Recommendations for hip-hop without braggadocio (or these other tropes)?

As intriguing as I find hip-hop in terms of the beats or the wordsmithing, I find the braggadocio tiresome: for a performer to rap about how he is a great rapper just seems so lame. I also have no interest in mentions of weed or how life on the streets is tough. Thus, while I like some tracks by e.g. Roots Manuva, those tracks can seem like exceptions among the other material on those same albums.

Is there hip-hop completely without the aforementioned tropes? Has any hip-hop artist gone for abstract lyrics that are divorced from the performer’s public persona and his immediate environment? (Is there a hip-hop equivalent of Scott Walker’s Climate of Hunter album, for example?) Or is my wish as unreasonable as someone searching for oldies rock that isn't about dancing or sweethearts, or country music that isn't about pain and drink?

So, what recommendations might ILM have for me? Hip-hop is a global phenomenon now, so recommendations in languages other than English are welcome, too.

Jay-Z

If recent instances of 'abstraction' (to varying degrees) are what you're looking for, try Earl Sweatshirt's Some Rap Songs. Or clipping.'s There Existed an Addiction to Blood. Or Billy Woods & Kenny Segal's Hiding Places.

Thanks, pomenitul. A look at Genius reveals that the tropes I mentioned are still present of some of these artists’ work, but the existence of these artists is encouraging that there might be other performers out there who are entirely trope-free.

pomenitul's face-value response will be somewhat atypical i fear

A look at Genius reveals that

this is the problem

Man I forgot about hip hop like this, raw and real, wish an artist would bring back this kinda sound. Love today's hip hop but it's all getting a little stale

Hip hop then and hip hop now is like middle English and modern English.

here's the nice version, before i hand over to the rest of ILM for your correction: 'braggadocio' in this context is usually just assertion of self from the perspective of a black person who, along with their ancestors, have been constantly beaten down by white society. it is racially-charged and righteous. so while i can appreciate that you don't want to listen to artists going on about gucci or whatever, that is just a way of saying 'i belong, i made it', which is extremely important to be able to say when your people have been oppressed for so long

complicating this is the fact that a lot of 'braggadocio' comes in the context of extremely thoughtful + poetic treatments of race and class - indeed, often quite abstract treatments. you can have 'braggadocio' AND 'climate of hunter'

what i am saying is: learn to love braggadocio. it comes with the territory and you'll hear a lot more good, experimental hip-hop if you learn to embrace it

anyway, listen to Clipping

This is definitely not what you're looking for, Melomane, but how do you feel about the line 'even when I say nothing it's a beautiful use of negative space?'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0eRMVHLNaM

xp imago otm

Man I forgot about hip hop like this, raw and real, wish an artist would bring back this kinda sound. Love today's hip hop but it's all getting a little stale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCx7dyhQ7C0

this is not to say that there isn't an onrunning war within hip-hop where real-headz types like dälek moan about glam-thugsters who get all the sales and prestige because they went pop or whatever. obviously dälek is amazing and you should listen to everything they/he have ever done, but despite his experimental sound he raps far more directly, literally & non-abstractly about social issues than, say, young thug. & so the ones who are musically experimental and the ones who are lyrically experimental are not even the same quite often

I was so sure this was an ancient revive

milo/RAP ferreira is another one you should check out, his lyrics are wildly abstract and his flow is great, even if he too is a bit snooty about pop-rap

There's also… Death Grips, kind of.

oh and the new KA album. and loads more. ilm: engage

Imago, I can understand that braggadocio comes out of a certain American context, and it has resonated in other places around the world where minorities face a similar struggle. But hip-hop is now so global that it is being performed by people who come from outside an environment on the receiving end of injustice, and so what would the point of their braggadocio be except to merely imitate a trope? And I think a person can reasonably seek music unconnected to contemporary social issues, not everything has to be relevant to problems a society faces.

Yeah, the Ka is very good (Descendants of Cain is the title you're looking for, as KA is almost google-proof).

xp

By the same token, in the rock space I really like Slowdive-esque shoegaze because, by submerging the lyrics in the mix to the point of incomprehensibility, these songs avoid any risk of presenting the listener with doggerel (as so many popular-music lyrics are). Just as rock music eventually shrugged off the trope of being music of rebellion and made subgenres like shoegaze for listeners would consume, I would like to find hip-hop that has completely transcended its particular social origins.

If unintelligibility is a plus, then you'll likely enjoy this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rtsZXEIxDs

Oh and there's always older backpacker stuff like Aesop Rock.

i would love to listen to hip-hop, but i hate one of the defining lyrical features of hip-hop. can anyone point me to some hip-hop that isn’t like hip-hop?

Again, voodoo chili, other music genres eventually developed forms that lacked what were initially one of their definining features, so why shouldn't a person look for hip-hop artists that have done the same?

Would you accept self-deprecation instead?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WotkQ6vFuGw

Melomane, just go get some Kendrick. Let's say To Pimp a Butterfly to start with.

I looked at the lyrics for To Pimp a Butterfly when that album won the Pulitzer. Again, that album is replete with the tropes I mentioned in the opening post to this thread.

The Fatlip track is amusing and a nice change of pace, but still, I'm looking for tracks where the rapper doesn't even mention rapping, being a rapper, etc. As far as dealing with a negative self-image goes, Root Manuva's track "Crying" is a much better example of what I’m looking for, inasmuch as that track's lyrics are abstracted from the musical genre in which they are performed.

What do you make of these lyrics?

https://genius.com/Earl-sweatshirt-shattered-dreams-lyrics

The n-word, mentions of firearms, a probable mention of marijuana, and some angry words spoken at people in power makes these Earl Sweatshirt lyrics too thematically similar to trope-based hip hop even if they don't cohere into any straightforward storyline.

What he makes of that lexicon is quite different from the usual fare, down to the self-reflexive complaint about 'imprecise words', but that doesn't appear to meet the criteria you've set for yourself. How about this 'classic', then?

https://genius.com/Aesop-rock-daylight-lyrics

I had drafted a response fearful for the future of this board... but op might enjoy MF DOOM?

And… Deltron 3030?

I was so sure this was an ancient revive

^^^^

Unfortunately, a look at Deltron 3030 and MF Doom lyrics shows plenty of rapping about rapping.

I am still especially keen for recommendations from outside English-speaking countries. I know that many listeners abroad do not speak English to a level sufficient to understand the lyrics of American hip-hop. It is the beats and the delivery which tickle their fancy, while the actual words might as well be Prisencolinensinainciusol to them. Therefore, there must be artists somewhere on earth who have imitated this genre of words recited over a beat, but with a lyrical approach completely separate from original American hip-hop.

The French and Romanian hip-hop I like does not pass your cruel test. And you haven't told me whether Aesop Rock makes the cut.

Are you looking for a rap adaptation of Anne-Marie Albiach's ÉTAT?

http://www.theoperatingsystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/nudite-e1492809194610.png

https://youtu.be/-CmmdBWKnPM

I have never read Albiach, though I am a fan of Emmanuel Hocquard which Albiach's Wikipedia article mentions as a related figure. But sure, I would love to find rap which lyrically resembles 20th-century modernist poetry. The reason why I mentioned Scott Walker’s Climate of Hunter album as an example of what I would love to find a rap analogue of, is because that is a lyrical approach which feels of a piece with the kind of poetry I like reading.

I'm starting to think that you should become such a rapper (not even kidding).

How long before the bragging started though?

now thinking that what the OP wants is in fact the work of ILX user 'usic'

write a rap about onions

https://genius.com/Parappa-the-rapper-you-guys-sit-in-the-back-instructor-mooselinis-rap-lyrics

That's because you just got your license!

(Woo hooo!! Yes!!)

pure, untrammelled braggadocio

Just throw some beats on top:

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

This is totally an instance of self-aggrandizement tho:

No Greek will be able

to discriminate my body.

An American

is a complex of occasions,

themselves a geometry

of spatial nature.

troll level: expert

Troll or not, I think this is a worthwhile question. If the kind of hip-hop Melomane is looking for is really that scarce, that would be interesting. It might be fun to think about why certain genres are so strongly associated with certain lyrical tropes that instances of the genre without those tropes are rare. Melomane mentioned country and "oldies rock" as two other candidates.

man ILM is so much nicer than it used to be. i remember getting absolutely flamed by s.clover way back in the day for talking up DOOM and backpacker shit too much.

