New Ab-Soul single/video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uphiZ2tcTv0

6 new albums this Friday (Dec 9th):

J. Cole
Ab-Soul
Neil Young
Dec 99th (Yasiin Bey & Ferrari Sheppard)
Post Malone
Hodgy Beats

So.. Cole's album is a letdown in my opinion. Extremely boring and not as good as his last one. Production wise it's about the same sounds all over again, however this time he's more focused on a storyline, but the songs themselves just aren't as catchy and memorable. Also I prayed for him to stop "singing" after 2014 FHD but it didn't happen.

A$ap Ferg and Yachty got this new track, Terminator, which I dig and have been blasting from the car sound system..... https://soundcloud.com/demovoboyz/li...d-by-maaly-raw

Lloyd's little EP is my favorite thing that came out today.

"Tru" is one of the best R&B songs of the year..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rG6y-NKrHU

Haha louder says Cole's album sucks. I believe it. Whatever. Probably won't bother to listen. So many of these artists are just broken records. Same shit, different timestamp. Special/different is incredibly rare in hip-hop these days.

Musically, he didn't evolve at all. Content wise, he basically tells a generic love story with a ghetto twist.. a guy who wants to commit suicide, but his life is saved when he meets a girl and they fall in love and have a daughter. And then he implies that it's bad to be a thug. Alright Cole, but don't we know that already? Tribe told us. Kanye told us. Lupe told us. Kendrick released an entire album about it just a few years ago.. shit, even YOU made a song about it on your last album. We get it.

There's also a song about how much he loves to fold his lady's clothes (literally titled "Foldin' Clothes"), which is meant to break gender stereotypes I guess. And he talks about Netflix and Almond milk on it. Yawn.

I don't know, like 90% of the album is just forgettable stuff that puts me to sleep. One song is literally spoken word over violins and baby crying sounds. I know a lot of dumbasses out there are gonna talk about how "relatable" Cole is to the average person and give him credit for coming at Kanye, but at this point I just see him as a poor man's Chance (who is a protege of.. you know).

I'm absolutely loving how much you're referencing Kanye today brother. Loving the shit out of it.

Here's the fucking deal: Kanye's got issues, nobody can argue with that. But his knowledge of and ability to embrace his issues and flaunt both his extreme positives and negatives are what make him TRULY relatable to the people who give him a chance, and those who love Kanye love Kanye ferociously. J. Cole, like most people, wants to present himself as "woke" and evolved, but it's Kanye's understanding of the fact that neither he nor anyone else will ever be fully "woke" or perfect that make him so relevant.

Well, that and his ability to chop the fuck out of genres and make music with a life force all its own, separate from Black Lives Matter or any fixed point in time.
He makes daring and ugly and terrifying and beautiful and glorious and fucked up music, period. J. Cole can't compete. He, like Drake, is trying to be cool AF, and is giving up his edge by playing the cucumber.

Chance gets that vulnerability and humanity are what make artists truly relatable. If you're gonna try to be a lyrical mtherfucker you'd better have chops like Kendrick, who's the only person pulling off full blown lyrical rap-rap in a wholly successful way (love to Common, but he doesn't seem to have the people's attention anymore).

So yeah, you can master the Everyman angle and become a Dylan or a Kendrick, or you master the meta-picture and become a Kanye or a Beatles, or you can zero in on the emotional volatility of a moment and be a Nirvana, or you can throw it all out the window and be a Bowie or a Prince. All these roads can, if done right, lead to memorable, potent, lasting populace music. But you can't succeed if you're mediocre, and I'm afraid Cole is pretty goddamn mediocre.

I liked 2014 Forest, but man... he's been on this or that dude's coattails for his entire career. I think it's too late for him to truly blow up now. Fuck him anyway.

On a side note, Mos forgot to drop his album.. welp.

but at the same time yr a totally dick about it while having total humility about it it all? If I was a a hip hop reviewer and saw this bullshit I would think "like mi god, yr gross and should die and/or get yr ass kicked!".

