HiIP Hop - The most complex lyrical music

[StoneHappyMonday]

Totally Brimz. Sorry Sam but I still shiver when I see 'maybe this should be in the music dept'...sorry but EADD used to carry all sorts of random shit...world never came to an end.

 

[brimz]

Hip hop is inventive enough and there are plenty of gifted people, but it' not doing anything that hasn't been done in poetry or prose decades or even centuries before. It's delivered in a form that's more immediate and accessible but that's about it.

I rate lots of lyricists; Lou Reed for example, but I don't think he was necessarily pushing the envelope language-wise - he was merely taking bits of what he found in literature and applying it to the rock music form.

Anyway, all the artists wear clothes which are far too big, thus dircrediting it as a proper art form. Everybody knows this.

You were doing so well untill the last uncalled & uninformed dig , Check out some HIp Hop the best artists just wear normal clothes .
But you won't cos your to cool for that

 

[jancrow]

Hip hop is inventive enough and there are plenty of gifted people, but it' not doing anything that hasn't been done in poetry or prose decades or even centuries before. It's delivered in a form that's more immediate and accessible but that's about it.

The same things could have been said about moving images thirty odd years after their invention. I'm not saying that the individual strands haven't existed before now but they have never collectively woven a tapestry of such size or richness. Of course other forms of writing have employed many of the same techniques but no other movement has had so many practitioners or such a global hold and no other literary movement has sucked in and spat out elements of so many others.

It's delivered in a form that's more immediate and accessible but that's about it.

I would argue that on the surface that statement appears to be true but that the more rewarding MCs are esoteric and inaccessible to varying degrees. When you look at the artier and more concept-driven end of the spectrum, eg RAMMELLZEE and to a lesser extent Kool Keith, or on in a different field the Anticon / Strange Famous / backpacky school, it is almost impossible to tell what the fuck they are going on about a lot of the time but there is clearly something beyond the words you can hear which demands further analysis, or at least more listening to try and decode it. They're going out of their way to obfuscate their message (if there is one and their latest EP is not just a scrabble board thrown in the air to pay for crack). Shifting towards the mainstream, Nas' Illmatic is immediate and accessible enough to be wildly popular 18 years after its release but sections of it, references to events, people and places not to mention the slang it's all couched in make it extremely cryptic. Hip hop is full of little secrets and hooks and the more you listen the more they draw you in, not to a specific artist but to the whole scene. And everyone who's in that scene has a sense of what these hooks are and the better artists reflect it in their music but it's impossible to explain the hooks to people who haven't been hooked. It's like some kind of drug where you have to develop a tolerance to get off on it.

Lou Reed is superb, occasionally excellent, god-like and one of my musical heroes but when he falls, he falls very hard, which is perhaps part of his complex allure.

And as for your third point, O RLY?

edit:

I'm a real lyrics kind of person, there are lots of people who give a great deal of though and meaning to their lyrics, yes Hip Hop delivers them thick and fast but its not all about quantity.

I agree. Unfortunately the crapper end of the spectrum reinforces a lot of cliches and is generally shit and puts a lot of people off the sound of people talking rhythmically over music generally, they're repelled by the entire medium. It's a shame because there are some excellent creative minds at work out there.

 

[Myshkin]

I was only kidding about the big clothes. And the thread's still here ain't it?

EDIT: I just knew that link was going to be something like Dave Byrne's big suit. :D

 

[Danny Weed]

Great post Jancrow

 

[brimz]

I would argue that on the surface that statement appears to be true but that the more rewarding MCs are esoteric and inaccessible to varying degrees. When you look at the artier and more concept-driven end of the spectrum, eg RAMMELLZEE and to a lesser extent Kool Keith, or on in a different field the Anticon / Strange Famous / backpacky school, it is almost impossible to tell what the fuck they are going on about a lot of the time but there is clearly something beyond the words you can hear which demands further analysis, or at least more listening to try and decode it. Shifting towards the mainstream, Nas' Illmatic is immediate and accessible enough to be wildly popular 18 years after its release but sections of it, references to events, people and places not to mention the slang it's all couched in make it extremely cryptic. Hip hop is full of little secrets and hooks and the more you listen the more they draw you in, not to a specific artist but to the whole scene. And everyone who's in that scene has a sense of what these hooks are and the better artists reflect it in their music but it's impossible to explain the hooks to people who haven't been hooked. It's like some kind of drug where you have to develop a tolerance to get off on it.

