On Danny Brown, "Blunt After Blunt"
@Danzig!
?
I'm sorry man, but this video is pretty bad. No visuals to accompany Danny's visceral and evocative lyrics? Just shadows and gangsta tigger?
Black and Brown is a mediocre effort from an awesome producer and the most entertaining and talented rapper constantly putting out new music. It shares many similarities--in that genius producers and top 100 rappers of all time collaborated for a one-off that failed expectations on many levels -in large part to crappy engineering, though Danny's rapping for his part is much more consistent than Acey's)-- to the album "Magnificent City" by RJD2 and Aceyalone. Although WTF is the mothaflunking jam.
Check out Danny Brown-XXX or Black Milk-Album of the Year if you haven't and are looking at this.
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On Rap Music Is Good Now Because Rappers Aren't Afraid To Be Weird
iconoclastic wierdness, to me, being say, your frank zappas and george clintons.
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On Rap Music Is Good Now Because Rappers Aren't Afraid To Be Weird
yeah what caught my eye is really the headline (nicely done!)
"Rap Music Is Good Now Because Rappers Aren't Afraid To Be Weird"
Rap music has always been its best when artists arent afraid of inhibiting themselves and embracing new and provocative approaches (except dose one), this is not anything new.
And the "good now", that implies...in a favorable view of the phrase that; well that, yay, the marketing paradigm of rapper as gangster is less viable and monied interests are taking note. What you are aware of because of these monied interests is not all of "rap music".
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On Rap Music Is Good Now Because Rappers Aren't Afraid To Be Weird
Or is he simply the spokesman for an artistic form that is constantly considered to be outside of the bounds of the artisanal power structure?
Rap is now part and parcel of "the artisanal power structure". Kanye, if anything, is the spokesman for that being so. How can it be considered otherwise? He has to do what he does, he is compelled by the inertia of the commercial music marketing structure. And Kanye as wierd...I would instead describe as attention grabbng; we expect him to create headlines, perhaps through irrationality, for sure, but less for manifesting "iconoclastic wierdness".
And all this hoopla about modern rap being good, healed perhaps even, because all rap has reached some saturation point of wierdness is specious. It presents a very surface reflection of the last 10 years of rap, (basically, post hip hop infinity, haha).
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On How the Looming Specter of Viral Marketing Ruins Rap Songs About Consumer Goods
"How the Looming Specter of Viral Marketing Ruins Rap Songs About Consumer Goods"
gosh
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On Selling Herself Short: The Miscontexualization of Nicki Minaj
and the awl readership responds poignantly to more rap coverage.
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On The Protests in France Are Excellent
...
All (Obviously you've done a detailed tour of French banlieus to speak for the general atmosphere in "the banlieu") of the suburban-ghetto youths are alienated and do not feel represented in "mainstream" notions of French-ness?
Sentence holds true (if, in my opinion,a bit less descriptive what with that whole "all" qualifier) if you Replace French-ness, with say, American-ness.
And i would argue that much of the anger is directed not towards a cultural identity (which seems to be what you're arguing? A cultural civil war? French self-hate, which seems to get your rocks off?), but perceived shortcomings in the workings of the French government itself.
And yes, maybe that could lead to yet another republic (yay?).
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On The Protests in France Are Excellent
Again, it's another culture, man. Intelligent adults here don't perceive it as "a total luxury".
...But what do i know? I've just been in France for the last three months, living with a French family.
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On The Protests in France Are Excellent
No, they don't have another solution. But, I'm pretty sure the consensus among the protesters-or at least the elites who are the mouthpieces for the organizations mobilizing much of the protesters-is that this is an issue that deserves more time to contemplate than the several weeks in congress it has been debated. That it is something fit for a presidential debate, not some midterm congressional ratification that had largely flown under the radar until recently.
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On The Intolerable Evolution of Poynter's "Romenesko+"
http://snarkmarket.com/2011/7512