Chance's album finally grew on me. Same with These New Puritans (diff genres I know)

Holy shit, yeah, Black Star, Hieoglyphics, the first Bobby Digital record (which is awesome, for those of you who think it was something other than awesome)...

Man, you really remember your shit. Wu Forever was a year old in 98, so I was pretty much just saying who needs a prison poet who barks like a dog when the best hip hop album ever was only eight or nine months old? But your point is even better- 1998 kicked all kinds of ass, at the underground level.

The basic question was: Was DMX ever supposed to be relevant to actual hip hop, or just the TRL-era mtv crowd, which was just losing its moonblood back in '98? I remember 1998 for one mainstream hit, and that was "Hard Knock Life." Who the fuck needed DMX?

Last time I listened, I was over it big time. But maybe it should give it another go, especially with the end of the year approaching so quickly. Though honestly, he doesn't have a chance at making my hip hop list. If I expanded my album list to include non albums, and doubled it in sizzle, I might have room.

I don't think Acid Rap is 10/10... but solid 7... leaning towards an 8.

No matter arbitrary numbers, it's def one of the more interesting rap albums I heard this year.

Yes, and stupidly a lot of really smart people listening to rap music mistakenly compared him to tupac!! DMX was totally lame, and Kurupt called it out best, "Salamander ass catipillar ass motherfucker, fake ass mustache fake killer mother fucker!" Take a note Kendrick Lamar, if you want to start a rap beef THAT is a good way to start ;)

Acid Rap is a cool record, the beats are sometimes totally interesting, other times meh. Its not always exactly the radiohead of rap like the critical acclaim suggested, but its definitely different to folks who listen to mainstream rap and have never listened to the Hieroglyphics before ;)

The problem, is I just don't like Chance's flow/delivery/voice, so I can't get too into it. Its how I feel about Kendrick Lamar too.. Also I'm feeling a lot better about Talib Kweli because of Prisoner of Conscious, I'm glad I had initially put in my top-10 of 2013 even when I wasn't that into it, because its definitely a fantastic record. I mean, I was always bumping that Black Star, but that was like Kobe and Shaq, and Mos Def was definitely Shaq in that project. I'm increasingly feeling this record.

Acid Rap is just a mixtape though. he's probably going to improve a lot with his major label debut.

a lot of people seem to have a problem with Chance's voice. i don't. i like it. he's a bit corny.. in a good way.
usually i can't stand corny rappers, but Chance pulls it off well.

I was just giving my current opinion, man. No offense intended. I had it in my top THREE for a while. I think I just severely overplayed it, and that it won't be able to recover. Not because it's not a great mix, but because I took all the shine out if it.

I don't think anyone here really judges others for their taste, anyway. We're all kinda just like: "oh, you like Bone thugs? I kinda hate them, but whatever bro... Hey that[list album both parties like] just gets better and better doesn't it?"

Sorry if if sounded like an ass. I tend toward that kind of thing, and come by it naturally.

I don't listen to any of this. Just don't care. Hip Hop is now about 40 years old, or the same age as rock and roll was in 1993. It is also as splintered as rock was then, with the mainstream hip hop acts all a fucking bunch of pathetic shit.

yeah, it's a mixtape. But it sounds like an album. Y'know.

But.

I like his voice half the time and find it annoying half the time. Depends on the song.

While I think Killah Priest and Doley Bernays really released the year's best mix tapes, the two I've been most curious about (regarding "who will win in the end?") has been Chance the Rapper VS. TREE.

At first Tree was the underdog, and barely seemed to receive any recognition at all. Then something happened and people started paying attention, and I have no idea what it was, but Tree's fanbase grew a lot over the course of the year.

He's still nowhere near as popular as Chance, but that's because people like hype and bright colors, and have a harder time seeing the merits of muted earth tones and grind-influenced beats over a gnarly soul flow.

I vote Tree, but Acid Rap was a much more well developed concept with better marketing. More cohesive. More "progressive" and less street. Probably part of what makes it annoying to some of us.

