The Hip-Hop Appreciation Thread

[Gowienczyk]

He does have some flow and I dig his tone and as far as it goes; I think I could dig it, could follow 'em.

[_mg3b_]

I think the last album I listened through in full was DAM's debut, Dedication. Arabic is a nice langauge to rap in, very physical sounding.

[Rocket2Russia]

opened a bunch of threads and replied to the wrong one.

HIP HOP IS GOOD. I PREFER THE '90S TO ANY OTHER ERA

UH...

[Gowienczyk]

I don't think I'm all that impressed with any of the Odd Future collective, even the highlights (ES, TTC). It just feels so damn underwhelming.

[Backbeat60-62]

What's the oldest hip hop song that you like? How far back can you go with it and still call it hip hop?

[Gowienczyk]

1979-1980.

Both Blondie's "Rapture" and The Sugarhill Gang's "Rappers Delight" are some of the earliest existing produced hip-hop songs.

[Backbeat60-62]

Oh. I guess I knew that already, just wondering if there were any more. Is that as far back as it goes? Rapping goes back even further, doesn't it?

[Gowienczyk]

It does, but not within recorded music (or at least contemporary music that was recorded before '79), I admit I don't know much of it outside that it evolved from disco, electro and beat poetry of the era.

[Backbeat60-62]

I like to go back even further than that into history (thanks to music!) and try to find instances of rapping that happened by chance somehow. There was a type of wordsmith from the 1950s called a beatnik who would make rhymes and then they would go onstage and recite their rhymes while being backed by a band playing music behind them. I've found several instances of rapping in 1950s recorded music. I don't know what else you'd call it, it's not singing. I suppose it would be called prototypical rapping if it came out before the Seventies?

[Gowienczyk]

If you want to liken beat poetry done by beatniks to hip-hop rapping, then I suppose it's not that much of a far cry. But like I said beat poetry, electro and to a lesser extent disco were the instrumental building blocks of hip-hop. But do understand that rapping as a technique is so rhythmically dominating and at times complex to say it's the same as spoken word and beat poetry; though it does take heavy influences (especially conscious hip-hop) from the latter of the two. It is pretty much musical fact that beat poet and soul musician Gil Scott-Heron heavily influenced hip-hop musicians and lyricists (Kanye sampled Comment #1).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGaRtqrlGy8