ask deej

he got grandfathered in from the big boi album

i wonder if deej stumps for rap that doesn't have a populist base already, seems to me that's part of the concern with ofwgkta, yela, gibbs and so on

thats not really the problem for me

deej used to hate on waka, ftr

i hated on waka when he was just 'o lets do it' -- i came around circa his turn on 'as real as it gets' off burrrprint, not exactly a late adopter here

he was in the oj camp

what are some examples of u stumping for rap that has no populist base? roc marciano maybe?

marciano is a good example. celph title, although i dont love that album i love buckwild's production on it

davinci

davinci had local buzz i thought

honestly have no concept of how 'populist' roach gigz is or isnt

davinci had local buzz i thought

― zvookster, Friday, December 17, 2010 11:29 AM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dunno. he knows san quinn or w/e but i dunno that hes got a huge populist base. rap 'heads' ive talked to online knew him but def not in the populist sense more an 'in the know' thing

im really not sure how we're defining 'populist' at this point tho -- does odd future not have local buzz?

isnt 'populist' more about aesthetics?

oh god

im not starting beef im just genuinely unsure what zvooster means when he says im repping for populist rappers -- i think theres a correlation & populism totally has ~some~ connection to my approach to rap but the terms need to be more well defined

yeh i see how it can be but i wasn't thinking in terms of aesthetics really, like u seemed concerned that ofwgkta was being plucked from obscurity by "the only tastemaker", it's not like they were hood superstars. or that gibbs was being listened to only by p4k readers at the expense of ppl like idk wiz & currensy who were selling out shows or some better example. just a bee in my bonnet i had that doesn't seem to be founded on much.

is there a thread called "unask deej" because I would post this in there

lol pitchfork didn't discover odd future come on son

like maybe u see yourself reporting to the p4k crowd on what's happening rather than being a tastemaker which is somehow dangerous or inauthentic?

hush whiney the grown ups are talking

better example than wiz + c would be mob figaz -> jacka, husalah, obv

my issues with odd future vs. freddie gibbs are importantly different

i like / have no problem w/ odd future (or lil b) & like some songs by both. they're just not v. close to my particular aesthetic wheelhouse.

i think it totally *makes sense* that pfork cover them & that they be acclaimed. its just not something im personally drawn towards. the only thing i would resist is these artists -- who are, it must be said, marginal, outsider-type performers -- start being treated as if they are central to what rap is about in 2010, or are seen as true 'visionaries' of rap etc. instead of outsiders w/ a weird/unique perspective. over rappers who imo are doing the most interesting/important stylistic work as rappers right now -- husalah jacka gucci currensy whoever else (& fyi wiz is an example of a rapper i like at pretty much just a popist level -- love a few of his songs but i dont think hes nearly on the level of the rappers i mentioned)

roach gigz isnt on the level of those guys either but i feel like hes moving in that direction on his best stuff

freddie gibbs is an entirely difft issue -- he makes wayyy less sense to me as a critical darling. it comes down to crit insecurity about not being down w/ gangster rap x fetishism of skills x the fact that his first record was really well constructed x narratives about major label fuckups

i mean what i liked about the first gibbs album was that it felt like an anonymous major lable gangster record from '99 or something ... but gibbs remains anonymous to me & as a character what is there to say about him?

so it is after all down to aesthetics. the only problem there is that there's no onus on a critic to act as if an artist is marginal and outsider if the artist feels central to him.

well idk if there is or not the thread is "ask deej"

well i think all critics should also be working as historians to some degree ... like, there are certain kinds of aesthetic progress critics value heavily & some they ignore. do u think the first dude to play drums in a disco style is given the reverence he deserves for so massively shifting musical history?

imo saying lil b is a bigger deal that gucci in terms of his impact on the art form is like saying sun ra is a bigger deal that duke ellington. just being radical doesnt make u inherently more significant (this is the problem w/ the 'progress' narrative in gen)

"imo saying lil b is a bigger deal that gucci in terms of his impact on the art form is like saying sun ra is a bigger deal that duke ellington"

So wait you can't think Sun Ra is a bigger deal than Duke Ellington? I'm glad someone asked deej about this!

comparing someone as amazing and accomplished as a musician as Sun Ra and with a career that has literally dozens of amazing albums in a bunch of varied styles and settings to Lil' B is pretty ill IMO

i mean maybe if Sun Ra's career consisted releasing 200 youtube videos of random scatting while plunking away at three chords on an organ, then yes

itt deej ranks jazz greats 4u

In the future everyone's career will consist of "200 youtube videos of random scatting"! THANK YOU CLOUD!

eh you guys are trying a little hard with the deej clowning here, he obviously wasn't saying that lil b = sun ra

i do think duke ellington is more significant to the development of jazz than sun ra, yes

lol gucci is duke ellington lol

lol deej thinks lil b is the same as sun ra

ha m@tt im more w/ you on lil b than i am against! & btw i love sun ra -- this is about keeping ~perspective~ which is something rap critics voting for odd future / lil b arent really doing imo

i should say 'rock critics whose only rap votes are for ....'

~perspectivism~

So wait you can't think Sun Ra is a bigger deal than Duke Ellington? I'm glad someone asked deej about this!

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Friday, December 17, 2010 12:46 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you can prefer to listen to one but if yr gonna try to tell me sun ra is secretly a more significant jazz artist im gonna call bullshit

i was mostly just kidding deej but i do think that analogy sorta underestimates Sun Ra IMO...mostly because i think in the long term lil' b has actually ZERO impact on the art form, and i think sun ra had a real significant impact

overall tho yes ellington was probably more impactful

i dont think lil b will have zero impact tho i do agree ... but yeah i dont think gucci's importance to rap is as large as duke's to jazz either ... this was more about the artists importance relative to each other than comparing them in terms of their impact on respective art forms

I think arguing about significance is basically bullshit and I think that anyone can make any argument they want and Sun Ra's "contributions to jazz as an art form" (seriously lol at this, hilarious stuff) are probably great enough that I could see someone making a reasonably credible argument on his behalf.

so you think arguing about significance is bullshit, but that someone could do it

duke's impact on jazz & american music is massive. like i said i love sun ra but arguing hes even on the same level sounds like record nerd collector space suit-fetishizing bullshit to me

imo

to zvooster -- i do think i have a pretty strong antipathy to critics trying to think they can tell rap fans what they 'should' be listening to. that following rap is as much about covering the history of music as it is about expressing subjective opinions & that writers have a historical responsibility to 'get it right,' that u cant ignore how the audience for music is interacting w/ it. also, i do like the 2nd half of the krit album a lot. (or any of the traxx that have him in more reflective mode) (country shit is still balls to me tho)

I dunno Ra's influence has filtered down to a lot of unexpected places that Duke has not. Duke is largely forgotten/immaterial to the vast majority of music being made today. Sun Ra, on the other hand, is referenced/cited/serves as inspiration for a pretty broad range of active musicians.

(this is all immaterial of course I just like thinking about Sun Ra)

u cant ignore how the audience for music is interacting w/ it.

who decides what the audience is tho? cuz you seem to be making some distinctions as to who is and is not a legitimate rap fan

sun ra & charles mingus -- the two artists who many rock / non jazz artists seem to cite that im assuming you're referring to -- were both huge ellington disciples

sun ra's early stuff was extremely ellingtonesque. compositionally