The Best Rap You've Heard In Years...

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrT
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RAMI said:
AH, just forget it, guys. This guys claims he wanted some opinions (or so he claims) but is so tunnel-visioned and narrow-minded that anything short of "this blows me away" is just not good enough for him. Someone just tried to give him solid, honest critiques as to the actual mixing and his only response is "You have no idea what we're going for". He's a semi-talented engineer with a recording of a semi-talented totally un-original project, but they're living in their own little self-delusional bubble patting each other on the back like a bunch of 8 year olds. Leave them alone. They'll still be totally un-known in a year, 3 years and 5 years from now. It's a joke. And it's on them.

The sad thing is, the guys on the recording might be cool guys, ready to take advice, and totally humble. This baffoon comes in here thinking he's doing them a favor and he embarrasses them every time he opens his pie-hole.
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man do you just not like me or something? The point I've been trying to make is that I am not interested in changing the content of the songs. I didn't think people would genre bash as badly. and that's lame. I greattly appreciate any thoughts on how to mae it better in production value.

In short. I'm sorry that I don't are if some metal head thinks the lyrics are tired and loops are stupid. If you know rap that's a different story. Then you can judge the content in some type of context.

Critique what you know. Don't just give me some blanket rap opinion.
 
mrT you have just taken this whole thread in the wrong direction right from the very start.

I tried to offer you solid mixing tips and you come back and say I have no idea what I'm talking about? You are contradicting yourself left right and centre - you say things like this is a very rough version blah blah, but then you come back and say "you don't know anything Docaroo, we are going for a rough sound unlike these over produced polished records". These overproduced polished records are making money, because they sound GOOD. When you play those songs in a club you have the solid catchy bass lines, the low end really pumps and makes people want to dance, but the reason the vocals are given the sparkle is to BALANCE this dominating bass - without it you would have a bass heavy mix that would be fatiguing to listen to, you need balance and your mix soudns hollow FULL STOP.

If you want opinions on the song and mix you came to the right place - but starting your thread saying "This is the best rap in years" doesn't set you off on the right foot - especially when it is most definately not. People tried to give you advice and critique and you respond by saying "you are wrong" and "you have no idea what you are talking about".

WHY COME HERE TO GET OPINIONS THAT YOU ARE GOING TO IGNORE? Especially when you say "you don't like rap so I won't give your opinion any weight".

Mate, you are full of shit - now either turn around (which tbh you should have done 2 pages ago and it's probably too late now) or fuck right off and take you mediocre recordings with you.
 
And I just CAN'T resist quoting these two gems together:

mrT said:
I greattly appreciate any thoughts on how to mae it better in production value.
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mrT said:
I don't really think I contradicted myself ...... Almost all of the tips you gave me made it pretty obvious that you have no clue what kind of style we're going for ......
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Cheers.
 
Be nice to your mother, don't go ubermacho, avoid ganster bragadaccio, avoid swearing AND use real rhymes - THAT'D BE REVOLUTIONARY.
 
This thread was so hot that I decided to participate.
Listened to “Too Hard”
This was for sure the best Rap I ever played on my computer.
 
Docaroo said:
And I just CAN'T resist quoting these two gems together:





Cheers.
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Look, I'm not trying to attack you personally but you are acting like I should suck your dick for telling me how to sound like radio rap. so tell me about all the good rap you know that led to your comments and maybe I'll eat my words. But please don't think that telling me to keep the bass thumping and then give the vocals some sparkle to balance it out rocked my self-absorbed self-indulgent world. And I said you didn't know what you're talking about because you don't. I'm not going to give you tips on how to write metal. so why do you think I want tips on how to write rap. All I'm looking for is production comments really. and maybe if you do it with some inteligence discussion on the content. But how can you tell me how to make good hip-hop when you don't even know what good hip-hop is?

To say something nice, just incase you noticed I thought that comment about staying objective was an excellent one. I still don't know why you think I contradicted myself. I still appreciate the comments, just make them more relevant and stick to talking about what you know instead of giving me some lame ass tip.

And I wouldn't hesitate to put my mediocre recordings made with $1500 worth of equiptment up against most of the professionally funded fake rap that comes out today.

And I'm just getting started with them. When I actually put my mind to making them perfect the "sparkle" will be there.
 
It seems you have completely and utterly ignored the best advice and critique that has been posted... TBH I think you should cut your loses on this one.

Maybe you can try and come back again with the final mixes with a better attitude.. I also suggest your next thread begin "Sorry for being a jerk on the other thread, I really value your opinions/critique guys..."

DavidK said:
Hows this:

Its lacking in effects. The rap music I have enjoyed is slick, has clever doubling effects, have various types of reverb and eq on select sections/voices, has clever sound effects, better musical arrangements, more easily understood lyrics, a more original feel, a more unique arrangement, creative orchestrations, a more appealing lead vocal, better structure and more musical cohesion.
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Nakatira said:
I listened to this track.

And first off; Drop the attitude.

....

I`ll give you this though your by far the worst, so you can still salvage your points (be on the good side with us).

The guys here are great, they all try to help, and if they cant they`ll at least give you a pat on the back.

....

