swizz beats: s+d, rfi.

Anyway, thirded. In my neighborhood that was the biggest windows-down low-riding ghetto-blaster street smash until "Get ur Freak On" came out. I hated it at first. But somehow "willfully trashy" stopped being a prima facia turn-off.

but despite my bitterness, i am looking forward to the tribe reunion.

Gang Starr didn't last because they kept it so PURE that one day they looked up and everybody was gone - if they'd "sold out" (aka engaged in with the actual rap world and the fans who buy the music) they might still be around

plz plz plz plz plz PLZ search the last track on the last dmx album PLZ

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha x1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

selling records /= selling out
not selling records /= keeping it pure

I don't think Swizz Beats sold out cuz he was never in to start w/. It's not like he changed his style to appease fans (as far as I know)
Q-tip on the other hand....

Judging Gang Starr's quality on whether 15 yr old girls and hip hop newbies buy their shit is the problem. I don't think it's their fault for not being popular.

Equating selling out w/"engaged in with the actual rap world and the fans who buy the music" is just wrong. Did you want them to put out stuff they didn't feel just to remain relevant?
BTW, a Gang Starr album didn't even go gold until the last one
Plus, Primo is definitely still around and VERY imitated.

(also, don't be a dick jess)

so what, shall we listen to hip hop which is the musical equivalent of decaying organic potatoes on the shelf in kwiksave or hip hop which is the musical equivalent of big shiny plastic robots stomping over crate digging decrepit beat making fall-offs like premo and ACTUALLY HAVE SOME FUN? i bet u like mr scruff

I guess it's the bigness, shininess, plastic-ness, and robot-ness of a lot of the mainstream stuff that I don't care for.
If you want to listen to bubblegum rap, be my guest. Just realize that it's not hip hop anymore, and has been perverted/corrupted.

If you think that Gang Starr is the equivalent of decaying organic potatoes then I don't think you're a fan of hip hop. If you were referring to the newer 'undergound' stuff, then I think you don't have a good handle on the stuff that's out there.
Madlib's beats are a million times better than Swizz's and truer to the original artform.

True, swizz beats changed production, but I don't think it was for the better.(personal opinion)

(Didn't I already say that Qtip sold out? *scratches head*)

(I like Mr Scruff, too)

(heh schnell if strength-of-rappers changes the handicapping then Swizz wins by default for working with Hollywood Styles!)

I have a problem w/the aesthetics of Swizz Beats type stuff. I like the sound of the old SP1200s and MPC's and don't care for digital-sounding, tinny computer-made stuff. The mc's he works w/aren't very good either/derivative.

It seems that first people reacted to pop influences in hip hop, now they're reacting to that reaction, ie calling people elitist. Nobody wants to be called a snob so now it's even getting cool to like popular stuff to show you're not a snob (see Justin Timberlake)

I don't just listen to hip hop circa 93...there's a lot of good stuff out now. Madlib is incredible, have only heard maybe one weak beat from him. Like some of the DefJux stuff. Mos and Talib are dope. Roots are good, Common. Edan. Self Scientific. Binary Star. All of these people take the template put down by Kool Herc et al and expand on it

It seems that first people reacted to pop influences in hip hop, now they're reacting to that reaction, ie calling people elitist. Nobody wants to be called a snob so now it's even getting cool to like popular stuff to show you're not a snob (see Justin Timberlake)

-- oops (buttch9...) (webmail), Today 2:47 PM. (Oops)

You need a little clarity, check the similarity

Like I said before (okay, Defari said it) newness, forward thinking should not be prized over quality. Will people still be listening to Swizz et al in 10 years? Will their music attract new followers (not just listened to by people trying to time travel through music for nostalgia)
None of us knows if it will be, but to me it stinks of being disposable.

hmm, maybe someone else more qualified than me should deal with that one..

*amazed you found Madlib's beats to be boring*

schnell: could you please explain this, "swizz woz da ny dolls to premo's Yes?"

oops: you also need to work on yr analogies. that slave shit was horrible.

this isn't iraq v. the u.s. The distinctions between "underground" (a term that needs to be burried) and mainstream aren't as clear cut as either one of you make them out to be.

