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Notes: 7 / 1 week ago from ghostorballoon (originally from youngbadmanbrown)This Band Was Punk Before Punk Was Punk
Newly unearthed recordings by the band Death reveal a remarkable missing link between the hard rock of Detroit bands and the high-velocity assault of punk of 1976 and ’77.
Yeah motherfuckers, black people fucking invented punk too.
I think I first heard about them in an interview with the Gories, Man, when Drag City put their thing out in 2009 I played the hell out of it for like half a year. I have a really distinct memory of listening to it on a train to Burlington, Vermont, where the Hackneys moved in the 80’s.
They put out a demo collection last year that’s pretty decent, but I’m mainly just reblogging to link to this, which is an all-time jam.
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Notes: 1 / 1 week ago
Ab-Soul (feat. Danny Brown, Jhene Aiko) - “Terrorist Threats” (TDE, 2012)
Off of Ab’s superb Control System, which I had my doubts about—the first single played up the “West Coast intellectual” thing a bit too much—but goddamn if this doesn’t hang together about as well as Section.80 did. But of course Danny Brown totally steals this one, bringing his own distinct blend of grown-man rap to the track. The whole album’s worth a listen, not quite reaching some of Kendrick Lamar’s highs but never hitting the embarrassing lows of that one song about makeup or whatever. Check it out.
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Notes: 23 / 2 weeks ago from youngbadmanbrown (originally from howtobeterrell)hello stranger: is Eminem
really on anyones list of top 5 greatest rappers?
hes not even in my top 30
if BIG L is not near #4
then im calling your list a list about earnings
and not actual hip hop
or rap ability
…
can white people even name 30 rappers (not just current ones)?
but digress
i hate Eminem
I called out a jezebel writer on that shit last year. Chick was talking about how Odd Future “so misogynist” but Em was cool because “he was a drug addict” Like, shut the fuck up.
I do like Eminem quite a bit, but I don’t think his music as aged well. All that angry shit he was making was coming out when I was raging with hormones and mad at my parents all the fucking time. Some of it is kind if laughable to listen to now, and his new shit is mostly just wack ass hell.
Frankly, if you needed drugs to make you a good rapper, you were never a good rappers (side-eyeing the fuck out of Lil’ Wayne for this as well)
As for my top five (in no particular order)
Jay-Z
Mobb Deep (seeing them live was a fucking religious experience)
Ghostface
Nas
GZA
I’ll say that Em still has about a half-dozen great songs, maybe a couple more. That being said, I can’t even bother challenging myself to get through any of his albums in 2012—friend of mine played me that album from a couple years ago with the Rihanna spousal abuse song and such and it was one of the worst things I’ve heard from a once-respectable artist.
A half dozen great songs after seven albums is a pretty shitty ratio. That’s like one good song an album.
If even that, considering he has at least two straight-up unlistenable full records—maybe Relapse is great, I haven’t heard it, but I highly doubt it. But it’s clear that his songwriting wasn’t why he was canonized so quickly anyway.
Can we go on that real talk and just say its because he’s white? We’ve talked before about the concept of hip-hop (and really, many forms of black entertainment) being like “ghetto escapism” for white people.
Do you think it’s easier for white people to latch on his experiences - trailer park living, abuse, bullying and prescription drug addiction - than it is the experiences of black rappers from equally impoverished backgrounds?
Oh yeah. There’s a reason you eventually had rock radio playing shit like “Lose Yourself,” and it wasn’t because he sampled Aerosmith less than a year before. He had all the trailer trash signifiers that people buy as “authentic”—if you have enough signifiers of “real expression” while keeping it inclusive, you’re gonna cross over like that. That goes double for white rappers with black audiences. People made a lot of Em being “the first white rapper who EVERYBODY liked man!” while forgetting that Red Alert was playing the Beasties back in ‘86.
That two-way street is a little fucked up with white audiences though—for some reason that doesn’t have anything to do with a white power structure oh wait yes it does, they’re not as immediately accepting of signifiers of black life, impoverished or otherwise. There’s probably a better example, but look at how the white establishment didn’t really accept Jay-Z until he was making personal real album-length statements like The Blueprint. But that can open a whole other pop vs. art can of worms (which is also tied into a lack of racial progress!).
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Notes: 23 / 2 weeks ago from youngbadmanbrown (originally from howtobeterrell)hello stranger: is Eminem
really on anyones list of top 5 greatest rappers?
hes not even in my top 30
if BIG L is not near #4
then im calling your list a list about earnings
and not actual hip hop
or rap ability
…
can white people even name 30 rappers (not just current ones)?
but digress
i hate Eminem
I called out a jezebel writer on that shit last year. Chick was talking about how Odd Future “so misogynist” but Em was cool because “he was a drug addict” Like, shut the fuck up.
