Keepin' it real

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Not the Nickelback song/thread.

Tangentially related to the Hip Hop: Keepin' it REAL thread...

And an idea spun off from a post on the "electronic music in 1988 has since made rock music pointless" thread...

"Keepin' it real", not only applied to hip-hop but all music genres.

First off, what are your first thoughts whenever you hear this phrase?

I'll get to the ultimate point of starting this thread later.

― DOQQUN (donut), Monday, 15 May 2006 23:11 (nineteen years ago)

Eepin' it Kreel.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 15 May 2006 23:16 (nineteen years ago)

First off, what are your first thoughts whenever you hear this phrase?

that it's essentially become meaningless?

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 15 May 2006 23:20 (nineteen years ago)

My first thought is that it is bollocks.

Music should be kept melodic and harmonic. Other than that, it may sound as "unreal" as it wants to.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 15 May 2006 23:25 (nineteen years ago)

geir you are amazing.

when i hear this i think it means "don't turn your back on your friends," basically.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 15 May 2006 23:55 (nineteen years ago)

I guess it means not starting to make it fake.

The problem is I don't know what that means either.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Monday, 15 May 2006 23:57 (nineteen years ago)

like trayce, i think it's quite a useful phrase to live your life by, especially as far as friends go. as far as music is concerned it's bullshit.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 00:05 (nineteen years ago)

When someone says to another " Keep it Real" - they pretty much mean mean "don't sell out'

but there is certainly an aspect of

'don't act in a way that will change my perception of the type of person you are'

or
'stick to stereotypical behaviour '

― grapple (grapple), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 00:05 (nineteen years ago)

Has anyone in the rap biz ever said he wasn't keepin it real?

― Siegbran (eofor), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 00:44 (nineteen years ago)

I use it basically the same way I use "punk," i.e. sarcastically.

― Eppy (Eppy), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 00:56 (nineteen years ago)

the thing about rap though is that "selling out" is a non-starter concept in the first place if the whole idea is to make as much money as quickly as possible. i don't think "keeping it real" has anything to do with cameron croweish ideas about "selling out", at all

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 01:35 (nineteen years ago)

Tracey, you have obviously never at any point in your life been a hiphop purist. It's probably for the better.

― Dr. Rodney's Original Savannah Band (R. J. Greene), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 02:11 (nineteen years ago)

i dunno, i think a lot of hip hop purists would see not trying to make massive amounts of cash as a betrayal of keeping it real! like dude you don't care about spreading a little of that around, try to make the most of yourself, put your mom in a nice house?

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 02:16 (nineteen years ago)

That's true, but at the same time there are many hiphop purists (my former self included) who view materialism as a plague against hiphop. When I was 16, I would pretty much buy anything that set itself up in opposition to the bling-lords, no matter how boring the records were. *cough*Blackalicious*cough*

In fact I feel that I missed a lot of good mainstream rap from the late 90s/early 2000s just because I was so dismissive of it at the time. Every once in a while I'll have an early Nelly song or something smack me out of the blue. I'll just hear this great song that I absolutely hated a few years ago in the interest of "keeping it real".

― Dr. Rodney's Original Savannah Band (R. J. Greene), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 02:27 (nineteen years ago)

ayepp! i was the same way with yazoo.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 02:30 (nineteen years ago)

"Keepin' it Real with Will and Willie" (Will Durst and Willie Brown), a show on KQKE weekday mornings in SF.

― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 03:57 (nineteen years ago)

keeping it real was virtually a synonym for gangsterism/thuggism, associated with the power switch back from the west to the east coast in the early nineties

"i got you stuck off the realness" etc.

the aim was to sell lots of records while rhyming about killing people and selling drugs. ie keeping it real was about not changing your subject matter to get to the mainstream, but bringing the mountain to mohammed.

― Dr J Bowman (Dr J Bowman), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 11:40 (nineteen years ago)

I'm all for keeping it unreal

― Acid Casualty, Tuesday, 16 May 2006 11:49 (nineteen years ago)

MC Hammer made a lot of money but he was derided for not keeping it real. If you made money rapping about what was REAL then you were okay.

Mind you, I don't agree with this line of thought, but I am cognizant of it.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 12:01 (nineteen years ago)

keepin' it surreal
http://graphics.ink19.com/issues/august1999/kool_keith.jpeg

― reasonable (reasonable), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

I keep it surreal cos I don't take reality seriously. I'm serious, G.