Just wait till deej gets here.

Btw I agree with JRN that this makes for an interesting thought experiment: how far can you stretch the lyrical material before it becomes 'un-hip-hoppy'? And should such a putative limit exist in the first place?

I still don't understand the negative response to my question here, let alone me being called a troll. Jazz was a genre defined by improvisation, but today it would be entirely valid for someone here to ask "Where can I find jazz that has no little or no improvisational element?" (there is music where the musicians perform entirely from a fixed written score, but which is categorized among jazz for reasons). The first half of the 20th century saw a revolution in classical music where it no longer had to necessary follow tonal harmony or even a written score at all. Rock 'n' roll, as I mentioned, stopped being solely music of rebellion or imitating bluesmen within two decades of its creation. Afrobeat now gets performed by people far away from Africa and unconcerned with the same issues that Fela Kuti was.

So, why is hip-hop so different?

Chief Rocker Busy Bee

Aesop Rock largely avoids the tropes I mentioned, so I guess he is an answer to my question. Still, his lyrics don't grab me and I am unlikely to listen to him for pleasure.

So, why is hip-hop so different?

Current US political discourse.

You wish to aestheticize it, and that is viewed as a politically charged cop-out in its own right. Perhaps doubly so given what's at stake as we speak.

give Count Bass D's "begborrowsteel" a listen. I guess I have found his slight and abstract disses pretty refreshing, now that I think of it that way

Yes, and that backlash feels unfair, considering that I am not from the USA. Of course, anyone should be concerned about injustices around the world, but when it comes to listening to music for mere pleasure (or reading poetry for pleasure), it is not clear why my preferences should reflect the specific societal tensions in some other country.

it is not clear why my preferences should reflect the specific societal tensions in some other country

I'm with you on that, but this is ilxor.com. On the internet, nobody knows you're not an American.

Not just some other country though, the other country.

I personally haven't assumed that other posters here are American. After all, didn't ILM largely start as a community for fans of a Scottish twee-pop band?

Stee-lo

I personally haven't assumed that other posters here are American.

Neither have I, but (some of) us non-Americans like to joke about their (sub)conscious online imperialism (Tom is our undisputed leader).

what are the acceptable drugs for trope-free hip-hop to mention? is alcohol ok?

https://jukebox.openai.com/?song=802877581 heres some hip-hop with no lyrical tropes

god level trolling

Why not just listen to Japanese hip-hop, or Arabic hip-hop, or hip-hop in literally any language you don't speak? You can tell yourself they're rapping about anything you feel like.

I was hanging back from a morbidly curious distance for awhile but it now occurs to me that I might actually know something along the lines of what OP is looking for, and it’s this B L A C K I E album:
https://blackieallcapswithspaces.bandcamp.com/album/imagine-your-self-in-a-free-and-natural-world-2014

Best of luck

T. S. Eliot: 'the music of poetry is not something which exists apart from the meaning. Otherwise, we could have poetry of great musical beauty which made no sense, and I have never come across such poetry'.

I'll let you be the judge of this quote.

xp

i've narrowed it down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qYF9DZPdw

Quality trolling, good luck sir. May I recommend a different style of music altogether?

No, hold on, found it

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

no he's clearly bragging about his rapping, we're looking for lyrics that are in no way self-referential or make use of metaphor or other imagery but aren't abstract and are about nice things like not being uppity or situated in any sociopolitical context whatsoever

Me, an intellectual: hmm yeah sorta like that but could you maybe make it a bit more non-idiomatic

Derek Bailey: *picks up instrument*

Me: bzzzt try again fool

I'd also like to also propose Shakespeare without all that unpleasant regicide and crime novels where the plot is someone asks a nice policeman for directions.. lol this fucking thread!

This one might be more your thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOgC8qp_I2Y

^^^bragging AND rapping about rap, why won't you people help a poster lol

Look, here is a rap about playing Zork, I hope everyone is happy now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE

Your Eliot quote, pomenitul, may have been true of its time, Eliot had never come across such poetry. But then shortly thereafter the whole "sound poetry" movement took off, poets like Gerhard Rühm who wrote poems consisting purely of nonsense syllables chosen for the musical effect of the whole.

The suggestion that I listen to hip-hop in a language I don’t understand does seem like an honest attempt to answer my request in the OP, so thanks. But the problem here is that one of my biggest hobbies is language-learning, so I probably would not be oblivious to the lyrics for long. It is hard to invest in an artist if you know there is a big risk of disappointment at some point. I actually already experienced this with Japanese, where several of the artists I liked years ago before I learned Japanese, now make me cringe because of the lyrics.

"Where can I find jazz that has no little or no improvisational element?"

We did have this thread:

What's with that constant cymbal tapping in jazz drumming?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Unwanted_Song

fuck this troll, especially today

I am not from the USA … it is not clear why my preferences should reflect the specific societal tensions in some other country.

Could you address this, roxymuzak?

sure: police brutality and white supremacy are not limited to the usa, so get your head out of your ass

though the earlier suggestion for Japanese hiphop was based on not understanding Japanese, and op apparently does, it's not the worst idea. I think they imported pretty much everything but the lyrical themes. Here's a primer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDPVPc1thKE

i think the rap you want is

My name's Fred Flintstone and I'm hear to say
I love Fruity Pebbles in a major way

By the same token, should I scold American posters here for not enjoying the musical genre in my country which is associated with an ethnic minority that faces discrimination (and which isn't hip-hop)?

It is one thing to say that our political positions should be based on recognition of injustice everywhere, but I don't think people are under any obligation to choose the music they listen to for pleasure on the basis of societal problems.

He’s clearly bragging.

xp

Anyone who doesn’t listen to manele is a white supremacist imho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXb6bjCCtuY

Anyone who doesn’t listen to manele is a white supremacist imho

you're probably right pom but i want to listen to manele that has no connection to Romania and deals with lyrics about urban planning in 1960s Yorkshire

I was being facetious, obviously, but in a Romanian context this is both true and not: some people explicitly hate manele because they view it as a stand-in for the Roma. But most people listen to it all the time and are racist pieces of shit anyway, so the equation 'I listen to music that expressly deals with the struggles of minorities in my country = I support these minorities' is too simplistic to hold any water.

sure, and thanks to the magic of global commerce and communication billions of people listen to music that originates from cultural, historical, sociopolitical situations that are not their own, and the back and forth of culture and the ways it gets refracted and adapted, adopted or rejected is fascinating and productive of beautiful new cultural forms and marketable cultural products, and it creates material change as it flows ceaselessly thru the channels of commerce and communication

on the other hand, wanting to consume an idea of a genre that is very specifically deracinated from its cultural birthplace but imagining that it is in some inexplicable way "part of" that genre is, at best reading, a fool's errand, and on most readings more than a little o_O

i guess we have to ILX crowdsource the song OP wants

^^^ I really want this to happen.

NV, for sure, which is why my 'beef' with Melomane isn't so much the initial request, which I think is intriguing in its own right, as the implication that other forms of hip-hop (i.e. for all intents and purposes, hip-hop itself) are somehow inferior to this counter-referential subgenre that has yet to see the light of day (and even when it does, as in Aesop Rock's case, it doesn't quite meet OP's standards either). Still, I am most amused by this thread.

For real, though, where's deej when you need him?

even the backpackiest of backpackers - which isn't exactly AR imo - is grounded, perhaps inevitably - in the history and context of what rap is and where it comes from. and now i've allowed Sunday distraction to make me engage way more than i wanted to, roxy otm.

Where did I make any claims of superiority or inferiority? This is purely about what I personally want to listen to. Other people should listen to whatever music that makes them happy, and if it is typical hip-hop, then I'm happy that they are happy.

I too am mainly interested in the musicality of the language which is why I check the lyrics to songs before listening to them to protect myself from accidentally hearing something about the black experience. It’s actually very normal

Also, they are called cLOUDDEAD, fill your boots ffs

I find the braggadocio tiresome: for a performer to rap about how he is a great rapper just seems so lame. I also have no interest in mentions of weed or how life on the streets is tough.

QFT

Sure, you can frame it as a purely subjective preference, but things are never quite so simple, are they? If I meditate on why I dislike certain types of music, the answer is usually more extensive than 'it just doesn't do it for me', at least if I'm being honest with myself.

Oh yeah, cLOUDDEAD is a good one. I'd completely forgotten about those guys.

New Kingdom is another one i'd compare to cLOUDDEAD, but still fuck the whole premise of this awful thread.

Don't push me because I'm close to the edge
Of the building I'm standing on, so if you push me, I'm dead
But that's not what I'm here to talk about today
The weather is beautiful and it looks like later there will be a parade

You know what else rhymes with parade?
Glade
Made
Jade
Sade
WAit no that's "Zha day"
But who am I to say
That doesn't rhyme
parsley page rosemary and thyme

Bitch

Wins suggests that the "black experience" necessarily has to be reduced to a handful of issues which have become hip-hop tropes, which I think does the African diaspora a great disservice. Ethnic minorities are just as capable of writing lyrics which are not overtly related to struggles they face, and for any ethnic minority you can find a poet who has chosen that approach, so why couldn't a hip-hop artist do the same?

Also, if a performer is not himself black (because hip-hop has now been taken up by people of every race around the world), then it is unclear why that performer should be conveying the "black experience". Indeed, when performers who are not black (and perhaps not even an ethnic minority in their region at all) draw on themes and metaphors which derive from the African American experience, can that not be criticized as a form of appropriation? That seems to me a good reason for certain performers to come with a different lyrical approach entirely.

rakim talking about how dope he is at rapping is one of the greatest things that ever happened to the english language

I can take a phrase that's barely heard
Flip it
The success of what I did is up to you to decide and I'm no better than you

Here you go Melomane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194

rejecting anything that mentions weed offhand even if fits the other dubious requirements here is just ridiculous. listen to something else

rolling down the street
without indo
smoking weed makes me puke

Complaining about rappers rapping about rapping is like complaining about rockers singing about rocking.

As far as dealing with a negative self-image goes, Root Manuva's track "Crying" is a much better example of what I’m looking for, inasmuch as that track's lyrics are abstracted from the musical genre in which they are performed.

― Melomane, Saturday, May 30, 2020 7:36 PM (yesterday)

I'd never heard this song before. Now that I have, I'm pretty confused about what you're looking for, or rather what you're finding wanting in the rap you have heard. How are these lyrics "abstracted from" rap? They're like a quarter-step from "don't push me, 'cause I'm close to the edge."

I was going to suggest Shabazz Palaces, but I'm sure that fails the remorseless precision of the keyword test too. Maybe you should just listen to beat tapes

For Those About to Rap…

I was going to mention Shabazz Palaces as well, but Black Up is just such an off-putting title, you know?

maybe OP just wants emo-rap, with a side-order of kosmische

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVhIA-YH-7w

^^^full disclosure: my third-favourite song of the 00's, as proven by ILM poll science

wanting to consume an idea of a genre that is very specifically deracinated from its cultural birthplace but imagining that it is in some inexplicable way "part of" that genre is, at best reading, a fool's errand, and on most readings more than a little o_O

This times a hundred. Spit it, NV!

chill lofi beats to study to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEHc4u-1QIk

Counter-trolling aside, we've given you a lot of straight answers, Melomane, so it is only meet and right that you should personally respond to each one of them.

is this Raccoon Tanuki's emo cousin

My question in the OP was completely sincere and I am on the outlook for new music, so rest assured that I am following up on every recommendation even to me here (except the obviously facetious ones like Jay-Z and Wu-Tang Clan). I don't think it necessary to mention every case where a given recommendation does not match what I'm looking for. As we can see from this thread, people are likely to take that lack of interest on my part as a value judgement, and be offended that certain art which connects with them does not connect with me.

Noodle Vague, seeking out music that is in some way culturally deracinated from its origins would not, as I have said, be controversial in many other genres. People ask for prog rock and Nordic jazz recommendations all the time. If my question about hip-hop offends so many here, that must be due to contemporary social concerns and the way people tie hip-hop as a genre to them.

For anyone who grew up under socialism (pomenitul would probably understand if he came of age aesthetically before 1989), the position taken by others here is disquieting. I thought that we were finally finished with the insistence that art must deal with the problems of struggling people, and if you seek art that is abstract, then that must mean that you are prejudiced against workers etc. and cruelly ignore their problems. But there will always be people whose tastes in art run to abstraction, and that does not mean approval of oppression.

yes, it is in fact you who are being oppressed, a disquieting scene here for sure

"i want to listen to rap that isn't rap"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsqXHg9vmjs

pomenitul would probably understand if he came of age aesthetically before 1989

I actually agree with you for the most part and my own aesthetic preferences tend towards l'art pour l'art (I think I've made that fairly obvious over the years), in no small part because I am well aware of the ravages of so-called 'socialist realism'. But 'tends' implies some amount of tension, so to speak, which I think raises a set of difficult questions that deserve our attention, starting with one you've yet to answer: what does it mean to paint a value judgement about art as a merely 'subjective' preference? I don't believe works of art exist to 'deal with the problems of struggling people' at all, but I do question why you would leave the type of art that does to others because it doesn't suit your 'tastes'? Is aesthetic taste an unquestionable datum, something that ought to remain unexamined, ohne Warum or 'just because'?

Not sure what the problem is with braggadocio anyway tbh. Anyway, lyrics? In one ear and out the other.

It's uncivilized.

I want to listen to heavy metal music that is only about parking meters

true abstraction is when you just pay no attention to the words

i don't think that goes far enough, i like to self-administer ECT until my brain stops falling into recognising the stale old tropes of tonal music, rhythm, and what i'm supposed to be doing

Tbf an aural Voynich manuscript of hip-hop would be pretty awesome.

plenty of genres and subgenres started out of not hearing the things you want in music that's around.

Thought of OP when I read an instrument review today....

I learned a LOT being a first time music maker/instrument user/midi etc I have NEVER done anything with music up until this year. Turned 30 and said "I'm TIRED of listening to these trash A** BEATS!!!" so I bought a Komplete Kontrol M32 Keyboard, a DeepMind 6 and an MPC Touch. Haven't used the DM6 yet but OMG I am already a legend in my mind with this MPC and the KK M32.

Complaining about rappers rapping about rapping is like complaining about rockers singing about rocking.

Not only does the latter seem valid to me but rockers themselves have done this much less since the 80s. I think it would seem weird if Thom Yorke or Win Butler sang something like "Rock You Like a Hurricane".

Also rappers rapping about rapping sounds p “l’art pour l’art” to me and not some sinister mandated social realism

Karma police
arrest this man
he cannot rock like us

plenty of genres and subgenres started out of not hearing the things you want in music that's around.

Not quite the same thing, but I'm reminded of this Walter Benjamin quip:

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

Also rappers rapping about rapping sounds p “l’art pour l’art” to me and not some sinister mandated social realism

Insofar as autotelism is widely regarded as one of the pillars of art for art's sake, mos def.

xxxp Rapping about rap really got overdone as a reaction to more social realist rap

I'm a creep
I'm a virtuoso
I rock you from ear to ear
But I don't belong here

god i wish Radiohead just did Scorpions covers

Thought I was in the what's the most melodramatic pop song?' thread for a second.

The Bends is mostly Scorpions covers iirc

I can feel death, can see its beady eyes

Bona fide bragging.

This thread is like going into the spam cafe and asking for something that doesn’t have spam in it

Tbf to OP hip-hop's signature sound was built on decontextualization and recontextualization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE2xRCG2ih0

there's been plenty offered up that fits the bill, op hasn't even dismissed all of it yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PsnxDQvQpw

can i get some dance music that isn't danceable?

oh yeah i can, i see there are hundreds of ILM threads about exactly that

strange that asking for rap that doesn't rap is somehow more controversial than asking for dance that doesn't dance or rock that doesn't rock

rockers rocking about rocking (post 50s) is the most insufferable "mode" of rock, it's always bad, critically rehabilitated hard rock included

rappers rapping about rapping probably includes a lot of the best and worst rap though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytxv6XPa3E

I will admit there are times I want to listen to, say, Slayer, or Sabbath, but I don't feel like hearing the stupid (proto or no) metal-trope lyrics. There are other times I do.

