@Believer101 I'm not gunning for any title, believe me. I'm too focused on too many focuses related to music, in general. I write a lot, so I research a lot. Within the newer era of emcee, I'm still mostly drawn to those who care about being an emcee. Freddie Gibbs grabbed me early, when he was dropping 81-track Mixtapes and shit. I like Griselda. I like Wiki and LUM. But, someone like Ugly Mane, while rapping in a voice like a Mystic Stylez hook, still has knowledge and love for genres like black metal. Nobody interests me more than Danny Brown. I feel like that dude is a genius in ways that a lot of people don't even catch. He's one of the few rappers, other than LUM, where, if I see him wearing something like a Zappa Hot Rats shirt, I actually believe him. He named his album after a Joy Division track. I have a feeling that Kid Cudi isn't really sitting around listening to Anthrax.
I interviewed EL-P for a magazine back in 2012 and, whenever I do something like that, I try to reasearch as much as possible. If you read through a lot of his interviews, especially the older ones, you'll see a recurrence of people asking him about what type of music he's making, what "type" of hip hop it is. His answer is always that he just makes hip hop. Meanwhile, he's sampling shit like a 1968 proto-electronic tune from Silver Apples to make the beat for "Deep Space 9mm." RTJ was built off the love for classic hard hitting, aggressive Da Bomb Squad production, but EL's dustier, dystopian futurism shit, while throwing people at times, still went on to influence a lot of others. Look how much DJ Paul influenced the present day, simply by finding his own style. To a degree, I believe it's important for people to know a little history. The old heads who dismiss newer artists... that's expected. It's always happened, whether it's boring and played out or not. Hip hop is supposedly always on life support and some new cat is framed as being the latest chosen one in the prophecy to resurrect/save it. That's a constant. Generally, it's just some kid, like a 1999 Joey Bada$$ that reminds them of an era they love. But it does surprise me to hear so many of these younger kids outright dismiss having any sort of understanding of the culture that they're eating off of. The Kodak Blacks who say ignorant shit about Pac, Biggie, ODB, and Sticky Fingaz, etc. I don't get it. That's also why someone like Vince Staples is so refreshing. He has his own voice, but he knows his shit and that only makes him stronger.
But, like EL has referred to, it's all hip hop, when hip hop is founded off a culture of sampling and scrounging materials together to build something new. Pushing the genre forward is essential. Afrika Bambaataa constructed Planet Rock off of a Kraftwerk Beat and and a different Kraftwerk melody, after getting the idea of the 808 from Yellow Magic Orchestra. Meanwhile, he was laying the blueprint for electro funk. On one hand, if a lot of folks looked back in time, they'd see artists who have done similar shit as some of the newer blood, only a lot better and more originally. But, at the same time, every time a shift comes, there are always detractors that don't recognize how that's also at the core of the culture and the genre, or that it's necessary to always be moving forward. It's the reverence for the culture that I respect, and that's not isolated to the idea of rehashing old sounds, but an attitude and approach that respects the foundation, along with it's present state, and more than anything, how that relates to its future. Meanwhile, I think Lord Jamar says ignorant backwards shit constantly.
The fact that you pursue the culture with the obstacles and disadvantages that your location presents is admirable and says a lot, in my opinion.
I got research to be doing.
