a rap nerd thread: what, if any, is/was snap's lasting influence on rap and is/was it positive?

writing out thoughts re: oj da juiceman and dude is definitely post-snap and i think in a good way, but i want to know if we feel like rap is recovering from the snap/post-snap era (you could throw jeezy in here too) or if shit is moving forward with the best bits of snap in tow

personally i look at dudes like soulja boy and gucci mane as rappers who've benefited from the way D4L looked at rap in terms of simplicity and in terms of how to be pop. in fact, i mostly like gucci cuz i think dude is a pop rapper w/o being D4L/DFB. those guys looked at rap more musically than lyrically and i think gucci does too, except his verses (talkin bout flow) are just as 'catchy' as their choruses sometimes, yet he's still bringing lyrics in the same manner jeezy does.

soulja boy is diff obv- i used to hate dude but he's the only guy around consistently making snap music (afaik) and although he uhh leaves a lot to be desired lyrically he's imo got the most distinctive production sound in rap right now and his album would be really good if he wasn't the only one rapping on it

btw i dont have clear thoughts re: this just yet so im not thumbs up guaranteeing that im making sense at least significantly - hope yall can jump off it though if you want

vs "rap is not pop, if you call it that then stop"

the whole time i'm reading the thread thinking you're talking about this

jaxon, of course, i was going to make a snap vs. chill rob g joke (a case that had serious impact to hip-hop's industry), but all we're doing is showing our age here.

god i love this style of house dancing (like at the end of the def comedy jam shows). so highschool for me (yes showing my age)

corrupting the intellectual capacities of minds everywhere, and no.

OK this is basically my view: Lil Jon and broke the dam for mainstream radio to fuck with really aggressively barebones synth/drum machine beats, before that even the big Southern stuff was usually either lush eccentric Outkast type shit, or someone pretty crunk like Pastor Troy would get thrown in the studio with Timbaland as soon as he got signed. After a couple years of everybody doing singles with Lil Jon and him crossing over to R&B, that just opened the door for a lot of other producers to run with that synth-driven style, and for one reason or another a lot of them went from using a clap as a snare like LJ to using fingersnap sounds around the same time -- Mr. Collipark/Franchize/D4L, etc. I still think of 'snap music' as only being stuff with a fingersnap percussion sound, but I guess after a certain point it seemed to be more identified with songs that people did goofy dances to that involved snapping their fingers or miming like they were. And the production style probably would've gotten more respect or stuck around more if it didn't become synonymous with goofy dances, but ultimately I think the cultural context outweighed the good or bad elements of the sound. At this point, though, I think snap is just another ingredient in the bloodstream of production trends, and it's been kinda pushed to the side by big bombastic T.I./Jeezy-style synth rap and pseudo-techno beats, or the AutoTune stuff where the emphasis is more on the vocal sound than the backing track. But at the same time I think a lot of big producers like Polow and T-Pain are absolutely 'post-snap' and it informs their sound in a big way.

Soulja Boy made it super-profitable and popular with 10 year olds and therefore even more uncool with real heads. So no one is making progress with it. There was a time when even the hardest hip-hop fan was fucking with Young MC and Tone Loc until Hammer/Vanilla made pop-rap a recipe for cred-suicide.

in what sense were "Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It" and "Laffy Taffy" not popular with 10 year olds or uncool with real heads?

Right, "Laffy Taffy" was like "Bust A Move" in that sense; and "Crank That Soulja Boy" was "Ice Ice Baby"

Or you could try reading my post instead of posting giant blocks of "no doy"

Right, right...I still kinda feel like Soulja Boy is kind of post-snap or some new mutation that isn't really that closely associated with the original movement. The wave of "crank that" response songs and different dances was probably as big and varied and successful in '07/'08 as the entire snap scene in '05/'06.

xpost ouch dude, i know a lot of what i was saying was not terrible insightful or original, but j0rdan wanted people to talk about this stuff so i did.

Anyway I would argue against the "no one is making progress with it" to make it less uncool thing, since snap has actually kind of been so mainstreamed that conscious and street rap types can use the exact same type of beats and noone bats an eye or yells 'sell out.' Old heads fucked with "Walk It Out" once Andre 3k got on it, and a lot of people love snap-ish beats with Jeezy on them that they'd hate if Fabo was on them.

maybe the best example of snap influence going outside the d4l>>>soulja boy axis is "lookin boy" where you get a gang of no-name chicago dudes on a classic 06-era snap beat bringing a real laid-back bedroom recording feel to the radio and mtv.... since ive been atl-livin i cant say rappin like yagghahahghaaa and youtube dances are my fav development in georgia rap but ive been working on a collab with a 19 yr old (n/h) who comes from that background and what i can say that mindset brings is a commitment to freshness and novelty and willingness to do joints that are just cheesin or playin the dozens instead of back in the early 00s where every rapper i talked to, even south cats, wanted to be a media-conquering post-rap mogul like jay-z and envisioned every song as huge mtv award event rap instead of just squirtin out weird youtube gimmick joints thatre poppin for a couple weeks til they remember the next mid 90s nickelodeon cartoon to jack a title from - 5 or 6 years ago i felt like the style of a lot of my fav rap - so so def booty bass and redman and j-zone and even cats like de la - got pushed off the radio for a bunch of fake-ass mean muggin where even the most nerdiest punchline cats had to prove a bunch of street shit instead of just rappin - so now with the soulja boy era we're back to finally having a middle ground between self-conscious CHECK IT OUT IM NOT A THUG!@!@! album artists and studio gangstas - as im working on this kid with the beats what im trying to do is connect with that mindset and bring my own experience with skits and jingles and being cool with like singing shit on a track or just fuckin around to actually make some shit thats fun to listen to and thats definitely something that wasnt sellin in the pre-snap era... how i break it down to an extent

