Pitchfork... as much as I want to hate them... they do bring heat. I've been talking to my friend about the death of Hip Hop and the rise of something new, something as rebellious, educational, yet absolutely bad for you at the same time... and here we go...The backlash includes acts like Das Racist, and Die Antwoord exemplifying the piss-take against what Hip Hop has become (with maybe MF DOOM as their Godfather, and maybe even DE LA SOUL as the antecedent with "De la Soul is Dead"). There is also the rise of attention to subgenres such as "Jerk" "Hyphy" "Juke" and others as manifestations of a yearning for something else... THEN!! there is the Indie-rock/Hipster transformation of Hip Hop culture as of late (the skinny jeans massive) also signifying a sign that young youth are splintering off to find new directions and sounds... its about time that we rid ourselves of the vines and rule-sets that our rap forefathers and contemporaries have accepted...
I'm not saying the artists here represent a new phase in Hip Hop, but they sure as hell represent a serious backleash to the bullshit the genre has accumulated... to be rejected by 'indie' blogospherists tells me something. I kept wondering why bands like Little Brother, El-P, and Atmosphere really didn't grab me as much as other bands did earlier... I do love some of that indie stuff, but my favorites were acts that were on the emo side of things, as I found that talking about how badass you were, bling, or political rap became too cliche for me.
So if you read this and wonder what is going on, if you see clips and are disgusted by what you see... remind yourself of 1989 and where Rap music was then... it makes me smile to see some other shit going on... Looking forward to the future...
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