i haven't been so excited about an album since Watch the Throne. once Yeezus comes out i'm gonna cop it and drive my car around town and listen to it 10 times in a row.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDmTc55hazA

This is 1990s 101:

Know Your Rap Beef..

Tupac worked on some tracks that Mobb Deep somehow took offense too. This caused them to put out a track in rap retaliation. Slight problem, Tupac was by this time no longer just a rapper, but had become a gangsta after joining up with M.O.B and Pirus from Suge Knight connections. Outlaws Immortal was a rap krew Tupac started on the West as Makaveli, but all those little homiez were from M.O.B and other Blood sets in West/South Central LA area. Hence how Tupac actually got it twisted, in LA "westside" was originally about beef between Westside Bloods and (Athens, Pirus, Avalon) and Eastside Crips (South LA, Watts, Compton) and Tupac, being from Baltimore, didn't realize it at first. HE had personal beef with his former associates and friends from the East coast rap/gang scene. LA gang life will really instigate a lot of shit, so what was some quarrels between friends became a full-fledged blood feud (this of course was after Pac was shot five times in New York HOWEVER Pac wasn't shot in New York over rap shit, he was shot over some gang shit.

This made him very paranoid to say the least. That, and DeathRow was shady as a motherfucker, couldn't really trust ANYBODY up in there, full of dealers and crooked cops. The record label was really just started as a money laundering scheme like a dozen other small-time LA area rap labels in the late 1980s but Tupac and Snoop Dogg made that shit unexpectedly explode onto the mainstream..

Back to Mobb Deep. These dudes were cliqued up with the East Coast dudes Tupac was feuding with, and they released some tracks after have some private words behind closed doors. This caused Tupac and his dudes to then have some more hostile words behind closed doors and later on some tracks. By 1996, Tupac was beefing with essentially the entire East Coast rap scene, and much of the West coast rappers too. However these beefs weren't hyped, or musical, it was some personal shit between all those folkz... ;)

new Schoolboy x Kendrick song. https://soundcloud.com/kirill-kolcha...collard-greens

can't wait for Schoolboy to drop his new album AKA 2013's "good kid, m.A.A.d city". ;)

I can't do Tupac at all anymore. For some reason, motherfucker sounds like he wants to ficking kill the people he feuded with. I can't separate his music, or him as an mc from the content of his lyrics, the way I can with Biggie (who also totally sounded like be wanted to absolutely murder someone, but tracks like Juicy helped keep him from sounding like a psychopath. For me, even "Dear Mama" sounds violent as hell. I just hear Pac, and think of really angry kids O went to high school with. Plus, most of the people he talked about doing awful things to were some of my favorite hip hop artists of the era.

Motherfucker even tried to throw down against Wu Tang, which I just can't abide. I mean, having beef with a horde of dudes who -even if none of them had Tupac's underwear model abs, would surely make a bloody mess of him in a fist fight, just seems silly. Especially when every one lf them outclassed him several times over in the rhyming department and had a sense of humor that apparently went way over his head.

Great rapper, but he had none of Biggie's charm. In retrospect, It sounds like he was the one guy who couldn't separate media hype and image from life. I guess being shot at will do that to a guy.

Anyway- he is ultimately the one major 90s gangsta rapper who I just can't handle anymore.

That is a matter of taste, personally I think half of the east coast rappers, including those who Tupac feuded with, simply rap like shit. Their fucking cadence is off..


You don't know what you are talking about. All that media hype was exaggerations and speculations about what was REALLY happening behind closed doors outside of the music and the newspapers. Tupac had personal beef for personal reasons with all those people you think is just about rap or him living some kind of fantasy. They knew it, he knew it, and they shouldn't have been so naive as to think it was all just about rap music. Tupac's rap music was art reflecting a certain reality, one which he took seriously because it was his own. Did he get too caught up? Yes. But so did 50,000 shot or killed gangsters in the LA area from 90-1997... That is just how it iz. Maybe y'all can't feel it cuz it ain't real to some of y'all, and you are critiquing it simply as a form of art or music, and judging him harshly by those terms.

Daft Punk, TNGHT, Bon Iver and Chief Keef are all confirmed to be on Yeezus. Rick Rubin executive produced the album.

i'm listening to Mac Miller's new album. definitely one of the better albums this year, but just like Wolf it could've been much better if he cut 4-5 tracks. why do rappers still make their albums so unnecessarily long?

