can listen to and move your body to. Similar to, like, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues.’ Dylan is early rap. What the hell’s the difference?” To those who resist rap’s charms, he adds, “This is the shit that’s going to keep music alive – don’t close it off because you don’t understand it.”

Jerry: "it has meter, it has rhythm"

ok so unlike your guitar playing

Thanks for digging those Neil quotes up--glad to find that out. (The best I could come up with from a Google search was Cameron Crowe's RS profile from 1979, where there was a line about "a rap at the door.")

“Who’s there?”
“The Sugarhill Gang.”

Another example of a not exactly early but still now 30 year old take:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6zzDDh8NzU

Here he is famously speaking more generally 10-years before that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZGiVzIr8Qg

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/guns-n-roses-n-w-a/

“It was an easy sort of friendship because we were the ‘them’ of north, white L.A., and they were the ‘us’ of south L.A and we recognized it as such,” bassist Duff McKagan told MTV in 2011. “I just remember having a party over at my house like, ‘Do you guys want to come to my party?’ And we had the best fucking barbecue with kegs of beer and a mixture of all kinds of people.”

McKagan expanded on Guns N' Roses' friendship and N.W.A in his autobiography, It’s So Easy: and Other Lies: “I had seen the sensationalized reaction Guns got by presenting an unedited look at our lives on Appetite. And white boys in Hollywood weren’t exactly a marginalized group,” McKagan wrote. “The glimpse of street life presented by N.W.A … was a true shock to the system. Those guys lived hard too, and we had some great parties up at my house.”

Ha, kind of the reverse of Fishbone, who were kids in South Central bussed to the Valley, where they were introduced to hard rock and metal.

when you're two weeks away from your 65th birthday and you keep being bombarded by phrases like "bigoted boomer asshole" it has a cumulative effect.

It was me who used that phrase because someone had decided, because they like the Grateful Dead or something, to claim Jerry Garcia saying rap is not music was a "totally valid opinion", when in fact it's exactly what any ignorant old fart would have said at the time and many are still saying to this day. If it had been some boneheaded metaller no-one would have said "totally valid opinion' but it's Jerry Garcia so therefore it's valid?

James Hetfield, 1992:

"Rap is just to me very annoying. Bunk Bunk y'know like wow, f– man. It really strikes something in my head that I've just got to get away from. Just the fact that it's extra-black too – blacks, y'know, we want everything, we deserve it, give it to us, you f–ed us this and that, and that kind of shit. It's all me me me and my name in this song, y'know …?"

1993

Last year in Britain’s ‘New Musical Express,’ you described rap music as “extra-black” and said that it was “all me me me and my name in this song.” How about elaborating on that?
They say a lot of “I’m this, I’m doin’ this, you gotta do this with me.” It’s not my cup of tea. Some of the stuff, like Body Count, our fans like it because there’s aggression there. I love that part of it. But the “Cop Killer” thing, kill whitey – I mean, what the fuck? I don’t dig it.

Some of it makes me think that they just want shock value. They want people to pay attention. It reminds me of some of the death metal, the Slayer thing with Satan and tear-your-baby-up. Like going out and shooting cops. Hopefully, no one’s going to go out and do either.

People like it, it’s fine. Whatever blows your skirt up, as my dad would say. It just don’t blow mine up.

xp Well younger people say it too (unfortunately), and this thread has example of Boomers with the opposite opinion, so maybe the generational slander part can be left out of it…

when rap became super popular and started appealing to white kids the subject matter did change and seemed to codify. seemed to, from the outside anyway. with a million exceptions etc. etc.

This was what was so great about watching Yo! MTV Raps in the late 80s and early 90s — the variety of things you'd get to see and hear. They'd play goofy party bullshit like the Afros alongside Five Percenter videos by, like, X-Clan and King Sun. Then some Native Tongues song, then some glowering Rakim wannabe, then something else.

Also, Max Roach to thread. The dude invented bebop drumming (along with a couple of other folks, obviously) and loved hip-hop.

And of course Anthrax. I saw that Anthrax/Public Enemy tour in 1990, with Primus and Young Black Teenagers opening. The shit was insane. And it was a genuinely mixed crowd the night I was there — it wasn't like a bunch of metal kids getting exposed to Public Enemy, there were also a bunch of hip-hop fans getting exposed to Anthrax.

didn't Hetfield and Jim Martin from Faith No More have a racist side project? I tried looking it up but Google is useless on mobile now

Brian Wilson (from an interview w/ Elvis Costello & Questlove)

Earlier, Costello had meandered into an anecdote about hanging out at Brian Wilson's house while the Beach Boy hammered out a non-stop version of Da Doo Ron Ron, and now Questlove interrupts himself: "Side note about Brian Wilson. After the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique in 89, unbeknownst to the world, Brian Wilson had let the heads of Capitol Records talk him into making a rap record: MC Brian Wilson with the Dust Brothers, who produced the Beasties' album. One track is out there on the internet, called Smart Girls and it's hilarious! All the intentions are in the right place, but if that album had come out, someone would have called for a firing squad … But what we have," he concludes, "I think it's pretty 50-50."

