please explain to me the appeal of old OLD old skool hip-hop

B) You hate fun.

it is mystifying, but you don't like lots of stuff I'd have imagined would be your thang, so hmmm. I do think of it in very much the same way I do with breakbeat hardcore--just totally fucking exuberant, funky as hell (taking sides: the voices on "That's the Joint" vs. the bassline), really pretty much everything Jess said except reverse the underlying opinion driving it. but it's your life etc.

One thing I've noticed about some of the very early rap recordings is also that, back then, the term "MC" actually meant "Master of Ceremonies", like they were the host of a great party, telling you who was on the turntables etc.

The fact that the beats are more 4/4 and the mc-ing more rigid than later hip hop means it lacks fludity in comparison. But on top of that, looping disco tends to destroy much of its funkiness, dunno why, so the end result is something like a crap p-funk record.

Also the 'fun' seems insincere.

But because contemporary hip-hop is SO sophisticated (both lyrically and sonically), it's cool to listen back to the period when everyone was just figuring out what this music was going to be LIKE. Early hip-hop is so full of weird, one-off experiments and strange tangents that could have been other genres of music and didn't take off that it's easy to get worked up abou the semi-naive joy of the endeavor alone.

here comes the cavil-ry

if you think pre 'rock box' automatically = happy clappy disco singalong jams then yr all living in a jurassic 5 dreamworld

How does that follow? What does that tell us about anything? And why does rejecting rock mean rejecting history altogether?

The argument (at least as far as I'm concerned) is not against relating hip-hop (or any other music) to past musical forms. It's against reducing it (or them) to the same old tired rock narrative. That doesn't tell us anything new about either rock or hip-hop. And rejecting that narrative doesn't mean rejecting history--it just means rock ain't the only history that's available, and maybe it would be refreshing to hear some other histories more often. (And I say this as a total rock canonist who will go to bat for Hendrix or the Velvets any time). Or maybe just a different history of rock--like if we used hip-hop to re-read rock, maybe the way people like Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaata did when they were picking beats off Thin Lizzy. Isn't this what rejecting "influence" is about?

I think the Hives have far more black fans.

I was thinking that probably read more personally than it was actually meant--I am just thinking out loud here more than anything. I have never read you but pretty much have formed the impression you just described, so I was kind of just thinking to myself, hmm, maybe I'm saying this to the wrong person and I probably look like I'm selling coals to Newcastle... ;o)

remember that? d'ya? it was just above.

st you should also search the voice for chucks' feature on eminem (he compares him to styx*).

*i don't think he does, actually.

1) If by "folk-rock" Ben Williams means *Bringing it All Back Home* or the first Holy Modal Rounders, it occurs to me, then the closest hip-hop equivalent is probably *Licensed to Ill* or "Devil Without a Cause,* for the punchlines alone. If "folk-rock" means Sonny and Cher, off the top of my head I'd nominate "My Babydaddy" by B-Rock and Biz and "I Got a Man" by Positive K. And if "folk-rock" means the early Byrds, who were really weird, I dunno -- Rammelzee, maybe??

2) The Beastie Boys (on their first album) and Northern State both come closer to pulling off Funky Four Plus One/Furious Five style vocal switchoffs than Goodie Mob, Quannum, or Jurassic Five ever have.

3) That said, I spent a lot of this weekend listening to the new *Quannum Mix CD Winter/Spring 2003 Vol.1*, and I like it a lot. One of the best CDs so far this year, maybe. Best cuts: Lifesavas "What If It's True," Quannum MCs feat. Jurassic 5 "Concentration," Latryx "I Changed My Mind", Blackalicious "Alphabet Aerobics," Lifesavas "Hellohihey," Lyrics Born "Callin' Out." But in terms of vitality, velocity, dexterity, you name it, none of these even come
*close* to holding a candle to my favorite pre-'82 rap singles. (The Triple Threat album is also truly wonderful. But ditto.)

4) Even if comparing rap artists to old rock artists wasn't justified on musical terms, which it is, it would be worth doing if only to piss ridiculous purists like s trife (whoever he is) off. Hip-hop is an applecart that people don't upset ENOUGH -- especially hip-hop critics (who, in general, tend to be teacher's pets in ways rock critics NEVER were). And as far as s trife goes, his formulation of "weak ass fifties rock" then "stones beatles 'melodic pop' phase" then "jawdropping boston/chic/styx/jackson 5/yes/donna summer gloriously overproduced disco rock era!!", no matter how uninformed it is, sounds more like a parroting of somebody's stupid rock-history canon then anything else on this thread. He's not helping people think about hip-hop; he wants to STOP people from thinking about it. (Or at the very least, he wants to decide how they're allowed to do it.) The answer to his "ill write for vvoice" would be: No you won't.

anyway i just ordered gilette's two albums and "shake your money maker" is okay but the production on "On the Attack" is really great and works much better with her voice, at least so far.

i mean, i suppose i can see how saying "rap is one of those things that just gets better each year" is going against the grain; it beats saying it's all dead, anyway. (not that it makes for a revolutionary theory in its own right.) but mainly, she seems out to shut down other ideas -- not by arguing with them, but by trying to ban them.

if there's anything i learned this weekend it's that hip-hop works best for me when it's some goon shouting over a drum machine. oh well.

they did have better names back then, grown men who could appear hard (or at least grown men) by calling themselves "jellybean" and "pumpkin" and "pooche costello." in fact, the closer a new hip-hop act is to those old school names the better they probably are. (this has nothing to do with the sound being produced...or does it?)

chuck, is she part of some secret detroit rap/rock history which i'm unaware of?

As for non-macho names, maybe Nelly proves Jess's point.

oh barf. Fucking Northern State?!

you're "fairly indifferent" to chuck berry and jerry lee lewis?

something in the water does not compute

So, the lesson of this thread is that old-school hip hop is meh but NORTHERN STATE is the group to watch? I guess? Basically it's made me really want to swing by the record store and see if they still have the Grandmaster Flash LP I passed on a month ago.

feel like if you don't, um, enjoy this then you should just give up on old skool hiphop: http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Best-Of-Enjoy-Records/release/352487

So, the lesson of this thread is that old-school hip hop is meh but NORTHERN STATE is the group to watch?

Uh, no.

Well....what's NOT good about Northern State?? They're better than the Cramps ever were

no music critic should have this opinion, ever

yeah, i'm a bit flummoxed by that tbh

Years later, I finally bought the Grandmaster Flash LP. It rules, obv. Somehow, I've managed not to get around to Northern State...

I used to have a huge Sugar Hill Records boxed set -- I don't remember buying it so maybe it was a gift or something, but I can't imagine from who. It was certainly uneven, but I'm not sure moreso than any grass roots label's boxed set that size would be.

I also just like to remind people that this song exists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYio6qP60lo

On the whole though, I think the era's best tracks make the case for it -- Apache (Jump On It), It's the Joint, The Message, White Lines, Rapper's Delight, The Breaks, Planet Rock, etc. And any genre still in it's low budget, homegrown phase is going to have a high proportion of lower quality output imo.

I want to hear these Northern State songs that chuck thinks are better than "Shake Some Action."