Hiphop is dead?

matt s. said:
Also check out Style Wars the O.G. doc about grafitti and its pioneers.
Click to expand...


Sooooooo rad. One of my hands-down all time favorite documenatary films. Watch it and be transported back to the early 80's. Very gritty, great soundtrack (and a killer narration by some old dude which is so out of place that it's dead perfect)

I think you can get it on Netflix.

BTW, I'm blissfully stuck in the 80's when it comes to rap/hip hop. All I need.
 
Two of my favorite lines...

"We took the beat from the street and put it on TV"

"I got black and white, white with black stripes. The one's I like to wear when I rock the mic".


RUN-DMC, the first rappers with a shoe deal (with German maker Adidas) and first to collaborate with white rockers for Walk This Way. DAMN that was a great video. So groundbreaking. People were asking if they had sold out. More astute folks explained that they had just kicked down the door of economic viability for all rap artists.

Man those were good times...
 
Updated the pic. Ozzies in. So is B.B King for blues and Skynard for southern rock.

Alright, so after my 2 day binge looking into hiphop and rap history here's what I got. Tell me if I'm wrong.

Rap (and to some extent hiphop) is not dead and not dying. It's been around too long now to go away. And it can't stay where it is. Nothing can.
So there are only two reasonable places I think it can go.

1/ Back and reunite with it's heavy funk foundation and probably happier lyrics.
I'm not sure how accurate this site is but worth having a look...
http://www.hiphop.co.za/

2/ Merge with a blues and/or jazz style. Blues being the easier technically of the two it would probably start there.

So, that's my guess but who knows. Had a fun weekend though.
 
Raptor365 said:
Rap (and to some extent hiphop) is not dead and not dying. It's been around too long now to go away.
Click to expand...

Rap is still an art, and no-one's from the Old School
cuz Rap is still a brand-new tool
I say no-one's from the Old School cuz Rap on a whole
isn't even twenty years old
Fifty years down the line, you can start this
cuz we'll be the Old School artists
And even in that time, I'll say a rhyme
A brand-new style, ruthless and wild
Runnin' around spendin' money, havin' fun
cuz even then, I'm still number one.

-Boogie Down Productions "I'm Still #1"
 
Raptor you forgot maybe the biggest influence on any hip-hop/ dance rhythm based music on your little collage. The Godfather of Soul Mr. James Brown!!!!!!!!
 
huh? i live in oakland ca! 10 years now bay arean 34 years music culter here is changed so mauch so fast! if its not old school rap artist its hyphie music now !!that i cant stand man! my buddie loves that sh$# hyphie and scrapers
thats a new school lower rider car ,and hyphie is the new hip hop-rap music

i love the the leauge from l.a. there the bomb!!
 
Pic Updated.
James Brown and Qbert are in.
Floppie can hold a seat until we find someone for Bluegrass/Hillbilly.
 