(xps) OK. I'll settle for Jerry Garcia having expressed an totally valid example of an ignorant assholish opinion in that case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5SbdU9yfmE

If you played that for me blind I'd think he was trying to make a PIL record more than a rap record tbh

reasons have a cliche similarity. "its all about bitches/hoes/money."

Years ago I asked on this board for recommendations for hip-hop without braggadocio or rapping about rapping. I have no problem with the genre in terms of sound, I just wanted lyrical content other than that. (I was castigated for asking that, ILMers suggested those were de rigeur parts of the genre, and in fact it was essential Black self-expression that I was disparaging). I totally get people who reject rap because they are unable to find something that transcends lyrical tropes.

Keith Richards:

Keith Richards said rap was for “tone-deaf people,” blasted heavy metal, rock and the Beatles, and offered his interviewer a toke during a meandering chat with the New York Daily News.

While Richards did not hold back — saving his harshest musical critiques for hip-hop — Daily News reporter Jim Farber noted the guitarist “follows every put-down with a wink.”

Still Richards was quick to crack, “Rap — so many words, so little said.” He added: “What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there. All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.”

I was castigated for asking that, ILMers suggested those were de rigeur parts of the genre, and in fact it was essential Black self-expression that I was disparaging

IIRC, you were offered many suggestions and kept rejecting them, which gave the impression you were trolling.

I was offered a number of suggestions for artists who were to some degree or another different from the mainstream, looked up those artists’ lyrics on Genius, and found that they weren’t actually free of braggadocio or rapping about rapping as I asked.

Yeah and most people in that situation would say “cool I’ll check it out” or “thanks for the suggestions,” rather than continuing to challenge the board to find rap meeting your weird criteria

That Brian Wilson record reminds me of "Funky Man" by Deedee Ramone.

I remember someone joked "Melomane Ace" which killed me

It’s not weird criteria. In less than two decades, rock 'n' roll had warped into sounds completely different than it started with, just compare prog rock and oldies. For jazz, we eventually got ECM where, sure, all those artists might trace their lineage back to early 20th-century African-American musicians in New Orleans, but their music sounds nothing like that and might not even involve improvisation.

It isn’t unreasonable to wonder if there is hip-hop that, while keeping beats and sampling culture, completely abandoned those two lyrical tropes.

FWIW, I eventually found what I was looking for in non-English hip-hop. Artists in some other languages who were unable to understand the lyrical content of the original American hip-hop, but liked the beats, wrote very different lyrics.

I dunno man, two examples of 'make it whiter' isn't really making your case for not being weird criteria.

Neither of those examples is necessarily “make it whiter”. Along those drastic shifts in rock 'n' roll was Hendrix, who was not a white man. Some of ECM’s most distant work from jazz as traditionally understood came with Codona, two of whose three members were of African descent, etc.

I must have missed Hendrix's prog era

melomane, i'm so sorry that we were unable to help you retrieve the rap you were looking for, please accept these 100 ilx bux as a courtesy and thank you for shopping at ilx

Of course Hendrix didn’t play prog, but he produced sounds that were alien to the rock 'n' roll of the 1950s, and was one step in the chain that ran to the genre becoming more or less a free for all by the turn of the 1970s.

Bison, your sarcasm is tiresome. This is a board where people listen to some weird music by mainstream standards and many of the community here probably got bullied mercilessly for it. You’d think that would teach some tolerance for someone looking for a particular sound.

to say that musically hip hop hasn't evolved from it's roots musically is pretty insane if you, I dunno, listen to Playboi Carti and then Rappers Delight

As I said, what I was looking for was hip-hop without those two lyrical tropes. I would never deny that the sound itself has evolved continually.

oh ok you were talking about ECM and jazz so much I assumed you meant musically.

someone recommended Ka up thread but I will again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yspLw1dZzhE

Tom D it looks like we're gonna have to agree to disagree. People have been reciting poetry over music for quite a while. Jerry Garcia grew up in San Francisco during the Beat era when poets read with jazz bands all the time. No one considered the poets to be musicians. I believe that someone can see rappers as a continuation of this tradition.

When I was a little baby boy
My mama gave me a brand new toy
It had two turntables with a mic
And I learned to rock like a dolomite

In about 1984 my favorite songs included "Jam on it" and "She's Strange" by Cameo. (Not, strictly speaking, a rap song.)

("Jam on it" was Newcleus, btw - I do not wish to attribute both to Cameo but I see the syntax might suggest that, which is not what I intended.)

To move beyond only talking about classic rock artists, here is Stanley Crouch on Charlie Rose with KRS-1 and Russell Simmons. His viewpoint was shared by a lot of straight ahead jazz musicians in the 80s like Winton Marsalis

https://charlierose.com/videos/20113

so let me get this straight - instrumental music is music. music with singing is music. but if you rhythmically talk over music, then that cancels out the instrumental and it magically becomes not music again.

pop quiz: is late period Leonard Cohen music?

so Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" is music but Woody Guthrie's "Talking Fishing Blues" is not music

CW McCall's "Convoy" has talking and singing, music or no?

but if you rhythmically talk over music, then that cancels out the instrumental and it magically becomes not music again.