― Action Tim Vision (noodle vague), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 12:08 (nineteen years ago)

but he was derided for not keeping it real.
because he decided to start being a G. *which hurt his sales*, actually.

― deejese, Tuesday, 16 May 2006 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

No, I meant before he went gangsta he was derided by "real" rappers. See the Ice Cube video "True To The Game," which has a Hammer-like rapper as the protagonist and the lyrics:

When you first start rhyming
It started off slow and then you start climbing
But it wasn't fast enough I guess
So you gave your other style a test
You was hardcore hip-hop
Now look at yourself, boy you done flip-flopped
Giving our music away to the mainstream
Don't you know they ain't down with the team
They just sent they boss over
Put a bug in your ear and now you crossed over
On MTV but they don't care
They'll have a new nigga next year
You out in the cold
No more white fans and no more soul
And you might have a heart attack
When you find out the black folks don't want you back

(Not that Hammer was "hardcore hip-hop" to begin with but the video used his imagery for this verse. The whole video and song is actually about "Keepong it real," actually.)

I'm sure that a lot of the period's gangstas made a lot of quotes about Hammer when he was blowing up and little of it would be positive.

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 15:25 (nineteen years ago)

Public Enemy were one of Hammer's biggest supporters in the late 80s circa "Let's Get It Started" etc. as were many other "harder" "underground" rappers. Keep in mind Hammer got his start selling CDs in the back of his touring van.

I think the success/airplay overkill of "Can't Touch This" started the engines the backlash, but it wasn't that as much as the awards show where Hammer and about 15 of his buddies went on stage to accept an award and then product-placed Pepsi that really irked folks. In retrospect, that was really embarrassing. I'm usually not into VH-1 Behind The Music type history revision, but in this case, when they showed that clip, that was a high-five for VH-1 as far as when it "all went wrong"... Also, Hammer was a terrible manager of his money, for someone who never touched drugs, apparently.

― DOQQUN (donut), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 16:10 (nineteen years ago)

Keeping it real. Yeah....real stupid. Oh look at me Im a rapper and Im a gangster who likes to kill people for a parcel of city scape that I will never own. I got money, hoes, and bling cuz I slang rocks cuz Im from the hood homey and I got a GED. Oh and I cant explore different and inspiring sonic landscapes or subject matter cuz I have to rap about the same boring shit and act like every other troll out there. HORSE SHIT. This mentality is why rap is withering on the vine of creativity. It is progressing no where. Thank god our friends across the pond have taken it and are doing some cool shit.

― T-Rock, Tuesday, 16 May 2006 19:33 (nineteen years ago)

haha really? Yes not enough sonic landscaping, thank god for lily allen.

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 19:51 (nineteen years ago)

as MOS DEF astutely points out
"Keeping it real can make you a victim of abnormal reality.."
hence dreaming of 'ice' and 'bling' while actually not having enough decent food to eat, talk of gangsterism and high living while living with you're mom and grandma in an overcrowded flat. the lack of sensory perception is some times startling in 'da ghetto'. They not even OUR dreams, the're sold by fiddy and the boys for our consumption..whats you're life, REALly like?

― barbarian, Tuesday, 16 May 2006 20:39 (nineteen years ago)

Hammer was derided because of his silly-ass trousers

― m0stly clean (m0stly clean), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 21:38 (nineteen years ago)

The silly-ass trousers was a convenient affect of the backlash. Right Said Fred wore far sillier shit, and no one ever derided them.

― DOQQUN (donut), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 23:09 (nineteen years ago)

Orly?

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

I'm pretty sure Hammer is thanked in the liner notes of both Straight Outta Compton and It Takes a Nation of Millions (altho who didn't get thanked in PE liner notes...remember how they used to categorize everyone into New School Posse, Pioneers, etc...I used to read them for hours)....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 16 May 2006 23:26 (nineteen years ago)

You try keeping it real, but you should try keeping it right.

― ng-unit (ng-unit), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 01:49 (nineteen years ago)

de la soul otm

― Dr J Bowman (Dr J Bowman), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 10:37 (nineteen years ago)

... or are they - why shouldn't MCs rap about whatever they like? (aside from the boringness issue, which is another matter)

also it's a relatively common rhetorical device to present fictionalised accounts as true, so why shouldn't MCs pretend that what they are rapping about is "real life"?

― Dr J Bowman (Dr J Bowman), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 10:44 (nineteen years ago)

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