The Limitations of Hip-hop

I'd agree that there are limitations or at least tendencies to the emotional terrain that hip-hop covers -- but I think that's true of any genre really. Which is why it's important to me to listen to a variety of genres, depending on my mood.

the breadth of topics covered by hip-hop is limited by one thing: the emotional range of the artists. traditionally, hip-hop is a very macho genre, a lot of bravado and boasting and bragging, etc. you bring up "ms. jackson" which really doesn't strike me as a *particularly* heavy track, in fact i find it a wee bit light- hearted, though that may be due to the hook and the video. if anything, it's apologetic and slightly regretful. on the other hand, their "toilet tisha" is moving.

i don't think a hip-hop track has ever made me feel *sad*: melancholic, yeah, and even somewhat mournful. pete rock & cl smooth created a subgenre with "they reminisce over you" which is a perfect marriage of elegiac rhymes and muted horns; there is a particular "heaviness" to the geto boys' "six feet deep" and, similarly, scarface's "a minute to pray, a second to die"; jay-z consistently amazes me when he puts aside his jigga-man persona and raps from the heart, particularly on "soon you'll understand" and "you must love me"; de la soul's "millie pulled a pistol on santa" is still chilling; wu tang's "can it all be so simple" is somewhat wistful.

i don't think i look for much feeling in hip-hop tracks. usually they go on when i need an adrenaline rush or something along those lines. contemporary hip-hop excels at that sort of thing, though i fear it's at the cost of their emotions.

The only "sad" hip-hop I can think of offhand is A Tribe Called Quest's _Beats, Rhymes & Live_. That record has a melancholy mood about it.

The best examples of this that come immediately to mind are Ghostface Killah's "All That I Got Is You" and Naughty By Nature's "Ghetto Bastard." They seem to come from a similar place in the heart: both songs angrily recount what it's like to grow up in the midst of humiliating, grinding poverty, but are framed by all these bittersweet pop details.

Lots of tracks where a dude pledges his love to his shorty (like that new Ja Rule track) or pays homage to his dead friends strike me as showing a kind of emotional vulnerability that's almost unbearable to listen to because it's so gosh-darned naked -- or almost Victorian in its morbid sentimentality.

Then there's Tricky, if you count him as hip-hop (which I kinda do); Ice Cube's "Dead Homiez"; the Geto Boys' "Mind Playing Tricks On Me"; the paranoid aura of a lot of Wu tracks tend to shade off into a kind of vauge misery; the hushed, muffled atmosphere of the second Slick Rick album -- the sound of someone who fucked up royally and is now deeply paying for it.

"Ms. Jackson" has always worked for me at least partially because of its slight melancholy; the apologetic feel and the tentative attempts to have a good time, it's certainly not some kind of up-times celebration. OTOH, "Toilet Tisha" is to me one of Stankonia's weaker points (and there are precious few of those).

"distant wilderness" has qualities of mournfulness, resignation, and resolve for me.

"beautiful skin" has a certain longing in it, along with some real gentleness and sensitivity.

"black ice" also seems somewhat sorrowful and resigned.

even "ghetto-ology" seems somewhat sad.

i can see mike's point re wrapping sadness in anger.

if i may humbly suggest some additions from off the top of my head:

kmd's entire catalogue, especially 'black bastards'

whodini's 'last night (i had a long talk with myself)'

brand nubian's 'all for one' which, when not being racist, is amazingly desperate and harsh. except for the party jams.

black star's 'respiration' (yeah, you jay-z fans hate this, whatever.)

bushwick bill's acknowledgement of his own suicide attempt on the terrorists ' fuck the media'

gang starr's 'the planet' ('kissed my mother, gave my pops a pound. and then he hugged me. and then he turned around.')

so many of the songs on the coup's 'steal this album', including but not limited to 'me and jesus the pimp in a '79 granada last night' (the most commonly cited example), 'underdogs', 'the repo man sings for you', and 'fixation'.

