chicago's "hipster-hop" scene and backlash

theres some discussion on this sort of thing starting here:
rolling ringtone thread 2008

i think hes selling the anti-hipster rap critique short if he thinks its just a bunch of dudes no homo-ing all the time

-some downright loathsome shit that needs to get murked (Uffie, Kid Sister)

-- Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, June 10, 2008 3:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

lol Kid Sister's "Control" is like my favorite hip-hop single from the last couple of years

Kanye's music is "ironic"? RONG

The problem is that shallow is fun, but if all you've got is shallow, it gets boring/glib fast.

It's hard to believe that's an article that someone actually saw fit to publish, in terms of the topic and the quality of the writing.

hmm interesting take on the article!

this stuff is semi-big here too... i'm kind of so-so on most of it but i wish that article had presented both sides a little better.

i mean the homophobic backlash thing is one thing and the "you weren't there" is another but surely this stuff attracts criticism beyond that?

usually I'm on the side of "let em have their fun" but I'm not gonna go to bat for the Cool Kids and Spank Rock

not sure how Kanye got lumped in there other than he sampled Daft Punk

he also hangs with a-trak, who is his dj, who co-runs kid sister's label etc etc

I couldn't be bothered to listen to the Cool Kids' last album all the way through, it's pretty boring.

oh right (xpost)

part of the critique I think is a knee-jerk "you put techno in my hip-hop!!!!"

this debate is pretty much the rap equivalent of "Justice isn't real dance music"

The only time I really waste any time thinking about this shit is when I go to some site like Nah Right for mainstream rap news and half the posts are about these retro douchebags.

xp except 'real dance music' that most of justice's detractors are repping for is not actually popular or easily accessible to most people, whereas fun, stripped down good times party rap is all over the place

http://www.hhcmagazine.com/index.php?id=48#story3

Quality of the writing? That's actually really well (if selectively) argued, especially the way it calls out some slight dissonance and possible racial typecasting in this sentence:

It’s not the less comfortable aspects of black culture it avoids but the less comfortable aspects of hip-hop culture -- the thuggishness and ignorance, hardly confined to black artists and fans, that high-minded blogs like Oh Word and Unkut.com go out of their way to criticize in mainstream rappers.

my biggest problem with it is its responding to 'the backlash' and doesnt really delve into any critiques beyond 'it was done before' and 'lol homos'

part of the critique I think is a knee-jerk "you put techno in my hip-hop!!!!"

-- dmr, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 8:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

yeah but i don't think ppl have a prob with bambaataa or breakdance music.

they have a problem w/ the euro element but thats kind of beside the point to me

Yeah, deej, that's part of why I say "selectively" -- he's knocking out some of the more easy/obvious arguments, not necessarily deeper ones. But this may be in part because (as on this thread) it's not that common for people to articulate much in the way of deeper or different complaints!

Matt's getting at another point of slight dissonance -- the way certain things are only okay when strictly confined to a bygone era, but frowned on in the present: this is totally natural and true of any genre, but it complicates any complaints that newcomers aren't being true to the past.

I should just admit that I think a lot of the perfectly natural hostility to this stuff has to do with people not wanting to see a bunch of attention paid to a new area of hip-hop that's more "corny" and lighthearted and appealing to (often white) people who aren't into other sorts of hip-hop, because those are not the qualities that got them attached to hip-hop in the first place. (And like DMR says, that's no different than fans complaining about "fake dance music" or "fake metal" or anything else that's more jovial and fun, ingratiating, and accessible -- it's 100% normal.)

I'm sure plenty of people's turn-offs revolve around substantive claims like "the MCs aren't as good" or whatever -- but even those complaints often have to do with having standards of what "good" is that are based on your deeper beliefs about what the genre should be like. (Also normal.) But surely most of the blanket hostilities/dismissals are based on the stuff above.

that argument amounts to 'everything is subjective' though doesnt it

in the rolling ringtone thread i linked to above i talk more about my issues w/ this stuff and the cool kids in particular. i can talk about how i like isolated singles here and there that i enjoy, but then im as bad as alex in nyc saying he likes some random R&B song right??
i also like crossover 'hipster hip hop' which isnt really hipster at all but is just straight up pop (i.e. i like kanye and lupe)

its easiest (and i do this in the ringtone thread) to orient my argument around concrete ethical issues but on a purely musical level i dont see 'quality' being tied to the press coverage in a way that makes any damn sense - its entirely ideology. i dont have a problem with fun-loving, barrier breaking rap music (kanye again) but i do have a problem w/ the way artists are seemingly plucked from nowhere based on who they know and who they party with

i mean i object to that in one sense ('distorted view of history' media coverage etc) and in another, more subjective one (some of this shit really genuinely is hard for me to understand the appeal of on anything OTHER than an ideological level, i.e. the cool kids seem like nice nonthreatening guys - but dont tons of people??? isnt this just Jurassic 5 all over again but with clipse for a stylistic touchpoint rather than sugarhill gang?)