Valid position IMHO. There are cultures where epic recitals are optionally given by the bard solo or with the accompaniment of an instrument like a drum or flute, but in the latter case the art is still categorized as its own thing and not as music.

CW McCall's "Convoy" does count as music whereas "Convoy GB" by Laurie Lingo & The Dipsticks doesn't, hope that clears up the authenticity beef

lol you've never had a humble opinion in your life, jack

Upper Mississippi Sh@kedown, I think you are conflating "rappers aren't musicians" with "hip hop isn't music"

Also if anyone takes the time to watch the Charlie Rose video above KRS-One says "There is difference between music and musicians, and true it can be argued that we are not musicians"

I remember Garcia also being dismissive about punk (something like, “maybe someday they’ll to learn to play their instruments”), but I tried looking up the quote and only found a long 1978 radio interview where he talks about liking Cheap Trick and Elvis Costello.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/mick-jagger-favourite-rappers-of-all-time/

Obv Mtume was a big enough hater for Stetsasonic to write “Talkin All That Jazz” about him

bbq - I'm not conflating I completely reject that premise

You could probably argue that Gilbert O’Sullivan was probably the biggest rap hater of all since his lawsuit against Biz basically made it financially impossible to make records in the style of the Golden Age

Upper mississippi sh@kedown, just to be clear I don't agree with Jerry Garcia's take. I just felt he was being unnecessarily dragged for putting rappers in an established tradition that he witnessed first hand. Also that his viewpoint was even acknowledged as "valid" by actual rappers like KRS-One.

But for shits and giggles are you basically full John Cage on this matter? Like anything can be contextualized as music? Do you believe that George HW Bush's presence on Ministry's N.W.O classifies him as a musician? Because it is fun to think him as ex-President/Industrial Musician George HW Bush

I mean he's a sample not a musician that's like an incredibly easy distinction to make

also Melomane specifically just said that any talking invalidates something as music. (in some cultural traditions of course which some always seem to count more than others for some reason)

xxxp That's a lousy test case - sampling someone speaking (whether you're Ministry or Steve Reich) can be music (if the person doing the sampling intends it to be) but the person being sampled has no active role in the process.

also you are misrepresenting the facts - YOU brought Beatnik poetry into his argument, he mentioned no such thing

I really wanted you to go all in and call him a musician. It honestly would have made this more fun

If George HW Bush went down to a studio to record a speech specifically for Ministry to sample, sure, I'd be fine calling him a musician at that point.

I heard a radio show circa 1990 where Joe Walsh said, "I'm gonna play a talking blues now...that was what people with no talent did before rap".

John Fogerty in Rolling Stone in 1987 said that it would be great to teach kids the Declaration of Independence by setting it to a hip-hop beat, I defer to Americans whether that is repping for rap or not.

also I love the idea that my making the wild assertion that people who make music are musicians I must be some crazy avant garde madan like John Cage (didja know he has a song that's just silence, my stars)

Upper Mississippi Sh@kedown, I think you are conflating "rappers aren't musicians" with "hip hop isn't music"

which of those is closest to Garcia's "rap isn't music"?

(in some cultural traditions of course which some always seem to count more than others for some reason)

It’s common sense that once at least one world culture has defined music/not-music in a certain way, then you can’t say that anyone here holding to the same definition is invalid. To do so would be to call that culture invalid, which is pretty offensive, don’t you think?

no you disingenuous shitbafmg because obviously cultures that define music more broadly don't invalidate the music of a culture that defines it narrowly but a culture that defines it narrowly by definition invalidates the music of the other culture

nice anti-trans logic brought to bear on music though 👍

WTF does this have to do with transpeople?

My mello my mane

Iggy Pop: “I was so interested in the construction of a song a while ago called ‘Gucci Gang,'” The Stooges frontman told the NME. “He took, what, a minute to write it? He went straight to the hook and did the hook have a melody? Nooooo. Did it have a phrase? It had no pre-chorus. It’s just ‘Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang’, and I thought, ‘This is great!'”

It’s just ‘Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang’

Looked this up, and TIL: this is the exactly the background to Pete Davidson’s character and his rap in the SNL “Rap History” sketch.

Scott, when you wrote in the opening post, “i feel like non-american artists just took it in stride more in the 80s and beyond”, who exactly did you have in mind?

No mention yet of Dee Dee Ramone/King?

Then Joe Strummer’s voice came over the PA and said, "Cut the crap and give them a chance! The Clash picked Grandmaster Flash to play for you, and if you don’t treat them with some respect, then you don’t deserve to see the Clash!"

Yeah, they were early adopters. Here's Strummer:

When we came to the U.S., Mick stumbled upon a music shop in Brooklyn that carried the music of Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, the Sugar Hill Gang...these groups were radically changing music and they changed everything for us.

Then they went to the studio and wrote "The Magnificent Seven."

_It’s just ‘Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang’_


Looked this up, and TIL: this is the exactly the background to Pete Davidson’s character and his rap in the SNL “Rap History” sketch.

This is a thread where people are mainly posting musicians’ reactions to hip-hop from the 1980s and 1990s, and you're demanding knowledge of one artist from the late 2010s?

