July Rap Up

Commercially, the genre is floundering. Outside of T.I. and a couple of others (Bones Thugs and Young Buck), hip-hop veterans have made little noise.  50 Cent is trying his best to drum up press after his first two singles flopped (read here where he claims that Nas reads to much to be popular), while Redman, Lil Flip, and 8Ball & MJG released commercial flops. The rest of hip-hop's A-Team are either MIA, especially after last year's furious fourth quarter, or have been pushed back so many times that it barely even matters at this point (see Three 6, UGK, Talib). It's a shame that the UGK album got pushed back, because this is one of the best rap videos in recent memory.

And since we're kinda on the subject of guest verses from Andre 3000, have you noticed that the themes of the verses play against those of main emcees? On the above track, he plays the love-struck groom to UGK's forever pimping personas. On the the remix for Rich Boy's "Throw Some D's," his grief interrupts Rich Boy's rim daydream. My judgment of the former is clouded by the video, b ut I really liked what he did on the latter. I always thought Pilow Da Don's dirty soul, which uses its little electro whirl to self-consciously look backwards, was a little too melancholy for Rich Boy's lyrics.

^dre 3000

Elsewhere, we have Wu Tang and Lil' Wayne releases coming out later this year, but I’m not holding my breath for the former, and there’s no way that Wayne’s third edition of The Carter will be anywhere near as hot as his mixtapes. I recently noticed that Rhapsody added this mixtape, which is basically a weird repackaging of the Drought 3.

^^ rumored cover for Wayne's The Carter III

With the veterans underpreforming we’re left newcomers such as Rich Boy and novelty tracks like “A Bay Bay,” “Lip Gloss,” and “Krispy.” The failure of hip-hop’s marquee names and the ascension of novelty hip-hop jams, most of which sprung up at least semi-organically, point towards a general dissatisfaction among consumers for the current state of the genre as well as the ineptness of major labels to market their superstars and adapt to a new market landscape. It's as if the labels are on a sinking ship, and instead of gong for the lifeboat, they try to climb up to the crow's nest.

^^ by posting this, i am not endorsing

No Teen Rapper Left Behind. And I really don’t mind the explosion of teenage rap. It started last year with Jibbs, The Pack and Baby Boy Da Prince; gained momentum with Lil Mama; and has now turned into a craze with recent smashes by Soulja Boy and Hurricane Chris.  A lot of people hate on this phenomenon, and, yeah, “A Bay Bay” and “Chain Hang Low” are amateurish and derivative, but I you have to give props to the others. The formlessness energy of “Crank Dat” is infectious, the humility of “The Way I Live” is refreshing, and certainly Lil Mama has skills. But aside from the quality of the individual tracks, it is exciting to see some fresh blood in the scene. Regardless of how much balance comes to the rap game, there’s going to always be dance tracks and novelty hits. And, if nothing else, their ascension points towards people wanting something new, and I think that’s what hip-hop needs more than anything right now.

In a lot of ways, I wonder if some of this isn’t a reaction against the seriousness (and dullness) of trap hop. I love Jeezy and T.I. as much as the next guy, but most of the hardcore ish that’s come out this year has sucked. Aside from Corporate Thuggin, USDA was hot garbage,  and there have been a slew of pretenders and talentless weed carriers. Really, one of the few “hardcore” CDs I could stomach was the Keak/ Messy/PSD colab. The production was really strong, and I think that it's one of the few disks from this year that really has classic material potential.

Pastor Troy’s recent disk was one of the weakest of his career, IMO of course, and the more I think about it, the less I like Young Buck's latest. Outside of the great first single, Get Buck, which was like crunk marching music, most of the tracks seemed generic, and, with all the sensitive thug tracks, Buck is reaching a little too much for Tupac status.

I did think  Lil Wyte's The One and Only was hot. It  captured the sludgy Southern psych sound better than most recent Hypnotized Minds releases, and Wyte is always funny and compelling on the mic. I thought there were some decent tracks on Crunchy Black's From Me To You. I've never thought he's a great emcee, but Paul C and Juicy J's dramatic, gothic production was pretty hot.

^^^^ Crunchy

Speaking of the Bay, there has been a few good release. Mistah FA.B.’s Baydestrian (which, unfortunately, we don’t have on Rhapsody) was hot, and Turf Talk just killed it on West Coast Vaccine. The latter album, in particular, I really think demonstrated hyphy’s potential for making progressive and fun. Too bad nobody actually listened to it.

On the indie tip, there is a lot to celebrate about hip-hop this year. There has been a lot of solid indie hip-hop releases.  Busdriver, Devin the Dude, Lifesavas, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Sean Price, El-P, Prodigy, KRS-One, Black Milk, Oh No, and J Dilla all released solid albums. What’s great about this is the diversity of it. You have throwback jams, your West Coast sampledelia, Detroit techno soul, indie sci-fi rap and Bay Area sub-hyphy.

Here’s a playlist I recently made that captures some of these tracks.

And, before I leave, I wanted to comment on the whole Imusgate affair, since it was such a big issue in the hip-hop world this year. You can read my editorial/rant on this whole affair here, but to sum up: old white man (which is to say powerful Washington insider) says a bunch of hateful sh*t, and instead of address the underlining issues of institutional racism and those that perpetrate it, we’re given a witch hunt for naughty rappers and the critics who love them. I have to listen to every major rap and R&B release that comes down the pipeline and no one gets sicker of the ignorance than I do. I fully sympathize and support those who wish to forge new and less offensive forms of hip-hop, but the outrage over Imus was perpetrated by those who have no interest in preserving the integrity of hip-hop music or black culture. They only want to destroy rap, and this is why they conflate all rappers into one violent, misogynistic image.

Later this week, I’ll post up my top ten hip-hop albums later this week, as well as a summery of albums from the 3rd and 4th quarters that should be hot.