:lol:

You named your business Little johnny from the hospital!?
You also could have right clicked the pic and checked properties to save face.

I dig El-p but he has the worst flow in hiphop and its funny that he's from a group called co-flow. But Funcrusher plus and Cold Vein are top 5 albums from the year they came out. Both classics to me. Check out Atoms Family, thats co flow family. Alaska one of the MC's of the crew always comes nice.

the problem with rap is that all the good guys have stopped rapping or havent been putting out albums as fast as they use too.

that leaves huge shoes to fill for the new 'good' guys (which there arnt that many of to supply us with good rap)

a new nas album or ghostface can only go so far as to tide people over

yea, were in the ara of b-list hiphop.

It's hopefully dying a timely death like it's predecessor "disco" from the 70's.

And hopefully it takes that newfangled "metal" racket with it, eh?

Let's see... Disco: 1973—1979
Rap: 1979—Present

Sorry buddy. Rap outlived 1985. :lol:

<hr>

Heh, no, another one.

And now I know why I didn't know that title. I had heard bad things about the album and avoided it. Although come to think of it, maybe I was thinking of RJD2.

Bus, aside from a couple weak tracks, I'll Sleep When You're Dead is freaking great. I would have bought it for "Run the Numbers" alone.

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Rap sure used Disco samples on a whole lot of it's hits. I'm surprised a Rap Sucks! never came about the way it did on Disco.

See, I thought that was a nice curveball sampling that, especially for an MC who's more like Biggie than De La Soul. IMO, "Rock bottom" would be uncreatively dipping into the P-Funk/James Brown well yet again (I'm not singling out Jay-Z here, but the genre as a whole at the time).

I'll grant you that after having sampled "Annie", turning to "Oliver" was a bit much.

Apparently those who take cheap shots at rap are incapable of deciphering the difference between "it's" and "its."

And look at that, wm lopez taking a jab at hip-hop, I've never seen that before.

Oh yeah, if that wasn't an obvious attempt to recapture lighting in a bottle twice. I personally don't care where a sample comes from, as long as it works in the song.

That said, for my money the best beat ever made was by Eric B, and the song was "Know the Ledge". I could listen to that beat for days straight. That track is multifaceted. In a way it tells a story without Rakim on the track, but with his lyrics over top of it? It's over.

<b>Padrino</b> don't those cheap shots get old?

Its a matter of opinion.

I'm not sure if you're calling my comment a cheapshot or agreeing with me. If it's the former, seeing as how this is the first time I've made that observation, then no.

Wm lopez, on the other hand, has regurgitated the same narrow-minded view on hip-hop for years.

Disco didn't die btw, it just turned into house.

No, it turned into Jamiroquai.

I thought it was Stevie Wonder that turned into Jamiroquai. :lol:

I think part of the problem is the insane dynamic range compression that gets applied to rap CDs these days. As lyrically and musically great as Jay-Z's American Gangster and Ghostface's Fishscale albums are, their productions are so tiring that I can't even listen to them.

I don't think Wu-Tang even bothered mastering The W. :lol:

BTW, this is currently most most awaited release:

<img src="http://www.stonesthrow.com/images/2008/dillaghostdoom.jpg">

As someone who listens to hip-hop and rap more than any other genre, I agree whole-heartedly. The Cool is one of the best albums to come out in the past 10 years - period. The thing here is that people aren't recognizing the different genres of rap and hip-hop. It's not all just grouped together.

You have your bubblegum rappers like Nelly and Lil' Wayne. Then you have your gangster rappers like 50 Cent, DMX, The Game, etc.

Rapping about actual things instead of money, cash, and women brings a whole different genre into light. Example Kanye West vs. 50 Cent. Sure, they're rappers, but WHAT they rap about puts them in different classes.

I mean this is just all my opinion, but if you compare (for example) 50 or Young Jeezy to MF DOOM then you don't know anything about music.

Oh, and if you don't know of them already, listen to Swollen Members. One of Canada's best rap groups. Balance is one of the greatest hip-hop CDs of all-time.

Nice Bus. I wasn't aware of that one! Looks like only one Dilla track though.

Surprised no one's dropped that name yet. Donuts and The Shining are two of my favorite albums. Too bad we'll never hear how his sound could have developed.

For more of than Detroit sound, check out Black Milk, Popular Demand.

I'd previously heard bad things about The Cool from some friends, so I haven't gotten around to checking it out yet. After some of the praise here though, I'll get right on it.

Tone Deff
E-Famm
Classified
Quake
Phakt
First Words
Arsonists
Binary Star
Mos Def
Talib Kweli
Common
Gangstarr
Apathy
Non Phixion


Those plus many more are always on my regular rotation.

While I never thought their lyrics were all that great, Balance has hands-down some of the best production of any album.

Another great Canadian* rap album:

<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41M8FMPEB4L._SS500_.jpg">

This is one of my favorite songs off it:



I'm pretty sure this is not what non-rap fans think of when they think of "rap"...





* Make sure if you reply to this you paste something from Snow. That would be hilarious!

Also great:

<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/6189VHVNE6L._SS400_.jpg" alt="Beatuy and the Beat by Edan">

Immortal Technique, an underground rap artist, has some of the most relevant and powerful lyrics I've arguably ever heard.

He actually has a new cd coming out on June 24th. But find his album "Revolutionary Volume 2" and then come back into this thread.

What happened to rap is that "production" (background music) became more important than rapping. This is apparent from almost any rap CD review written in the last few years.

Aesop Rock
Apathy
Army Of The Pharaohs
Cannibal Ox
Celph Titled
The Demigodz
El-P
Louis Logic
MF DOOM
Mr. Lif
7L & Esoteric

...that's all you need to know.

I didn't read each page but I have a few thoughts...

I grew up in North Jersey and rap is kind of like a way of life for some people. And that is cool...but one has to make a distinction between two very different styles.

Rap, by my definition, is that top 40 crunk bullshit that is plastered all over the radio and MTV.

Hip hop, again by my definition, is not the stuff you find in the mainstream and a lot of the "classics". In fact this from a few posts above is an excellent list:

Tone Deff
E-Famm
Classified
Quake
Phakt
First Words
Arsonists
Binary Star
Mos Def
Talib Kweli
Common
Gangstarr
Apathy
Non Phixion

K-Os is another fantastic artists and Joyful Rebellion is a great place to start.

However there are some rare exceptions to my rules. For instance, Kayne I like...early Dre and Snoop (Doggystyle, what a record!) 36th Chambers Wu Tang, NWA, Rakim (solo material), MF Doom, and a whole slew of others can fall into that category too.

And lastly, there is the instrumental hip-hop (like DJ Shadow, DJ Logic, and a few others) and trip hop (Massive Attack, Portishead, and such) that also deserve some recognition, even though they are technically not rap/hip-hop by definition by use a lot of the same elements to create their sound.