I'm slightly more forgiving of Garcia's annoying boomer opinion because he seemed very open-minded about music genres (bluegrass, r&b, disco, etc) as long as he could absorb influences into his own work, and I kind of get that a genre that he couldn't find a way into wouldn't fit his conception of music.

Randy Newman had great things to say about Ready To Die iirc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KRRMADsq48

I'm reposting this youtube form. I think that the thoughts of the jazz establishment of 80's/90's about rap are so much more interesting than the random quotes from classic rock dudes

not sure if "it's only music if I can do it" is all that open minded

I've heard the dylan subterranean thing cited by a few different boomers as a mark *against* rap for being unoriginal - presumably these people thought dylan invented talking blues

but by far the worst and most openly racist rap haters I've known have been either a) oasis fans or b) smiths fans and in both cases those attitudes come straight from the top (i don't care to dig up quotes there'll be tons of them)

otoh ZZ top engaged with hip hop much more than most of their peers* though I don't know if they ever said much about it (*I was going to point out that blondie were younger but I'm shocked to find out they weren't)

melomane there is no way you hadn't made up your mind already when you started that hip hop thread which is why there was/is little (still too much) patience for your ridiculous standards and constant goalpost moving

I haven't watched enough of the video but crouch's arguments strike me misplaced / misdirected in a way I'm not sure I can articulate right now

Maybe I don't understand the purpose of this thread. But Scott Seward commented that he felt it's interesting to hear the dissenting voices and their reasons. I don't agree with Stanley Crouch on almost anything, but he certainly makes interesting arguments. I guess i find that more engaging than "Pete Townsend said he liked rap so he's cool, but John Entwistle doesn't so he's lame"

Sorry to misqoute Scott Seward. He said it was interesting how people react to hearing a new thing. I guess i find it more interesting when they dislike it lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m6ejkF-cSk

scott seward at 1:34 13 Aug 23

you don't have to read that long thing at the top. you can just read the short thing. you won't miss much.

George Harrison was not hip to the rap (or to really anything post-1975 or so)

A quote from Yoko, I think c. 2000:

“I’m often asked, ‘If John were here today, what do you think he would be doing?’” Yoko said. “Well, he was an artist, and he had always been innovative. … I remember John was a guy who was punk before Sid Vicious. A rapper before rap. What would John be doing now? Most likely, he would have joined the rappers, while plunging into the Internet at the same time.”

(Cue dubious claim that "Gimme Some Truth" was rap "before rap.")

Robert Smith used to say c. 1990 he could never stand rapping (as opposed to the music; iirc when asked to review a Definition of Sound song he said it'd sound good on great speakers). I'd be curious where he later stood on hip hop.

"and thought to myself that it sure is nice to have scott seward posting again lately."

aw, thanks. its nice to be here. i missed people. i hope i didn't start a rap firestorm with this thread though! it really was just me thinking about reactions to sinead in the 80s and seeing that awards footage with her and the PE logo on her head. also THIS was an inspiration! haha! ironically. the gist of this clip is: uh, just listen to Mobb Deep. anything else is maybe not worth your time. also, go paint a house. respect and blessings to prodigy and his family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLgJ-yBtHrk

That Yoko q reminds me of Gary Moore in 1999 commenting that Jimi Hendrix would surely be into dance music. (And also commenting that he was the first to rap over rap-appropriate beats.)

I don't think anyone has mentioned Elton John yet. He seems to be a hip hop fan.

boy, look at what I missed

I remember someone joked "Melomane Ace" which killed me

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

lol

You could probably argue that Gilbert O’Sullivan was probably the biggest rap hater of all since his lawsuit against Biz basically made it financially impossible to make records in the style of the Golden Age

Gilbert's initial objection to Markie's choice of sample was that he was precious about Alone Again being a 'serious' song and he thought Markie's "comedy" lyrics devalued that. Which, whatever, that's his problem. But then Markie went and released it anyway despite having expressed disapproval. Hence the lawsuit.

Yeah I know but I hate Gilbert being framed as some sort of great evil or hip hop hater. In his huge record and CD collection I'm sure he has plenty of hip hop things - he definitely owns the Biz Markie album that samples him (there's this here clip of him showing off his library and he's playing it in the background).

https://vimeo.com/97865889

Also he has songs in the 90s which are sort of hip hop-ish in his own way. Houdini said would be better at highlighting them.

John Cale is a big hip hop fan.

gilbert might not hate hip-hop, but i think whiney's point is that he and his lawyers are perhaps the people most harmful to the health of the genre and the financial well-being of its early innovators, which seems pretty inarguable.

Hopefully somebody with a copy of Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung handy can find the exact quote (how the FUCK is that book not available online??), but Lester Bangs dismissed hip-hop as “music made solely to annoy people” or something like that.

Steely Dan famously jacked Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz for 100% publishing and writing credits on Deja Vu. I remember a Rap City episode where Tariq and Gunz were calling on Fagan and Becker to prove they didn't hate hip hop.

Xxpost Morrisey:

From the January 1993 issue of Rock Sound. The second answer speaks more to your concerns about hypocrisy and punk rock:

Q: In "Panic", you denounce the vacuousness of dance music. What do you think of rap "music"?

M:I don't consider it music. It's just conversation. There's no melody and when there's no melody I have problems.