The suggestion that I listen to hip-hop in a language I don’t understand does seem like an honest attempt to answer my request in the OP, so thanks. But the problem here is that one of my biggest hobbies is language-learning, so I probably would not be oblivious to the lyrics for long.

troll

fuck this troll, especially today

― here 1st (roxymuzak), Sunday, May 31, 2020 7:58 AM (four hours ago)

otm, fuck off

i could try to listen to something in a language i don't know, but i'm such a genius that i would inevitably learn the language and my listening pleasure would decrease significantly

fuuuuuck yoooooouuuuu

google "news in the USA this year" and just fuck off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuTQ0JO0Ri4

Sund4r and Lurks get it. I find it just as tiresome when rockers sing about wanting to rock. I also don't like poets who write poems that constantly mention The Poem or poetry. I would prefer that the medium (whether a rock song, a poem, or a hip-hop track) be used to communicate something that is separate from the medium.

google "news in the USA this year" and just fuck off

― Karl Malone, Sunday, May 31, 2020 6:11 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

why would a non american wanna do this?

google "opinions from the USA" and you'll know

in order to obtain 1/100000000000th of a clue

I am well aware of American news at the moment, thanks. But why should it be relevant to the music I want to listen to for entertainment? How many Americans follow news in other countries and form their aesthetic preferences based on that?

do you regularly google say "news in nigeria this year" news in "costa rica this year"?
xp

this is america, we catch up with our multicultural friends' reports of happenings in their home lands over brunch

great thread

fucking ignorant assholes

The wife's suggestion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKOU_Z6Y8yQ

Anyway, the perfect answer was released in 1995:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryDOy3AosBw

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

do you regularly google say "news in nigeria this year" news in "costa rica this year"?
xp

― oscar bravo, Sunday, May 31, 2020 1:17 PM bookmarkflaglink

I regularly read up on the happenings in Hungary and Brazil, actually.

I only like art that is totally free of the strictures of form, devoid of any referent in the so called real world and unconnected to the history of popular music leading up to it. You know, shoegaze

can i get some dance music that isn't danceable?

oh yeah i can, i see there are hundreds of ILM threads about exactly that

strange that asking for rap that doesn't rap is somehow more controversial than asking for dance that doesn't dance or rock that doesn't rock

this seems otm tbh

he got lots of good answers within two posts!

Is this the new rockism vs poptimism?

should have spent their time listening to billy woods rather than posting itt

can you all stop fucking posting to this thread

If he said rap without rhythm then we would have unmasked Geir by now

Some light reading: Hip Hop taken to new levels.

https://media.giphy.com/media/uRxRLxPbtKf28/giphy.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x34icYC8zA0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3lnUx0xO0

it's more like starting a thread asking for IDM and dismissing any conceivable suggestion as too danceable

https://media.giphy.com/media/bGvKubXdkErks/giphy.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccf1-UgdbbM

great time to start a thread asking for music that erases the contributions of the people who invented it, at the very same moment that an entire country is tearing itself apart trying to defend the very same people from being erased by white supremacists

i think less of anyone on this thread who engaged with this asshole in a serious manner

can i get some dance music that isn't danceable?

drexciya

j/k drexciya are funky as hell but notice how i could answer this question without removing any aspect of the black american voice from the genre of dance music

(you can't really do that effectively with melomane's question)

A+ trolling by Melanin, I mean Melomane.

Karl, I love you but context does shift as it crosses borders, misappropriation and misunderstanding are the norm.

I don’t think it’s possible to thoroughly grasp ‘race’ the way an American does if you’re not American itself.

*yourself, goddamnit.

Context!!

yes brad but you didn't really answer correctly because as you note drexciya are actually danceable

whether drexciya is dj-mixable is another issue entirely ...

how about most undanceable dance music is danceable

☺️

idk the issue isn't really dance music

i'm pretty sure melomane is trolling so this conversation will probably go nowhere good but ...

i'm surprised someone asking for music without references to sex drugs violence misbehavior and misogyny is equated to anti-blackness

surely we have better definitions for blackness in 2020
than "acting like a rapper"

if he asked for gospel without references to god would
ppl freak out about anti-blackness? gospel is more popular with black audiences than rap is iirc and yet i sense ppl would answer that qn w/o getting upset

I thought he asked for rap where the rapper doesn’t talk about themselves or how the streets are dangerous or something.. I guess I should read the op again (not!)

i'm surprised someone asking for music without references to sex drugs violence misbehavior and misogyny is equated to anti-blackness

surely we have better definitions for blackness in 2020
than "acting like a rapper"

― the late great, Sunday, 31 May 2020 17:44 (ten seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

wanting rap without hedonism or bragging is probably fine (if questionable), but melomane specified further that they didn't want references to rapping itself, or any sort of struggle - is it so easy to approach rap without any reference to its use as a rallying-point for social justice issues?

if this thread had just been called 'recommend abstract hip-hop' it would just have gone so much better, is all

Again, the accusations that I am trolling are inappropriate. I have participated on this board completely authentically for some time now. Instead of attacking me and calling me a troll, can't anyone be happy that I am trying to find hip-hop that connects with me, instead of writing the genre off entirely as so many people (even on this board) have done?

idk but a fair qn and as ppl note melomane's timing and name are awful suspicious ... so ... brimstead otm
i think

Well, you’ve certainly hit a nerve.

xps

xp to imago

is it so easy to approach rap without any reference to its use as a rallying-point for social justice issues?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-kAnNgqN9o

What’s suspicious about the name?

Mélomane, how do you know you like hip hop ? You like the instrumentals ?

melomane? it sounds like melanin

mellotron mane = melomane's abstract hip-hop artist name

Lol mélomane in French just means music lover, it’s a super common term.

Melomane ... Melania ...

ah thanks

As in melo-mania.

xp to pomenitul

Yes, what is suspicious about the name? Melomane is a French word meaning "a person obsessed with music", which struck me as appropriate for a username on a music forum when I registered a couple of years ago. I also assumed that "melomane" was a relatively international word now – I see that it is even in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the standard reference for American English.

Melomane, there's a whole thread of stuff perfect for you:

frat rap

That just proved you're all Americans :P

mellow out mang

Should have gone for something innocuous, like Mallomars.

come on i speak 3.5 language just not french

"Baby melo my mane
Make me feel like a schoolboy on good tame ... "

Nabozo, I like the beats, sure. But I also like the delivery, the musicality that is inherent in language. Purely sonically, independently of any semantic content, some hip-hop that I have heard is thrilling. It is just the lyrics themselves that don't connect with me, the particular concerns which hip-hop artists usually have. I feel like someone could take up this music genre in terms of reciting intricate words over a beat with explorations in timbre and sampling, but instead use lyrics that are more similar to the poetry which I appreciate in other musical genres like Scott Walker or 20th-century modernist lieder.

Melomania is good record shop for classical stuff if you're ever in Paris .. oh maybe not.

any buff knows the real key to hip-hop albums is running time

again: police brutality and white supremacy are not specific to the US

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/solidarity-protests-over-george-floyd-death-take-place-cities-around-n1220286

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-london-36752461/black-lives-matter-protest-marches-through-london

https://variety.com/2020/politics/global/george-floyd-protests-berlin-toronto-london-black-lives-matter-1234621350/

Few would dispute that, roxymuzak. But why is anyone obliged to listen to music dealing with the problems that society faces?

Nabozo, I like the beats, sure. But I also like the delivery, the musicality that is inherent in language. Purely sonically, independently of any semantic content, some hip-hop that I have heard is thrilling. It is just the lyrics themselves that don't connect with me, the particular concerns which hip-hop artists usually have. I feel like someone could take up this music genre in terms of reciting intricate words over a beat with explorations in timbre and sampling, but instead use lyrics that are more similar to the poetry which I appreciate in other musical genres like Scott Walker or 20th-century modernist lieder.

