Originally posted by MF D00m
CDP?
CDP stands for crate diggas palace records. it was the label lootpack put out their early stuff. i believe it was started by madlib's father, so that they could sell their music on a label.
i remember when i was young, my neighbor ricky's older brother was a dj. he would practice in their garage. along with my brother, the three of us would sneak in and watch him practice. mind you, this is the early eighties, like 1980/1981, i was 6/7 years old. he'd be spinnin everything from prince to zapp to kurtis blow and sugarhill. those days influenced me heavily on my musical tastes.
good times
madsci
hip hop purist
why does rap keep getting progressively worse? When you cant come up with better lyrics than " i'm gonna change you like a transformer" or "untill the sweat drips off my balls and i go skeet" you shouldnt be aloud to participate in social activities, let alone try and inspire impressionable youths.
I know this may seem like an attack on rap, but it's not. There is rap that has great depth and meaning, with calculation of beats that may even be considered musically talented on some level, but all that mainstream shit isnt music, it may be a form of art, but not music, its just simply expression with no direction or a way to get some fame and money. The reason i am revolving my points around mainstream rap is because it seems all rappers take that route when they find out it makes them more money. Outkast did it, DMX did it, and numerous others. why does shit keep getting worse? This isnt just rap or hip hop, but all types of music. It seems te majority of music in these times always change there meanings, and messages to the avenues where they know they will get the most attention which will bring them money.
In the past it was never like that, bands played what they loved to play, not what they thought people loved to here. rap artists did exactly the same, what is it, it cant be just money because mainstream and commercial conformity has never been so abundant in music until the ninties, what happend? Why cant be people just stick to being themselves, that is how we get originality, you can't create originality..it just is
isn't Rap what you do? and Hip Hop what it is.
RR> i use to think that Hip Hop is kinda dead at the moment but its not.
there are many mc's in other countries that are real. Society's main
reason for teens is "popularity and being cool". or being "dope" 😂
the stuff on MTV etc etc is all crap. Outkast has changed to. There older
albums in my opinion were better. i liked the album Atliens. Very nice.
DMX was really never that good. He had one deep song but thats about
it. Nas has changed too. Only good album was Illmatic. STillmatic was
alright. I think i heard that he's coming up with 3 albums this year. I
think you mean Mainstream Hip Hop/Rap? is getting worse. But the
Underground is kicking...kicking pretty high. 😂
Originally posted by ragesRemorse
why does rap keep getting progressively worse? When you cant come up with better lyrics than " i'm gonna change you like a transformer" or "untill the sweat drips off my balls and i go skeet" you shouldnt be aloud to participate in social activities, let alone try and inspire impressionable youths.I know this may seem like an attack on rap, but it's not. There is rap that has great depth and meaning, with calculation of beats that may even be considered musically talented on some level, but all that mainstream shit isnt music, it may be a form of art, but not music, its just simply expression with no direction or a way to get some fame and money. The reason i am revolving my points around mainstream rap is because it seems all rappers take that route when they find out it makes them more money. Outkast did it, DMX did it, and numerous others. why does shit keep getting worse? This isnt just rap or hip hop, but all types of music. It seems te majority of music in these times always change there meanings, and messages to the avenues where they know they will get the most attention which will bring them money.
In the past it was never like that, bands played what they loved to play, not what they thought people loved to here. rap artists did exactly the same, what is it, it cant be just money because mainstream and commercial conformity has never been so abundant in music until the ninties, what happend? Why cant be people just stick to being themselves, that is how we get originality, you can't create originality..it just is
Mainstream keeps getting worse.Underground has always been consistant.I'm not just talking about the "big" underground acts, but also people you've never heard.It takes some time because you got to find it, but it's definatly out there.Mostly in mom and pop shops.Canadian hip-hop is the purest hip-hop out today because they bring it like they used to back in the late 80's early 90's only with better lyrics.They're completely original.They drop concept albums with ideas that only a true artist could come up with.None of them are about money, hoes, cloths, cars, rims, ect.We can relate to them as a people, because they don't rap about stuff we will never have and they rap about everyday life.Things that all of us go through.Real hip-hop that hasn't been seen in the mainstream in years, but it's impossible to find it here in the states.I have to order it online from websites that most have never heard of, but it's worth it.I got sick of that shit a long time ago.Mainstream rap has been getting worse for some time now, it's nothing new.Yea, it's "getting worse", but mainstream hip-hop hasn't been good for years.Underground is where it's at if you're a true hip-hop fan.Real heads don't listen to the radio.Mainstream is so weak it's not even worth talking about.So i'll end on that note.
