Where is Hip Hop going?
- Thread starter REEK BROCK
- Start date
guitaristic
prophet of Dave
Yep, you said it perfect! Today's "Hip-hop" = Just make up some stupid song about how you're the shiz and rich, and then have Rihanna sing the chorus. Instant success lol
illsoulprod
Ill Soul Productions
Man I was on one huh lol
Well hip hop didn't die, a few careers have come and gone and the worst has happened. A whole generation of kids have grown up and don't know there roots. We bred a whole generation of cattle and now they follow whatever, whoever, where ever for no good reason but a good beat. I mean look at this room. Its become a walking talking advertisement for mediocrity at its finest. Killa may be one of the few original bbs members left and even he wants to throw in the towel every once in a while. Ya'll don't get it, we lost that battle and now all the survivors either made it through or are in new "life" ventures. Here's my advice if your young and urban music driven people who have read what I wrote all those years ago.
I GREW UP!
I have clients who make records. I record, mix, master, write and still do everything else I was doing all those years ago. I make changes from the inside out. I complain to my inner circle but if you want real change "you" have to bring it about now not later. I make money off of all genres of music so my love for "urban" music has changed. I've toured, seen the country and next year will start seeing the world, this is my contribution to the change in hip hop. I keep hip hop alive because it never died in me. I can still freestyle with the best of them but I can also write a song with the best of them as well. I developed my craft, got paid and never stopped trying. I no longer rock a white tee I rock a nice ironed shirt because were here to discuss business (we play hard afterwards). I'm from these same streets that raised biggie, jay-z and every other brooklyn baby but the difference was I never stopped learning and I never will so when I raise my flag for hip hop it means something because my voice didn't die as I got older. It got bigger, stronger, louder and I boosted it within the 11k as well as the 200 area so it sounds good (engineering joke). Wanna make a difference? Go to school, find a mentor, or go on gearslutz.com and ask questions (they'll teach you things about more then just gear), hell even on here in the sections that matter cause this forum/room is dying (all these beat makers, no engineers, real producers, etc.). I'm not saying some don't come through, I'm saying there isn't enough to make it matter in here.
Want real help. Here's my email, ask me something and if I don't know it I'll put you on the path to figure it out or to someone else who does.
Illsoulproductions@gmail.com
Love ya'll but like our freedom fighters before us who fought for equal rights I remember fighting moderators for the right to keep all the beats and songs that were posted in here in here and not have them bussed to the mp3 clinic (where nobody would listen/give constructive criticism). Now look at the place. Looking, talking and acting like soundclick.com 2.0...
Well hip hop didn't die, a few careers have come and gone and the worst has happened. A whole generation of kids have grown up and don't know there roots. We bred a whole generation of cattle and now they follow whatever, whoever, where ever for no good reason but a good beat. I mean look at this room. Its become a walking talking advertisement for mediocrity at its finest. Killa may be one of the few original bbs members left and even he wants to throw in the towel every once in a while. Ya'll don't get it, we lost that battle and now all the survivors either made it through or are in new "life" ventures. Here's my advice if your young and urban music driven people who have read what I wrote all those years ago.
I GREW UP!
I have clients who make records. I record, mix, master, write and still do everything else I was doing all those years ago. I make changes from the inside out. I complain to my inner circle but if you want real change "you" have to bring it about now not later. I make money off of all genres of music so my love for "urban" music has changed. I've toured, seen the country and next year will start seeing the world, this is my contribution to the change in hip hop. I keep hip hop alive because it never died in me. I can still freestyle with the best of them but I can also write a song with the best of them as well. I developed my craft, got paid and never stopped trying. I no longer rock a white tee I rock a nice ironed shirt because were here to discuss business (we play hard afterwards). I'm from these same streets that raised biggie, jay-z and every other brooklyn baby but the difference was I never stopped learning and I never will so when I raise my flag for hip hop it means something because my voice didn't die as I got older. It got bigger, stronger, louder and I boosted it within the 11k as well as the 200 area so it sounds good (engineering joke). Wanna make a difference? Go to school, find a mentor, or go on gearslutz.com and ask questions (they'll teach you things about more then just gear), hell even on here in the sections that matter cause this forum/room is dying (all these beat makers, no engineers, real producers, etc.). I'm not saying some don't come through, I'm saying there isn't enough to make it matter in here.
Want real help. Here's my email, ask me something and if I don't know it I'll put you on the path to figure it out or to someone else who does.
Illsoulproductions@gmail.com
Love ya'll but like our freedom fighters before us who fought for equal rights I remember fighting moderators for the right to keep all the beats and songs that were posted in here in here and not have them bussed to the mp3 clinic (where nobody would listen/give constructive criticism). Now look at the place. Looking, talking and acting like soundclick.com 2.0...
