all you dicks who always want sad hiphop

Some random tracks that sound sad to me for one reason or another:
Beanie Sigel/Jay-Z - "Still Got Love For You"
Jay-z - "Song Cry"
Prodigy - "Diamond"
Atmosphere - "Fuck you lucy"
RJD2 - "June"
Big L - "Street Struck"
2pac - "Tears"
Eminem - "Kim"
Automator ft. Kool Keith - "It's Over Now"
That Buck 65 track in memory of his mother.

I don't know why I indentify with his rapping about his bad upbringing, what with me being a white middle-class boy, but it just brings a tear to my eye.

I suppose it's just like I can't explain how 'I can never go home anymore' by the Shangri-Las brings a tear to my eye. That's the best I can explain it. Though it might be the cadence in his rhymes+Mary J's soulful voice.

"All I ever did was take my pain and make it rhyme," Down Boye once said. The sleeper of '94, Invisible Boye, included the smash "OutKlast" about a rival DJ.

Ain’t nobody give you /
More rhymes to the beat /
But when he’s up there scratchin' /
I know I can’t compete

in some way i get a bit sad listening to stuff like recordings of old stuff like cold crush. because (a)it sounds so fun and (b) i was never there and (c) probably won't ever see anything like it

Lyrics will matter, but generally sad hip hop revolves around a similar bunch of topics, 1) mourning of dead friends/family, 2) love/hate with ex-partner, 3) harshness of poverty and street conditions, 4) parents (generally bad dad, wonderful mom), and 5) general self-loathing (kids don't become like me). Hip hop sadness is unique in that it has been inextricably tied to this relatively wide breadth of human/social problems, but paradoxically, the form of expression is so often stoic "sucka for love catch a slug niggaa" braggadocio. To me, a lot of sadness in hip hop is born from the tension of this dichotomy. When Beanie Sigel raps about his dad, or when DMX settles down and gets all introspective, something stark and striking arises because the vulnerability is all implied, barely held within the confinements of the machismo-ridden personas. Jay-Z can't afford the tears so he pins it on the song... the inability to express sensitivity feels that much bleaker.

With Eminem or Atmosphere, where the hearts are more on the sleeves (race probably factoring in) the tension explodes and so we get confused love songs about throat-slitting and titles like "Fuck you Lucy". There's a unique sense of fractured pride, hip hop's positioning of the emcee also allows for a particularly nuanced and articulated sense of the hard/aggressive vs. wounded/emotional clash. With somebody as cartoonishly berzerk as Eminem, this sort of platter can yield incredibly effective results. "Kim" was so mortifying precisely because there is so much narrative leeway for an emcee to cover, so much oppurtunity for detail. Also, rapping has a relatively strong link to speech, so hip hop is good to echo or channel painful words or tones of voice we have experienced or shouted.

"all you dicks who always want sad hip-hop" = fuck off. i never said i wanted hip-hop to be sadder, i was implying that *i* don't get enough sadness from hip-hop to be able to subsist on it. if you do, then rather than resorting to your typically smug, hopelessly misunderstood, self-aggrandizing theatrics, why not step out and (gasp) show how?

This post signified the first time lists turned up in the thread.

But what really gets me about CanOx is that they sound like the gifted students in the toughest high school in the world. They're intelligent, but that does nothing for them in their world (not the hip-hop world but their "real lives") except intensify their loneliness and longing for a real connection. Both MCs have self-esteem issues like the gothiest goth-goths in any suburban high school: they know they're not good-looking or rich or smooth, and they can't stand it. When Vast Aire finally meets a great girl, he falls in love with her and she doesn't like him like that ("The F-Word")--the depth of his feeling for her and his frustration at the situation is the stuff of weepy pop legend. If the production was cleaned up and "fixed", this could be a top tenner for sure...but I'm SO glad it sounds as murky and downcast and uglified as it does.

flipside to happy happy minstrels jurassic 5

except for him saying in the first answer that he didn't want lists and then honda posting one

i think 'happy!' when i hear 'i feel for you'

haha aka hip-hop guilt

*ducks*

Oh what am I saying? Accusing anyone of being emo no matter how irritated I can get with them -- that's just mean.

