Hip Hop Power Ballads

Your thoughts?

Fuck 'em all.

are there any? most ballad-y rap songs are not very powerful.

Oh, there's plenty, LL's "I Need Love" and "I Want You", Big Daddy Kane's "The Day You're Mine", I'd even throw "Dry Your Eyes" in this category...maybe even "One Love" by Whodini...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2gioyQ0FRU

I think of the HHPB as a recent development, not an old school thing!

does Ghosface and Mary J Blige's "All That I Got is You" count? I think so.

I think of hip hop power ballads as "Airplanes" type bullshit.

how on earth is "I Need Love" a power ballad and not just a rap ballad?

^^^

I'd consider "Juicy" ballady-y.

naw

Slow, meditative...I have to admit, it's the first time I've thought about it that way. But why not? It doesn't matter ultimately.

It's almost 100 bpm, not exactly slow.

Fair enough.

I think about half of Eminem's songs since 2002 qualify. Many of 'em aren't that slow, but they FEEL slow, especially the clumsy self-produced beats with the muted guitars. Sometimes he can pull this off, but way too often it's Linkin Park-bland melodrama (see "Sing for the Moment," "Not Afraid", "Love the Way You Lie," gawd, putative Dr. Dre single "I Need A Doctor", all of which are suitably power-ballad-esque). Ruined The Eminem Show and Recovery for me.

I think in some respects all of the self-consciously brooding, "introspective" stuff (not to mention the "inspirational" likes of "Lose Yourself," which is, let's be honest, basically a hip-hip "Eye of the Tiger") has been a bigger blot on his career than the grade-school potty humor of Encore or the instantly dated pop culture jocking of his lead singles up through "We Made You."

Doesn't T.I. have a couple of hits off Paper Trail that might fit? You know, with that magic-four-chords "Don't Stop Believin'" progression that's been deadening pop radio since 1995? "Epic pop" my ass.

yeah good calls. that stuff plus Rev's mention of "Airplanes" kind of feel to me like the new renaissance of horrible rap power ballads.

Puff Daddy - I'll Be Missing You (obv)
Trick Daddy - The Children's Song (reminds me of Mike & The Mechanics' "The Living Years")
Tupac - I Ain't Mad At Cha
Kanye West - All of the Lights

sing for the moment was the first thing i thought of, although its terrible

Kanye - Never Let Me Down

Doesn't T.I. have a couple of hits off Paper Trail that might fit? You know, with that magic-four-chords "Don't Stop Believin'" progression that's been deadening pop radio since 1995? "Epic pop" my ass.

yeah "dead & gone" would totally fit. ditto "all of the lights".

"i'll be missing you" lacks the requisite power element surely? it's hardly chest-beatingly anthemic.

xp Though that's actually far too good if we're using dreck like Sing for the Moment and I Need a Doctor as the benchmark.

Yeah, I almost used "Love the Way You Lie" as my example. Eminem is a major perp here.

Eminem and Kanye are totally the names to go for here. Also think the Black Album/post-retirement Jay fits in somewhere. But I Need Love etc.? Really? Ballad != Power Ballad, no matter how shitty I Need Love is.

I dunno, I think of "I'll be missing you" as the rap "that's what friends are for" (my dad's favorite song incidentally) but maybe that isn't strictly a power ballad.

Keri Hilson's Knock You Down is a great example of how to do this in a non-shitty way. Not having guitars helps.

Hate that song tbh

slick rick's teenage love

Puff Daddy - I'll Be Missing You (obv)

I don't get this really -- even "Every Breath You Take" is barely a power ballad by virtue of the big splashy bridge that Puffy doesn't use. imo if all the cymbals in a song are closed hi-hats it's probably not a power ballad

Tupac - I Ain't Mad At Cha

definitely not. maybe i'm focusing on sample sources too much, but would anyone call the DeBarge song a power ballad?

I agree. You need bombast for a power ballad, surely? In a rap weepie like I'll Be Missing You or All That I Got Is You, the mood is more wistful and self-consciously tender. Usually based in soul rather than rock, as well.

slick rick's teenage love

― sisilafami, Monday, 6 June 2011 12:20 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you just don't understand the 'power' part of 'power ballad' do you?

are there any hip hop power ballads that aren't love songs or have R&B hooks? i always liked the soft/loud contrast of Nas's "One Mic," feels kinda power ballad-y to me.

mind's gone blank but surely the current vogue of self-empowerment pop must have led to a few of these in the past year or so

grime power-ballad!

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

outkast - da art of storytellin, poss both parts?

slick rick's teenage love

― sisilafami, Monday, 6 June 2011 12:20 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you just don't understand the 'power' part of 'power ballad' do you?

― WHO THE FUCK READS THE (a hoy hoy), lundi 6 juin 2011 16:27 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i guess i don't

that's OK, I fucked up too

Holy shit - maybe Weezy's bonkers chorus hook disqualifies it, but what about "Drop the World"?

If anything, I think the hip-hop power ballad only really gained traction in the past decade. A few years ago Jay-Z said something about how hip-hop had entered its "hair-metal" phase, which at the time I thought was OTM. Then again, I have semi-backpacker tastes in hip-hop, and I'm about 75% clueless on hip hop of the past 3-4 years, so I often doubt my gut feelings on the matter either then or now. And I know even less about hair metal, really. But there's an argument to be made that hip-hop had another "hair-metal" era years and years back - I'm beginning to harbor ugly suspicions about the legacy of Dr. Dre, even though him and Snoop (circa '93) brought me into this shit.

Would this count?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLB_U0YPOg

What about Lil' Girl Gone, from Devin the Dude's Waitin' to Inhale? Piano loop and everything, relatively bombastic. I like it.

The Hip Hop Power Ballad brought to its logical conclusion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adPtQ5TMNkM

I heard this song months ago and only now just realized it's essentially a Heart cover.

Only in Canada. They also brought you the not-quite-hip hop power ballad "Ghetto Love" by Karl Wolf, which pulls the same trick viz. completely sampling an 80s song and changing two words.

not really a power ballad itself, but "Alone" was also sampled on a Lil Wayne track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpYTw60mJ1E