Captain Ego
New member
Hey just an outside perspective here. I don't make hip hop as my music of choice but I do help out a group of guys who write it, perform it, and just have me help em out with recording and doing the instrumental bits for them because they are my friends, so I get to hear a lot of new ideas. I hate to sound like a naive optimist but the simplicity move in production is not such a bad thing. "simple" can either mean juvenile and unfinished sounding, or it can mean "to the point" instead of all cluttered up with a producer's ego vision to make himself larger than the "artist" as the mastermind of it. When I produce things for my friends, I just make what they say they want beat-wise, go through sounds and little drum parts to sample for them, and take their input on how to change it. They have the control I just do the grunt work because I know how. I don't know if that qualifies me as a "producer" but it does qualify me to say that I will straight tell them if I think a track is becoming a jumbled mess, or maybe the guitar sample I make for them could up a key or something to match what the guys voice tends towards while he is doing his vocals. They are very good rappers, definitely musicians in their ideas, but not "musicians" in the nerdy sense of the word, they usually just have a few ideas for the feel of a track they all have written out flow-wise, and I help them put it together providing the guitar playing, drum playing, knob twisting, break suggesting, etc etc. It's all theirs I just do the grunt stuff.
I think on the low end (aka you aren't a superstar yet son) a lot of aspiring hip hop heads are in that boat, they just didn't know how to do the production side so they get someone else to do it for them as they watch and learn and gradually pick up on things. Stands to reason its a natural progression that they would want to try having sole control over their project as an artist once they figure out some of the basics - and I have let J just have at it in my studio by hmself plenty of times once he showed me he at least knew how to open a new file instead of recording oversome project of mine I was working on kind of thing.
The first stuff he came up with was very simple, no intricacy. "basic" I guess was the word someone else used earlier. It also worked. Sometimes that fresh outlook leads to the kind f inspiration and that "less-is-more" where a "producer" designing the track around him would have so many options open to him for arrangements and such that he would bog it down and turn it into yet another commercial-polish-cliche.
So again, I think its a good thing for "artists" (I hate that term... everybody involved is some kind of artist).. lets say - the "person whos song it is" - to want to control their own ideas for their backing track, all I can do is help explain, offer ideas, and hope he comes up with something cool. Of course it will be simplistic compared to some crazy arrangement with layer upon layer going on, but that doesn't mean it wont be good.
cheers
I think on the low end (aka you aren't a superstar yet son) a lot of aspiring hip hop heads are in that boat, they just didn't know how to do the production side so they get someone else to do it for them as they watch and learn and gradually pick up on things. Stands to reason its a natural progression that they would want to try having sole control over their project as an artist once they figure out some of the basics - and I have let J just have at it in my studio by hmself plenty of times once he showed me he at least knew how to open a new file instead of recording oversome project of mine I was working on kind of thing.
The first stuff he came up with was very simple, no intricacy. "basic" I guess was the word someone else used earlier. It also worked. Sometimes that fresh outlook leads to the kind f inspiration and that "less-is-more" where a "producer" designing the track around him would have so many options open to him for arrangements and such that he would bog it down and turn it into yet another commercial-polish-cliche.
So again, I think its a good thing for "artists" (I hate that term... everybody involved is some kind of artist).. lets say - the "person whos song it is" - to want to control their own ideas for their backing track, all I can do is help explain, offer ideas, and hope he comes up with something cool. Of course it will be simplistic compared to some crazy arrangement with layer upon layer going on, but that doesn't mean it wont be good.
cheers
Seeing how this thread is from 2006....I think the better discussion would be where has Hip-Hop been since this thread was posted.
HIP HOP is dead! ..... I didn't even know it was sick!
Captain Ego
New member
easy to confuse hip hop with pop nowadays. My first hint: if its a top 40, "featuring" so-and-so to spread the customer base, decked out with stupidity , it isn't hiphop - with attitude and humor and wittiness and politicalness and so on all rolled up together. I hear a lot of it, dont play it, but yeah just saying "yo spread tha knowledge" didnt really mean anybody was encouraged to stay in school. very abstract concept. Its hip hop in easy packaged one lines with very nice production (and fancy cars and silly outfits etc, just part of the game) but it honestly...
okay im goin out on a limb here...
I thin k concieving of "hiphop" nowadays as a certain style is very similar to concieving of all the cheesy hair-metal bands in the early 80s as "metal". it kind superimposes the image over the fact that it doesn't have balls... follows the formula sound expected of it, rather than branch out into completely new directions than just "here's my MPC backtrack here's my verse to get to ya" tack on an etcera" branch out and hiphop isn't sick, dead, dying or otherwise, just needing new things to do. Work with the rock guys, the blues guys, the jazz guys, the opera guys. lots of different influences, and the great thing is that they do all have a place in a style of music that origionated on juxtaposition (aka 2 turntables)
okay im goin out on a limb here...