ursula rucker's closing poems on roots albums, which i think i'm one of the few defenders of, but come on, they're moving and wonderful. get with it.

pretty much all of public enemy's stuff ('911 is a joke' was the saddest party jam ever once you thought about it), but especially 'apocalypse 91'.

gravediggaz' second album. sometimes contrived, but when it works, it's really teary.

mc shan's 'i pioneered this'

*dishonorable mention: the production on souls of mischief's '93 til infinity' would have been so perfect to a sad emotional elegy and they waste it on dumb battle lyrics ('i cause dizzyness, until you...stop acting like a silly bitch' NO NO NO). still a favorite, but oh the possibilities.

this is woefully incomplete, and purely based on what i've listened to in the past couple of days. ask me next week and i could give you an entirely different list. probably should have included some biggie.

Doesn't look like many agreed with me here, though I'm not sure I got what I wanted from the information. So many of these songs are about sad topics (probably most hip-hop is, if you're talking life in the ghetto), but none of them that I know actually make me sad in the least. Stuff like "911 Is A Joke," I love it, but does it choke me up? No.

Anyway, thanks.

Do you ever feel sadness, longing, or any such "downer" emotions when listening to hip-hop? Which tracks?

HI DERE MR. WEST

http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/kanye-west-x-kaws-808s-and-heartbreak-1.jpg

i have thought about this a lot as i've gotten older, as i feel more distance from hip hop. in my teens, i totally absorbed everything about it, it was my obsession, but in my 40s, i cant really abide by a lot of the lyrics in modern rap, and even old rap.

obv sometimes it doesnt matter, a good song is a good song (and ive become one of those people who just prefers hip hop when its just a hard banger over anything else), but i do question a lot of the base level occupations of a lot of rap now (maybe i should just listen to aesop rock or brother ali or someone, but idk how much i really like their music).

im sure if i had been this age in the 90s, id prob have felt the same. or id be telling people how great things like tricky, divine styler or whoever were, people who at the time i sniffed at for not being 'real' hip hop like nas or snoop, etc.

i think hip hop does have a limit to how far it goes with certain emotions, and a lot of the time, even songs like TROY or idk, certain kanye songs, its not the lyrics that evoke the emotion so much as the sample, its the music. i think its mainly the lack of melody in rap that means it has a certain emotional boundary - in other songs, even if the lyrics dont mean that much, the melody can make it mean that much more. thats not to say i havent been moved by many rap songs, but now, the self reflexivity of a lot of rap lyrics, or the need to couch it in machismo, or the tendency to say something to create distance from what might be being revealed/laid out openly, makes it more difficult for me to be 'moved' by a lot of rap. id rather listen to other music. and im sure rap doesnt miss me, but its a bit weird considering how much time i spent obsessing over hip hop. i also wonder if ive just turned into someone who thinks theyre better than rap now, one of those people who at the time, you were meant to jeer and sneer at for 'leaving' rap for other genres.

yeah i think we can leave discussions of "lack of emotion" or "lack of melody" in hip-hop back in 2001 where they belong

codeine got me trippiiiiing. great chorus.

dont really care about lines like this though:

I won't ever love a bitch more than my mother
And that's on my government name (nah)
I can't be no sucker, ain't hating on no one
I wish everybody get paid (paid)
'Cause we counting up everyday (everyday)
Getting high 'til I land in the grave

voodoo otm

I mean I actually credit ilx with keeping me up to date, but as generally a 90s rap guy I feel like the last few years have been an embarrassment of riches for a grumpy old rap guy, weirdos like Open Mike Eagle, Koreatown Oddity, Armand Hammer keeping the Stone's Throw/Def Jux flag flying, older dues
dudes like Run the Jewells, Roc Marciano having second acts, the whole post Marcburg rebirth of grimey East Coast street shit: Griselda, Mach Hommy, etc etc

you could listen to women rappers?