Sev. you talk a lot of shit, you know that?

who give's a fuck about a goddamn grammy. throw a molotov cocktail in their face!

I noticed. What the heck happened? Not references to its delay anywhere. In fact, one article (questionable source) implied that he was releasing not one but theee albums before year's end. Don't believe it, but I still wanted to hear December 99th.

Good thing I'm not a hip-hop reviewer. Good thing you're not either.

And are you saying I'm a total dick about it while having humility about it or that Kanye is? If it's the former, then... Huh? And if it's the latter, then... uh... Yah, of course.

And sure I talk shit.

Yeah. Good to have Q-Tip back. But we still need Mos. We need DOOM. We need 3 Stacks. We need Jay-Z and Nas.. the game ain't the same without all these people.

I think Jay's working on a new album. But it has to be some crazy good shit if it's going to be his swan song.

Wow. I'm very surprised to see that Kanye has has topped Pitchfork's 100 Best Songs of 2016 list with "Ultralight Beam."

I totally wasn't expecting that. Not at all. It crossed my mind that "Real Friends" might rank pretty high (and it did, kinda... No. 14, not bad) but I'd never thought of "ULB" as this kind of track, and I didn't think anyone else did either.

Cool though.

Also, I thought of Rob's abject disdain for Kanye's "THat Part" verse when I read this: (full disclosure, I skimmed the list for artists I liked and only read the full reviews for the Kanye songs. Ha.)


Hah. Yeah, his verse starts out pretty lame, but he pulls it off.

rhyming catfish with catfish. how "genius"




I guess he did NOT get the bleach on his t-shirt......

Wow I think you finally got him, Rob! A picture of Kanye with blonde hair. How will he ever recover from you finding this on TMZ or Pitchfork and then reposting it? He's finished, you win.

You know damn well that this one feature (one of countless features and tracks over the past decade) is not the reason for his critical acclaim, and has nothing to do with his or anyone else's proclamations of genius. This isn't even an argument and you know it.

I'm starting to think your Kanye-hatred is either willful ignorance (you like his imitators but hate him, and it doesn't sound like you've ever listened to his records) or that you're just trolling. I've seen you make well structured, eloquent points about plenty of things before, which is why I call bullshit on your anti-Kanye nonsense. You've either never spent time with his music or you just want to be a dick.

Homework for Rob Instagator's Hate-orade drinking ass:

Listen to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on headphones, come back, and tell me exactly where you found evidence of the absence of "genius."

Note: I'm not arguing that he definitely is, factually and objectively, a genius... but you seem determined to defend the notion that he isn't one. Well, prove the negative then!

who imitates Kanye?

I will go and RE-listen to Kanye's albums. I am always up for some self-torture.... ;)

creativity is NOT genius. Genius is rare, and OBVIOUS to anyone.

This is by far the funniest thing you've ever said. A fantastic joke.

for real though. who? Chance? T $cott? Pusha T? hahahahahha

He's right. MANY people imitate Kanye. In fact, here is a nice compilation of perfect examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7w1X_NecTI

Yup, yup, not really "imitates" but he's definitely been influenced by Kanye, both in Clipse and in his Kanye-produced GOOD music solo work.

You just named three of the most obvious examples of what I'm talking about and then laughed like you didn't know you were answering your own question very accurately.

There also Drake, J. Cole (first 2 albums are straight Kanye rips... for both of these guys actually), Cudi, Future, Big Sean, Tree, Desiigner, The Weeknd, Chief Keef, Lupe... I could honestly go on, and nobody who's paid any attention at all to hip-hop in the past decade would disagree one bit.

Not to mention his influence as a producer, which precedes his influence as a rapper or pop artist. Don't act like you don't know all of this damn well.

Kanye is the most important musician of the 21st century. Okay bye.

Looking at old pages and what is this? Kevin Gates is huge. And why would old school heads care about him when his sound is explicitly modern? I thought you were supposed to be smart with rap!

^
He was poking fun at a post Rob previously made..

Yeah I got to Rob saying that about Illmatic.

What a rollercoaster you guys have been on.

Heh.