pretty much i think.

yeah this stuff annoys me and i can't really put my finger on it.

i kinda like that first jurassic EP better than any cool kids i've heard

i think ive exhausted all i have to say about this in the pretty good and substantial discussion ringtone 08, but i thought this article was well-written and got as close to the heart of the issue as maybe anything ive seen when he talks about ppl jocking the cool kids bcuz they feel ownership of the musical styles that they are copping. but the clothing issue is still rly prevalent amongst traditionalist/ppl really into gangster rap but that's something that rap's been dealing with ever since what cam'ron's pink phase? kanye? before then?

as i wrote when i reviewed their ep, there are an innumerable amount of people who saw a pic of the cool kids (hell plenty on ilx as a matter of fact) and immediately dismissed them based up on the ropes or the shoes or the hats, but let's remember that the cool kids had to anticipate that, for the lack of a better term, "real" rap fans were going to not fuck with them from the jump or have a hard time coming around to them, whereas hipster-types who dress like them would probably get on the wagon pretty early. so whether or not they are connected w/ media ppl or whatever, and i said this in ringtone, i think the cool kids are explicitly aiming for a white, rock-listening, "hip" audience (as whiney said, rapping about bikes and sega and not violence or misogyny) which is why they are getting shine over say gucci mane

something about the backpatting insular insider-yness of this all rubs me the wrong way.

That kinda gets into the blurring points between hostility to music and hostility to press treatment, but out of curiosity and devil's-advocacy, I have to ask: what's wrong with that ideology? I mean, it's a fair point if you feel like the music's crap and only embraced on the basis of an ideology that leads to ... crap music, but sometimes ideology is essential to people anyway; it's certainly at play with a lot of the people who criticize these acts!

^^ That's also what I meant above -- not "everything's subjective," but just that certain standards of quality are often tied to ideology. Talk for more than a few minutes about what makes someone a "good" MC, and you're going to run into some underlying beliefs about what an MC is supposed to accomplish, which skills are important and which aren't, etc., you know? Like with anything.

i sort of like the cool kids until i see a pic of them.

something about the backpatting insular insider-yness of this all rubs me the wrong way.

-- deej, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:34 PM (43 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

what's the diff between spank rock insidering his way to an urb cover and the game or rick ross or mariah carey insidering their way into an xxl or vibe cover

those artists have actually had hits

I totally don't mean this as a complaint against people here, but it's getting to the point this year where I really wish every discussion of acts' media connections/manipulation/luck/whatever were replaced with lists of other acts people thought deserved the press instead; I'd probably hear more great music that way.

nabisco, check the link i made to cocaine blunts in the ringtone thread where he posts a version of big tuck rapping over the same sample the cool kids have also used

nabisco, like i said the ideology is not per se objectionable to me, kanye's crossover act that somehow managed to hit up basically every music-listening demographic is a great example of how to make it work ...

im not sure that i disagree with the rest of your post, but that can be used to defend virtually anything, so im not really sure what to do with it either. i started writing some long post about art being about the perception of difference and realized i would come off like a very poor man's tim f.

like yeah people arent 'wrong' for liking the cool kids any more than i'm 'right' for liking the color green, but where does that leave us

i dislike these acts because when i meet people who like these acts i dislike those people

generally speaking

kanye's so much more interesting and quality on every level than the cool kids.

i dislike these acts because when i meet people who like these acts i dislike those people

-- max, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:52 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

in chi u will run into very likeable chixx who are into this stuff :-/

those artists have actually had hits

-- deej, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:39 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

homie, spank rock has hits to people who read urb, just like rick ross has hits to ppl who read xxl

you're seriously conflating "media" with "urb magazine and pitchfork" across these threads now, because there are plenty of good and influential rap media outlets who could give a fuck less about hipster rap and in fact (cf dudes quoted in the chicago reader article) are very hostile towards it. your idea of media wrt this whole thing seems to be locked in on indie rock magazines (which is what urb is) and indie rock websites, which is your problem and not ours or the cool kids

i didnt mean for that last part to come off as hostile as it is

im not drawing any battle lines here

homie, spank rock has hits to people who read urb, just like rick ross has hits to ppl who read xxl

yeah but for urb its a chicken or egg argument

where do you think 'hipsters' get the idea to start listening to cool kids?

basically what i've been saying in ringtone and will say again now is if you're getting mad @ indie rock magazines for not putting gangster rappers on the covers of their magazines (or jocking hipsters for digging "black mags" and not "wipe me down") you're leading yourself down a v miserable path

yeah but for urb its a chicken or egg argument

-- deej, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

sure sure, and look i dont think this is a bad thing really because i dont mind the idea of magazines trying to out scoop the internet nowadays-- esp if it leads to ppl like jay electro being on the covers of indie rock magazines and not ben gibbard

where do you think 'hipsters' get the idea to start listening to cool kids?