― Melomane, Sunday, May 31, 2020 8:02 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

As a non-native speaker, that is pretty much how I listen to hip hop and other genres, largely ignoring the lyrical content. I am sure that plenty of fans never open Genius to study the lyrics and only react to the lines that appeal to them. So I wonder why you absolutely cannot do that. As others have pointed out, selectively picking up what you think is "wrong" or "uninteresting" in the way hip hop conveys its stories / message is suspect (whether it's on political or ideological grounds does not matter). Rap reimagined with the aesthetic of a 20th century lieder is insulting and has colonial-racist undertones.

no one cares what shit music you listen to, but you should learn to read a room

and you should also expect culture to deal with culture

I feel like someone could take up this music genre in terms of reciting intricate words over a beat with explorations in timbre and sampling, but instead use lyrics that are more similar to the poetry which I ...

there are a trillion songs on SoundCloud like this that have 10 plays each

Rodney Dangerfield - "Rappin' Rodney"

*delivered over a set of 'ignorant beats', as per Chris Rock's dictum*

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.

If one understands a language, one cannot *not* pay attention to what is being said. And considering that hip-hop is reduced in terms of musical parameters compared to other genres, for the lyrics to be lacking means that the work overall is lacking. Perhaps, Nabozo, you are different, but my tastes and approach to listening are what they are and I'm still searching for something to satisfying those tastes.

Some of the best late 20th-century modernist classical music can be said to deal with matters of injustice (colonialism, the Holocaust) – I have an especial fondness for settings of Paul Celan, for example. So, one cannot claim that wanting to hear the same poetry in hip-hop form would mean approving colonialism or racism. But I personally prefer poetry that deals with historical injustices only obliquely, because it is the lack of any specific referents that allow the lyrics to exist at a level that is truly abstract and eternal.

If other people on this thread like different stuff, if they want hip-hop grounded in contemporary social concerns, then I'm happy that they have plenty of hip-hop that speaks to them. But why attack someone who wants something different?

eternal

Hmmm…

Has anyone linked “Rapture” yet?

Maybe I'm an asshole for this response, but

Hiphop was born in 1970s Bronx, New York City. One of the most textbook examples of urban decay, governmental neglect, and economic inequality in modern history. To expect it betray its origins is selfish on the part of the listener.

Maybe the question isn't if there's hiphop "without braggadocio (or those other tropes)", but if you actually like hiphop at all. And it's okay if you don't.

Is there a hiphop equivalent of a Scott Walker album? No. And thank fuck for that.

(To be clear: Scott Walker is fine. But come on.)

I only listen to delta blues by 1920s echt-modernist white dudes.

not reading any above comments but ...

you might like pink siifu

You joke, pomenitul, but plenty of people’s only exposure to the blues comes from later rock 'n' roll musicians, some of them not even American. I would imagine that many listeners might even react negatively to recordings of the original bluesmen (which do different significantly in terms of microtonal inflections or vocal technique), and say that they would prefer to find more music that sounds like those rock 'n' roll musicians instead.

Right, you've been given plenty of recommendations, let's move on.

Austin, hip-hop is now performed around the world by people who might really know nothing about 1970s New York City (or even contemporary African-African struggles, outside of some stereotypes that might even be shockingly racist). So, if those performers are no longer rooted in the same cultural context, then why must their lyrics convey the same concerns? Unless, of course, they are merely repeating received tropes.

"write a rap about onions"

https://youtu.be/oqrtoFWglMY

xp to Austin, as someone who made a sincere suggestion of B L A C K I E upthread I think “hip-hop like Scott Walker” is not only possible but imo already extant, and as a big Walker fan I’m enthusiastic about this fact + can maybe see a good reason for OP to have made this thread, but more to the point I don’t think either Climate of Hunter or IMAGINE YOUR SELF IN A FREE AND NATURAL WORLD are devoid of sociopolitical context regardless of their lyrical abstraction; “Rawhide” and “Forest of Ex-Lovers” are both songs I’ve come back to in the past few years for exactly this reason. So if what Melomane is looking for, fundamentally, is art that resists any and all attempts to ferret out a worldly human perspective in its origins then no, I don’t think I can help, I don’t think any of us can help, and I think way more than hip-hop is going to be disqualified from this search. Like, idk, try Bernard Parmegiani or something.

Thank you for your honest engagement with my question, Champiness. I am going through all recommendations in this thread and I will check out B L A C K I E too, and I hope that our shared fondness for Scott Walker means that this artist might connect with me as well.

lock thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiW7NbkhbJ0

Glad I got in under the wire here lol

Melomane Ace

If one understands a language, one cannot *not* pay attention to what is being said.

FALSE. I ignore lyrics all day every day.

I think this, though,

Hiphop was born in 1970s Bronx, New York City. One of the most textbook examples of urban decay, governmental neglect, and economic inequality in modern history. To expect it betray its origins is selfish on the part of the listener.

is an extremely reductive and lame way of thinking about art. Hip-hop is an art form. As such it is not required to be any one thing, or to honor any one thing as "its origins." Especially not after 40+ years. I think the question in the OP is phrased/conceived in a kind of dumb way, but the question itself is not invalid. I suspect there are plenty of black artists who reject ideas about what they're "supposed" to make art about — that's how you get a play like The Colored Museum, or a movie like Bamboozled — and to expect hip-hop artists not to have the same impulses is pretty reductive. The answer to the broader question of "What is fitting subject matter for a hip-hop song?" is "Anything in the universe."

To put it another way, Anthony Braxton grew up in 1940s and 1950s Chicago — an environment of extreme racial oppression. He still turned out to be Anthony Braxton. Why can't present-day Chicago produce an Anthony Braxton who does for hip-hop what the previous AB did for jazz?

imago already posted my favorite Dalek song, so I guess I'll just endorse it as well!

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

it does reference high scores and bonus balls and such but I think it's more just a description of the experience of being in the arcade rather than the emcee claiming to be exceptional at games/pinball

So I'm a bit late to click but is the thread basically "I want Robert Pollard lyrics as applied to hip hop"?

LL Cool J's "I'm Not Very Good at Galaga" also recc'ed

plenty of people’s only exposure to the blues comes from later rock 'n' roll musicians, some of them not even American. I would imagine that many listeners might even react negatively to recordings of the original bluesmen (which do different significantly in terms of microtonal inflections or vocal technique), and say that they would prefer to find more music that sounds like those rock 'n' roll musicians instead

Oh, you mean like Joe Bonamassa? Because everybody knows how perfectly he represents blues music.

I just wanted to reply again before this gets locked.

Or as the kids used to say, FREE POST

The answer to the broader question of "What is fitting subject matter for a hip-hop song?" is "Anything in the universe."

Anyone who disagrees with this is wrong, but once again, the problem as far as I'm concerned isn't so much Melomane's thought experiment, which deserves our time and attention, as their shaky grounds for dismissing the genre in its current form. Why can't we have it both ways? Why does it have to boil down to some dumb binary opposition?

what about like "hamilton"?

that's us history told through rap, does that make the cut?

Oh, I'm sure he'll find some convoluted way to discount that too, don't worry.

beyond disrespectful to create a thread like this now of all times ffs

Think it should have been clear that this thread isn't in good faith from the point the op said he'd read the lyrics of To Pimp A Butterfly on Genius but hadn't actually listened to the music.

Yeah you're all too nice, but well done for not rising to the bait.

LL Cool J's "I'm Not Very Good at Galaga" also recc'ed

― I am a free. I am not man. A number. (Neanderthal), Sunday, May 31, 2020 4:53 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thread not a total loss

the anthony braxton of hip hop would presumably be someone who doesn’t call their work hip hop and isn’t regarded as such by purists either

If LL Cool J had a song called "I'm Not Very Good at Galaga," the verses would be lists of literally everything else he was good at.

like Galaxian. a true purist

Pomenitul, there is absolutely no reason why you or anyone else here can't "have both", if that is what you want. My question in the OP is meant merely to help me find more music matching my own tastes. If other people enjoy hip-hop with the typical themes, then good for them.

I listen to a lot of 12-tone serialism, a musical approach which many members of classical-music fora think should simply not exist. That it has its own community of fans is something which they either cannot manage to understand, or they simply don't care. Consequently, I myself have always tried to be tolerant of other musical genres. Even if I personally don't get a genre (and there are a number of genres, not just trope-based hip-hop), I am happy that it exists in the marketplace so that other listeners can find music they like. No one here should take my question as disparagement of the hip-hop I have encountered so far, only as a sign that I personally want to listen to something else.

