Today class I am mostly going to be concentrating on the New West, a Hip Hop movement coming out of the West Coast that is so fresh, revitalizing and most importantly fun, that I think you might just have to slip in to your weekend socks.
To comprehend why I think it's such a great development you first have to understand something, up until a year ago I had been a Hip Hop purist, sampling breaks, intricate rhymes schemes and sausagefest gigs were my religion. But I started to notice the typically 90's New York Boom-Bap sound was still prominent in 2010 and was slowly starting to remind me of that moment you are at a Family gathering and Auntie Sue brings round her famous Trifle, it tastes good every time, but you really wish one year she'd at least try a different flavour of Jelly. It just became utterly bland, I still found my head nodding but I didn't really know why. The beats were becoming boring, usually a looped sample, bass and drums for three minutes whilst an emcee spits a four line chorus, and a sixteen line verse x 3, and sure a rapper who can come up with crazy multisyllabic rhyme schemes is technically amazing, but so are the inner workings of my washing machine and I have never cared to find out how that thing gets my long-johns sparkling white. Also, lets be honest even at its best the pseudo-politics of certain rappers rhyming about the way the illuminatti is taking over and seven headed dragons ruling the earth is becoming tedious. If I wanted to listen to that kind of rhetoric I'd sit with stoner Dave a tad more, watching him gobble seven bags of cheesy Wotsits whilst telling me how 9/11 was 'an inside job maaaaaaaaaan'.
Hip Hop is ultimately party music, it started that way in the boogie down Bronx, but somewhere along the way the fun got extracted, of course there were amazing political messages in the early days, but for every Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power' there was a Biz Markie rapping about picking boogers, you had a choice, that choice had been lost....Until now.
They say to every thesis is an antithesis, and the antithesis to Auntie Sues Trifle, is the best bag of Pic'n'Mix you have seen in your life (think Tangfastics but with drumstick lollies and those little white chocolate buttons with hundreds and thousands on....yeah that fucking good). The New West incorporates so many influences, that it is not only hard to find two groups that sound alike, but its also hard to find yourself getting bored with these young whippersnappers. Their influences range from the Bay Area Hyphy movement, old school G funk, all the way to Eminem and the Neptunes. Most of the scene are barely out of school, angry at the way hip hop is going and are trying doing something about it. The way they've achieved this? by not taking themselves too seriously. Over-using slang, naming songs ridiculously, and generally not being the best rappers in the world seems to be the key to the game here, mix that with some fun synth based beats and you are on to a certain winner. But enough talking, let me introduce you to the the motley crew.
I can't really start this without talking about the guys that seem to be getting the most love from the industry at the moment, OFWGKTA (Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All). you probably know these young renegades through Tyler The Creators viral video for Yonkers. But there are 60 members to this group, the best in my opinion are Hodgy Beats, Earl Sweatshirt, MellowHype and of course Tyler. These anarchists are far from slackers and impressively have racked albums up into the double digits before penning any deals. Check French and EARL Below:
If you are more thugged out, or like me use gangster rap as ghetto escapism ( I need something to drag me away from my World of Warcraft girlfriend) Nipsey Hussle may be for you. With impressive delivery over hard beats and a face that makes you wonder what Snoop Dogg was up to 9 months prior to his birth, he comes out swinging with this anthem Hussle in the house:
its obvious that some industry heads must be taking notice as Kreayshawn, part of the newly found White Girl Mob has just penned a million dollar deal with Sony after her anti designer Jam 'Gucci Gucci' got her over 2 million views on youtube in under a week. The chorus is catchy and it's refreshing to hear a women who raps about other stuff besides how 'good she can do your man'.
The Get Busy committee are a group of gnarly white boys coming out of L.A. Consisting of Ryu, Apathy and super producer Scoop DeVille, they come with a plethora of 808 drums mixed with some killer 80s samples, check out the title track from their soon to be released second album ' Opening ceremony' with lyrics like 'you're so booty, I'm so boozy, take off your pants and jump in my jacuzzi' I don't know how you couldn't like it....
Pac Div are next, formed of two brothers Mibs & Like and their close acquaintance Be Young, they have blended old school 8 bit synths with Hyphy drum beats and catchy choruses to create hip hop that even women will dance to.
And last but not least Lil B The Based God, the rapper who probably takes this not being serious stuff...well ...really seriously. He really cant rap that well and his songs are mainly about being Ellen Degeneres, or Paris Hilton, or a robot, but there is something about him that makes him utterly endearing. For me its the fact that he cares so little about what the usually homophobic Hip Hop community thinks that he has decided to call his latest album 'I'm Gay'. After releasing the album title he received thousands of death threats but still stuck to his guns, and I applaud him for that. He has a legion of fans that find him utterly entertaining(all you need to do is search 'thank you based god' in google images to prove this) and I honestly cant work out if he is one scotch egg short of a picnic or an absolute genius, either way I love him and you should too
Well boys and girls, that's it I hope you enjoyed the lesson in New West 101, and yes I do understand that writing an essay about why hip hop should be fun is utter hypocrisy, but if you have got this far more fool you.
Oh and one other thing, Fuck Puff Daddy (More on this later)
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