Well since I lived it in its infancy I will chime in. To me, rap is rap and hip-hop is the culture that grew from combining rap, graffiti and break dancing together. We used to call each other B-boys before people were saying hip hop. Before it hit the radio with Rappers Delight we used to have battles in the projects in Brooklyn with crews lilke Floor Master Dancers (FMD which later became Fighting Mad Dogs and they went strictly outlaw down and busted heads only.), Flamboyant crew, Whodini, Dj Swan and his MCs, DJ Raze and the Tragic Magic MCs(my crew), Grand master Caz, Grand Wizard Theodor, Crash crew and a few others I can't remember the names. Good Times was one of the hottest break beats to DJ to along with Big Beat and Mary Mary so when Rappers Delight used it, it felt like it was from the streets. Oh by the way, there were rap records out before that like from Blow Fly, Spoonie Spoon etc and they were rapped over what seemed to be live music and no samples. Blow Fly was a master at the nasty rap with cursing and talking about sex and stuff.
So at that point we were just know as rappers and DJs. Break dancing and popping came later but it was better to use break beats like Apache and Turn it loose to up rock and break to but the DJs were the ones that tied it all together playing the break beats for the dancers and then switching it up for the MCs that wanted to jump on the mic at the party or "jam". Original jams were when you broke open the street light box and stole the electricity by making a gadget that would fit in the fuse area and run extension cords to the local school yard at night and bring out the biggest speakers you can make. They would be like 7 feet tall but you had to make them break down into small pieces so you can get it down the stairs of your little apartment. Then you had to carry out your 20 crates of records and home made turntable coffin. Took about 10 people to get it set up. Then you jam your ass of until the cops shut you down. Back in the day though we never really got shut down cause the whole neighborhood would be at the jam having fun. Once in a while you get a shoot out and have to take a break a few weeks until the heat died out. It was raw and untouched back then. The music was about how nice your DJ was in keeping the beat going on time and not messing up the beat which screwed up the flo of the rapper. Good rappers would recover with some ahh.... yeah..... uh.... comeon.... and then start up again. Some would get screwed up and would have to start over.
Scratching was there but mostly used to introduce a new beat that really didn't go with the other or to create a drop in the music. I remember Will Smiths original DJ was nasty on the 1 and 2s. He was the first one I saw with using the elbos, nose, and spinning around as he scratched. I forget his name now but he was great.
Anyways, back then it was just east coast and west coast stuff. The west coast stuff was soooo bad (in a bad way)but when I went out there I used to buy records just to have to show my friends. I think I still have them somewhere. West coast had the weird accent, the music was electronic drums and they didn't have the funk east coast beats had. There scratching was tooo over the top and they used the wackest things to scratch. Now its like the music hits in waves going region by region. Like everyone I know hates southern rappers but its getting the air play now and it seems like the hook is king and fook what they are talking about. Its true though, you have that catchy ass hook and people are going to remember that when they leave the club. To me, being the DJ ear, if it has a great bounce to it I don't care what they say as long as it flows. I do care about what the kids I manage say though but I don't have to say anything because they always do the right thing with their music. I whole heartedly that they will get a great deal this year because they are positive and upbeat and conscientiously strive to make sure their music stays that way. Who could ask anything more from teens who are bombarded with all the videos with rappers pouring champagne over girls a$$e$ in music videos and calling them all hoes. To me, if you got to call the girls you hang with hoes, then hang with different girls. I'm glad their mothers raised them right.
I do notice that there are tons of hip hop is dead songs and hip hop is alive songs on myspace so I guess it depends on what you want from the game. Hip hop seems to be the only genre of music that shifts so drastically from year to year with which style is hot or not and have people hating on each other style.
The group I manage get a lot of crap about not being "real" rappers because they don't look like they are what they spit. We had this one guy who was waiting for the studio say he thought they were wack because they don't look the part. I was like, they are talking about hanging with girls, what about them doesn't fit that? He also was like I'm not feeling the music but before we came out he was at the door bouncing his head the whole time. Its like he had to all of a sudden become a thug to them and he was like 40 years old. He was talking crap about he has been in the game for 15 years blah blah blah. He looked like he was still stuck 15 years back and his music sounded the same. We looked him afterwards. Oh well. I think the game has just thinned out a ton and since there is only 24 hours in a day for radio stations to play music, they have to pick whatever they feel is right for the time so thats not the primary target to try to hit. Yeah its nice but waiting for that will get old fast.

I think a rambled enough. I don't even remember what I said and its too long to go back and read. :P
 
Raptor365 said:
'...just act retarded' haha. Unfortunately there's truth in that. I've seen a lot of wannabe gangstas up here over the years and never understood that. Seen some real ones I guess too. I'm glad hiphop was not about that.
Click to expand...

This is why hip hop got so big in my opinion. It gave the nerdy kids an avenue to the thug kids to the common place of music. Back in High in the 80s it was like oh, you listen to rap? You cool in my book. So then the nerdy kids would feel a little more accepted and go and buy those pair of pro-keds or 69ers all the project kids were wearing. That didn't happen before it hit the radio. You had the street kids and the rocker kids and the nerdy kids. Rocker kids and rap kids took much longer to mingle. Then when MTV put it out there to west bubblefook smallville, you had kids that started looking the part but were never tested because it was nice town USA but as it got bigger then there were kids going over to the other side of town to see whats up with the scene. I say this from experience living next to Gowannas projects most of my life but having a family that traveled and owned houses upstate so it was first hand. I would go to the mountains in my street gear and I would stick out like a sore thumb. As I made friends up there with all the rock heads we would argue about the music but they loved the graffiti. Then the little brothers would come up to me and ask if I would make a shirt for them or bring a cassette tape of rap music with me next time I came up. Next thing I know we had a little hip hop group of youngsters aging around 7-12 out there. My parents got grief from other parents saying I was a bad influence on them up there. That also happened when I got kicked out of school and went to private school. There were no hip hop kids there at all, all preppies. After half a year I had a little posse but the school wasn't having it and had parent meetings and stuff. I did get them arrested though the last day of school when I took them to the trains for the first time and one got scared and stayed on the platform. The cops came and he squealed on us. Oh well, preppies have no sense of street family I guess.
 