I listen to a lot of 12-tone serialism

The Scott Walker fandom was bad enough, but this is where you and I part ways once and for all. Good luck in your quest. (I don't think 12-tone music shouldn't exist — if I could snap my fingers, I'd get rid of modern country first — but man, it suuuuucks.)

:(

Starting a petition to make "trope-based" classified as a slur.

As intriguing as I find hip-hop in terms of the beats or the wordsmithing, I find the braggadocio tiresome: for a performer to rap about how he is a great rapper just seems so lame. I also have no interest in mentions of weed or how life on the streets is tough. Thus, while I like some tracks by e.g. Roots Manuva, those tracks can seem like exceptions among the other material on those same albums.

Is there hip-hop completely without the aforementioned tropes? Has any hip-hop artist gone for abstract lyrics that are divorced from the performer’s public persona and his immediate environment? (Is there a hip-hop equivalent of Scott Walker’s Climate of Hunter album, for example?) Or is my wish as unreasonable as someone searching for oldies rock that isn't about dancing or sweethearts, or country music that isn't about pain and drink?

So, what recommendations might ILM have for me? Hip-hop is a global phenomenon now, so recommendations in languages other than English are welcome, too.

― Melomane, Saturday, May 30, 2020 5:57 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this reads like a post that was written in 2001 but when they clicked Submit Post their computer froze and that person just unearthed that old computer in their attic and it sent

FPing everyone who responded earnestly to this thread btw

what is FPing btw?

FP'd for asking

("flag post" — and yes, i was joking about FP'ing you)

i wasn't joking

one of the most depressing ilx threads i've ever seen

ohh ok. Was sincere fwiw. If there's documentation on this board I haven't found it. Cheers

Yeah this strangely reminded me of teenage genre wars on 1.0 Internet.
Lol I googled "FP" and urban dictionary said "favorite person" and I was like cool :P

Melomane - and I say this as life advice, not just because I don't understand your worldview - just for the moment, as a mark of decency, shut the fuck up for a minute. Your "but I have a right to express my preference" stance is reading like some "all lives matter" bullshit in this climate, to the readers of this board. Doesn't matter whether you think it's fair, that's what is happening.

I think going to hiphop shows in Japan is the only thing that gave me the ability to think op might be sincere. That scene is such a strange translation/evolution it is easy to hate, you just have to take it on its own merits.

I think OP just lives in a complete bubble, like an armchair anthropologist wondering how he can make the world fit his worldview, dreams and ideals.

if he is real, I think so too. I just kind of checked out of that aspect and took it as a thought experiment. sympathetic to people finding that disgusting rn

It's a bit the infantile conscious VS gangsta debate as well.

I like rappin' without all this braggadocio
Platinum on my wrist and spitroastin' hoes

idk why OP wouldn't just listen to beats (tens of thousands of which are on soundcloud w 10 listens each, as was pointed out upthred) if OP is so concerned w lyrics

Makes me want to write some oldies style rock songs with surrealist lyrics

This somewhat obscure and not very funny bit just popped into my head, although I do like the trail-off at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqhJIvNCjy8

But the problem here is that one of my biggest hobbies is language-learning, so I probably would not be oblivious to the lyrics for long. It is hard to invest in an artist if you know there is a big risk of disappointment at some point.

did everyone miss this giant "i'm a troll can't believe you're all still engaging me in earnest" sign

yeah can't believe nobody called him a troll itt before u

just trying to be a light in the darkness 🙏

I’m still siding with “problematically eccentric” over “troll”, personally, if only because I can’t imagine what kind of person would go out of their way to antagonize ILX in this specific manner in 2020

well, in the long run, best bet is a lifer

This would be overly convoluted and yet extremely restrained trolling I really don't understand why people go to that assumption so quickly around here. Earnest longwinded requests for recommendations of hip-hop that contains atypical lyrical themes OMG what a great idea for a trolling exercise... give me a break. I also vote "eccentric".

i hate tropes, unless they have been properly Deconstructed in which case they're good now

support the tropes u commie!!

Tropes covered within Hip Hop & the industry itself:
Abusive Parents
Anvilicious/Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped
Angry Black Man
Banned in China: After gaining widespread popularity thanks to the success of the Chinese rap reality show, The Rap of China in 2017, the Chinese government started clamping down on hip hop the following year.
Big Apple Sauce
Black Sheep Hit
Boastful Rap
Broken Base: And how! Read the entry for details.
Controversy-Proof Image: Exceptions being Ice-T's cop killer controversy, which for all intents and purposes ruined his mainstream career as a rappernote and Nelly, due to the tip drill controversy. Possibly Public Enemy as well thanks to Professor Grif's comments about Jews.
Cool Car: Exotic cars , low-riders and modded car culture in general has always been a huge part of hip-hop culture.
Distaff Counterpart: R&B music has become this to Hip Hop. It's very rare for a urban radio station to play Hip Hop and not also play R&B. And much like Rap is a male dominated genre, R&B is female dominated. Record labels often feature upcoming R&B acts on established Rap artist singles since the genres share overlapping target demographics.
Domestic Abuse: There's a lot of songs covering the issue.
Enemies Equals Greatness: A lot of rap songs are all over this trope, especially songs from the Glam Rap and Swag Rap sub-genres. Just about every rapper loves to talk about their "haters" in their lyrics.
Executive Meddling: Especially after it became profitable.
Fandom Rivalry: Whoo boy!...
Follow the Leader: Oh yes, also a huge cause of Hip-Hop beef and Fandom Rivalry
For the Evulz: The lyrics to Horrorcore Rap, and some forms of hardcore hip-hop and gangsta rap.
Freestyle Version: Extremely frequent in the culture.
Genre Turning Point: Circa 1988, where hip hop broke into the mainstream, and the beginning of the Golden Age.
Gun Porn: A feature of the Gangsta Rap subgenre - discussing guns, and on rare occasions showing them off in music videos.
Hotter and Sexier: Specifically the music videos around the turn of the century. Which ironically makes the old 2 Live Crew videos tame by today's standards..
Intercourse with You: This is dirty rap's very fundament, although songs about sex from artist who don't fall into that determinate subgenre are not unheard of.
It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Many fans of the genre (especially ones who are music enthusiasts) often cry foul when one of their favorite rappers becomes "too popular", and tend to ignore what tops the charts deliberately.
Lighter and Softer: Current form of hip-hop is accused of this. Not just for specific artists but the genre as a whole, according to some.
Magazine Decay: Some feel this way about hip-hop magazines, And not just The Source either.
Mean Character, Nice Actor: Most rappers and hip-hop artists are genuinely nice person in real life, despite many of them having incredibly mean, hateful, rude, arrogant and/or narcissistic lyrics to their songs.
Motor Mouth: Fairly common in the genre as a whole, especially among Midwestern artists (Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Twista were the first major mainstream proponents of the "chopper" style, which emphasizes extremely fast and precise deliveries with no pauses and sharply enunciated words that tend to blur together). Eminem and Tech N9ne are the most famous purveyors of the style.
Murder Ballad
Murder Simulators: Rap music has been a popular scapegoat for almost 20 years. The media frenzy died down around the mid 90's, then in '99, Eminem made his debut and the controversy went right back into full swing. People often blame it (and video games) for teens' insensitivity to violence and for promoting stereotypes about women.
Music Is Politics: Discussed and invoked.
N-Word Privileges: Many black rappers use the word "nigga" constantly, White and Asian rappers do not. Hispanic rappers, oddly enough, do use the word however.
Though some white rappers either challenged this concept, or were caught using it in the past much to their embarrassment. White rapper Lil Wyte has used it numerous times in his songs and White/Asian rapper V-Nasty mistakenly thought she had these privileges in her earlier songs and faced a huge backlash over it, much to her embarrassment (though she still continues to use it to this day). While Iggy Azalea hasn't used the word herself in any of her songs, she's used the word in public saying that "it's OK because black people do it". In general though, most non-black (or hispanic) rappers won't touch this word with a ten-foot pole.
Pop-Culture Isolation: The genre at its core is mostly known by urban audiences
Protest Song: The genre produced a wide variety of these during the 90's. The biggest one arguably is " Fight The Power" by Public Enemy.
Public Medium Ignorance: Sometimes almost to a racist degree.
Rape as Drama: There have been rap songs talking about rape.
Sassy Black Woman: Some female emcees, and songs discussing said sassy women.
Screwed by the Network: See Deader Than Disco above.
Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Rappers some time talks about bypassing rules due to having lots of money.
Shaking the Rump: Commonly done by women in a lot of rap videos, most especially if the song is about that particular body part.
Singer Namedrop: Almost every rap song has one.
Soapbox Sadie: Conscious hip-hop, and political rap.
Token Minority: Female and/or non-black rappers, at least in North America. In countries where Africans are non-existent or a tiny minority, the majority of rappers will be whatever is most prevalent.
Interestingly enough for most of The '90s female emcees was quite common. So much so that arguably they wouldn't count as a Token Minority. But after the turn of the millennium all that changed. This has been brought up in a lot of Hip Hop mags and blogs.
Female rap does seem to be entering something of a renaissance as of the early 2010s, though.
In Australia, talents like Diafrix, 1/6 and N'fa (who worked with Heath Ledger, believe it or not) head the very small number of African-Australian emcees. Indigenous hip-hop is another significant minority subculture.
Villain Protagonist: The viewpoint adopted in several songs.
Voice of the Resistance: Some see the genre as this, or is capable of being this.
A Wild Rapper Appears!: Crossovers with other genres have been around from the start, but have been growing in popularity since the 2000's.
Wolverine Publicity: Rappers tend to promote themselves by guest-starring in other artists' songs.