idk it seems absurd to me to think one person can get a handle on "a lot of the base level occupations of a lot of rap now"

Hip-hop and country music are capable of exploring the deepest wells of emotional substance because the genres allow for first-person narratives, long stories and the use of a lot of words. ymmv

as generally a 90s rap guy I feel like the last few years have been an embarrassment of riches for a grumpy old rap guy

Very much so. In retrospect, every time I felt like the new shit wasn't on par with the old shit, it's 99% because I wasn't paying attention to what was going on in the background.

i realise i sound totally lame.

i like armand hammer, roc marci, all the guys muggs works with (honestly his quality control has never slipped if you ask me), but thats just for old dudes, and younger kids with lots of money to spend on special releases lol.

maybe i need some sort of musical counselling, but im just not into a lot of rap lyrics anymore. which is weird as hip hop quotable in the source used to be one of my favourite sections. i should prob go and listen to non english rappers. or just listen to beats from alchemist, etc.

have you checked out Rapsody?

but thats just for old dudes, and younger kids with lots of money to spend on special releases lol.

this kinda odd tbh...you like the music but you don't feel like the audience (or more accurately, your perceptions of the audience) is right?

im not some big moralist to be clear, i liked chief keefs back from the dead 2 and young thug's first tape a lot, i like cardi b, migos are incredible rappers. ive just become soft.

i might just stick with lo fi hip hop for studying beat playlists.

"this kinda odd tbh...you like the music but you don't feel like the audience (or more accurately, your perceptions of the audience) is right?"

i like it, i was just being flippant about who buys it. i actually have no idea, never been to a show to see, but i wondered if its just ageing rap fans, though who knows if they would like what ka, griselda etc, do.

ill check out rapsody.

The lyrics in Schubert lieder or medieval chansons largely don't speak to me (all lovelorn poets dying for a woman who won't speak to them) but I still rock out to them cause they're awesome.

Candyman, I feel you. I know exactly what you're talking about.

honestly if you told me that when i got older, id actually be saying 'i just prefer beats, i still love beats, i just dont want to hear the lyrical content anymore, i find it often quite juvenille and not fitting for a man in his mid 40s', id be telling you some (spurious?) shit like 'you dont want to hear black male voices!' or something similar. lol.

are you working from home?

I feel like my listening has gotten 1) more instrumental 2) overall "mellower" and less abrasive since Covid

across the board, not just hip hop

*if you told me in the late 90s

im WFH and yes, def gravitating to more mellow stuff on the whole (not entirely though), unless its stuff i already know, but my preferences on hip hop have been there pre-covid

I didn't listen to much rap last year, which is almost entirely down to 1) not making an effort to keep up with what's out there, and not naturally learning about it because I'm getting lol old, and 2) not driving much. Like ums says, I'm not trying to listen to rap on headphones while working.

In reading this revive, it’s occurred to me that often these days I want music without vocals. A new record or song - in a case where I have no expectations really - will impress me, and then someone starts singing or rapping and spell is broken.

anyway - candyman, yes, I too know what you mean, I think. (Just turned 44.) Which isn’t to say that I don’t go back to Clipse or Jay Z or Azealia Banks or whoever from time to time. What’s changed is that a ton of old rap I once loved doesn’t lure me back and new rap can’t really hold my attention unless there’s this perfect, sharp synthesis of performance and production. something has to grab me by the collar on a first or second listen. I have less patience.

The last time I was rabid for rap and would listen to everything over and over and get a feel for it was the early 2010s. Since then it’s been a gradual slide away from that enthusiasm. I seriously envy everyone who is or remains thrilled about what’s happening in the genre.

I guess an example of what works, annually like clockwork, is at least one new Freddie Gibbs song. A great producer plus technique and a bunch of lyrical ideas that are simultaneously sweat/deployed with elan.

There is nothing wrong with moving away from certain genres as you age, but if you dig deeper you'll almost always find material that gives the lie to whatever reason you have for giving up on said genres.

