[quote]G87 wrote:
Points well taken. Honestly, I’ve never viewed Kanye as being expressive in that way; maybe I just block out his lyrics most of the time, because they do get to be awful at times, lol.
Haha, I actually like the song “Kim,” and was listening to “97 Bonnie & Clyde” the other day. I haven’t listened to Relapse yet; honestly, never liked his material that much post SS and MM. I’m gonna pick up Relapse and 808’s & Heartbreaks this week actually and give both a spin.
Also, cool point about the underground rappers… I never looked at it from that angle. I think that, at the end of the day, you have to rap or really be into the music genre to appreciate certain things, e.g. battling or a lot of the underground artists. I’m not going to listen to Immortal Technique, because I prefer reading to hip-hop as a source of information. Same with a lot of freestyle rappers - they can freestyle well, but their actual flows are so generic and bland that listening to the battles gets stale, fast.
Are you active on any hip-hop boards? I used to be a lurker at sohh.com but left because 90% of the threads were just dumb as hell. I’ve picked up quite a lot from you already, so thanks again.
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I probably wouldn’t get Relapse without listening to the tracks on youtube or something, it’s a pretty monotonous album overall IMO.
Agree completely about underground rappers being favourites among people who rap or are very into rap. I’ve noticed this in other genres too, bands like the New York Dolls and the Velvet Underground weren’t very popular but they inspired a lot of popular groups, and are pretty popular with serious rock fans/amateur rock historians :D.
I don’t go on any hip hop boards for the same reason as you, and a lot of the time I’ll avoid the sites altogether (I mean not reading reviews, news etc.) just because there’s a bias depending on the site/magazine’s target audience.
I actually have an easier time reading reviews/articles about hip hop on some more pop/rock oriented sites, since they look at it from a less self-conscious perspective.