Bling Rap vs Hustla' Rap/Mob Music
 

which do you prefer?

rap which brags about having a shitload of cash, jewelry, fans, sales, cars, houses, etc etc particularly bragging about having made it as a rapper and from music as opposed to

hustla rap/mob music which is about hustlin and makin money, but not necessarily blingin or ballin, rather it is as much about being broke and struggling as having a shitload of cash as a result of hustlin. It can be music about pimpin, working at mcdonalds, robbing/gang banging, drug dealing etc etc

Both styles are about making money, but only one is rather realistic based upon realistic means of making money which a lot of people can relate to in their lifestyles. Bling rap is just a bunch of fronting and bullshitting, soft dudes flossing how much cash they made of MTV and the rap top40 shit, where as a lot of hustla rap is underground and about the real on the grind shit.. when I am out on the rail through watts I can relate to some yay area mob-music like e-40 much more than some Gucci Mane bullshit..

I genuinely don't care. I'm all about (1) charisma/personality, (2) beats.

Honestly. I love Game. He's all personality. Dichotomy. Weird rapster fanboy. It's great.

And Wayne. Big time personality.

TI, heading to prison but remorseful.

Ghost is fucking big time weird.

DOOM is even weirder.

Ya dig what I'm getting at?

That you can't tell the difference between good and bad

yeah. That must be it. Douche.

he's right. TI is trash, the worst shit i've ever heard. gucci mane is garbage,game is mediocre at best, wayne sucks 90% of the time

my sentiments exactly, but then again, I am not into bling rap. I don't care if you have shitload of money, what does that got to do with me? I can relate to music about making money however (as opposed to music simply about having it), particularly in situations of having none in the first place ;)

thats that hot shit right there playboy.. holla! these dudes should battle on this shit and get mad hyphy with it!

popeye's got that two fo one son..nuthin beats chicken nigga fuck tha rest..

blah blah

=noisereductions]blah blah[/QUOTE
blah blah not very good either. Stop it with this shit, ok?

I can't be the only one who loves My Kitchen!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCil-kLGkvc

I hate both that shits.

I like "conscious" rap.

is that not what they used to call it?

or as PE used to describe themselves, "hardcore" I like that too.

I like Gucci Mane. Whatever.

Big booty bitches loves a good cooking player. ;)

first and foremost

lets examine the Top Tamale of Mob Music, e-40:
"now you might not know or understand what I'm talkin about unless you seen it lived it or done it.." quarterbacking

How is this music conscious? Well aside from tunes of his latest album like "Pray For Me" and the 90s hitish cut "Things'll Never Change" hustla rap/mob music has a most definite conscious streak in the context of revealing the underside of the block. This music addresses some of the major problems of what text books call "urban/inner city" dynamics, problems that in a very real and tangible way negatively (and positively) affect literally millions of people.

I like many deal constantly with police abuse and brutality.. it is a daily thing, we want to hear it in the story tellin about our communities, our daily grind..

"The el roys, they don't play, pull a nigga over three times in one day, make you get down on yo knees like you finnin to pray, beat yo ass up and leave you naked in an ally way.." (Married to the Ave) and look at tunes like
"Zoom"

"I seen it in a dream, a big white home, looked like a office building
An old school Brougham with a sunroof ceiling
Thug living, sixty-four ounce of drinkin thinkin
"How could I come up, and purchase me a Lincoln?"
Drug dealin, leelin and dealin tryin to make a million
Blood spillin, driveby walk up to that nigga peel him
Back then I was blind, penetentiary chance at jail
Livin off my gahl for hella long she worked at Taco Bell
And if the heater ain't workin and it's freezin cold
We open up the oven and turn on the stove
Survival, granddaddy's appreciation revival church
of pentacostal, we raised money by givin car washes"

"I hope I Don't Go Back"
"And just think, I used to sit the bench
I remember gettin chased by the cops, had to get my stomach pumped
full of a quarter ounce of rocks, late afternoon
Po-po waitin for me outside of Vallejo Kaiser Permanente
emergency room with glocks, ready to Rodney King me to death
Somehow I managed to make my escape through
the back of the cafeteria by the vending machine department quickly
Found myself runnin through the Friendship Apartment Complex
over there by the railroad tracks, around the corner from the
People's Continuation High School
Somewhere off in Lofas, behind Je-nai's Liquor ooh"

these are realistic stories as much as any 'eastcoast' styles, just out here we live different
stories. but we want to hear our own lives in our music, we want "music y'all can relate to, when its sunny ride by slide by get at a honey, I know these streets like I know my dick, I can tell you, the nigga thats about to get jacked and that nigga that pulled the lick I got this bitch on lock!"