Q: It may not be your cup of tea but unlike rock, isn't it the only music which, to pick up your phrase, "talks to black people about their lives"?

M: Probably, but I can't prevent myself from being disturbed by some of its aspects. All this speech of superiority and the male chauvinism it carries. And then I really don't think it's a rich, new music. It's the degree zero of music. I know that what I'm saying sounds really corny or old-fashioned, but I'm struck by the fact that it's enough for a rap group to break itself laboriously on a song with thinnest of melodies to make people call it a work of genius and hail the song to the pantheon of classics. I know as well that the same speech has been held about punk. Except that punk didn't last. It had the virtue to bring us The Ramones and, above all, to revitalize rock and shake the system. On the contrary, rap never fails to repeat itself. It must be assumed that its only use is to sort out the swingers from the fuddy-duddies. Blokes who suffer while listening to rap just because they're scared to death not to be hip - I see some everyday! Sorry, but I'd rather be corny.

xxpost From Bangs that sounds more like a compliment

Green Gartside of Scritti Politti is a major hip hop enthusiast. The Anomie & Bonhomie album has guest appearances from Mos Def and Me'Shell NdegéOcello.

And yeah this was extracted from a morrisey forum and most of the comments are from openly racist rap haters

https://www.morrissey-solo.com/threads/morrisseys-reasons-for-hating-rap-are-hypocritical.29386/

It’s common sense that once at least one world culture has defined music/not-music in a certain way, then you can’t say that anyone here holding to the same definition is invalid. To do so would be to call that culture invalid, which is pretty offensive, don’t you think?

― Melomane, Sunday, August 13, 2023 7:22 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

no you disingenuous shitbafmg because obviously cultures that define music more broadly don't invalidate the music of a culture that defines it narrowly but a culture that defines it narrowly by definition invalidates the music of the other culture

nice anti-trans logic brought to bear on music though 👍

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, August 13, 2023 7:35 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

WTF does this have to do with transpeople?

― Melomane, Sunday, August 13, 2023 7:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

hmmm. that's a good question! ums, are you drawing a parallel between defending the legitimacy of "rap is not music" and defending the legitimacy of "trans women are not women"? if so, i get where you're coming from, but it is kind of a stretch. "rap is not music" and "trans women are not women" are both obviously stupid and wrong statements that were popularly held in the '80s.

nitpick - melomane, a lot of us prefer "trans" to be used exclusively as an adjective - making it part of a noun implies that trans people are categorically different from "people". (usually one sees this as, say, "transwomen" vs. "women", which makes the issue more obvious.)

Todd Rundgren made some rap influenced music back in 1993, and then later had a scuttled Kanye collab.

Lester Bangs dismissed hip-hop as “music made solely to annoy people” or something like that

I don’t see “rap” or “hip-hop” in the index, so that’s the extent of my efforts to find it…

(I don’t recall such a quote offhand, personally, but it may well exist)

kate - basically yeah, i mean sure it's stetch, but more the annoying assistance that a broader, inclusive definition of something is therefore an attack or "invalidates" a culture that defines something more narrowly

again, not perfect....also the new conservative talking point that "being called a racist is just as bad as being the victim of racism" line

Steely Dan famously jacked Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz for 100% publishing and writing credits on Deja Vu. I remember a Rap City episode where Tariq and Gunz were calling on Fagan and Becker to prove they didn't hate hip hop.

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes), Monday, August 14, 2023 9:40 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

fagen and becker actually rap "deja vu" over black cow on the legendary aja classic albums episode....and i'm not sure i'd interpret them taking that money as anything but - to quote ice cube "now let's play big bank take little bank" - not necessarily a hatred of hip hop

According to Lord Tariq, Diddy was negotiating with Steely Dan to clear that sample for a track, but when "Deja Vu" came out he decided against using it. Steely Dan were kind of pissed and decided to take all they could get.

ohhhhhh interesting didn't know that

IIRC, the Bangs line (from "A Useful Guide To Horrible Noise" in '81) was "music made solely to annoy people whose cup of blare it ain't" and aligned it with contemporary Noise Rock, Avant Garde Classical etc.

I didn't remember why Melomane was generating such heat and then I rediscovered this thread: Recommendations for hip-hop without braggadocio (or these other tropes)?

oof

A REASONABLE Guide to Horrible Noise:

"I am also firmly convinced that one reason for the popularity of rap music, like disco and punk before it, is that it's so utterly annoying to those of us whose cup of blare it isn't; more than once its fans have walked up to a doorless telephone booth I was occupying, set their mammoth radios down on the sidewalk five inches from my feet, and stood there smiling at me. They didn't want to use the phone, but I find it hard to begrudge them such gleeful rudeness; how could I, after walking all over the city with my also highly audible cassette player emitting free jazz, Metal Machine Music, PIL's 'Theme', Miles Davis's 'Rated X' and Iannis Xenakis's Electro-Acoustic Music, part of which the composer described as sound paintings of the bombing of Greece? So fair is fair, even given the differences in taste."

Green Gartside of Scritti Politti is a major hip hop enthusiast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92_TwP6NwXo

Think Nick Tosches expresses disappointment in hip hop as a revolutionary force in his introduction to the revised edition of Unsung Heroes of Rock and Roll, but I don't have that to hand right now.