I thin k concieving of "hiphop" nowadays as a certain style is very similar to concieving of all the cheesy hair-metal bands in the early 80s as "metal". it kind superimposes the image over the fact that it doesn't have balls... follows the formula sound expected of it, rather than branch out into completely new directions than just "here's my MPC backtrack here's my verse to get to ya" tack on an etcera" branch out and hiphop isn't sick, dead, dying or otherwise, just needing new things to do. Work with the rock guys, the blues guys, the jazz guys, the opera guys. lots of different influences, and the great thing is that they do all have a place in a style of music that origionated on juxtaposition (aka 2 turntables)
I kind of like the fact that there's different people out, but at the same time, once people see a rapper who raps differently, they try to emulate that style because they realize that it works. You got your good, but you also have your bad. I try to keep my raps organic, but at the same time I do take certain pieces from artists that I like, which only helps me build what I'm tryna do at the same time. So like I said, you got your good and your bad. That's life though
Preference aside I think hip hop has saved kids today. a lot of them are becoming more knowledgeable with computers and social networking. which is exactly where the future is headed. now as far is the genre, I think its up in the air. it needs a savior, someone who can go against the grain and breach that barrier between people who hate rap and love it. make people view it in a different perspective
guitaristic
prophet of Dave
I mean, obviously rap usually stems from a very emotional feeling....most likely anger or sadness. Which is fine with me. I'm just sick of hearing modern mainstream rappers rap about their bitches and chains. Plus I think it has a horrible effect on the kids growing up on this stuff...
Fieva
facebook.com/fieva
This might be a little off left field but if you compare it to Boondocks....
A lot of cats like us are like Thugnificent with that old(er) school (in their terms) vibe, not having or really wanting to have to switch the flow up. The only difference is while Thugnificent doesn't really talk about anything worthwhile (why should the character since it's a comedic cartoon) you get it that he's in a older part of the game.
Kids these days are more like Sargent Gutter, having a dance and not really talking about anything of substance. Making bubble gum rap and making it sell. I wonder if any of the old heads in here remember when we were talking about D4L ruining rap with Laffy Taffy?
Your resident heathen,
Fieva
A lot of cats like us are like Thugnificent with that old(er) school (in their terms) vibe, not having or really wanting to have to switch the flow up. The only difference is while Thugnificent doesn't really talk about anything worthwhile (why should the character since it's a comedic cartoon) you get it that he's in a older part of the game.
Kids these days are more like Sargent Gutter, having a dance and not really talking about anything of substance. Making bubble gum rap and making it sell. I wonder if any of the old heads in here remember when we were talking about D4L ruining rap with Laffy Taffy?
Your resident heathen,
Fieva
illsoulprod
Ill Soul Productions
Yea i remember those days. I was a young up and coming rapper/producer/engineer trying to make it. Now I am an older producer/engineer with projects, deadlines and label headaches lol The life we lead right But...
Ultimately rap and hip-hop will be what the time period dictates them to be. Period. You don't like something then change it, its that simple but you have to do before you get anywhere.
But...Ultimately rap and hip-hop will be what the time period dictates them to be. Period. You don't like something then change it, its that simple but you have to do before you get anywhere.
Hip hop is more of a culture than anything else. Cultures only die if people don't represent them and respect them. Rap is music, I used to say it was shoddy music but there is some good rap for sure. I disagree with whoever it was on the first page who said hip hop is only for simple minds. What a massive misconception. RAP is for more simple minds than hip hop...check out CYNE, Blue Scholars, Evidence, Hieroglyphics, BLACK STAR, dead prez and many more whose music is packed with intelligent content and delivery.
I can understand your misconception though, with the radio and the way that BS is, but: if you don't dig deep into any genre of music, it's hard to find the best artists.
We decide where hip hop goes...it's still alive, but its such an underground presence.
I can understand your misconception though, with the radio and the way that BS is, but: if you don't dig deep into any genre of music, it's hard to find the best artists.
We decide where hip hop goes...it's still alive, but its such an underground presence.
Disco seems to be more influenced by cocaine than the escape from poverty that hip hop is inspired by.
Not only do the majority of people who enjoy hiphop settle for the "simple stuff" but everyone else takes no further action to enlighten themselves and look for what's worth listening to. All you have to do is... find good hiphop.
Where is it going? Dunno, but I hope that one day there will be a shift and that people will learn to think for themselves rather than accepting what's served to them on MTV.
Peace.
UndergroundGemz
New member
underground will always be here