and in regards to street advice, the kids on these streets NEED TO HEAR ABOUT THIS SHIT!

period. out on the blocks, some folks are sloppy and get caught slippin way to often, and instead
of hearing a bunch of gangsta rappers glorify the violence, or a bunch of bling rappers completely ignoringreal life, some rappers are using a popular medium to promote a different kind of conscious, to "be about it or without it"

Sometimes conscious music is music that gives you realist advice to work within your own circumstances. You have to be realistic sometimes.. I can't convince a youth to stop serving that yay on the corner, but he is gonna, I at least want him to be smart about that shit, because I don't want to see that youth in jail or worse dead or killing somebody else's kids
because of being sloppy.

These kids need to hear shit like

"Beware of your surroundings, gotta hand pick all yo homies, gotta watch out on these phones cuz them folks might be tapin.."

or

"when yo spider sense tells you somethin is up, then I suggest you go with yo gut, don't ignore your first mind, always pay attention to that voice inside always be alert always be aware always lookin over yo shoulder, always be alert of them rollers.."

now Rob, when I am passing through watts or south central or even just south gate on foot, that shit is the best advice I could get. RZA may be putting out some super conscious shit when he says, "A Day to God is a Thousand Years.." but on the real, folks out there will try to snatch your chain if you let em get all up in your ear on the street. As e-40 said, "Can't be a punk about yo hustle"

I take the Garveyite UNIA and Panthers format of realist/street approach to social justice and community awareness/reform. It takes time to get neighborhoods to change bad and degenerative habits, so it takes baby steps to get shit accomplished. Realistic approaches are absolutely necessary, so again, if kids are gonna do them things, they need to do it right and once we all trust each other, perhaps we can increase our dialogue.

I find that a lot of modern country and rap seems to encourage their target demographics to make poor lifestyle choices.

Henry Rollins' letter to Toby Keith I think is pretty pertinent.

I like Grandmaster Flash. . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4o8TeqKhgY

I don't feel you need to pick one "kind" of rap and stick to it. I'm just as prone to listen to Golden Era conscious hip hop as I am to listen to any other hip hop. Nobody says "you have to stick to one."

hipster rap opinion timelime:

1980-2001: rap is garbage,it isn't even music they just use loops from other peoples records and all they do is talk

2001-2007: i only like underground, the mainstream is so generic and the lyrics are materialistic and offensive to women, i like rappers who have their own sound and talk about something important,like atmosphere,mf doom and aesop rock

2008-????: i hate that underground backpacker shit, it's so pretentious and only appeals to hipsters. i like rappers like lil' wayne and gucci mane, they got so much swagger and such wordplay, they rhyme about unpretentious subjects like strippers and cars, i walked through a lower income neighbourhood recently and nobody bothered me because i'm clearly in touch with da streetz

Are you suggesting that hipsters never liked Public Enemy, NWA or the Beastie Boys?

things went rapidly downhill the minute dr dre stopped dressing like a cast member from Space 1999.

What point are you trying to make here?

Because I want to argue with you but I'm not sure what you're saying.

My main source of confusion is that you use the word hipster in conjunction with a time period that the word hipster didn't mean what it does now, which would lead me to believe that you are using the term to encompass all underground/alternative/independent music enthusiasts, or if you're using the term to characterize people who pride themselves on being ironic.

Whatever the case, there were alternative people who embraced rap far before 2001. Guy Picciotto of Fugazi used to cover White Lines by GMF when he was in Happy Go Licky in 1986. Also, the Beastie Boys started out as a punk band. And Blondie did that song Rapture.

In regards to the 2nd and 3rd opinions:

1. Not all mainstream rap is culturally destructive, just most of it.
2. Shallow does not equal unpretentious

BTW I came up with a great definition of the word hipster:

"Someone who is assimilating into the mainstream while believe they are alternative or underground"

right?