[chanting]
Simon Trife is e-MO!
Simon Trife is e-MO!

becasue i identify, or something like that. I don't really think 'sad' but it is like that. Isolated maybe.

Having said that I think that hip hop will always be about energy for me, and unless they're confident that they can execute it brilliantly I don't think making "sad hip hop" is something hip hop artists should consciously aim for.

Also, though, I think that Nelly's "Dilemma" is immesurably sad and happy and comforting and all things.

"dead homiez" - ice cube
"betrayal" - gang starr

never fail to bring a tear to the eye.

err i'd like my 'full diet' of music to accurately reflect my life and sadness is an occasional *part* of that therefore i don't think it's entirely unreasonable to need that from music at times

RZA spoils it a bit by popping up to say some rather unpleasant things about tha laydeez but then redeems himself with the gorgeous spiralling string line which breaks out underneath him talking about "by the dawn's early light..."

Sob.

Black Star - Respiration: ode to the city life they love/hate

CRU - Just Another Case: just another case about the wrong path...

Pharcyde - Runnin': fatlip says: growing is hard

Quasimoto - Come on Feet: another track about running; and bleeding

Scarface - On My Block: nostalgic and therefore a little sad

"sad" flow: a therapy session breakthrough emotional rush or a coping-mechanism mantra (in the latter case see noreaga's "sometimes")

"slippin'" just has this sad loop

p 100 Lyrics

Brighten up your day with the

LIL WAYNE LYRICS

"Fuck The World" (Tha Block Is Hot)

Look, look, look

A young nigga screamin fuck the world and let 'em die
Behind tints, tryna' duck the world and smoke and ride
Got my bandanna 'round my head and pants to my feet
And got my eyes fire red and glock on my seat
I'm tryna' stay under intoxication
'Cause I lost my father, and got an order, plus I'm on probation
I'm drinkin liquor like it's water, gettin pissy drunk
And stayin away from them lil' broads that tryin to give me some
I keep a chopper in the trunk and my heat on my wasteline
Duckin the law, 'cause I ain't tryna' do no FED time
Sometimes I just wish I could be away
But I gotta take care a kid and keep macita straight
So I just maintain the struggle and I keep tryin
But how can I when my closest people keep dyin'
I ain't lyin that the law tryna' bust my clique
But I scream fuck the world man, I'm too young for this

[Hook 2x]
Look, I don't curse, but in this verse man, fuck the world
I lost my boy to a gun and made a little girl
And I'm still thuggin' wit' my niggas tryna' keep it real
And I'm still doin for my mother and I'm payin' bills

Give me a cigarette, my nerves bad
The FEDs said they heard that I know where them birds at
And my old lady say she saw me with anotha ma chillin'
And some a the boys shot up my block so now I gotta kill 'em
And teachers keep tellin' my momma that I'm gettin' worse
And now she trippin talkin 'bout I need to be in church
And my lil' girl whole family tryna' lie in court
Tryna' put me, a child, on child support
And whole family deny me of what I do 'cause I'm a thug and stuff
Plus, my niggas keep fallin to them drugs and stuff
That dope got these niggas meltin away
Man they got clowns right around me, killin they self everyday
We keep fightin but they so strong
I know it's hard but don't give up baby hold on
Just keep ya fate, count blessings, and wodie keep ya trust
And grab ya nuts and let 'em know that we don't give a fuck
We don't give a fuck

[Hook]

I mean the world just ain't gon' never change
So I just keep my head up and my nuts, let 'em hang
Dawg I swear it's very rough out here for the youngstas
Like everybody against me 'cause I'm a young thug
Dear Rabbit, why they have to kill Rabbit?
But I'ma keep you alive, nigga, I'm Lil' Rabbit
That's why this lil' nigga be buggin like it's no tomorrow
I only can depend on macita and C-M-R
I try my best to make it through the night and live today
But I'm upset so I'm steady wipin' tears away
And police got me under surveilance when and wherever
Wreckin they brains, tryna' figure where I'm gettin that cheddar
I tell my family just leave me a-damn-lone
I can handle all a my business, this lil' man grown
But I try to forget about it and just stand strong
But if everythang was cool I wouldn't write this damn song
Fuck the world

[Hook 3x]