Fuck keeping up with pop music, though – life's too short for that shit.

beato is way too complimentary about that mendes x bieber song, which is bad bad bad

*Yes, there are middle-aged rappers, but that's even more bothersome in a way. The correct response to a new Public Enemy album isn't "Ooh, the new Public Enemy album is pretty good! [it's not] They sure were great when I saw them in '88!" It's "Jesus fuck, Public Enemy are still out there?


you listen to jazz and metal

also YouTube is a horror show

unperson, where would you situate Moor Mother?

I mean jfc a "brilliant young gun" in jazz is like 39 years old

I'm not (at all) defending unperson's prescriptive take on this but isn't his point that jazz is and should be music by and for adults whereas hip-hop is and should be music for teenagers and thus it is embarrassing for middle-aged people to still do it?

Like I said, though, I don't think broad musical idioms or listeners are or should be limited by age in that way myself. Although I listen to jazz and prog more than I listen to rap in my early 40s, that skew was actually stronger when I was 14.

unperson is saying that rappers should start making jazz once they hit 40

I mean I disagree and one of the things I like about unperson's writing is you seem to actually listen to, say, a Uriah Heep record, and i guess I'm missing what is more inherently adolescent about rap as compared to metal/hard rock

"unperson is saying that rappers should start making jazz once they hit 40"

Ha, I was going to say, if this means Lil Wayne or whoever is going to study sax at Berklee when he turns 35, I'm actually on board.

he just graduated iirc

(he's 38)

Ha, I wondered if that was going to be a bad example.

i guess I'm missing what is more inherently adolescent about rap as compared to metal/hard rock

This is kinda otm. Like, you can't get any more adolescent than Van Halen, but no way will I stop listening to Van Halen. I think it just boils down to tolerance for certain sounds and trends (which are always shifting and changing) rather than entire genres.

I suppose one superficial difference is that traditionally hip-hop is (or at least used to be) made almost exclusively *by* young people, but rap careers are longer now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-GbnVjw3Pk

I'm not (at all) defending unperson's prescriptive take on this but isn't his point that jazz is and should be music by and for adults whereas hip-hop is and should be music for teenagers and thus it is embarrassing for middle-aged people to still do it?

Kinda sorta. I didn't bring jazz into it myself. What I'm saying is that yeah, hip-hop is and should be music for teenagers; it deals extensively in primal rage, power fantasies, crude sexuality, ludicrous braggadocio, and other things that sensible people really should grow out of or at least get under control at some point. (It's also, as others have mentioned, expanded its range in recent years to also deal in weepy overwrought displays of despair and suicidal ideation.) These are all valid emotions and perfectly acceptable lyrical subject matter, but as a nearly 50-year-old man, none of them have anything to do with my life and even when taken as theater, they're not that interesting to me. If the average modern hip-hop song was a screenplay, I would not watch that movie.

Re metal, sure, a lot of what I listen to is probably dumb as shit from a lyrical standpoint. But I listen to the music; I don't pay attention to the words — and I don't have to, because they're delivered in an indecipherable gurgle-growl-roar, not foregrounded as they are in hip-hop, and anyway they're presented as overtly theatrical in a way hip-hop lyrics often aren't. To use an example I've used many times, nobody really thinks the members of Cannibal Corpse have ever killed anyone. (Cannibal Corpse: the Rick Ross of metal.) That said, I don't listen to goregrind or pornogrind bands, because that shit is not just for teenagers, it's for teenagers with serious emotional issues requiring professional intervention.

On the other hand, there are quite a few metal bands, young and old, that I feel exhibit "artistic maturity" and make music for grown-ups, like Opeth. Their lyrics aren't grandiose, they're kind of mournful and deal with emotions at the pitch of a middle-aged man.

