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

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

🎵 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