I don't have time for a big reply, but I meant that there's something about his voice that makes me believe he forgot the fact that the media hype was exaggeration. Like I said, it's something about his delivery that I just can't handle anymore. While even Biggie is still enjoyable for me, Pac just kind of unnerves me. I don't think he wasn't an artist- I'm just not able to dig on it anymore. I have similar feelings about NWA if it makes you feel any better. No value judgments here... I just don't get any pleasure from listening to him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/ar...um-yeezus.html

interesting. my body is ready. :cool:

I'm really judging it more by how fun it is for me to listen to. I'm taking a pretty vacant, shallow view of it, really... I'm not judging it by its artistic merits, but by the fact that it makes me feel bummed the fuck out. I hope you understand where I'm coming from here. It takes a lot for hip hop to be "too much" for me, but that man's voice was full of a specific kind of hostility and anger that I can't really enjoy at this point in my life.

yeah Pac became crazy after Me Against the World, he often contradicted himself, which made him seem like a bipolar nut. but you can tell that the dude spoke from the heart, the way he conveyed emotion was unmatched in an era where most rappers were afraid to show their feelings. although i don't listen to him as much as i used to, i can see why a lot of people consider him to be the greatest of all time.

"Me Against the World", "Dear Mama", "Unconditional Love", "Changes", etc. some of the most passionate performances by any rapper ever.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Severian again.

It's true. His cadence was incredible. You're the one who mentioned cadence, yes? I'll totally admit the man was a freakishly skilled rapper. I really don't have anything against him, and louder is right about songs like "Changes," which I didn't take into account. I've got respect for him and I'm man enough to admit that I am judging him only by how much his angrier songs kind of freak me out. They sound too real for me. To tell the truth, I'm listening to Ready to Die less and less every year as well. I'm getting old, man. I've watched about three too many decades of evening news to find his music enjoyable. At least I can admit its my own weak stomach.

i haven't been able to stop listening to 808s & Heartbreak lately. an underrated masterpiece.

Underrated by some, maybe. I think it's the most ballsy and ambitious hip hop record ever. The fact that he pulled it off, with hit singles and Grammys to boot, tells me that while it may be underrated when compared to MBDTF, it's a classic when evaluated on its own merit by anyone with eardrums.

"Amazing" is a revelatory song. Genius in ways people don't even understand yet. Like I said, it's the album that first made me open my ears to Kanye, who Id previously thought to be a slightly less impotent Common.

(Sorry, but Common bores the shit out of me. Though to be fair, it may be because I haven't bothered listening to him in ages. Be was just way too common - hey, a pun! - for me. Yeah, Tupac's a bit much, but I still vote skill > comfort any day of the week)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jccfl2Kvxao

7:18 - i came. Yeezus is gonna be sooooo good.

ok Yeezus leaked. giving it my first listen right now. it's pretty much Kanye's Illmatic, 10 songs/40 mins. WHOA.

Twisted Fantasy it's not, but pretty damn good. i can already tell it's gonna be the soundtrack of my summer.

Yeah, I got a hold of a bunch of rough cuts of songs from the album (I put them into a playlist called "Yeezus-to-Beezus" and started to listen, but then I was like, "Wait- what the fuck am I doing?"

I've been pirating music for so long that I almost let myself experience those songs for the first time in fuzzy, incomplete, unpolished, and/or live on tv form. It didn't occur to me until a few minutes into the second track, when I started to feel like I was peeking at Xmas presents, or drinking before an acid trip.

I stopped. Though admittedly I did so more because of the recording quality than anything else. Anyone know what I'm talking about? I'm sure there are genuine final cuts out there now, but I still don't want to spoil it.

that's why I gave up bootlegs and leaks years ago.

Kanye just alienated his fan base again with the minimal production and all the house, industrial, trap, etc sounds on the album. easily his weirdest album to date. it's short, intense and to the point. every track grabs you by the throat, there isn't even one minute wasted. i can't imagine you guys not liking it.

nice. Is it this Tues or what?

I can't see us not liking it either. Well, not NR and myself. I can't really predict FS's reaction. I haven't spent countless hours talking about hip hop with him (her? Probably him), as I have with you nerds.

Short and to the point though? That's almost foreboding. It definitely makes me want to throw caution to the wind and download it, because I don't want less music from Kanye, I want MORE. And I do t want it in small doses... I want to mainline 10 grams of Kanye and let it suck me into a coma, so I can have some DMT-fed lifetime of nothing but his music, and my own (fantastic) inferior-parietal, and medial-occipital temporal cortical areas.

What a weekend that would be!

See, I guess I never inherited that sense of guilt when it comes to driving without a license, particularly because for the several years I myself drove without a license, it was because I had warrants (like most people in LA driving without a license ;) ) Plus, when I was a teenager I used to hang out with a bunch of low-life car thieves and subsequently rolled around in various g-ridez. Wait, in hindsight that probably explains the warrants..

So as to leaks and bootlegs, I LOVE them almost more than released versions.

But seriously, my only complaint about 808s and Heartbreak is that it's too short. Graduation did "to the point" perfectly. 808s needed more time. MBDTF was perfect, but why clip it back again?