That would probably explain it.

Read every word with interest.
So you're managing some new rappers. Cool. I think studio heads get stuck in mentalities sometimes by going with what they know works. But music is constantly changing and the new stuff always gets a "WTF" anyways.

If you've noticed, the generation from that era are mostly having kids now, working and trying to settle into family life. Up here there's a new generation of kids making their way through school with long hair and they're probably going to want their own voice soon too.
Is the same thing happening there or anywhere else?
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I started managing them after I shot this video for them:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=107683
Their myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/dtsakadatruthspitter

We have a show coming up at the Knitting Factory April 26th.

The funny thing is that like you said, that generation is having kids or had kids and now trying to break in to it but getting that "you are only hot because your daddy is..." kind of thing like Team Black Out (Run from RUNDMC's son) and Square Off (Dougie Fresh's son). They get a ton of crap.
My kids hang with Grand Master Flash's son and LA Reid's son so its funny when they talk about going over to their house and hanging.
 
Rap Music Died in '96

Rap Music Died in '96

I am from the old school. 88 was the best year ever as far as Hip-Hop music goes. Kane, PE, EPMD, Slick Rick, Eric B and Rakim, etc. Then it was another classic year in '96 with Raekwon, Mobb Deep, Nas, Biggie etc. After that, Puff came in and Happy-fied everything. I can't blame him fully though. Rap Music made money and it was only a matter of time before coporate america got a hold of it. And many a Rapper got Rich because of it (before the Downloading days.) at one time skills meant something ala 88-96, but now it is all flash in the pan. Mainstream Rap music is not good any more but a lot of the old school artists still make records, but no one knows that they do. KRS 1 just dropped a new album. As long as the genre has been around there have been wack artists, Hammer, Young-Mc, Tone Loc etc. but they have their place and sold a ton of records. And now we have soulja boy, Shawty-lo, D4l and a slew of new talentless "rappers" running around calling themselves rappers. I have recorded and produced Rap music for Year, I worked at the Hit Factory and Sony for years and I have worked with almost everyone in some compacity. Real Hip Hop is Not dead, It just went back to it's roots. Underground. Look for it, it is there.
 
One of my favorite rappers that still release but you never hear of him is Percy P. I bet everyone that reads this will be like Who? That guys flo is sick to death.
I'm just getting back into this managing the kids and have no idea what I'm doing but from what I have heard from other managers and artists that I know, I'm doing pretty good getting these guys gigs and exposure. One thing that helps is being able to go back to my graffiti roots and hit up friends from back then because most of them are in the hip hop business at some capacity.
I don't remember the dates (probably because of spray paint and ink fumes) but yeah, both of those eras had good music. I used to love listening to Mr. Magic's rap attack on 107.5 and The Supreme Team show on a no name station. The Supreme Team show was more underground and played stuff you didn't hear on the popular radio. It was the Napster of the day. I used to sit there at 2 in the morning with a little tape deck where you had to press the play and record button at the same time and take the plastic mic and stick it near the little speaker to make my tapes. I still keep in touch with one of the MCs from my crew and talk about the good ol' times. His son is an artist named Afu-Ra and does ok in the business. I don't know how I'm going to make money for my group yet since gone are the days of the big record sales that make millions and its hard as hell to find a deal with a decent advance. We get offers to be signed but the advance is not there.
 
Def know of Percy P and Afu-Ra. Afu was kinda like the new Jeru with Primo producing most if not all the tracks on his debut. good stuff!
 
re Percee: I can get into that quite easliy.

It looks to me what happened to rap is a bit like what happened to rock in that it became overly commercialized and glamourized to the point of being a joke. The good uncommercial rock stuff is still out there too, always was.
Same with Country.

Beat Takeshi: I remembered hearing Stay Together before when I listened to it. Then realized I had been to their page before and had listened to the list.
I must have clicked one of your links awhile back but can't remember when.
Catchy song. I instantly recognized it. Good luck to you guys.
 
Hip Hop music is definitely dead in mainstream radio and there are many so called artist... Jay-Z, Kanye West, 50 Cent and that crunk music from south that are a form of Rap but its not Hip Hop. Check out Sage Francis and although he may not sell as many records as Jay-Z, he is probably the greatest MC that the majority of the public have never heard of. Record sales to me are meaningless....Britany Spears sold millions but it does not make me want to buy her album and to quote Sage Francis "I like 99 rappers but Jay-Z ain't one."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top