To sum it up, you clearly know how to record IMHO, but you need to work on your attitude. :cool:
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END of Bagging

OK Folks, time to call time. mrT - we look forward to your next post. Like I commented originally - your stuff is fine - the recording (& that's what this forum is meant for) - is pretty good. You have some things to address in your work. Those making comments have to give you the ebcouragement & space to grow.
This isn't meant, usually, to be a contest of skills or wills.
The flak you've copped is a matter of response to approach than music.
Some folk have offered some excellent tips.
Back to corners everyone please & mrT - come back with a step up in production quality and some more dynamics & make your point with content rather than argument.
I look forward to hearing what you offer next.
Cheers
rayC
 
Docaroo said:
It seems you have completely and utterly ignored the best advice and critique that has been posted... TBH I think you should cut your loses on this one.
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Sorry for being a jerk but your advise sucked. Part of taking advise is knowing what advise to take. Sorry if you think I should change things to please you guys (content wise) but then Id be alienating people who actually like rap. Which is the intended audience. And your comments that were'nt about the content were just lame. "punch you in the face" Bass? Not all rap has to bump your face off. It's good in some songs and not so good in others. Some songs sound better rough. IT's a matter of style. But if you listened to rap you would know that. Everything you said made it pretty clear that you aren't the person I should be taking tips from.

There is good advise and bad advise. Yours just happened to be 85% bad. Sorry to say it, and I don't mean it to be mean but you keep pressing the issue. Like I dislike your advise because you said something bad. You can call it whatever you want. You aren't going to hurt my feelings. Just don't expect me to take your word as producer gospel when no rapper in his right mind would listen to your advise unless he wanted to sound clean and cliche.

So don't get your panties in a bunch talking about how I don't respect other peoples opinions. I do... but only when I can tell that you know what you are talking about. That's why I asked people to tell me what they thought was better rap. Or even better why don't you tell me what you think this stuff should sound like... give me an example. If it doesn't suck and it turns out that you know alot about rap

I will formally appologise for calling your opinions shit.
 
Maybe I should give a disclaimer beforehand, it's obviously necessary in this thread. First, I don't give a shit about thread titles. Second, I am not a native speaker, so I don't understand the lyrics the way they probably should, but maybe that's an advantage. Finally, I'm just going to state my personal opinions here, okay?

I just listened to "Story to Tell" three times in a row. There are some points that struck me immediately. I would personally prefer a longer intro, for one thing. Then I think, especially in the beginning, the vocals don't attract enough interest, since the delivery is not dynamic enough. He doesn't get his point across emotionally. This gets considerably better towards the end of the track, at around 4:00. The last verse is really the best. As you said, these are just raw, free-style tracks, so I would put an emphasis on the delivery while rerecording. A more in-your-face sound could help, also.

Another thing is the choruses. It took me about 15 seconds each time to realise that it's the chorus. Use another loop on top of the basic one, use different effects or a different vocal sound, whatever suits in your opinion, but I think the listener needs some guidance here. Okay, the "got a story to tell"-line has a different sound, but it's not enough of signal, IMO. Maybe just sample a triangle-"ping" going into the choruses, just something that gives a hint. Doing this would also break up the monotony a bit, because I think the loop is really getting old over the 5 minutes run of the song. And I'm not saying that you should change the whole thing, just add a little bit of distraction along the way, stop the loop from time to time, support the lyrics in poignant places, that kind of thing.

Personally, I would also like a non-looped instrument playing along to the track, maybe a clean guitar. Not as a lead instrument, but to give it more of a human touch and to give a different flavour to the chords played in the loop.

Apart from that, I don't think that the bass should be pumping more, the track is much too mellow music-wise and sounds quite good the way it is.

While writing this I listened to it two more times, and I don't like the gunshot sample used twice. It's good as an effect once, but the second time just doesn't have the same impact.

That's it for now.
 
Thanks for listening. definately need to work on the delivery. Especially with Lazy. Ak is better but when he's making up most of it off the top of his head the delivery suffers. Story to tell isn't a freestyle but it is pretty long. He did that track "for the Block" and said it was exactly what he wanted. SO we didn't change it. It was like the 3rd song we ever recorded with him. He's never rapped before on record or live. He just rapped along with other songs. So he is still pretty raw. Can't wait till he gets more comfortable with the whole process.

Choruses are the thing I want to fix the most besides the delivery. And I have tried a million times to get more instrumentals in the beats... But I don't make them and the kid who does is a hard-core guitar hater.


see, If you give a thought out relevent answer about this stuff I return the favor... I'm not that bad or arrogant.

btw: Laydown (ft Akademic) is my favorite out of all of those. What do you guys think about it. Other than it sucks because it's rap (you know, loops and samples with a vocal over it)
 
It's already past midnight over here, so I won't write much. It's short and I like it, although the sample in the intro that returns later in the song doesn't have the same tempo as the verse in between, which is considerably slower. A little bit of difference would be okay here, but I think it's too much. All in all, it is less "boring" than the first track, because it really has different parts.

In the verse, there's a female backing vocal that doesn't seem to be part of the looped sample. It is quite dry and maybe even too loud, you should work more on that, maybe double it and pan it away from the center, and maybe do a harmony, too.

But that's probably stylistically not what you're going for.

BTW, I never listen to rap/hiphop in my free time, and I play bass guitar in a rock trio. :D
 
mrT said:
Sorry for being a jerk but your advise sucked. Part of taking advise is knowing what advise to take.
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OH MY GOD. You IDIOT! I wasn't talking about MY ADVICE.

Read my post again, I quoted you two people who gave you the best advice so far in this topic - I wasn't talking about my opinions at all - because that's what they were -opinions.
 
advise - this is the VERB - the thing you do.
advice - this is the NOUN - the thing you offer.
When one chooses to give advice one the advises another based on experience, prior kowledge, judgement or instinct.
My advice to all is to advise all others to remove themselves from this discussion.
 
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