I do like Eminem quite a bit, but I don’t think his music as aged well. All that angry shit he was making was coming out when I was raging with hormones and mad at my parents all the fucking time. Some of it is kind if laughable to listen to now, and his new shit is mostly just wack ass hell.
Frankly, if you needed drugs to make you a good rapper, you were never a good rappers (side-eyeing the fuck out of Lil’ Wayne for this as well)
As for my top five (in no particular order)
Jay-Z
Mobb Deep (seeing them live was a fucking religious experience)
Ghostface
Nas
GZA
I’ll say that Em still has about a half-dozen great songs, maybe a couple more. That being said, I can’t even bother challenging myself to get through any of his albums in 2012—friend of mine played me that album from a couple years ago with the Rihanna spousal abuse song and such and it was one of the worst things I’ve heard from a once-respectable artist.
A half dozen great songs after seven albums is a pretty shitty ratio. That’s like one good song an album.
If even that, considering he has at least two straight-up unlistenable full records—maybe Relapse is great, I haven’t heard it, but I highly doubt it. But it’s clear that his songwriting wasn’t why he was canonized so quickly anyway.
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Notes: 23 / 2 weeks ago from youngbadmanbrown (originally from howtobeterrell)hello stranger: is Eminem
really on anyones list of top 5 greatest rappers?
hes not even in my top 30
if BIG L is not near #4
then im calling your list a list about earnings
and not actual hip hop
or rap ability
…
can white people even name 30 rappers (not just current ones)?
but digress
i hate Eminem
I called out a jezebel writer on that shit last year. Chick was talking about how Odd Future “so misogynist” but Em was cool because “he was a drug addict” Like, shut the fuck up.
I do like Eminem quite a bit, but I don’t think his music as aged well. All that angry shit he was making was coming out when I was raging with hormones and mad at my parents all the fucking time. Some of it is kind if laughable to listen to now, and his new shit is mostly just wack ass hell.
Frankly, if you needed drugs to make you a good rapper, you were never a good rappers (side-eyeing the fuck out of Lil’ Wayne for this as well)
As for my top five (in no particular order)
Jay-Z
Mobb Deep (seeing them live was a fucking religious experience)
Ghostface
Nas
GZA
I’ll say that Em still has about a half-dozen great songs, maybe a couple more. That being said, I can’t even bother challenging myself to get through any of his albums in 2012—friend of mine played me that album from a couple years ago with the Rihanna spousal abuse song and such and it was one of the worst things I’ve heard from a once-respectable artist.
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Notes: 15 / 2 weeks ago from ghostorballoon (originally from youngbadmanbrown)GHOST-MODERNISM: I'm seeing a lot of people reposting that "Straight White Male Is Life's Easy Mode Article"
And while it’s most certainly well written and to the point, the fact that someone even has to explain that shit, in 2012, is such a huge fucking problem I don’t even know where to begin.
Even worse is that absolutely no one who actually needs to…
That’d be great, yeah, but the people who most need bell hooks aren’t gonna fuck with bell hooks and they’re definitely not messing with less accessible types like Althusser (know very little about philosophy, admittedly, but uhhh, I did read Althusser’s Lesson, heh). So every little bit, I guess?
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Notes: 15 / 2 weeks ago from youngbadmanbrown
I’m seeing a lot of people reposting that “Straight White Male Is Life’s Easy Mode Article”
And while it’s most certainly well written and to the point, the fact that someone even has to explain that shit, in 2012, is such a huge fucking problem I don’t even know where to begin.
Even worse is that absolutely no one who actually needs to read that article will ever see it. Homie’s pulling an Oppen and straight up preaching to the converted.
Yeah, I reposted this on Facebook and almost immediately realized that it was just gonna be pandering to people who already agree. That being said, as lame as it is, I do think it has to be hammered home even in 2012, because people have blinders on to a pretty absurd extent.
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Notes: 24 / 2 months ago from somanyshrimp (originally from willystaley)
Gawker commenters’ taste in rap might actually be worse than reddit’s.
how much you wanna bet these guys are Childish Gambino fans
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Notes: 2 / 2 months ago
The Notorious B.I.G. - “Real Niggas Do Real Things” (N/A, 1994)
15 years ago today, obviously. Here’s Biggie going in over a bunch of Death Row-era beats (and “Black Superman!”). I remember first hearing this 7 or 8 years ago and it still sticks pretty well, if only because Jay-Z and others have reappropriated the hook to various ends. Worth checking.
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2 months agoTHE EATBEAT: Long-awaited Olive Garden receives warm welcome
Marilyn Hagerty makes Pete Wells look like some asshole on Yelp.
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