XPS Thanks for the excerpt!

off topic but speaking of steely dan and sampling - this mixtape is great fun and um let's say maybe not entirely legal

https://streetcornermusic.bandcamp.com/album/derty-dans-cheap-thrills

xpost i love that lester quote

Ah yeah I remember it now :)

In Greg Allman's Rock & Roll HOF fame he said, classily, "Rap is short for Crap."

speech

Did Eno offer any opinion at the time?

Roger Daltry: The sadness for me is that rock has reached a dead end. The only people saying things that matter are the rappers.

kate - basically yeah, i mean sure it's stetch, but more the annoying assistance that a broader, inclusive definition of something is therefore an attack or "invalidates" a culture that defines something more narrowly

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

oh yeah agreed, i'm just browsing this thread and melomane is all "what does this have to do with trans people?", so i had to stop and be like "wait, what _does_ this have to do with transphobia?" it's before 9 in the morning here, i don't want to have to think about things, particularly not in this thread :)

Eno:

Eno spoke about how he has an uncanny ability to foresee musical trends, even going so far as to suggest he inadvertently predicted the birth of hip-hop in the back of a cab with Talking Heads' David Byrne.

"In music, I very often have a pretty good feeling of what is about to happen." he said. "I remember saying to David Byrne - we were in a car in Los Angeles in 1980 - and I said: ‘I think there is going to be a kind of music where people shout poetry over beats’… and indeed there was."

“It wasn’t entirely an unscripted idea. I’d heard something on NPR, it was a poet, a Black poet from somewhere in America, reading this poem called Cadillac. I spent years trying to find this, but I never found it.

"He did this amazing, very rhythmic poem about how he he wanted a pink Cadillac, and how cool it was. I thought: this is a new kind of music. I suddenly had this vision of a popular music that had heavy beats, and speech. Not songs."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk5cIUI6Zac

Take me out to my pink cadillac
Prop me up / under the steering wheel,
Tow me out to real high hill,
Dig a hole—twenty feet long and twenty feet wide,
Place a giant joint of reefer / weed by my side;
Then leave me alone—
And let me drive to hell in style!

I didn't remember why Melomane was generating such heat and then I rediscovered this thread: Recommendations for hip-hop without braggadocio (or these other tropes)?

oof

― earosmith (Neanderthal), Monday, August 14, 2023 10:06 AM (forty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

posted in may of 2020, natch

just listen to Mobb Deep. anything else is maybe not worth your time.

i have been listening to mobb deep! inspired by havoc set i saw a few weeks ago, where he was opening for kool & the gang in flushing meadow park. i am somehow encouraged to learn that the hardcore-ness of their lyrics was largely cosplay. that's not something i would have picked up on via just listening.

was it though?

Didn't they accidentally shoot someone when they came for their first label meeting?

Prodigy also wrote about an incident detailing how Havoc shot a Def Jam employee in the record company's Manhattan offices. While Hav hasn't read the book, he did shed light on the shooting and pretty much corroborated Prodigy's version of the story.

"Something happened where I was messing around with a gun and shot somebody by accident. Actually, he was like a manger of mine," Havoc recalled. "I believe D.M.C. [of Run-D.M.C.] was there and I had tried to bounce. Next thing you know, [A Tribe Called Quest member] Ali Shaheed Muhammad is like, 'Don't go nowhere. You gonna make it worse.' "

I mean good for Eno for inventing rap but by 1980 the idea of shouting poetry over beats wasn’t new.

Jazz poetry had been a thing for decades at that point and amidst black power politics in the early 70’s artists like Last Poets and Gil Scott Heron laid foundation and had a strong influence on what came next.

I don't consider it music. It's just conversation. There's no melody and when there's no melody I have problems.

XP Not to mention "Rapper's Delight" and "King Tim III" both came out in 1979.

A little less melody. A little more conversation.

These fucking Harold Hill opinions

Xpost: Yeah true Rapper’s Delight was a top chart hit both in US and UK so it’s unlikely he wasn’t acquainted with the “concept” of rap.

Ray Davies:

“I was shot in New Orleans in January 2004 – an experience that made me re-evaluate people like 50 Cent. He’s meant to have been shot nine times. Anything that makes people use language must be good and I have no problem with rap itself, but I have problems with the culture, especially with the way women are treated.”

Adding: “A lot of the kids down there were playing real instruments; they were continuing a tradition that Louis Armstrong was a part of. I saw it as a cheap shot for them to make a rap record because it puts them back into the culture they’re trying to get out of.”

Paul and @llcoolj. Queens, 1987.
📷: Adler Hip Hop Archives pic.twitter.com/YhyPSSkExT

— Paul Simon (@PaulSimonMusic) February 3, 2023

interesting lack of commentary around on how women were treated by the London 60s rock & roll scene, both in terms of lyrics and real-life actions.

around/on, pick one of those

commentary from Ray Davies and others of his time/place, that is

what's really funny about the "rappers aren't musicians" take is that if you break it down, drummers aren't musicians by most of the metrics used

i'm sure The Kinks were PERFECT gentlemen when they toured in the 60s and 70s and 80s.