I'm sad that nobody's expressing interest in Just In Time. Fucking really good, album-quality mixtape, forgotten in 5 minutes.

Which mix tape? Psychic World of Walter Reed is so very clearly a record, in fact, its very clearly three distinct records put together as one. It can only be technically called a mix-tape because there are so many different producers, but all of the songs have a similar sound, feel, and theme in the lyrics. A classic record if I ever heard one.

Flatbush Zombies put out a dope tape. so did The Underachievers, Action Bronson and Migos.

this new Schoolboy Q song "Man of the Year" (the one that plays at the end of "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" video) is soo fucking tight!

i hope it's gonna blow up on radio stations everywhere, so he can get the hype he needs to drop Oxymoron early next year.

https://soundcloud.com/topdawgent/sc...an-of-the-year

I agree. Am I wrong? I assumed it was a mix because of the many free download links and the downloadable artwork, and the fact that I haven't seen a physical copy or an iTunes version.

I could totally be wrong though. Of it's an album, fucking tell me So I can throw it in my top ten albums of the year, irrespective of genre.

Yes, as far as hip hop releases in general go, that one is a goddamn must have. Awesome in every way.

Priest is selling it from his website, self-distribution. I got the money to record and produce it himself from private sources.


Yes, its much to prolific to be a mix-tape, its definitely an album, albeit with all the different producers looks like a mix-tape. I think Priest was using the format of mix-tapes (i.e. not stuck with just one producer) to make a better record.


I got it not just as best of the year, but honestly one of the top-5 ALL-TIME.

Also, seriously been bumping that Talib Kweli.. I can't believe I slept on that one, though I was sleeping on Priest for several months too

Hmm... I used to be really in to Talib. But somewhere around Liberation and Eardrum he started to rap through his nose and go overly political and I lost interest.

I listened to Prisoner of Conscious (btw: shouldn't it be prisoner of consciousness? That sounds better. Currently, it sounds like a misprint, or the work of a dumb guy) once on Spotify, and it sounded like it was supposed to be some kind of comedy record if I'm remembering correctly.

I'll give it another shot though.
...

BUT SERIOUSLY, EVERY MOTHERFUCKER IN THIS CAFÉ NEEDS TO LISTEN TO DOLEY BERNAYS NEW MIXTAPE "JUST IN CASE".... NOW! It's fucking flooring me more and more with every listen. This dude is no fucking joke.

Also, louder: I forgot to respond to your post about the BOUND 2 video. So I will now do so.

I would love to hear anyone attempt to assemble an argument that supports this video being anything other than a complete bastardization of what is probably the best song on Yeezus. Now, while I dig watching titties bounce as much as the next ninja, I feel like the song got a little worse when I watched this awful, unnecessarily tasteless, stock footage cliche montage being played with it.

Seriously, wild horses? Motorcycles? Kim Kardashian not wearing a helmet, even though they were obviously on the bounciest... Er, bumpiest, mountain road in the world?

No thank you. Unless he was being intentionally ridiculous, this video is displaying a side of Kanye that I do not care for. The songs speak for themselves. He's not releasing singles, so why videos? Just let the album float around in the ethers, and sink into the consciousness of the world.

I saw the "Bound2" video as a really over the top "love song" video. You got fast motorcycles, wild horses, side-boob. To me it was like Tawny Kitean stradling the hood of White Snake's car.

i love the video. i've watched it over and over again. so cheesy it's awesome.

i think that the concept behind it is Kanye and Kim having the time of their lives with each other, while the whole world is watching them and getting upset.

Ok, I was thinking it had to be some kind of deliberately ridiculous joke. I mean, the amount of close ups of Kim bouncing alone is enough to make me question the seriousness of the vision.

I still feel like the music on Yeezus is not meant to be accompanied by anything other than the early projector video teasers, which only made it more mysterious and lended to its genre-defying vibe. Putting any kind of image over the music seems wrong to me, and I wonder if Kanye is starting to try to compensate for the slow sales of the album.