Basically, I think this summed up most of everything that needs to be said.

perfect analysis, accept that the only people who tend to "walk through a lower income neighbourhood" (sure some people drive thru but there is a world of difference)are folks who have some sort of business there, licit, illicit or otherwise ;) and block boys will most definitely check your pass, best to get it stamped in advance.

funny, I grew up in the whole "rap sucks" era, it was so ridiculous cuz as Rob already pointed out, weren't there quite a few popular, even mainstream rappers in the 80s? 90s seemed to be a segregationist era in music, people drew lines in the sand and became way to loyal to one set or another..

i also remember back in the late 90s/early 2000s when all the 'underground' (aka not rap, usually conscious, often DIY) hip hop was crackin in the computers of white kids from rural nebraska and korean kids in West LA.. the hipsters wouldn't touch that shit nor did they even know where to get it! Fuck, I remember when lame ass 50cent was some underground rapper putting DIY shit out on the internet, but look how that shit BLEW UP!

The 2000s are to generic rap music what the 90s were to 'grunge' bands and the 70s to 'punk' bands, an era where anyone who made remotely 'underground' beats and were not studio rappers would get signed and mainstream distributed regardless of talent or the lack there of..

and today, hipsters liking ridiculous radio rap, ignorant music for the sake of ignorance, sweet jesus popular culture can be confusing some times..

it all come downs to the poignant analysis of David Bowie..

"I'm affraid of Americans."

I just wish more MC's took to heart Chuck D's advice to focus on LEARNING SHIT to better their rhymes, because, it is true, one raps about what one knows.

seen.

but to get at people you have to legitimize their existence, validate their worth. If you want to collaborative to grow and develop a community, you have to understand, respect and build within the circumstances of that community. The first stage is dialogue, which was must necessarily take place in the language of the community.. as you say, one raps about what one knows. This is not a detriment, it is a foundation to build upon. This is what Tupac was doing with T.H.U.G. life, having dialogue and in the hood over very real shit like drug dealing and gun violence. You can't condescendingly reject the lives of people in real shit. Can I be a teacher at Jefferson High and tell some youth, "Hey drug dealing is bad, its a crime, you are perpetuating a cycle of poverty in your community." How can he hear that bullshit? Do my kind and sincere words pay his bills? No..

Can I tell the youth packing a strap," hey, gun violence perpetuates itself. If you have a gun you will use a gun, stop having guns for the sake of peace." meanwhile, his homie just got shot in front of his momma's house on the block he grew up on? This is not a stereotype of a rap album, this shit happens to real people. On the block I played on since I was small, we got shot at on no less than three occasions, and my homie since 4th grade had his arm broken in three places by a bullet, ironically we were most upset over losing a bad ass Ralph Lauren shirt to the blood ;) on the block where my sisters aunt used to babysit me and her when she was a baby and I was in the 2nd-3rd grade, my best friend got shot in the cross fire five years ago, still has a bullet in his hip, ironic because we always called him Slug1..

I can understand why people in these communities can't hear that intellectual shit, because it doesn't stop bullets, it doesn't pay bills. But I am fully supporting of the conscious movement in hip hop, even all the gansta rappers are about positive shit now.. The way I see it, God is moving even through the street movement.

we can only hope.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Rob Instigator again.


ps. we can also stay active and proactive in the community. My only point in these lengthy responses, is that our hope can be built upon action in the community on the terms and in the circumstances of these communities. The foundation needs to be mutual respect and recognition. Stop the violence without demonizing the youth. Stop the drug dealing by providing legitimate opportunity without stigmatizing the youth.. cuz its like Peter Tosh sang my brother, "You can't blame the youth of today, and you can't fool them"

I think that the rappers on the radio and MTV have TERRIBLE FLOW. Guys can barely rhyme and are completely arrhythmic. The music is supposed to make you wanna dance.

nah, folks only dance to hip hop on the west coast.

bitchin! they are all down in my hood yknow what im saying mothafucking hoe...(shakey hands gesture, grabs crotch and pops a cap in some poor fellows arsehole!)

Oh Yeah I like me some beastie boys

sigh.

?

Meanwhile, over in Cape Town ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc3f4xU_FfQ

Fuck! That's amazing? Where did you find that?

[I'm on CD 4]

some cunt recommended it to me. probably just because of the girl.

The Dissensus massive are all over them.

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread....1-Die-Antwoord

I found a different link there to another 'something' which is bloody brilliant. i think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziz-dUe5tWA