So, while everyone is arguing, I just finalized my top 10 hip hop albums of the year..

1. Kanye West - The Life of Pablo
2. A Tribe Called Quest - We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service
3. Isaiah Rashad - The Sun's Tirade
4. Common - Black America Again
5. Kodak Black - Lil B.I.G. Pac
6. Schoolboy Q - Blank Face LP
7. Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered.
8. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
9. Young Thug - JEFFERY
10. Gucci Mane - Everybody Looking / Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife 2

1. 21 savage & metro boomin - savage mode
2. danny brown - the atrocity exhibition
3. kanye - tlop
4. young thug - jeffery
5. lil uzi vert - lil uzi vert vs. the world
6. e-40 - the d-boy diary: book 1 & 2
7. noname - telefone
8. isiash rashad - the sun's tirade
9. kevin gates - islah
10. a tribe called quest - we got it from here.. thank you 4 your service

I don't know. Loved the Vince Staples EP. First half of the Clams Casino album is perfect, the rest less so. The J Cole album was snoozeville and the Childish Gambino album was lame (tho not really rap). Drake album was awful but the newer "Sneakin" feat 21 Savage is great so w/e. Good mixtapes by Lil Durk, Juicy J, Lil Herb, Kodak, Jimmy Wopo, NBA Youngboy, Lil Boosie, Sicko Mobb, Yung Simmie, Lil Yachty etc.

Fuck yeaaaaahhhhh son. Best 180° in louder history. This is why I love you.

fuck I almost shit my pants laughing. that was funnier than the photo of Kanye with anal bleach on his hair

Young Thug, Future, Young Greatness, Rich Homie Quan, OT Genasis, Travis $cott, Kevin Gates, Ty Dolla $ign, Rae Sremmurd, 2 Chainz, Lil Yachty,

That's the shit I blast "for the neighbors"

Jesus Christ man, I know I already talked smack all over your weird shit but good, but you can't be serious.

Honestly, Kanye's influence is not even restricted by genre! Have you even heard the new Bob Iver album? One of the year's most praised record, but its biggest sonic statement — especially in comparison to his previous albums — is the happy, overt embrace of the Kanye-championed sound. And Justin Vernon is, like, THE indie figurehead of the modern era now that Arcade Fire is U2.

Seriously, I've never actually liked Bob Iver much... it's always been good enough melodically, but it's just been fucking sad panty music for 22 year-olds to wallow in after being dumped for the first time.... but 22 (a million) immediately grabbed by balls. Vernon has clearly taken a lesson from his work on Yeezus, MBDTF and Watch the Throne... hell, the first thought that enters ones mind at the start of "22 (Over S∞∞n)" is "KANYE."

And that's intentional. So blatant is the tribute that it could be nothing but. When you hear a sonic shout to Kanye before anything else on the world's favorite indie rock record of the year, how can you argue against Kanye's influence? Whether it's due to antagonistic trolling impulses or genuine obliviousness, it makes you look deaf and blind.

Also the most listened to "Bon Iver" song on Apple Music is ... "Monster" by Kanye West. Shut the fuck up about style 'fore I embarrass you!

I think your problem is that you associate the guy's music with his public image waaaay too much. So much that you can't hear that your precious Future and Travi$ Scott wouldn't have careers if it wasn't for Kanye. His production is pristine even when it's deliberately messy. Everything he does (musically) turns heads more than what he says on the radio or Who he married (Michael Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley, arguably the Kim Kardashian of her time).

What you said about "genius" being "obvious to everyone" is patently absurd — Van Gogh would take issue with that, as would all the other "geniuses" who had to not only DIE, but wait a few generations before their impact was acknowledged, but still I think you're arguing my case for me, as there's a pretty solid consensus among music experts and critics that the guy's at least capable of creating works of genius (he won the Village Voice Paz & Jop Critics Poll four times in six years for fuck's sake).

Anyway, I love you Rob, but I think you're troll in this thread. Denying the influence of Illmatic and Kanye? You're either a troll or you're totally oblivious.

Four of those artist have direct links to Kanye, silly boy.