Here's a website that has a lot of great underground music you can buy.
Madsci, Hockey, Rage, Everybody...If you want some real hip-hop, check out this album: mcenroe "Disenfranchised".Here's a review of the album so you can learn more about the album and what it's about.Rage, he's one of the many canadian artists i was talking about.
mcenroe-Disenfranchised
He’s released two solo Eps, he’s been a member of Park-like Setting, he’s composed a soundtrack to an art installation, he’s been responsible for the production on pretty much every uniformly brilliant release from his Peanuts & Corn label – and yet he’s still not happy? Disenfranchised. is the first album from a founding P&C member to forgo the Wutang-esc custom where all artists guest on each others’ records, because this emcee/producer/label-boss is back and this time, this is personal. Mcenroe’s solo mission commences out by suggesting that we are all the subject of our own documentary. And from then on, Rod Bailey goes it alone with his plaintive nasal dead-pan delivery to attack critics, embarrass nay sayers and address topics close to his heart. This is about telling it how he sees it and setting the record straight with some definitive accounts. When unrivalled craftsmanship is harnessed and brutal honesty is unsheaved in the same measure, in the same place at the same time, the outcome is this; a fascinating collection of devastatingly moving hiphop music dealing with reality tv, keeping it real, keeping up appearance and keeping a grip on reality.
The last few years have shown how easy and popular it is to make rap condemning “the mainstream” for being obsessed with image but when this fixation is accompanied by some applied insight, it’s good to ponder on the flimsy facades of modern society and pop culture. Touching base with Parklike Setting’s format of capitalising on childhood experience as moralistic fables with Got Away With One, Mcenroe once again revisits his testing schooldays to extract meaning for both himself and the listener. This time Mcenroe recalls an incident where a mutual suspicion and prejudice between himself the straight-a getting skateboarder and the ice hockey jock nearly came to blows. As the track closes Mcenroe insists that he still doesn’t understand the moral of the lesson but that’s the point I guess – you can’t judge a book by it’s cover and you should never stop learning. Mcenroe’s discerning insight into keeping it real and keeping up with the joneses are best addressed by two tracks. The Premise for What Will I Wear? is that he’s got to shoot a video and in the process of running through options concerning his and the cast’s wardrobe, he offers a biting critique of the various “looks” a hiphop video can have and how they tend to be dictated more by marketing strategy than artistic vision. Sporting quotables like
“it’s all about my sneakers for a merchandise tie-in, I can’t go wrong even if I hated rap then.”
Or
“well LL knows best, with six-pack abs and a shiny shaved chest – well maybe for the next one; I don’t have the body – maybe stop writing lyrics and sign up for pilates .”