ok just typed that all out w/o lookin at it before i posted so let me get the 1st lol in at "j-zone getting pushed off the radio"

yeah...my first thought when I heard "Lookin' Boy" was that it's virtually the same beat as "Laffy Taffy," which I always found kind of boring, but so much more entertaining because there was a constant stream of goofy joke lyrics to pay attention to.

laffy taffy had a constant stream of goofy joke lyrics too tho

yeah but i mean 8 hundred 'ya mama 2k7' jokes >>> "you can suck me for a long time oh my god" imo

hahaa i dunno im lolling right now at "you can suck me for a long time oh my god"

ok i never heard this before, this is so much more o_O than superman dat hoe ever was:

Lyrical meaning
There has been some debate regarding the meaning of the phrase "Laffy Taffy." Many understand the term to mean a woman's labia minora because of its resemblance to "stretched out taffy." It is a phrase commonly used by men who attend strip clubs. Women with larger labia minora lips are said to have "laffy taffy". The song's music video is set in a strip club.

yeah if anything snap seems like a new version of a longstanding archetype in popular music -- i know this is basically another "gangsta rap is like the blues" kinda thing but it seems like its the geneology of street corner harmonizing doo wop groups etc. from the 50s ...

snap certainly struck me (i'm no expert obv) as being in the lineage of earlier electro rap stuff and even early run-dmc type "sucker mcs" drum machine minimalism

i think one of the coolest aspects of the style that isnt really being talked about is the types of instrumentation these dudes were using -- im not sure if thats the right way to put it, but the textures/synth pads/keyboards whatever it is that comes out w/ D4L for example doesnt sound like lil jons synths or mr. collipark synths, its got its own weird sonic palette going on -- the beeps & bloops were pretty unique & minimal, had a lot of swing, and it def seems like the instrumentation in rap right now, as long as they dont lay the big casio horns on, is a lot of high end, a lot of low end, and basically just rappers in the middle -- in some ways an ideal beat for rapping cuz there are few overlapping frequencies

I have a super soft spot for Soulja Boy & cru bringing their fruityloops beats to the tops of the charts.

WATCH ME HIT MY HURRR-WAW

i live with a kid who has never outgrown the snap era. apparently he was really into it when it happened and now WHENEVER music comes on he does this really weird lean and snap thing. like, any type of music. i've had fucking Mercyful Fate on and he was snappin away. it's soooooooooooo fucking weird!!! sorry haven't read this thread at all but it looks awesome!

loool. i can see that, though, even if you just do half-assed versions of those dances sitting in your car, you kinda get used to that side-to-side motion on the beat when you're listening to any music at all.

Turbo B was the lyrical Jesse James & was shot by the coward Robert Ford (Chill Rob G) for the crime of beat-jacking.

the best part is that he has no idea how stupid he looks and now we all do it to mock him and he also doesn't get that we're mocking him so it kind of encourages him to do it even more! it's really something to behold

leaning and rocking is the easiest way to dance but not look like a tard

yeah i mean wasn't the whole culture was born of all these gangsta/trap dudes doing half-assed little lean moves because they're too tough to dance? before it became a whole new culture of geeky high school dance team competitions and shit, anyway.

anyway thx for jumping off dudes - i think what deej says about tones/sounds is interesting. one of my favorite parts about snap stuff was how cool it sounded and that's why i thought the "get silly" beat was so dope - it has that same wide openness as "lean wit it rock wit it" and also that same minor-key ominousness.

what ethan says about dudes being able to have fun (in so many words) is probably a big part of it - idk if i could ever really vibe with the str8 up aggressiveness of scrappy/trillville shit but whenever i listen to gucci/soulja boy/oj da juice etc it really is like "damn these guys are really having fun" and while obv that's not everything i would say all of those guys have outsized personalities and that translates well in their music and that definitely has a lot to do w/ the rise of guys like lil jon/jeezy and even fabo (in terms of music being successful as much bcuz of personality as str8 up skills - though i wouldn't throw jeezy in there anymore)

i can't tell if it's str8 bullshit or not but i do think snap stuff gave a rise to guys who are just really fun irl dudes but not the best artists but gave them a platform or template so to speak to make great music

underrated track w/ fabo imo -- and another point for discussion maybe -- potential for R&B developments i wish ppl had followed

no embedding click here

yeah i was thinking about that - not to get all challopsy about D4L rappers but fabo is like in another universe in terms of rapping sometimes. on this bohagon song i think he basically sings his whole verse

Snap, as in Turbo B? :)

good one dumb shit