I wish i could have put it so well well i could off but not at this present moment.
Excellent Post i jus hope folk read it.

 

[Myshkin]

Hip hop is full of little secrets and hooks and the more you listen the more they draw you in, not to a specific artist but to the whole scene. And everyone who's in that scene has a sense of what these hooks are and the better artists reflect it in their music but it's impossible to explain the hooks to people who haven't been hooked. It's like some kind of drug where you have to develop a tolerance to get off on it.

Ditto any musical subculture worth its sodium chloride. Different strokes for different folks.

Much as I like them, I certainly wouldn't think anyone's living a culturally impoverished life because they're missing out on Whitehouse, and I'm not going to try and sell Dylan to fans of Lady Gaga. When Astbury says he's a wolfchild I feel the hairs stand up on my muzzle, but to everybody around me it may as well be doggerel.

Subjectivity is a precious thing, as is individual taste.

 

[jancrow]

Ditto any musical subculture worth its sodium chloride. Different strokes for different folks.

Absolutely agree there's different strokes for different folks, you and I have got quite a lot of excellent music in common as well as some differences. I'm certainly not saying that hip hop's 'the best' or that you should listen to it.

I think that hip hop is not really a musical subculture any more, I think it's more an emerging medium and is already too diverse and has far too much influence on society as a whole to be classed as a subculture.

 

[brimz]

So it was worth keeping this in EADD then

 

[Allein]

Mark E Smith

Roky Erickson

Although the words on Easter Everywhere by the 13th floor Elevators are largely credited to Tommy Hall and Stacy Sutherland although others claim rights over certain tracks.

Everybody should listen to Easter Everywhere at least once in there life, definitely an under rated band and more influential than they have ever received credit for, they were for real :

Slip Inside this house I make no excuse for posting the lot, I used ti love listening to this album on acid and have an obsessive collection of the Elevators and Roky's work, True genius IMO

Bedoin tribes ascending
From the egg into the flower,
Alpha information sending
State within the heaven shower
From disciples the unending
Subtleties of river power
They slip inside this house as they pass by

If your limbs begin dissolving
In the water that you tread
All surroundings are evolving
In the stream that clears your head
Find yourself a caravan
Like Noah must have led
And slip inside this house as you pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

True conception, knowing why
Brings even more than meets the eye
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

In this dark we call creation
We can be and feel and know
From an effort, comfort station
That's surviving on the go
There's infinite survival in
The high baptismal glow.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

There is no season when you are grown
You are always risen from the seeds you've sown
There is no reason to rise alone
Other stories given have sages of their own.

Live where your heart can be given
And your life starts to unfold
In the forms you envision
In this dream that's ages old
On the river layer is the only sayer
You receive all you can hold
Like you've been told.

Every day's another dawning
Give the morning winds a chance
Always catch your thunder yawning
Lift your mind into the dance
Sweep the shadows from your awning
Shrink the fourfold circumstance
That lies outside this house don't pass it by.

Higher worlds that you uncover
Light the path you want to roam
You compare there and discover
You won't need a shell of foam
Twice born gypsies care and keep
The nowhere of their former home
They slip inside this house as they pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

You think you can't, you wish you could
I know you can, I wish you would
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

Four and twenty birds of Maya
Baked into an atom you
Polarized into existence
Magnet heart from red to blue
To such extent the realm of dark
Within the picture it seems true
But slip inside this house and then decide.