I'm not sure what's so wrong about time-traveling with music, anyhow, or what's wrong with nostalgia—letting music remind you of places and things you've left behind. I think that's fine. Missy and Timbaland do that with Under Construction, for instance. But they haven't stopped listening and re-evaluating what makes a fat-ass beat. Even after 3 zillion albums sold they just refuse to stop learning.

yeah the yes/ny dolls analogy seems backwards at first glance actually!!

I never tried to make a distinction between underground/mainstream.
I never dismissed all pop hop, just certain artists.

(sorry about the slave thing, i was watching a slavery documentary as i was posting)

BTW, have you heard that 'Wave Motion' album by Fat Jon? It's pretty good. Do you recommend 'Humanoid Erotica'?

Oh no! That whole drum and bass/electronica thing! How awful was that!

Anyway suckas (why do all these S&D's need me to swoop down and save them?), y'all are forgetting:

Eve - Do That Shit
Eve - Got What You Need (it's worn off now but the first six times you hear it in the club it is the BOMB)
DMX - Bug Out (YES! Everyone must hear this)
Mya - Best Of Me (luvverly)

No comment on this, I'm just posting it again in order to gaze at it a few more times.

Destroy: Most of his recent LP, unfortunately.

Swizz the absolute most radical and successful at jettisoning the backbeat and letting the rhythm run offbeat and not losing propulsion while doing so, AND at mushing foreground and background into each other while keeping the sound from going diffuse. Which didn't necessarily make him better than other producers c. 1999, but did seem to expand what the form could do with ease. And hip-hop today seems in retreat from his innovations (which doesn't mean it's worse or that it's less innovative; it's just differently innovative). I must say I don't really like DMX's voice much, or Eve's or Jadakiss's much more (I do love Juvenile's, wish the guy'd done more with Swizz), yet I think those songs are absolutely amazing.

I'd forgotten about "Down Bottom" - what an awesome track that is.

haha, no.

Everytime a subculture grows large enough to become mainstream, it changes. Not because people within feel a need to remain relevant and appeal to more people, but because people from outside of it have taken it as their own and are channging it to fit their tastes better. It's as if the owners of hip hop sold the name to the genre out to the highest bidder. Now the 'hip hop' label is branded on things that it shouldn't be.

In summary, Corporate hip hop sucks.

(Is it obvious that I've been missing Usenet lately?)

so oops is the problem that "they" (the capitalists who have turned rap into a tool, I guess) mix and mingle genres/cultures/traditions TOO MUCH? this seems like a weird conclusion, and doesn't square with what i know of either corporate rekkid label culture or what i think is good about new music, specifically that it DON'T erect do-not-cross-this-line walls around/between itself/themselves on the basis of race, class, genre, realness vs. marketing

rock got dylan --> cross-genre fertilization with folk
rap got 'the message' --> cross-genre fertilization with preaching
reggae got bob marley --> ditto
jazz got parker --> cross-genre fertilization with drugs

all marketed heavily on these counts, i might add

Okay I ignored Parker coz on what planet is he the "meaningful" high-point of jazz and how the hell did it then devolve into trite shallowness -- in Miles Davis' work, or was Mingus the bearer of the trite disease? Perhaps free jazz was trite and shallow.

Nah, I was thinking of fusion. (that Chuck whatever-his-name's flugelhorn song comes to mind, too)

(Obviously, I layed down a simplistic framework into which not everyone/thing can fit)

Marley's work w/Scratch is pretty definitive.
Yes, I've heard Sizzla. Exception to the rule. The fact that Buju Banton made such a splash just by injecting a little social commentary tells one about the state of Jamaican music.

rock got dylan --> cross-genre fertilization with folk
rap got 'the message' --> cross-genre fertilization with preaching
reggae got bob marley --> ditto
jazz got parker --> cross-genre fertilization with drugs

I guess you forgot to mention the influence of shallow teenage-oriented pop in these genres.

So, according to XXL he has a new solo album coming out, I'm not sure if I should be excited about it or not. I love his beats more than any other mainstream producer's, but his last "solo" album (which was mostly a production showcase) was pretty mediocre (even though "Big Business" is maybe the best song he's ever done), and his verses on that were awful, probably the worst rapping I've ever heard on a commercial record. Could he have actually learned to rap in five years?