The real reason I don't listen to hip-hop anymore, of course, is that I don't like the way a lot of modern hip-hop tracks sound. They grate on my ear and after 45 seconds to a minute, I'm done.

Coincidentally, Opeth (who I love) have gotten more and more '70s as they've gotten older.

If the average modern hip-hop song was a screenplay, I would not watch that movie.

lol, good point. But conversely, what if more hip-hop albums found a way to capture in music the insanity of something like "Belly"? Or, back to your point, maybe a lot of albums do and that's the problem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_O6InGzd-Y

lol, good point. But conversely, what if more hip-hop albums found a way to capture in music the insanity of something like "Belly"? Or, back to your point, maybe a lot of albums do and that's the problem?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, February 3, 2021 11:31 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

heartily recommend king von, check out "took her to the o" and "3am"

The real reason I don't listen to hip-hop anymore, of course, is that I don't like the way a lot of modern hip-hop tracks sound. They grate on my ear and after 45 seconds to a minute, I'm done.

This is what I meant, btw, about sounds and trends. Like, I hate the sound of trap, the chattering high-hats, and that's something those Beato videos address. But of course I know there is more out there than that.

I mean if you told me 20 years how much rap I would listen to that had minimal or barely any drums I would have thought you were crazy

YES @ unperson's post on metal/hip hop (and also the focus on lyrics which makes them hard to discard).

and yes, i am well aware of how 'melodic' rappers have gotten, i actually was kinda into what i heard of lil peep, juice world, etc so i know how they are 'in touch' with their emotions, i still feel its an adolescent notion of that though, and often actually still couched in certain safe macho/somewhat defensive limits around this form of soul bearing. and rappers rapping about the death of people close to them is not exactly new (eg 2pac/thug life's pour a little liqour). a lot of the 'pain' stuff just seems self conscious tbh. or maybe im not investigating the right stuff. but who cares really, its true i think that if youre 40/50 and still relating to this stuff, then something is wrong. and im fine with no longer feeling that close to hip hop. thank fuck actually, although it meant so much to me for a long time that it is weird to not care about it anymore, and actually WANT to be distant from it now, almost like im embarassed a bit of my old tastes (truly it would be weird to still think for example that krs one is a deep intellectual thinker; enjoy his music from 86 to 94 but hes no james baldwin) - so maybe that's all it is.

this all sounds like “the limitations of candyman” to me

anyway, here's a hip-hop song from 2020 made by a 47-year-old man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5d8RF7dndM

its true i think that if youre 40/50 and still relating to this stuff, then something is wrong

do you only listen to music you relate to? that does sound limiting

do u relate to jazz??? stupid shit itt

I guess I don't think of music as something I "relate to"

but I feel you on the new stuff, I like to check it out but it's very unfun and a lot of the post Future stuff I don't really get into, though sometimes

but there's a lot of cool stuff out there, I just like old school rap lyricism and a cool beat. like I dunno, something about it is just fun to hear, I don't think it means anything or says anything about me as a person. me as a person is who I am to my daughter every day, my friends and co-workers

saw this on Twitter the other day, like as long as there's east coast slick talk shit like this, I can't help it

Ox video out right nowhttps://t.co/1aslqtEcr4
🐂 🐂 🐂🐂 🐂 🐂🐂 🐂 pic.twitter.com/yI62IHSlDr

— 𝔊𝔞𝔟𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔩 (@GabeNandez) January 19, 2021

"this all sounds like “the limitations of candyman” to me"

oooh, zing.

"do u relate to jazz??? stupid shit itt"

vocal jazz, sure. i can listen to sarah vaughn, billie holiday, ella, etc and it resonates.

instrumental jazz, not sure i 'relate' to it, but i can appreciate it intellectually mostly and marvel at the brilliance. unless its weather report, return to forever, or mahavishnu orchestra, in which case, i completely adore it.

i shouldn't have written 'relate' really. thats a bit of a red herring. i guess i just mean i dont really feel hip hop speaks for/to me anymore. which is prob entirely personal, and therefore prob of little interest to strangers, although as a few people have said they feel similarly, perhaps it is something others feel similarly about.