"drummers aren't musicians by most of the metrics used"

it hasn't been scientifically proven that drummers are even human yet! people theorize that they might just be an evolutionary dead end good for lifting amps up club stairs and getting people to buy them beer.

I was messing around with a gun and shot somebody by accident. Actually, he was like a manager of mine

i hate when that happens.

i have been listening to mobb deep! inspired by havoc set i saw a few weeks ago, where he was opening for kool & the gang in flushing meadow park. i am somehow encouraged to learn that the hardcore-ness of their lyrics was largely cosplay. that's not something i would have picked up on via just listening.

― Thus Sang Freud

was it though?

Didn't they accidentally shoot someone when they came for their first label meeting?

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes)

idk kinda bolsters the "cosplay" argument imo, nobody who's hardcore is gonna rap about shooting someone _by accident_ :)

interesting lack of commentary around on how women were treated by the London 60s rock & roll scene, both in terms of lyrics and real-life actions.

commentary from Ray Davies and others of his time/place, that is

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length)

ray davies, who wrote racist, anti-semitic, and transphobic songs for beloved "british invasion" band the kinks, has a problem with hip-hop culture

the guy who fucking wrote _lola_ has a problem with _how women are treated_

that's cute, ray

prodigy's ballet past was the main ammo that jay-z used against the mobb during their beef (the other main thing was that he was short, i guess)

I read Prodigy's autobiography about 10 years ago. may he rest in peace as a god forever, but it was a bad read. he seemed at times to be trying to play up how hard he was, but most of the stories were from after he became a rapper. he definitely got arrested multiple times for gun charges, but it was usually for having concealed weapons in the engine block or things like that.

he also still seemed peeved about "Takeover".

a lot of the stories proving his 'hardness' seemed embellished as well. I found the parts about having sickle cell anemia more poignant. or about rapping in general.

Marvin Gate put out a partially rapped single in 1979:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxASPCW0PwM

"Ego Trippin' Out" is such a jam.

jim croce put out a hardcore gangster rap single in 1973. sorry, i am contractually obligated to make that joke. but it was the first 45 i ever bought! and it was about a very very bad man...

i feel like a lot of rappers have guys with them that are a lot harder than they are

but it's funny image vs. reality....like Eric B and Rakim are perceived as more conscious were SUPER connected with serious dudes. like the back of Paid in Full, they are posing with the real original 50 Cent (who 50 took his name from), a dude name Killer Ben who was a stickup kid, another guy who was the brother of Supreme Magnetic who became a drug kingpin, plus Freddie Foxx was with them. Eric B. famously had a Rolls Royce really early on, when they could not have been making that much money from rap, i saw a breakdown of that back cover photo a long time ago

I also think they were down with Alpo

little known fact, "ante up" was a croce cover

And there’s the thing where everyone was legit terrified of MC Hammer

Paul Barman ran with Tookie Williams

It was Hammer's brother everyone was afraid, according to Too Short.

of

i listened to all 4 eric b. & rakim albums in a row the other day and they do to me what they have always done to me. they make me want to leap into action! or clean records faster. jesus they sound so good. most underrated songs: "Mahogany" and "Relax With Pep". also: "Teach The Children" predicted the rise of Trump.

I was afraid of his pants.

you didn't know what he had in this pants! you could fit anything in there!

prodigy's ballet past was the main ammo that jay-z used against the mobb during their beef (the other main thing was that he was short, i guess)

― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili)

rolling maleness and masculinity thread to room #onethread

we don't believe you, you need more people

RIP Magoo btw

the bird is still the word

i went to an eric b and rakim concert where someone got killed. my altamont. actually i don't think i even was aware at the time that anything had happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/12/nyregion/one-is-killed-and-12-are-injured-as-li-rap-concert-turns-violent.html

Prodigy seems to have hated everybody else in Queensbridge at one point, amazed there weren't more diss tracks against him.

Adapting from wikipedia:
On the DVD The Genesis Songbook, the band and producer Hugh Padgham revealed that the inspiration for Phil Collins' menacing laugh on the 1983 Genesis song "Mama" came from rap music pioneer Grandmaster Flash's song "The Message".

NORE shot someone in the Mobb Deep crew.

Geddy Lee (October 1991): "I guess that track is something that was influenced by more of the spoken word stuff that is going on, although I can't sit here and say I'm a fan of rap. I like some rap things, but a lot of I don't like. I think there's some of it that's really well done - there are some clever people out there. But it's also not a new influence. People are talking about rap music like it's something new - it's not new at all. It's been around for over a decade, if not always in one form. And there are songs, like 'Territories,' where we have used a similar kind of thing, although it was never related to rap because it wasn't the music of the moment - so we have used spoken word sections before."