Some people think swizz beats is all that

Those people are wrong.

I never thought much of the Ruff Ryders shit was all that when I was younger and I still don't now. RRII had some moments, and DMX had his shit together obviously at some point, before he started becoming a parody of himself and dreaming of Aaliyah. Anyway, for christmas my friends thought it would be funny if they got me a swizz beats instrumental CD. Hilarious.

Yeah this shit is just grand. We had this "electronic music" class back in high school and when the students werent online looking at porn, they were busy making cash money-junior keyboard beats that didn't sound as horrible as you would think. Anyway, no matter how lazy they got quantizing that shit, it never sounded as bad as the drum breaks from Swizz' masterpiece "The General (Remix)," presented here in instrumental form:

Swizz Beats - The General (Remix) Instrumental

Those drum breaks are fucking killer. To be fair, Swizz has the occasional shining moment. I think my favorite beat of his so far is that Yung Wun track "Tear It Up," which does that whole Destiny's Child marching band steez, except better. I like that T.I. single OK, and "Money Cash Hoes" is pretty hot for a dude messing around with a casio. But seriously, compare this tinkly late 90s NYC beats to any of the crazy-ass bounce-bling-house shit that Mannie Fresh was doing in New Orleans and it just comes up empty. My friends used to download Swizz instrumentals in the days of Napster just to laugh at them, no joke.

Seriously, if you're looking for a good time, check out this mixtape shit here, it's worth the money because these beats are pretty entertaining. I can just see dude sitting at his keyboard hitting the drums all out of sync and having the computer quantize that shit on the wrong beats.
Here's another track for fun, this was the instrumental to Cam'ron's "Glory." It's pretty weak as well.

'zing'

yeah i was not feeling swizz back in the day, its whole schtick struck me as laziness whereas looking at it today i have a broader perspective it makes a lot more sense.

i definitely understated my knowledge of his shit though, i always liked the classic DMX singles and "Cash money hoes" was total next level shit to me. At the time i wrote that he fell off hard, too.

I've totally come around to the second lox record and the RR comps and Swizz tracks for lots of people circa the casio days.

That said i know what didn't resonate w/ me about his stuff was that it definitely lacked the swing/rhythmic drive that lots of southern production had, it was like nu-RZA shit, off balance and unquantized and weird.

the beat for 'the general' is still pretty wack tho

The beats he did for Eve's debut are still awesome, that album has like 15 beats by him and not one of them is weak. I can sorta understand the accusations that his beats sound preprogrammed and simplistic, but there's just so much energy and emotion in them that it goes past that. And he has gotten more varied throughout the years.

That there is an epic derailment.

The things you learn.

yeah i had no idea!

wow, guess the mega song pissed some ppl off. swizzy's presence helps explain how all those celebs appeared on the track

also, among the items subject to civil forfeiture:

68. 2005 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM, VIN WDB2093422F165517, LicensePlate No. “GOOD”;

69. 2004 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM AMG 5.5L Kompressor, VINWDB2093422F166073, License Plate No. “EVIL”;

70. 2010 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG L, VIN WDD2211792A324354, LicensePlate No. “CEO”;

71. 2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop Head Coupe, VINSCA2D68096UH07049; License Plate No. “GOD”;

72. 2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, VIN WDD2120772A103834, LicensePlate No. “STONED”;

73. 2010 Mini Cooper S Coupe, VIN WMWZG32000TZ03651, License PlateNo. “V”;

74. 2010 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, VIN WDC1641772A608055, LicensePlate No. “GUILTY”;

75. 2007 Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG, VIN WDD2163792A025130, LicensePlate No. “KIMCOM”;

76. 2009 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, VIN WDC1641772A542449, LicensePlate No. “MAFIA”;

77. 2010 Toyota Vellfire, VIN 7AT0H65MX11041670, License Plate Nos.“WOW” or “7”;

78. 2011 Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG, VIN WDB4632702X193395, LicensePlate Nos. “POLICE” or “GDS672”;

79. 2010 Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG, VIN WDD2163742A026653, LicensePlate No. “HACKER”;