The Hip Hop Thread

[Guest Gladstone]

Hip Hop Recommendations?

Recommend me some hip hop.

In this era of spotify, youtube, itunes etc I'll be able to sound stuff out before parting with my cash, so seriously, recommend any hip hop that you like.

Cheers

[Lemonade]

Some highlights from my iTunes hip hop playlist:

*Arrested Development - "3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days In The Life Of..."

De La Soul - "Three Feet High & Rising"

*Dr. Dre - "The Chronic"

GZA - "Liquid Swords"

Jurassic 5 - "Jurassic 5 LP"

*K'naan - "The Dusty Foot Philosopher"

Lady Of Rage - "Necessary Roughness"

L'il Kim - "Ms. G.O.A.T"

*Method Man - "Tical"

*Nas - "Illmatic"

*Notorious B.I.G - "Ready To Die"

*Notorious B.I.G - "Life After Death"

*NWA - "Straight Outta Compton"

Public Enemy - "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back"

Raekwon - "Only Built For Cuban Linx"

Run DMC - "Greatest Hits"

*Snoop Dogg - "Doggystyle"

Tupac - "Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z"

*Wu Tang Clan - "Enter The Wu Tang (36 Chambers)

Xzibit - "40 Days & 40 Nights"

(* = besties)

[Johnny Mac]

I like a bit of Black Moon - Enta da Stage

[Guest Gladstone]

I've only heard of about half of those artists - excellent.

I'm really uneducated in the world of hip hop, but generally like what I hear.

This will form a pretty wide defnition of "hip hop" (can't really think what else to class some of this stuff as) but my collection is limited to:

2pac

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

Eminem

Dr Dre (not a fan of the Dr Dre album I've got really - one from the 90s, black cover, green writing, fuck knows what it's called)

The Streets (what genre is the Streets? Doesn't feel right calling them hip hop)

That's about it. I've liked some of the more "popular" stuff of late as well from guys like Wiley, Chase & Status. In fact, I bought Plan B's album expecting it to be kind of dancy / hip hop, but it's not. Aside from a couple of decent tracks, it's a pretty woeful album. Some of the stuff could be passed off as Westlife or James Blunt (no kidding).

But pretty keen to get into stuff which isn't necessarily on Radio 1 playlists and the like...

[waltz]

right now I'm very into:

Big K.R.I.T.

Freddie Gibbs

GZA

Mos Def

Deltron 3030 <--- their album is seminal. Look 'em up.

Oh, and although Drake's got HUGE now and he's prone to the dodgy song now and again, 'Over' is awesome.

Outkast's Big Boi is fantastic as well. Especially 'Shine Blockas', 'General Patton' and 'Shutterbugg'.

[waltz]

(not a fan of the Dr Dre album I've got really)

are you mad?!

[Guest Gladstone]

are you mad?!

Fuckin' mintal.

[Lemonade]

I've only heard of about half of those artists - excellent.

I'm really uneducated in the world of hip hop, but generally like what I hear.

This will form a pretty wide defnition of "hip hop" (can't really think what else to class some of this stuff as) but my collection is limited to:

2pac

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

Eminem

Dr Dre (not a fan of the Dr Dre album I've got really - one from the 90s, black cover, green writing, fuck knows what it's called)

The Streets (what genre is the Streets? Doesn't feel right calling them hip hop)

That's about it. I've liked some of the more "popular" stuff of late as well from guys like Wiley, Chase & Status. In fact, I bought Plan B's album expecting it to be kind of dancy / hip hop, but it's not. Aside from a couple of decent tracks, it's a pretty woeful album. Some of the stuff could be passed off as Westlife or James Blunt (no kidding).

But pretty keen to get into stuff which isn't necessarily on Radio 1 playlists and the like...

Think that's 2001. The one with Eminem all over it. The Chronic is better and has Snoop Doog all over it. Which is awesome, because Snoop Dogg is awesome. Well, was awesome before he started making all the shit club music.