Neil Peart ("Roll The Bones Radio Special"): "Yeah, that started off as a lyrical experiment for me; I was hearing some of the better rap writers, among whom I would include like LL Cool J or Public Enemy, musicality apart, just as writers, it was really interesting. And it struck me that it must be a lot of fun to do that; all those internal rhymes and all that wordplay and everything. That's meat and potatoes for a lyricist; it's stuff you love to do and can seldom get away with being so cute in a rock song. So I thought, "Well, I'll give it a try," and I submitted actually I think the song "Roll The Bones" without that section to the other guys and got them to like it, and said, "Well, I have this other thing I've been working on, and see what you think." You know, not knowing how they'd respond, but I'd had the fun of doing it and I've been rejected before; my notebook's full of things that haven't made it too, so that was the situation there. And they got excited about the idea, but then how to treat it was the other question, and we did think of trying to get a real rapper in to do it, and we even experimented with female voices, and ultimately found that that treated version of Geddy's voice was the most satisfying as creating the persona that we wanted to get across, and was also the most satisfying to listen to. And with the female voice in it, it wasn't as nice texturally going by, where Geddy's voice treated like that became a nice low frequency sound, and you could listen to it just as a musical passage without having to key in on the lyrics or anything, just let the song go by you. And it was pleasant to the ear, so I think that was probably one of the big factors in choosing that. We'd even been in contact with people like Robbie Robertson; we thought we'd like to try his voice on it and had contacted his office, and so on. John Cleese we thought of; we were going to do it as a joke version, get John Cleese in it: "Jack, relax." Get him to camp it up, but again from the musicality and longevity factors, that would have got tired quickly; that's the trouble with jokes."

ack, relax
Get busy with the facts
No zodiacs or almanacs
No maniacs in polyester slacks
Just the facts
Gonna kick some gluteus max
It's a parallax, you dig?
You move around
The small gets big, it's a rig
It's action, reaction
Random interaction
So who's afraid
Of a little abstraction?
Can't get no satisfaction
From the facts?
You better run, homeboy
A fact's a fact
From Nome to Rome, boy

What about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so fly?

Bob Ezrin wanted rap, somehow, on A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Gilmour gave him a firm no.

xp Ha ha

That whole section on using his voice (vs. a "female voice") is something else

https://www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads/comments/6lkjy4/ever_seen_the_back_cover_of_eric_b_rakims_classic/

^^ possibly the breakdown mentioned earlier

yeah that's it thanks!

I read Prodigy's autobiography about 10 years ago. may he rest in peace as a god forever, but it was a bad read. he seemed at times to be trying to play up how hard he was, but most of the stories were from after he became a rapper. he definitely got arrested multiple times for gun charges, but it was usually for having concealed weapons in the engine block or things like that.

he also still seemed peeved about "Takeover".

― earosmith (Neanderthal), Monday, August 14, 2023 12:11 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

prodigy's blog posts are amazing from the myspace era. that book is cowritten by ... lets just saying I dont blame prodigy

anyway I think its kind of weird when ppl are 'relieved' by someone's 'lack of authenticity' as I am them 'fetishizing authenticity' like does this mean if he's really had a tough life his words & stories mean less to you? its a weird angle for an artist and kind of pathologizing

also stanley crouch is a goofball, he was a reactionary even within jazz

some interesting figures who got behind rap from an older generation ... keyboardist james mason from roy ayers band, for example, produced one of my favorite early rap tracks ever, the Fat Boys debut single "Reality" from when they were called the disco 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBnHShjaJE0

Weldon Irvine, super legendary jazz musician, played keyboards on the mos def debut and blackstar albums

patrick adams, of P&P records/all those classic disco records, died last year. But in the '80s he recorded "Paid in Full" for eric b and rakim, produced salt n pepa, etc

maceo parker was mentioned earlier, he was a big one

actually nvm he wasn't mentioned earlier! dj premier mentioned him in an interview i read earlier today. his horn is all over 'buhloone mindstate'

I take back my criticism of the prodigy book cowriter I dont know her -- I thought it was someone else

and havent read the prodigy bio

That Stanley Crouch/Russell Simmons/KRS-One roundtable posted upthread is incredible.

those are pretty much the last people i would want to have dinner with. bleh. wait, that's mean. but, still, bleh.

this is sad. but informative. i am in no way comparing my experience as a child with his, but as someone who suffered sporadic crippling pain via headaches from babyhood until i was 19, i really feel for people who experienced physical pain as a child. its very isolating. and nobody know how bad it feels except for you. it sucks. and when i think of that pain moving with me throughout my WHOLE life...i don't even know how people do it. god bless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5bI6BNt0nY

The Prodigy book is probably the best rap memoir and I have read a lot of them

His death was so goddamn absurd

He should still be with us

Stanley Crouch was fucking terrible. I've been reading a lot of his writing lately — he wrote about Cecil Taylor a bunch of times — and he was seriously one of the worst high-profile critics in jazz history. He started out as a radical, then pivoted to being an arch-conservative after washing out as a drummer; anything close to a good idea he ever had was stolen from Albert Murray; he considered hyperbole a fit substitute for insight; and once he fixated on an idea he would never, ever let it go. You couldn't change his mind about anything, ever, and he'd swing on people who tried. Read Albert Murray; read Amiri Baraka; consign Crouch to history.

you're better off reading sonny bono. or yoko ono!

Bowie apparently said this onstage:

"I've been listening to the album by 2 Live Crew. It's not the best album that's ever been made, but when I heard they banned it, I went out and bought it. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech – it's one of the most important things we have."