the cut amounts to a light-hearted yet hard-hitting track about hiphop videos and how Music video-making has become an invidious production line cranking out all too popular exploitative stereotypes. The Realest finds Mcenroe’s words skipping over the sort of sped-up classical harpsichord and string music usually associated with Unknown prophets or Tonedef. He uses this track to deride the keep it real ethos which he perceives to be little more than hollow, self-parodying rhetoric. As Mcenroe’s characteristic rhodes fender playing takes more prominence amid the swelling orchestral arrangement, DJ Hunnicut drops by to cut up soundbites from emcees like Prodigy who have a fixation with “real.” Apart from Hunnicut’s scratching here and on a few other cuts, the only other guest appearances occur during the Realest when all his mates leave him answering machine messages attesting to just how “real” he truly is…
Whilst Mcenroe the emcee conducts a thorough probing of the media’s relationship with realism and what it means to him and the world around him to be “real,” the output of mcenroe the producer is at least unreal, at best reel. these aren’t mere beats; these are cinematic scores! Rod Bailey continues to prove himself one of North America’s finest producers with this latest collection of lavish arrangements. Updating his winning formula, production here involves luscious rhodes Fender riffs underscored by plump acoustic basslines, riding crisp pattering drum programming through a mist of haunting samples, apposite soundbites and atmospheric swoops and stabs. The strength of his hiphop production is that he is a music lover first and hiphop head way down the list. He addresses and waxes lyrical about being an open-minded music lover during the nostalgic Wandering Eye where he admits that EMF’s Unbelievable has had as bigger influence on his life and music as Pete Rock & CL Smooth’s TROY. Harking back to a time when listening to one sort of music would lead onto a wild-goose chase through others, Mcenroe revels in mixing it up, often breaking into song, applying a range of rhyme structures and unorthodox time signatures along the way. For instance, the title track from his Convenience mini-album is here revamped and rejigged so it appears in ¾ time. As typified by Sleepwalking a track about people living life like an automaton simply to afford a couple weeks holiday, the most notable change in the P&C recipe is the significant amount of the album taken up by Mcenroe singing. Mcenroe’s crooning is never out of tune but it’s a very thin, strained singing voice like anybody singing along to their car stereo. His singing is no worse than that of Mos Def or any of those prominent New York emcees who sing their own choruses - but even if it proves too much (or too little) there’s enough in the crafting and content of the lyrics and the quality of the production to make it possible to overlook his little indulgence.
peanuts & corn distinguish themselves from any other collective who put out issue-driven rap because their dissecting apparatus is always deployed with equal zeal and determination on themselves and the world in which we live for a good reason. There’s none of that indulgent self-deprecation associated with underground hiphop and none of that mendacious pontificating oozing out the Soulquarian heap. Mcenroe never stops looking beyond his own life and circumstances to address the world around him in a just and candid manner. The album’s least “hiphop” track is the Beck-influenced Let's Pawn The Bracelet (And Head For Vegas) where Mcenroe flips a double-time flow for couplets so long and loose that each couplet scatters across four lines. Here, Mcenroe inhabits the role of a man explaining to his lover (and anybody eavesdropping) his plans for them to elope. Boasting yet more thick and funky drum programming laced with bittersweet music over the top, this track Not only wanders off the musical beaten track but lyrics aren’t always what they seem. Indeed, the character depicted by mcenroe during this dramatic monologue describes his plan of theft and eloping as an embodiment of the American dream. This impressively varied solo album is not just a protest about the alienating forces of western society but also an attack on the apathy and complacence that give such forces free rain. Founded upon another excellent sped up classical guitar loop decorated by cartoon-character soundbites, Mcenroe uses the title track to tackle the issue of mass alienation but always noting that this is how people have chosen to live. With much sarcasm, Mcenroe advises “if the news is too much then change the channel because you’re a north American and no one’s more powerful!” The irony being that modern society offers a lot of consumer choice but very little genuine empowerment of the common man. For Service In English, Press One features a sinister automated-switchboard hosting a trippy instrumental much like The Orb’s fluffy white clouds through which Mcenroe’s vocals swim to break down how the enforcement of American English as a global standard is but the latest tool of colonialism.
It is impossible to deny the gravity of Mcenroe’s music and it is difficult to overstate the weight of his polemic. If Pete Rock (in his prime) could rap, and write his own raps, and rap about something meaningful, it might sound as good as this. The problem is, it doesn’t matter how great a piece of music may be if nobody is ever motivated to put it in the deck. In response to the lukewarm reception Peanuts & Corn have received since 1999, Mcenroe sneers “if people wanted real they’d be buying my records now” and he goes on to recommend that those incapable of handling his honesty should stick to Mobb Deep and Jay-Z. Honesty is good but there are times when Mcenroe’s striving for absolute realism constitutes an own-goal. Hiphop Wieners may have distanced themselves from Anticon and their ilk but when Mcenroe uses The Next Day and it’s sixtoo-like merky, disturbed slowed down samples to knowingly end an album peppered with lyrics like “I sound White? Well guess what, I am Wite!” on a low note, the obvious model of comparison for such self-handicapping candour is Sole. Much of this album speaks of the established media as appealing to greed and vanity and yet Mcenroe never makes use of this knowledge to play the system for his own benefit…