I like 80s rap when it was all with the positive message, and 90s gangsta rap, but most of the past 10 years has been horse, it's all R&B now, Rihanna and Chris Brown and shit like that. Sleazy dudes singing about fucking. Usher for example. What a fucking cunt. If Biggie was still around he'd fling his own shit at him.

[jon]

YouTube - ‪Skee-Lo I Wish music video‬‎

[Soda Jerk]

Sleep of Oldominion - Christopher

It's on Spotify. It's ace.

7L & Osoteric - Bars of Death II

also on Spotify. Also ace.

A huge amount of good hip hop from the last ten years definitely exists. Just not in the charts.

[Lemonade]

This is the best hip hop song ever.

No joke.

[waltz]

[FatHand]

Start with some of the names mentioned above and use the Radio function... you can then flick past stuff you don't like and take a note of the stuff you do like. When I'm trying to discover different genres or find artists I haven't come across before that's what I tend to do. I used to like the subgenre selector in Last FM when I used to use that. Grooveshark it a lot.

I've just thought of something that you might like based on the poetry you posted, check out

and then

[vega]

I've been really enjoying Dalek "Absence" on spotify. Really dark and really heavy with wads of noise. Will need to delve further into their back catalogue.

M.O.P. (Mosh Out Posse) are absolutely terrible but I've always had a soft spot for them.

[waltz]

M.O.P. (Mosh Out Posse) are absolutely terrible but I've always had a soft spot for them.

Aaaante up!

[vega]

Aaaante up!

The very same. "Warriorz" is an atrocious/righteous album.

[waltz]

The very same. "Warriorz" is an atrocious/righteous album.

I've got a soft spot for them, too. They're not THAT bad, are they?

"Things that we need: money, clothes, weed"

[Teabags]

*Wu Tang Clan - "Enter The Wu Tang (36 Chambers)

That's a MUST have.

Also, Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein. Fucking incredible.

YouTube - ‪Cannibal Ox - Iron Galaxy‬‎

[Soda Jerk]

Some more:

Non-Prophets - Hope

It's Sage Francis doing stuff a bit more light hearted than his solo moniker, with much more organic beats from the excellent Joe Beats

Army Of The Pharoahs - The Torture Papers

Angry. Vinnie Paz will shoot the fuck out of you

Immortal Technique - 3rd World

More anger. This guy doesn't care a jot about you.

Binary Star - Masters of the Universe

Similar to Jurassic 5. Rapping about how good they are at rapping.

[vega]

I've got a soft spot for them, too. They're not THAT bad, are they?

"Things that we need: money, clothes, weed"

A soft spot is as far as I'd go, personally. In saying that, I did buy "Warriorz" when I found it in a charity shop (feeling nostalgic from when I had it on minidisc; those were the days, etc).

There are some good tunes but I find the vast majority of it to be overly aggressive and hilariously over the top. But the whole thing amuses me enough to listen from time to time.

[The Kernel Loaf]

Hieroglyphics/Del/Souls of Mischief. Anything produced by J Dilla or Pete Rock (especially Deda) is worth checking out.

[Oedo 808]

I can tolerate the stuff but most of it leaves me feeling a bit "so what?"

[Skacel]

French Hip Hop

[waltz]

I can tolerate the stuff but most of it leaves me feeling a bit "so what?"

Okay

8chrctrs

[Murrr]

Recommend me some hip hop.

In this era of spotify, youtube, itunes etc I'll be able to sound stuff out before parting with my cash, so seriously, recommend any hip hop that you like.

Cheers

Check out the first three A Tribe Called Quest albums. Whenever anyone asks me about hip-hop they're always the albums I mention first . I think they're a really easy group to appreciate, regardless of your musical tastes, and therefore an excellent way to get into the genre as a whole. They don't rap about cars and bling, and their beats are nice and smooth. Excellent group.

Personally, I'm all about '90's east coast hip-hop. The three pillars of that movement are "Illmatic" by Nas, "36 Chambers" by Wu-Tang Clan, and "Ready to Die" by the Notorious B.I.G. All of them are classics.