I still hate sloppy rhyming.

Slick Rick and Rakim are roilling over in their graves everytime they hear shit like this....

;)

haha! I still dig on the tunes, I just hate the fucking lazy rhymes, people pretending to freestyle shit that they pre-wrote and have practiced in front of a mirror for days. I hate that sit!!!!!!!

But no one cares as long as the track is bangin'.

and fuck Bob Dylan too. Boring ass motherfucker....ha!!!!

:( oh well. Fair enough I guess. I don't feel great about Turbo Graphx 16, or "album number three" for some reason. I don't feel like there's any way they're going to actually happen. I doubt the TLOP thing will be resolved by the end of 2016. Kanye's not super into doing what he says he's going to do.

Also, I think releasing multiple albums in a year can be cool if done properly. But very few people do it properly. Rick Ross has all but vanished from my world after the string of mediocre albums he's released in the past 2 years. And even Ghostface Killah has gotten on my nerves by dropping... What was it, three albums between November of 2014 and May of 2015? The albums were fine but there's a feeling of desperation and cheapness that comes with that kind of mass production of "product" especially when each album sounds more or less exactly like the last.

when you are an MC, your only "talent" is your rhyme skils, and your delivery.

to have it be ONLY about delivery? It cheapens the shit.

and fuck emily dickinson too. boring ass bat.

Of course people practice their freestyle lines. Battle rappers rehearse constantly, I'm sure, planning certain lines for certain opponents and memorizing encyclopedias of witty retorts to insults. But I've been to a few rap battles, and if the audience notices that you use the same line twice, they give you hell for it. They also seem to have a sense about whether or not something has been rehearsed.... Again I'm sure most of it has, but people can tell when you're reciting vs. improvising.

And I do think it's possible to just get really really good at improvisational rapping. It's possible to learn how to improvise with instruments. And if you use your voice and words as your instrument, I think that certain steps can be taken to legitimately become really goddamn good at freestyling. It probably requires an almost constant effort to to expand one's vocabulary, to learn new words and new slang, to play with pronunciation and practice new flows and deliveries. But I think it's possible.

if they practice it then it is not freestyle. To me hip hop is purely about beat and lyric, nothing else, and when I can tell that they spent 2 weeks on a beat and 20 minutes on the lyrics I hate it. It takes a REALLY good beat to make me ignore the shit lyrics.

freestyle to well-crafted rhymes to me is like playing HORSE as compared to a game of one-on-one. I do not want to pay to watch someone play HORSE

Chuck D used to tell people who asked him how to be a better MC that they needed to read and learn as much as possible, for you can only put out through your mouth what you put into your brain. Sadly, education and learning are not important in pop music or in much of today's pop-hip-hop.

(there have been linguistics studies done that compare the word usage in current songs to previous decades, and they show that most songs on today's radio use the vocabulary of a 7th grader. Most songs on radio 30-40 years ago used the vocabulary of a 11th grader...)

Well, not to go too far with it, but I feel like the era of the "MC"/"emcee" is kind of over. Even the best technical rappers (Kendrick) have talents beyond delivery and rhyming. Kanye is probably less about lyrics than anything else. He's not an "mc" -- not in the way you're using the word.

Even folks like Drake are showing that they are more than just verbal/vocal performers. Drake has a strong sense of aesthetic and style that are more impressive than any of his lyrics (most of which really really sucked prior to If You're Readig This... and involved line after line of the same number of syllables, each ending with an "Ayy" or a **"nigga!"). Indeed he's more about building a brand and bringing an almost managerial talent acquisition method to his music than he is about anythjng else.

Very few rappers are just rappers. That's my point. The ones who are don't tend to stick around long. Learning production and curation and taking artistic control are necessary now, because kids on the street are doing it and getting noticed, so there's pressure on the bigger artists to take on multiple roles.

(** remember "Tuscan Leather"? "I can go on this beat for an hour NIGGA" ... Did he even do any actual rapping in that song? That line was hard to swallow the first time I heard it. I was thinking, "nobody's asking for an hour, but it would be nice if you could make it through one song.")

