[evollove]

Kinda serious question: do you toss out all your rap albums every year or so? (I guess you'd hold on to your Kanye collection) You seem to be almost hostile toward anything that isn't new and you're not really respectful of the awesomeness of the past, even the recent past.

Just trying to suss out your attitude.

Originally Posted by Severian

within doing anything drastically new sonically, he [Talib K] sounds like an artifact at this point.

Jesus fuck, isn't there a middle ground between drastically new and artifact?

Originally Posted by Severian

But... man, he’s a legend. That’s the one-half of BlackStar that’s still making decent rap music right there!

Yeah. Last year alone he released a good record and a great EP. What's the problem?

Originally Posted by Severian

Talib and Common both suffer from the same disease: awesomeness in a former decade. But it’s still awesomeness.

Doesn't "awesomeness" beat "new"?

Originally Posted by Severian

I haven’t heard the new one yet.

Because remember that day when you could have listened to it, but you instead opted to play something that was new, although by track five you realized it was a really shitty record?

Originally Posted by louder

Common gave us a fantastic album and no one cared.

He was one of the last good ones.

The new rappers are so garbage.

Hey. Louder said it. Not me.

I take it the album in question is Black America Again? I think it sags in the middle, but the opener is innovative enough, the title track is an instant classic, and "Letter to the Free" is among the greatest things he's ever made. Only five or so worthy tracks surrounded by dross, like nearly every Common album, but manohman the good ones are good and I strongly suspect will be good years from now.


Probably sounds like I'm giving you shit, and I sort of am, but I'd be happy to hear you explain how you approach this genre. I'm curious why you seem to have a lot of rules, whereas my approach of being open to everything has been richly rewarding.