"something about it is just fun to hear"

yeah, like i said, a banger is a banger/good song is a good song. i put on the first run dmc album a few months back and enjoyed it. i guess im thinking in terms of genre loyalties/affinities. im sure im not the only one for whom a genre meant something.

ha that's funny i almost wrote something to the effect that i really am just always chasing that high i got from "run's house" when i heard it as a kid

that first album somehow STILL sounds raw and immediate.

yeah they are kinda like elvis, inescapable for years but have now become weirdly underrated

A thing that makes unperson’s post sound stupid is that hip hop is jazz

is this 1991?

actually, one thing i think that has changed is now i just listen to the music on its own terms, whereas before, there were so many other factors that shaped how i thought of and listened to it. it was almost religious! now im more agnostic.

the whole rap is jazz thing is something i would have argued (though rap is blues is a better argument if you ask me), though now it just seems like a half-cocked, half desperate, half utterly off base comparison.

the whole rap is jazz thing is something i would have argued (though rap is blues is a better argument if you ask me), though now it just seems like a half-cocked, half desperate, half utterly off base comparison.

I've talked to several artists about this (we discuss it in a book I've got coming out later this year, in fact, and on episodes of my podcast). Some of them believe hip-hop and jazz are complementary, or that they're points on a line of black music, or that the jazz they play is influenced by hip-hop because they're under 40 and therefore grew up in a world where hip-hop was the air they breathed, the water they swam in, etc. But no musician I've ever spoken to has been dumb/reductive enough to say "hip-hop is jazz."

All Western music consists of variations on the Seikilos epitaph and is therefore indistinguishable from it.

unperson you should check out the writer deforest brown jr who is working on a book connecting jazz, hip hop, and techno

formally, hip hop and jazz share a structure in that different instrumentalists/vocalists interacting with the same underlying chord progression/beat in stylistically distinct yet complementary way

if you can ignore semantic meaning in metal you can in hip hop. indeed much rap thrives on a blurring of the musical/semantic distinction: it’s not spoken word, it’s music. rapping is a highly technical form of being a vocalist in the musical sense

and the idea that all hip hop is simply braggadocio is simply empirically untrue

Relevant:

Recommendations for hip-hop without braggadocio (or these other tropes)?

xpost - i like glasper/hargrove and liked step in the arena-era gang starr (and jazzmatazz, sort of) as much as the next man but thankfully, most people stopped making silly, reaching comparisons about rap and jazz a long time ago.

dont think anyone thinks rap is all bragging.

hip-hop is and should be music for teenagers; it deals extensively in primal rage, power fantasies, crude sexuality, ludicrous braggadocio, and other things that sensible people really should grow out of or at least get under control at some point

should've just fp'd for racism and moved on

today is BradNelson Is OTM day on ilx

also the idea that bragging is somehow not essentially USA national culture ... have you read the news in the last four years

@candyman please reread my post, i don’t think you understood

"should've just fp'd for racism and moved on"

too easy. too kneejerk.

"formally, hip hop and jazz share a structure in that different instrumentalists/vocalists interacting with the same underlying chord progression/beat in stylistically distinct yet complementary way"

i will be honest, i didnt totally understand what you were saying here.

are you talking about rappers vocalling the same beat but in diff ways? i.e. like versioning in dancehall?

Brad beat me to it.

is it racism if you still listen to plenty of black artists working in predominantly black genres? or if you are andre3000 or GSH saying what you dont like about rap? for me personally, its not like i only want to listen to the beatles or something. or im saying eminem is the greatest rapper above everyone else.

i still cannot be arsed to look at most of this thread. But would it help maybe to view rap/hiphop as being as broad a categorization as "rock"? And that the pioneers you mention complaining about the state of it are just used to what they came up hearing and doing?