Drake doesn't write many of his rhymes lately nor does he make many of his beats. In fact, almost no rapers nowadays make their own beats.

It is not as specialized as rock n roll was back when the record labels controlled everything and every aspect of recording. which leads to a lot of shit that sounds exactly the same.....

Maybe this is why hip hop shows suck ass?? because the rappers have no actual performance talent at all, which is what being an MC (move the crowd) is all about??????????

Like Fetty. I dig his inconsequential tunes. I enjoy his whole schtick. However, he is a guy who has been "rapping" (whatever that means nowadays) for only 2 years, never did any kind of performances to earn dues, never had to develop a stage persona to present his music, and so his concerts suck mad shit. Same with a guy like Post Malone who is just some rich white kid whose parents let him do whatever he wants and so, when he got tired of being in metal bands and shit like that decided to do hip hop, and scored a massive hit with a lucky one-shot. I love that white iverson song, and I like that a noob can make such a cool track, but it does not go further than that.
He wil not be rapping in a year, and likely neither will Fetty.

I never said Drake did any of his own beats. He's got a crew for that shit, and shares folks like Zaytoven with Future and everybody else. (Part of why I love Kanye and Kendrick, neither is really part of this... yeah, Kendrick gets Dre to do some production, and Ye will use Swizz Beats and a few others, but they don't fall into the "producer of the moment" thing.)

I wansn't even referring to lyrics with Drake. But the man has a brand. He's a great music capitalist. He cosigns folks like partynextdoor and ILoveMakonnen, reaps the benefits of appearing on their singles, and then moves the fuck on leaving the world to think he's got all this good will for aspiring artists. I'm not saying this is good, because it's not, but he's becoming sort of a cultural curator. Following in Ye's footsteps with a lot of it, but doing so with generally shitty material. OVO music and the whole "The 6" thing, they're just tools to further Drake's career. He's great at getting other people to do his work. Which is why I referred to him as "managerial" ... Ultimately I kind of hate the guy even if I like some of his albums.

he is a product, but at least he seems to have a good ear. I dig his more recent stuff and do not really like his early shit (Drake)

So there's going to be a TLOP pop-up shop tomorrow through Sunday in NYC



Anyone in the area want to do me a solid and stop by, see if they have TLOP CD's or vinyl, and pick one up for me if so? Will pay you for your time. And obviously for the CD if you get one.

If no albums are available I require the purchase of one bullshit pop-up shop only item to prove that you went before I pay you. Bastards.

Been listening to a lot of Prince, Marvin and Stevie lately. Not so much hip hop..

http://pitchfork.com/news/64234-a-lo...o-pop-up-shop/

So that pop-up shop is just a bunch of clothes. Sorry, Sev.

That's what's up. :) Legends.

Dude Prince is a fixture for me. Sign O the times is one of those "with me everywhere I go" albums. You dig Mavis Staples at all?

Got my physical copy of untitled unmastered. though. :D

That's what's up! Sign O is definitely his best, the one I feel has aged the best and has pretty much everything that's great about Prince.

1999 is one of my favorite albums, not only by Prince but of the 80's, period.. it also makes me laugh because it has those Fisher-Price keyboard sounds. :D But somehow it works. Just a super funky album.

Some of Purple Rain (well, looking at the tracklist again now, maybe just the first couple of tracks) hasn't aged that well either, LOL. Surprisingly there are other Prince albums I prefer, though I still love it.

Been listening Parade a lot as well. It's not as praised as his "Big 3" but deserves to be mentioned among them in my eyes, an overlooked masterpiece.

The B-sides our friend pepper green mentioned are all essential as well.

Honestly, all of his classics from the 80's could benefit from being remastered. I wish that will happen someday.

--

Don't know much about her, any recommendations will be welcomed. :)

I think Purple Rain is a 10/10 perfect album.

fav b-side is probably "Pink Cashmere" ...probably.