I really don't understand why people go to that assumption so quickly around here.

To guard against being duped. There's little downside. It can almost never truly be proven that someone isn't trolling. But if it is, one can just go "well it sure seemed like trolling so I was right to be suspicious". Same type of thinking that's at play with conspiracy theories.

look either he's a troll or the type of person to say

But the problem here is that one of my biggest hobbies is language-learning, so I probably would not be oblivious to the lyrics for long. It is hard to invest in an artist if you know there is a big risk of disappointment at some point.

tbf I didn't actually think the thread was a troll, just that the level of failure to read the room was so breathtaking that trolling seemed the kinder explanation

It puzzles me how ✖ and the other poster above find it weird that I would want to learn the language of world music I listen to. The global popularity of Irish traditional music in the 1990s led to significantly higher sales of Irish textbooks and more people in summer courses, because some people wanted to understand the songs they were hearing. I hear the same happened to some degree with Bulgarian after 4AD and Nonesuch released the Le Mystère des voix bulgares recordings and Bulgarian dance was taught across Europe and North America. No, I don’t think that I am any kind of "genius" by doing this, I'm just one of those people who enjoys the process of learning a language.

well if you're too modest to say it i will, you sir, are bordering on genius level in your appreciation of the arts, i doff my hat to you, sir, you are not just one of those people, you are one of the best people, a true friend of the arts

I get that my responses seem "longwinded" to some others here. For my part, I am disappointed that most posts on ILM consist of only a single line, when on some other music fora people write paragraph-long posts at least. Strangely, this has apparently always been the culture on this board, and isn't just a recent development due to so many people writing on their phones now instead of a proper keyboard.

So, with the overwhelming sentiment that I am unwelcome here for whatever reason, I guess I should move on and limit myself to those other fora. Thanks nevertheless to those who gave honest recommendations to my question – some of them do seem promising. Thanks also to those people who sent me private messages to apologize for the behavior of other posters in this thread. Sorry that I can't individually respond to thank you – there is no Reply button in the emails that ilxor.com sends out, and it is not clear to me how I can go look up a person’s profile based on their user name and send a PM to them there.

farewell forever and adieu, newcomer never to return! you will be fondly missed for the duration of your absence, long as it is sure to be not only in the annals of board events but all the more so in our hearts

[mic drop]

the lurkers support me in PMs!

(as a lurker, I do not support Melomane in PMs.)

don't let the door hit you.

or do. may knock some sense into you.

although your skull does appear to be especially dense, so it probably won't make any difference. and violence is never the answer.

so ya, anyway: kindly fuck off.

Melomane, I've sort of been wanting to defend you because I don't think there was anything wrong with your original request and people here can be harsh about certain viewpoints, so please take this as well-intentioned. I don't think you need to leave the board but my impression is that what is frustrating people might that you seem more concerned on this thread with repeatedly defending your right to ask the question than with engaging with the content of the abundant recommendations or reflecting on what your criteria actually are and where they come from - since they don't seem as simple as just "hip-hop without braggadocio"; my spouse listens to even less hip-hop than I do and we were able to easily brainstorm multiple examples of hip-hop songs that are not about braggadocio, weed, or life on the streets, many of which are on the thread. I don't think it shows very close listening at all to write off the entirety of To Pimp a Butterfly (which wasn't the album that won the Pulitzer btw, although maybe it should have been) as just being about these topics, for example. I don't even think "Walk This Way" is about those things, or De La Soul's "Eye Know", or Eminem's "Stan" - there are lots of well-known examples throughout the history of hip-hop. I don't think people here, many of whom are professional writers, would have any problem with paragraph-length posts if they showed more critical engagement with the material or self-reflection regarding your reactions to it.

Anyway, at least I know that Albiach poem now.

Sorry Sund4r, you can't possibly read this...

The global popularity of Irish traditional music in the 1990s led to significantly higher sales of Irish textbooks and more people in summer courses, because some people wanted to understand the songs they were hearing.

... and think this person is serious?

Notwithtstanding the fact that traditional Irish music sung in Irish was not globally popular in the 1990s.

Come on man, Fairytale of New York was massive

Ha, I wasn't into that stuff in the 90s so I wasn't going to judge that. Did Enya and Clannad sing in Gaelic on their popular albums?xp

Michael Flatley danced in Irish in the 1990s.

I learn the language because I need to understand the song vs I like slowdive because I can't hear what they are singing ? bobbins.

the impact is the exact same whether they're serious or not

Flatley would conduct his Riverdancing in a very showy vulgar manner that the threadstarter would not approve of at all.

bobbins. in the asda

xp the term is bragh-a-do-si-do

xp to Sund4r: people offered up some examples of hip-hop lacking in braggadocio very early on but they rejected them all because they wanted artists who had never used any 'tropes' in their entire career which is a blatantly absurd request

more recently, they typed "I hear the same happened to some degree with Bulgarian after 4AD and Nonesuch released the Le Mystère des voix bulgares recordings and Bulgarian dance was taught across Europe and North America," and mused on how if only ILM posts were fuller discursive paragraphs rather than short zingers; not sure how much more obvious they could make it that they're trying to wind up longtime posters. terrible thread.

Sorry I got distracted by the quote about people all over the world learning Irish but, you're right, that's even more blatantly a wind up.

Yeah, even Kate Bush probably didn't learn Bulgarian.

I was thinking more of the dance part.

Какво по дяволите каза за мен, ти малка кучко? Трябва да знаеш, че съм завършил като най-добрия във випуска ми сред морските тюлени, участвал съм в множество тайни нападения на Ал-Кайда и имам над 300 потвърдени убийства. Обучен съм в горилско военно дело и съм най-добрият снайперист във въоръжените сили на САЩ. За мен не си нищо повече от просто поредната цел . Ще те очистя с точност, каквато никога преди не е била виждана на повърхността на планетата, не забравяй шибаните ми думи. Мислиш, че ще ти се размине с това да ме псуваш през интернет? Помисли отново, шибаняко. Докато говорим се свързвам с тайната ми мрежа от шпиони на територията на САЩ и IP адресът ти се проследява в същия момент, така че по-добре се подготви за бурята, скапаняк. Бурята, която ще унищожи жалкото нещо, което наричаш свой живот. Мъртъв си, хлапе. Мога да бъде навсякъде по всяко време, мога да те убия по над седемстотин различни начина и то само с голите ми ръце. Не само че съм широко обучен в невъоръжена борба, но имам достъп до целия арсенал на морската пехота на САЩ и ще го използвам в пълна степен да изтрия нещастния ти задник от лицето на континента, малко лайнарче такова. Ако можеше да знаеш какво безбожно възмездие малкият ти "остроумен" коментар ще ти донесе, може би щеше да държиш шибания си език зад зъбите. Но не го задържа, проговори, и сега ще си плащаш цената, проклет идиот. Ще изсера целия си бяс върху теб и ще се удавиш в него. Мъртъв си, хлапак.

