Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Why I Will Always Hate Indie Rap

I've been listening to hip hop my whole life (which I admit is not that long), but after developing a palate for fine, golden-age beats and lyrics, i have come to feel disgusted by the what the kids today call "indie rap". Record labels like Def Jux and Rhymesayers put out crappy crap crap that legions of preteen emo kids follow as if the artists there are better than Rakim, KRS-One and Kool G Rap (my heroes). I Hate It With A Fiery Passion!

It's not cus they're white (although I’ve begun to see that I discriminate towards white rap alot). I just hate their style.

Your over the head rhymes are not very over the head. Just because a rapper uses the words "juxtaposition" and "proballistic" in the same line doesn't mean its groundbreaking music. Its unnecessary fluff, the shit you use when you need to make 6 pages from a 3 page essay (trust me, I'm the Fluff King). Just stick to captivating the crowd through understandable metaphors and witty puns. I don't want to hear about how you're life is compared to the animalism Faulkner exemplifies in "Light in August".

On that note, indie rap is borderline emo. Please stop talking about random shit in your life like your feelings and start to move the crowd. Some mindless substance is acceptable in the rap world, you don't always have to be then next Ginsberg. Nobody cares about the shit you write about, Aesop. What the hell are you saying?

That's another thing: Why do Def Jux and Rhymesayers rappers have to sound like they have an entire continental breakfast in their mouth? They're nasal rapping is enough to make you go crazy. I mean, it's one thing that we have no idea what Mr. Lif is talking about, but even if we did, we would be able to understand it with the cat screeching sound he calls a voice. It's idiotic.

Plus, they try so hard to be indie that they're worse than the mainstream dumbasses. It's like those kids in school who spend all their time complaining about how jocks and popular kids are idiots, when they are the ones who spend their whole day whining! I don't wanna hear about how the life of an indie rapper is hard. Say your shit and get out! Goddamnit!

Lastly, why the fuck do your beats have to sound so shitty, El-P. Just because it's disgustingly futuristic doesn't mean its genius. I hate this space age, hollow drum beat crap. Gimme some Primo and I’ll be good.

So to wrap it up, I’ll probably be listening to golden age for the rest of my life. This has been a one minute rant by your favorite Indian.

4 comments:

Greg said...

Curious how old you are. Because most of El-P's stuff is highly influenced by being a New Yorker growing up as a hip-hop head in the 80s.

To me there is nothing really new age or spacey about his music. It is descended from stuff like BDP and PE,etc. He grewup listening to that stuff and battling cats in NYC. He wasn't in some all-white abstract poet fratboy crew or anything. If anything his msuic is that "real hip-hop" in that vein.

I have never understood lumping him in with the white-emo-poet-abstract-rap crowd. The only similarity I see is whiteness. It's strange that if you are white you can either be considered a Vanilla Ice-like caricature ( or maybe as Cage called his earlier period, "subtle blackface") or a "nerd" but nothing in between.

Honestly I thought I would HATE his new CD because it has a who's who list of Indie-Rock hipsters as guests, and well I hate emo-rap indie-rock-rap or whatever you want to call it.

But it's not like that. I barely noticed any of the guests who were all really nothing but subtle samples.

And honestly, a lot of the classic/golden age/80s rap icons sampled music that was a lot "nerdier" than El-P. And his drums and stuff hit hard ( like old BDP and PE Bombsquad but updated not a nostalgic fascimile).

Greg said...

and since you mentioned Primo, check the liner note shout-outs on Momemt of Truth.

Sri said...

yeah, i guess i went too hard on El-P, it was more meant to be why i hate the "white-emo-poet-abstract-rap crowd" you mentioned. but i had just saw an interview on mp3.com and i felt that he was overhyping his shit. He said his new album was an "attempt of the eloquent translation of the demented psychological state of my generation"...i mean, seriously? i listened to it, and it was aiight, but not mindblowing. Plus i know kids who think this dude is a god, and although you're right about him being a head from back in the day, i don't think he's anything close to my producing heroes.
Maybe because he produces for dudes from Def Jux who i really don't like, like the whole atom's family, cannibal ox, etc. It's not that they're white, cus they're not all white, I just hate that kind of hip hop.
Lastly, the title said Why I Hate Indie Rap, it's an opinion. I didn't like Funcrusher Plus, it was odd, you have to admit. I may be a snob, a purest you could say, but i completely respect your input and thank you for viewing my first post. I'll try to keep an ear open when listening to him again.

Sri said...

oh, btw, to answer your initial question, I'm only 17