All your lightning waits inside you
Travel it along your spine
Seven stars receive your visit
Seven seals remain divine
Seven churches filled with spirit,
Treasure from the angels' mine
Slip inside this house as you pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

The space you make has your own laws
No longer human gods are cause
The center of this house will never die.

There is no season when you are grown
You are always risen from the seeds you've sown
There is no reason to rise alone
Other stories given have sages of their own.

Draw from the well of unchanging
Its union nourishes on
In the right re-arranging
Till the last confusion is gone
Water-brothers trust in the ultimust
Of the always singing song they pass along.

One-eyed men aren't really reigning
They just march in place until
Two-eyed men with mystery training
Finally feel the power fill
Three-eyed men are not complaining.
They can yo-yo where they will
They slip inside this house as they pass by.
Don't pass it by

 

[parttime crackhead]

But without the lyrics there would be no hip-hop. The music is there primarily to provide a backdrop for the lyrics. You can't say that about many other styles of popular music. Therefore you can't compare it to the majority of popular music, in which the lyrics are often banalities tacked on as an afterthought. That's all I'm saying.

DJ Shadow.

J Dilla instrumental CDs are fucking banging, heard a few Dilla beats that were ruined by the MC.


Regarding lyricism, GZA is a beast & boom! Ya boy's got a ticket. On ye go me %)

 

[brimz]

Was waiting 4 ya input crack man .
Nice ticket should be bangin is it jus the GZA or is their any other WU folk on the bill?

IME of WU shows it's a pure gamble of who gonna be their .

Still sure it will be bangin The GZA is one of the best Lyricist out their believe%)

I saw DJ shadow a couple of months ago at the 02 in Bristol wicked night

 

[parttime crackhead]

It's just GZA.

Saw Wu twice before, the first time it was billed as "Re-united In Full Force" & a big thing was made about it being every surviving member of Wu-Tang & then some (as it's well known that often only about 2 of them will show up) - Masta Killa, GZA, Inspectah Deck, Method Man, Ghostface, U-God, Raekwon, Rza, Mathematics, Cappadonna & Streetlife. Method Man, Cappadonna & someone else (I think maybe Inspectah Deck) all cancelled on the day of the gig lol.

Second time I can't remember who cancelled but they definitely weren't all there. Method Man was definitely there that time, as I remember him almost taking my head off when he stage dived.

 

[bighouse911]

Foreign beggars and Skinnyman are sick as well. I much prefer British hip hop to American hip hop, the production is very different IMO

 

[Danny Weed]

Yeah same here, I used to only listen to US stuff 10 years ago but I seemed to grow out of it. UK is the main thing for me now. I still like old US stuff but nearly all the new stuff coming from there is fucking shit. There is a lot of talent in the UK right now.

 

[monstanoodle]

Some bars from Dirty Dike, BVA MC & Leaf Dog %)

 

[muttonchops]

Not sure about complex, but one of my fav lyrics of all time is from Biggie's song "the warning" about some guys who are hatching a plot to break into biggies house and kill him. Someone warns him of the plot and he sings this lyric:

There's gonna be a lot of slow singing, flower bringing, if my burglar alarm starts ringing

brilliant. Also for pure comedy value Ludacris

Check my medallion, my diamonds are reckless. Its like I've got a frikkin midget hanging from my necklaaace

neither of which are complex. Oh wells. But yeah, i pretty much agree that mu tang have the most complex / soulful / raw flow. They pretty much are the ninja of the rap game.

 

[Danny Weed]

That biggie line is one of my favourites. If I owned my own place I would have it on a plaque above the door.

 

[bighouse911]

haha I do find Ludacris entertaining. especially in that scene in Drive where he's going on about rappers :D

 

[brimz]

Luda 's 1st album n 2nd are straight ill they have some real good punchlines.
Since then i think he is more of a Hip PoP artist n is more in2 acting.