Haha

:D

Meolmane, choose wisely. After listening to a Hendricks, Lambert & Ross record I spent several years mastering this strange new language. But people only laugh when I use it in public.

My family have been communicating exclusively in Hopelandish since 2001.

A-choo-woo-woooooo

^^ in mind it's always been 'eh-tu-wie-ieeeeeuuuuueeeee' but yours works just as well :)

True sign of a universal language.

Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped

I think it's incredibly tacky (to be generous) to ask this question in this manner, especially at this time.

In fact, if I wasn't being generous I would say it's obvious racist trolling* and the number of posters who are all "wait a minute, there's a serious discussion here we should entertain" is sickening.

* remember, trolling doesn't need to be insincere; it just needs to evoke a reaction

the number of posters who are all "wait a minute, there's a serious discussion here we should entertain" is sickening

rt

DJP otm and also

I was so sure this was an ancient revive

― lukas, Saturday, May 30, 2020 5:37 PM (two days ago)

tbf most of us have been 'engaging' while also being extremely critical of the suspicious-at-best OP and basically asking them to rethink their ideas (which they haven't done)

There is a stark difference between "your thesis is flawed and this is why" and "well hey now, let's not jump down this person's throat; this request is completely understandable and we should be nice"

Sorry to disappoint, DJP. I do hope you're talking cultural differences into account, though – like I keep saying, not all of us are American or even from English-speaking countries, and that has a significant bearing on how we interpret OP's question, no matter how familiar we may be with US culture. I'm fairly certain that such a 'challenge' would have generated no controversy whatsoever on a French-language message board, for instance.

plenty of reasons why it was obvious from the start that this was a troll thread, but don't think "this alleged new poster clearly has detailed knowledge of the history of ilxor.com" has been mentioned yet.

Regardless, roxymuzak's point about 'reading a room' totally stands.

xp

xp Detailed, really? If I had such a ludicrous query on my mind and took an afternoon familiarizing myself with various general music forums, this is where I'd go. I mean that's kind of why I like this place.

I mean stuff like this

I personally haven't assumed that other posters here are American. After all, didn't ILM largely start as a community for fans of a Scottish twee-pop band?

― Melomane, Sunday, May 31, 2020 2:15 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

ha, missed that. Did this guy ever say where he is supposedly from?

Braggadocia

Melomane isn't a new poster, though. Just do a name search.

He joined in 2018 and even then posted that ILM formed from Belle and Sebastian fans

So there goes the "he didn't know better" defense

bad questions deserve bad answers so I'm gonna say TobyMac

HHahahaha

Luv is a verb!

i've been here occasionally since mid 00s but somehow only found out the b&s thing this year. so much makes sense now in retrospect

Same lol.

I personally haven't assumed that other posters here are American. After all, didn't ILM largely start as a community for fans of a Scottish twee-pop band?

― Melomane, Sunday, May 31, 2020 2:15 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The shame will always be with us :(

I just checked the wikipedia page to see if the B&S thing is mentioned; it's not but I did see this lmao: "The 200,000th thread occurred on February 1st, 2020 to very little fanfare and much disappointment"

ilx: very little fanfare, much disappointment

lol otm

Get me away from here, I'm drowning in braggadocio.

Braggadocio in the snow, where will you go
To find something you could troll?
Cause the word out on the street is you are FP'ing

Beautiful, brings a twear to my eye.

was ilx actually a belle and sebastian fan forum first? that would be awesome

no idea about this connection to B&S. Google brought me to a book about fan cultures.

https://imgur.com/a/MVojVy5.jpg

I Love Tigermilk

i try again
https://i.imgur.com/lfOWm5J.jpg

Melomane, music fan on the end pew
You'd hip hop, but the tropes just won't let you
Le FP de la Braggadocio

(quiet)

brutal

I prefer "sleepy"

ILM = Joe Biden?

When people on ilx get backed into a corner via backlash they weren't expecting they either lose their cool and end up digging a deeper hole or they try too hard to appear thoughtful and save face with overwritten clarifications and... end up digging a deeper hole.

well i guess we found a sinister user amirite?

It's funny because I was on S*n*st*r (not embarrassed by this fact, just mortified by the content of my posts on there / the person I was aged 19) and then only joined ILX around um 2014 I think? And yeah, there were a couple of people on there like that.

it's good that ILE branched out to loving more than just things from the mid-2000s

Gotta stay with the times.

I thought the first ILM posters came from a Usenet group, and the Sinister folks arrived a year or so later.

There was also Freaky Trigger, obviously, since Tom E. started ILM. But I'm sure about the relationship between FT and alt.music.alternative.

some say the first settlers arrived from Gopher

What's the history behind this board?

"I Love Music" created as a discussion board for online pop fanzine Freaky Trigger.
"I Love Everything" created when lots of personal/non-music content was coming up on "I Love Music".

"ilxor.com" created when the server hosting those two boards began to get erratic and we decided we needed our own one.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, February 14, 2003 3:12 AM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

It also goes back all the way to alt.music.alternative, too.
― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, February 14, 2003 6:10 AM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's pre-history of a certain group of you, no? Plenty of us have been here since the start of ILX and having read Freaky Trigger for a while, without ever having had anything to do with a.m.a

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, February 14, 2003 7:04 AM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, to be fair if we're including a.m.a. in the history we should include S!n!ster too
― Tom (Groke), Friday, February 14, 2003 7:09 AM (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah neat. And nary a mention of Belle nor Sebastian

That part of the borad's history has been hushed up by Big ILX.

it's mentioned in that final Tom E post...?

my bad, "S*n*st*r" mentioned. I thought Camaraderie above was doing some odd Google-proofing. I guess it had some stylized title.

yeah tbf I don't actually know anything about it! way before my time here

lol I've only just realized that Sinister was a B&S board. Shows how much I know about them.

the answer to op has been staring us in the face this entire time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ut7GhxcgSY

was poptimism a twee conspiracy

Wasn't there a whole B&S subboard at some point in the early years?

was poptimism a twee conspiracy

It's all coming together now.

was poptimism a twee conspiracy

the actual portmanteau is "conspiratwee"

hehe

the answer to op has been staring us in the face this entire time

Can't see the wood for the twees.

Ah, sit down and learn of the Before Times. In yonder days, when I first went 'whuh' at a newsgroup in 1993...

ha, I was on Usenet in 1989

gentlemen, braggadocio

On alt.rocknroll.metal.metallica you can see a 16 year old me preaching Christian faith to metalheads who really didn't want it while simultaneously saying "FUCK YOU" to people who didn't like Load

Did you manage to convert anyone to either of the two?

Yes, 1 person. I convinced myself both views were wrong

lol holy shit. There's a new "internet legacy" thread and we'd like to hear more

okay, now i'm glad this wasn't locked.

nice we could turn this into "where are we anyways?"

did anyone recommend 311

The only thing I remember from alt.music.alternative is "Bzangy Groink", though I don't recall what it signifies- Jyoti Mishra's Club night?

Anyhow, wasn't all this the subject of a Tanya Headon IHM column years and years ago?

Ah, yes. Here it is:
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/hate/2003/06/dj-format-the-hit-song/

Could DJ Format be just what OP is after? (I've never heard this track.)

ha, missed that. Did this guy ever say where he is supposedly from?

― maffew12, Monday, June 1, 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Braggadocia

― I am a free. I am not man. A number. (Neanderthal), Monday, June 1, 2020 bookmarkflaglink

lol

Pictured: OP, a month and a half later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3-5YC_oHjE

🎵 braggadocio and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day 🎵

Harsh on such a well-respected, allround, fully participating and definitely not just here to stoke this particularly lame fire borad member

Just got some organic braggadocio in this week's veg box. Please share preparation tips.

roast vigorously for 400 posts, serve