-- deej, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:56 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

you're asking me to solve the chicken v egg argument? is urb covering the cool kids cuz they know their audience is listening to them or is it the other way around? i dont know, i think you're being v cynical if you think hipsters have been brainwashed into liking hipster rap by urb magazine

i think that i hear all the time from ppl who heard about some act or another from pfork

urb is another issue that seems to only reinforce an existing echo chamber

as far as chicken v egg thing goes with someone like spank rock who has enough of a trajectory to chart, he came up, and correct me if im wrong, through diplo who started getting him burn in hipster clubs until he was big enough among hipsters (big strawman here but w/e) to land on the cover of the fader and urb or whatever. in the case of spank rock, his media coverage amongst hipster outlets is just like the strokes making a spin cover

so in conclusion, everything is as it should be

basically what i've been saying in ringtone and will say again now is if you're getting mad @ indie rock magazines for not putting gangster rappers on the covers of their magazines (or jocking hipsters for digging "black mags" and not "wipe me down") you're leading yourself down a v miserable path

-- J0rdan S., Wednesday, June 11, 2008 5:57 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^universal truth

ha i saw that today on mtv jams and was like wtf...so poor

something about that is so depressing.

Terrible video but I will kinda ride for the song. Sounds like that one Son of Bazerk record.

Bomb Squad shit with posse energy and a quicker flow. I'm alright with it.

flat-tops!

Was thinking last night--what the fuck am I doing staring at the ceiling at 5 am thinking about a shitty rap video Jesus--that the video looked like some '93 NBC Producer's idea of a Saturday morning rap show.

i don't hate this.

Chill Rob G's getting a fat check right now.

all halloween-costume-retro exponents are lame, but i'll take this over the strokes any day

okay fair enough

looks like they'vw been around a couple of years:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/fashion/19retro.html

My 14-year-old kid listens to Cool Kids and radio rap(likes Jeezy and Lil Wayne). Not sure where he discovered Cool Kids (he doesn't read Urb). I don't think I've played for him my native tongues era stuff (or even older Sugarhill era things). Let him learn some of it on his own (if he wants).

the beat's aiight

hoos no way is that as rad as son of bazerk!!!!!!!!!

omg i fucking hate retro kidz so much i am consumed with fucking anger

BARF

omg i fucking hate retro kidz so much i am consumed with fucking anger

^^

I've decided these motherfuckers can redeem themselves in my eyes if and only if they make an anti-apartheid anthem.

A F R I C A

Cool Kids are on the NBA Live and MLB 2K8 video games. That's where my kid found 'em.

the retro kidz don't sound that different from the young gunz

right?

just blaze makes better beats

listen to those drums! i mean its not because its retro that im wary of it. half my rap listening right now is 'retro' premier beats that could have come out any time in the last decade plus

cool kids are fun, imo.

what's cool about "retro rap" to me is that it's got the great old beats combined with the rap techniques of today - i.e. even when the rhymes aren't great they're still usually more advanced and sophisticated on a technical level than what even the greats were trying for - it's like time travel or something and it creates a weird sensation

Bonus points lost for not promising to get MIA dyking while his Russian wing makes a snuff film

i just posted this in autogoon

classic

man that was awesome

i wish hed called out more names but i guess its kinda hard when so few of these dudes are actually 'known' or have hits

He pretty much did call out every single guy who's talked about in that context though... did he mention Wale?

hilarious joint, reminds me of the first time skillz ever did a rap-up

damn, I don't even have a problem with hipster rap, but that was hilarious

ya xxp

the only omission i noticed was b.o.b

www.bigcityphiladelphia.com/

^^^cope the dude's mixtape here, really hope it's good, it's kinda time we had a new dirty white boy MC.

i thought dude was latin

http://www.jackvideos.com/bigcity/bigcity.jpg

lol at eve and bahamadia covers

"in the tradition of philly mcs eve and bahamadia..."

needs ms jade & jedi mind tricks covers

i thought dude was latin

― and what stillman (and what), Tuesday, 3 March 2009 22:03 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Dude's surname is Esposito.

black like dom

black like dom cheadle/shout power to the people

as someone who paid money for for The Beautiful Struggle, I was lolling so hard at the Kweli line I had to rewind it like 5 times

lolled at the mos line most.

man this is so fucking awesome

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/The-Cool-Kids-Sue-Teenage-Cool

^^^necessary