Though I suppose after Fantasy, he would be pulling a bit of an "Ammesiac" if he made another epic clockbuster. Making the same album twice is an insanely bad idea for anyone who's right on the brink of becoming the kind of artist that changes everything for everyone. There have been a lot of missed opportunities over the years, and I'm inclined to let Yeezy be Yeezy. I trust him.

btw, I'd rank VH1 Storytellers as his most WTF album. haha.

I think Amnesiac is better than Kid A. just saying.

well most hip-hop heads seem to think of Yeezus as a disappointment, i think. oddly, i'm in love with it.

and i would love a double album from Kanye someday too. but who knows what that crazy fucker is gonna do next.

now i can't wait for that American Psycho inspired short film thing.

I don't, but I like it. And I like all of their albums from post 1995, but they went from 60 to 0 in 8 months flat, if you know what I mean. And they were poised for some seriously crazy shit back then. I don't know that they'll ever sound much different than they have for the past 13 years. Most bands, no matter how shitty or boring, undergo bigger personality shifts over 13 years than Radiohead, who were the chameleons of rock, for a while there.

Louder- if it's any consolation, most people are idiots, almost all hip hop fans are idiots. It doesn't surprise me, and it's probably a good sign that people are disappointed.

Let's just hope Pitchfork isnt. I know people more hate than love it at this point, but it still impacts the collective unconscious of fandom in some undeniable ways. I am convinced that it may impact my views on music without my even knowing it, so I generally steer clear of it entirely. Minds are weak.
Anyway, if they blacklist it, or don't give it at least an 8, watch as the world around you slowly starts to lose interest.

don't get me wrong, I love Kid A, I just think Amnesiac is better. But like you, I'd say there's no bad Radiohead album or EP as long as we just give Pablo Honey a mulligan.

They are the A and B side of the SAME album. They were recorded in the same sessions ;)

,
Pablo Honey surprisingly has some ok tracks, but it is perfectly dated within the early 1990s when it was released. A hundred UK college rock bands sounded like that. Its what made OK Computer so different, not that it was an entirely innovative or 100% original style so much as it was a radical departure from (a) the grunge/alternative and (b) indy/college rock sounds that dominated the era. I would say radiohead actually have added subtle shifts in their sound with each record, not a radical shift, but not static either, an honest progression. each subsequent album is noticeably radiohead, and yet, there is always something a bit new, something slightly different.

But again, they are not two different albums, it is a single album recorded at one time and released in two parts.

Hail to the Thief is very underrated, and in truth, not acknowledged rightfully as the third part to Kid-Amnesiac-Hail to the Thief trinity. I thought it had more edge and teeth on the guitar work, like a taste of what was there on the thrashier parts of Pablo Honey and OK Computer but revisited and with added emphasis.

Its also why In Rainbows was such a radical departure in sound, because those three records were really intended to be composed as a a singularity, though only Kid A-Amnesiac were actually recorded together. So again, you really just like the A-side better than the B-side, but I can dig that. I feel that way about The Eternal, I like the second half of that record way better than the first, and if I had them recorded separately, could dig the second half entirely on its own..

Even though Radiohead were a pains to point out that they ARE two separate albums? If they'd done a Guns n Roses and called it part 1 and 2 or whatever then sure, but they're two different albums. Just cos they're done at the same sessions doesn't mean shit other than they have the same feel.

you guys should check out J. Cole's "The Warm Up". http://www.datpiff.com/J-Cole-The-Wa...ape.83635.html

that and Friday Night Lights are both classic mixtapes. i like his albums, but now i just tend to lump him in with throwback rappers like Game. back then he had the potential to be the greatest new rapper. :(

the Pac-Biggie comparsion is a bit unnecessary imo. apart from being rivals and gangstas, their rapping styles are completely different from each other. Pac is a lot more like DMX if you ask me.

The fact that they were released at in different years makes this a poor comparison. First of all, GnR have always sucked, and both uyi albums suck. Second, they were released simultaneously. So yes, if Radiohead had done that, or perhaps just released the two in one package, it would be a different story. But the way they did it made it feel utterly underwhelming. For the first time, their new album sounded pretty much exactly like their last, and it killed their momentum.

Who's idea was it to release "Pyramid Song" as the leading single for Amnesiac anyway? Yawn. If you ask me, Kid A is missing something, even if it is great. If they had included You and Whose Army, I Might be Wrong, ...Revolving Doors, and Knives Out on Kid A, it may have worked in their favor. Though I think Amnesiac should have been an EP, containing only those songs.

Don't ever let me catch you saying some straight bullshit like this again ;)

And yeah, Hail to the Thief was a great return to form. It's too bad nobody remembers it. I love that record. To me, it's the OKC sequel we needed on 2001. Maybe they just got their timing off. In any case, From the Basement made TKOL listenable for me, and brought out the krautrock vibe that was lacking on the original album.

Whatever, though. This is a hip hop thread.

Louder's right about 2pac and Biggie. Nothing alike, musically speaking. Not even lyrically.