k-os - C or D?

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i think potential classic but ultimately dissapointing. so dud.

― babyboy, Friday, 4 February 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

I haven't heard the new album, but "Exit" was a major disappointment. It sounds like a crossover rap album made by someone who knows nothing about rap. K-Os could be a perfectly fine "conscious" pop singer I guess, but please don't do rap anymore, thanks!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 4 February 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

I really like "B-Boy Stance".

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 February 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

hes a cool rapper actually, and a pretty good singer, he just needs to do one or the other cos he fucking sucks when he does both on the same song.

― ppp, Friday, 4 February 2005 13:27 (twenty years ago)

Haha Latifah Syndrome strikes again!

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 February 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

i really rate him. i wouldn't even begin to say that he's got much to do with hip hop the way i like it but the guys got some good songs and is a real compelling live performer without actually doing much. if he made "hip hop" proper than i think it would be horrible true school-sounding guff, but with the live instrumentation angle he totally works for me.

― stelfox, Friday, 4 February 2005 13:29 (twenty years ago)

its the latifah/lauryn/mos def/cee-lo et al syndrome!!!

he sounds like bloody wyclef too much though.

― ppp, Friday, 4 February 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

B-b-but Cee-Lo *does* sound good both singing and rapping...

Wyclef is a good comparison though.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 4 February 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

Actually, what he reminds me of most is this long-forgotten mixed British trio of singer-rappers called Eusebe, but I'm not sure whether anyone has even heard about them.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 4 February 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

he reminds me of john forte.

― ppp, Friday, 4 February 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

i saw him live a few years ago supporting the roots at brixton and wanted to hit him. he was doing yesterday by the beatles but made it into an mc battle track, but sung it. argh.

― ppp, Friday, 4 February 2005 13:41 (twenty years ago)

tuomas, why do you think hes a bad rapper?

― ppp, Friday, 4 February 2005 13:45 (twenty years ago)

BAH!
He's great. He's not a great rapper, nor is he a great singer, and he's totally pretentious and needlessly rockist, but he puts all of that together into some wicked songs. "The Man I Used To Be," with all it's Thrillerisms, and "Neutroniks" is awesome sci-fi nerd rap.

― Huk-L, Friday, 4 February 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

"The Man I Used To Be" has a triple-yay chorus that is BEGGING to be white-labelled into a monstrous house number - in fact, I might just do that myself. On the whole, though, he too often comes off as some godawful FACTOR-funded Wyclef.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:45 (twenty years ago)

He's better than Wyclef, even though he's unabashedly trying to be Wyclef.

― Huk-L, Friday, 4 February 2005 16:46 (twenty years ago)

If Wyclef never sings again, I will do a dance of joy. (Or, at a minimum, if he stops doing that "I'm a drunk old man bothring grannies in the back of the church" warble I'd be happy.)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:50 (twenty years ago)

I'm hating. His rapping is so selfconsciously "intellectual" and ridiculous, and he has a song where he says "this is the end of the jiggy era!" and you want to hit him. That said, he has a good ear for production, and anybody who's willing to jack "Hot Music" by Soho can't be all bad.

― mobb dee, Friday, 4 February 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

hes okay as a rapper, hes like boogie monsters and saul williams and guys like that. reminds me of someone from the mid 90s. but while wyclef should be made to rap only, and never play guitar, kos seems good at both. hes just a pretentious git who needs to do everything all at once which is annoying.

― ppp, Friday, 4 February 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

Based only on Joyful Rebellion, I'm saying classic. Like Stelfox pointed out, it's not hip hop proper, and I don't think it would work if he went that way. As it is, though, it's quite enjoyable.

― JC-L (JC-L), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:20 (twenty years ago)

I'm not sure what that means that he's not hiphop "proper." I mean he raps over beats in the tradition of other "superscientifical" 90s rappers, (although considerably more corny) and i'm not sure what makes him not hiphop.

― deej., Friday, 4 February 2005 17:37 (twenty years ago)

<sarcasm>He's not blinged out, so he can't be proper hip-hop!</sarcasm>

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 February 2005 18:40 (twenty years ago)

Joyful Rebellion is just a more enjoyable Elephunk. It's neither classic nor dud.

