Sometimes people say an MC is a party MC, or that they're all about stories (the idea being real stories, 'the truth'). This way of talking about them seems to split them up by how meaningful they're supposed to be. (See also: "he's really... abstract, you know?")
They're also described in terms of what kinds of language they use, at least as far as which words. Gangsta talk, lots of pop culture references, nonsense, science fiction, whatever.
Talk more about this. What are the usual ways of doing it? Who's what kind of MC?
And: different sub-genres of rap are split up by all kinds of criteria, but some of them (like bounce) have something to do with the rhythms the tracks use. Why not the rhythms the rappers use? (This might break the genres up into new ones where all the off-kilter ones are together, all the straight 4-4 couplets ones are together, etc.) Connect the dots: which rappers sound rhythmically like which others?
― Josh, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
i can only take the ol school 'this is what we
have to SAY / we rock a party almost every
DAY' end-rhyme style when its run dmc or
treacherous three
― ethan, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
sigel is good with the complex lines that all
end in the same word, i love that
― ethan, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
the worst is when theres only a rhyme
every thirty words or so like pac used to do
and ja rule does sometimes now
― ethan, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
yeah pac did that all the time because he
cared more about making some lame-ass
hiphop cliche of a point so he was always
like 'dont leave the streets to sell out or
disrespect mama / you got to stay true to
the game and keep it all under the table /
when you blow up like marijuana'
― ethan, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)
To me there's been three phases of flows.
Early hip-hop / electro was all about wrapping your words around and
on the beat so that your flow was with the beats. This went on even
through the different musical changes of PE / de la soul / G-Funk
etc.
But in the 90s I started feeling rappers like Wu Tang etc. were
fighting the beats. Often trying to fit more syllables into a measure
than would really fit. Or running behind, trying to keep up with the
them. This gave a kind of panic energy to the rapping. Rappers were
no longer riding the beats, but imprisoned in them, fighting to get
out. This is also the way with indie rappers like Antipop, Company
Flow, Mike Ladd etc.
Now coming from the South I hear a new kind of flow from Outkast,
Timbaland artists, right through to UK Garage like So Solid ... with
a lot of 3/4 time, triplets, syncopation. It dances round the beats,
playing with them, teasing them.
This isn't new in the sense that other rappers have used syncopation
and triplets before. But now triplets and syncopation seem to be the
basis of the flow. The normal rather than exceptional flourishes.
― phil, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)