From a marketing perspective, I know the album has been performing below expectations. It's still going to be multiplatinum in the long run, but as of now it's almost as if Kanye's abandoned his commercial winning streak in favor of a critical one, and though it's resulted in incredible, iconic music, it's also made his whole "biggest rock star on the planet" argument a little more difficult to swallow.

But I'll buy that the video is tongue in cheek. It's like something Lou Reed would have done, and I can respect the hell out of that.

Oh, did I mention that I think Cruel Summer has become my favorite hip hop album of 2012, retroactively booting JJDOOM out of the top spot?

How did I ever not love that album?

Cruel Summer is good. not amazing like MBDTF and Yeezus, but really fun to listen to. Higher and Sin City are my shit.

yeah Cruel Summer is great.

listening to Lord$ Never Worry. "Black Mane" is fire, i'm gonna love A$AP Nast's debut for sure.

ARTPOP is really dope.

http://pitchfork.com/news/53136-kany...ies-with-nike/

this man is an imbecile of the highest order...I thought his entire shtick/method of promotion for this album cycle was a contrived reaction to the economic side of the music business, ie no promotion, no sponsorship deals with international corporations (ADIDAS!!!) reliant on what is essentially slavery; that is, that which against he so purportedly derided, vehemently??

fuck off you idiot, don't chastise that which allows for you hyper-inflated bullshit music to be forced upon the idiotic masses. couple of dumb fucking reasons why this clown is popular: a, because the 'significance' of his music was overblown by a bunch of white critics wanting to seem into hip-hop, and his seemed like the most idiotic, palatable crap they could find; b, hipsters thought that embracing a fucking egomaniac popstar would be cool; c, it's easy to conflate character and shit music, especially when both are so dull as to require the other to augmentt it, creating the illusion of substance when he's just a simpleton with serious mental issues that are no longer in any way endearing; d, PEOPLE ARE RETARDED.

bought MBDTF and Liquid Swords on vinyl. :)

or maybe he just makes great music? is it really that hard?

i don't want this to turn into another debate about Kanye though. we talk about him all the time.

let's talk about the masterpiece that is Liquid Swords. bar for bar, it's the best album to come out of Wu-Tang. GZA is a wizard and every guest feature from Inspectah Deck to RZA to Killah Priest to FUCKING METHOD MAN killed it.

the album is just unbelievably good. in my opinion, it goes neck-and-neck with Illmatic. seriously.

just came back from the Weeknd concert. it was an amazing performance.

lmao

Kristen Bell FTW.

Bound3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRckgn36lzY

i also copped Kiss Land on vinyl after the show. :) it's a good album, House of Balloons is still his best though. he said he's gonna drop new music soon, i can't wait! dude is incredible.

Dude, are you sure? You seemed to go back and forth on some of the year's releases quite a bit. Some of that I understand... the new Drake was a total riddle. Couple of great tracks, couple of so-so tracks, lots of crap, and some experimental shit that I'm still not sure about.

But when it comes to Gaga, I have absolutely no loyalty to uphold, and I am not even going to bother listening unless I get some solidly badass feedback.

So please expound on Gaga's new one if you will. Wax philosophical about it. Give me the kind of long, exhaustive, drawn out review that you know I need. If you need a reference, take a look at my comments about albums in this thread.

Wow: Hatas start ya engines!

Kanye is popular for the same reason that so many other pretentious diva personalities have been popular in this TMZ/reality era... Because he is rich and crazy and people want to live his life, and think they could do it "better." He's no different than most mouthy, semi-insane celebrities who say ridiculous things (Bill Maher comes to mind).

But Kanye's undeniable talent make him very hard to turn into a joke. For every blogger or People magazine writer who makes fun of his personality, there are three high profile music critics who call him a genius. It's not like he's Miley Cyrus. He's the single most critically revered hip hop artist in history. Nobody else compares. I'm not saying he's the best, but man... That ninja is behind SIX of the most widely and unanimously praised albums of the 00's; MBDTF gaining more critical recognition than freaking OK Computer!!

So he may be a crazy fuck, but most celebrities are. Kanye, for better or worse, has released so much great music that he cannot be written off based on his eccentricities.