― Jeff Reguilon (Talent Explosion), Friday, 4 February 2005 18:42 (twenty years ago)

i said i don't see that he's really hip hop "in the way i like it"

meaning yeah, it's not street rap, it doesn't bounce and it doesn't amke me want to throw my shit up.

however, i'm not one of the idiots who thinks that's the onlt thing that matters. i think he makes some great songs and he's pretty interesting - epecially as if you explained him to me, i'd think that he was probably going to be bloody awful.

anyway at this precise moment i'd rather have k-os being sanctimonious than lil jon yelling about how tough life is coz he can't beat the crap out of his bitch.

― stelfox, Friday, 4 February 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

I've got no problem w/ "nerd rap" or "conscious lyrics" or whatever other irrelvent labels people like to plaster on rap artists who aren't "real" enough for them, and i do like k-os more than black eyed peas, but still, dude is really really corny. And like I said, his beats are pretty great sometimes.

I'm not sure what lil jon song has him complaining because he can't beat a woman, though. There is a song where he tells a woman to "get off his back" but it also has the lyrics "And everytime I motherfuckin come home this bitch always got something to say/
I'm cheatin on her and shit, I ain't doin nothin" so suffice it to say I think lil jon is playing a character and is very self-aware and I'm fairly certain that most of his audience "gets" it too.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 4 February 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

I've got no problem w/ "nerd rap" or "conscious lyrics" or whatever other irrelvent labels people like to plaster on rap artists who aren't "real" enough for them

'nerd rap' is not a irrelevant label. when someone calls something nerd rap you damn well know what it means! and in that way it can be a helpful descriptor. everyone has been saying he is corny the whole thread, but then sometimes he makes a song that is great despite its-corny-self (which seems to be what stelfox was saying).

― artdamages (artdamages), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:18 (twenty years ago)

i mean "nerd rap" is irrelevent as far as how good or bad the song is, not that its a useless term! and when i say "corny" i'm using it as meaning inherently bad. I mean, there are people who rap about shit that in most people's hands would sound corny, but it doesn't because they flip it right.

in conclusion nerd rap = good or bad
corny = bad.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

so corny is a synonym for bad now? to me 3 feet high and rising is corny. it is also good. it is both these things at the same time.

― artdamages (artdamages), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:43 (twenty years ago)

not synomous for bad. I mean I'm using "corny" in this instance as a perjorative.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

I mean stelfox basically thinks that it should be corny, but K-Os pulls it off. I feel the opposite.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

when i say "corny" i'm using it as meaning inherently bad

― artdamages (artdamages), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

uh yes i clarified that. Perjorative.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

naw its more like his cornyness is a given. because he sings, is ecleftic, canadian, etc. but some of his songs are good anyway (see also the rap career of Will Smith). this anti-corny stance is dangerously close to rockism!

― artdamages (artdamages), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

(ok please ignore the rockism joke lets not go down that road)

― artdamages (artdamages), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

From websters:
corny - mawkishly old-fashioned : tiresomely simple and sentimental

A pejorative term.

artdamages, i don't think anti-corny is close to rockism at all - i'm saying that the term is an inherently negative one. I suppose music could succeed in spite of its corniness, but never because of it. Because if it became a POSITIVE corny would no longer be an accurate term by definition.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:53 (twenty years ago)

I mean i love lots of music that OTHER people consider corny, but I don't listen to corny music that I think is corny.

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Friday, 4 February 2005 21:54 (twenty years ago)

I've never heard anyone who is versed in hip-hop slang use "corny" to describe anything that he/she liked. It would be the equivalent of saying "This song is bug-fuckingly awful; I like it!"

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 February 2005 22:00 (twenty years ago)

yeah i realize i have my own special definition of cornyness

― artdamages (artdamages), Friday, 4 February 2005 22:02 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

I blindly picked up "The Love Song" 12" from the clearance bins for a buck this weekend, just out of curiosity, and I'm loving this song (pun semi-intended) I don't think the rapping is the strong point of the song though, but it's the really full sounding breakbeat, the teasing of shoegaze near the beginning, and then that wash of strings that comes in the bridge and pans out the song.. I think the chorus is sung very nicely too.

I have no idea what other K-OS sounds like.

― donut debonair (donut), Monday, 11 April 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

I really do love this album. I think it's kinda of what broadsheet critics hear in their head when they listen to The Roots. Probably one of the warmest rap albums I've heard in a minute.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 29 August 2005 17:41 (twenty years ago)

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