bigted

i guess nas was right when he said hip hop is dead, rip to those labels who released good music

most of the better songs came out in the earlier part of the 2000s, whatever's been good in recent years hasn't gotten much recognition while there's all the popular trash

nice work tim, keep em comin!

The list is not as bad as I thought it'd be considering all the mainstream trash that came out in the last 10 years but obviously this shows that music's not as groundbreaking as it was when I was growing up in the '90s: http://blog.vh1.com/2011-09-29/the-100-greatest-songs-of-00s-complete-list/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHn6Ev1C9D8

Common "Blue Sky", this new joint is crazy, who says hip hop is dead??!!

i wanna see fresh prince work with the code red producers like jazzy, pete rock, teddy riley, plus dj premier and marley marl and it'll have that perfect sound

well my thoughts are the same as vipa on this, it's kinda odd but it's a nice mentoring experience for k. smith to learn about creating music

J. Cole Debuts At Number 1, Pushes 217k Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:14 PM | 4 comments By Houston Williams Meebo Share Button AHH IconGet Alerts AllHipHop Radio (AllHipHip News) J. Cole has finally arrived, as the young rapper managed to move over 217, 000 of his debut album. Cole World: The Sideline Story sold an roughly 217,324 copies in it’s first week, according to industry trade Hits Daily Double. The figures are impressive and would be regarded as the highest charting album for a freshman solo Hip-Hop album this year. The numbers have yet to be verified by SoundScan, the music industry standard. J. Cole was ecstatic and expressed his glee via Twitter. "So many people to stunt on, fighting the urge to be spiteful. This moment is too important for that. Just want to say THANK YOU," he said. "Thanks to yall, we shook the game up. No chart topping single, just 2 years of hard work, great music and real ass fans. #1 album. Thanks to every fan that held me down, every friend, every blog, magazine, tv, radio station, dj’s and pd’s, I feel like we ALL won." Official sales numbers will be released on Wednesday.

looking forward to hearing something soon, hell yeah baby, btw mars produced one of the best tracks on game's new album "speakers on blast" with big boi and e-40, i'd love to see fresh prince drop some swagga on something like that

i liked a few of their tracks on the ep they released last year but you're right this single's on another level, it deserves to blow up!!

guy piece of my love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m79-wG4c2A

will "just the two of us"

This is always one of my favorites of all time, Heavy D feat. Big Pun and Eightball "On Point":

It's called "My Turn" from his 2000 album "Yeahhhh Baby", enjoy homie! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCOXr_y9N_Q

It would be interesting to see how Big Pun woulda finished off 50 Cent before he ever got big 'cause he responded with a great diss after 50 mentioned him in "How To Rob" but obviously he died before we woulda saw the battle happen

Had to bump this post back up again, there clearly ain't too many out there on Pun's level as I've been listening to him more lately, he was a legend

I'd like to share this terrordome I read by Chuck D which would go well with this hip hop debate we're having: http://www.publicenemy.com/index.php?page=page3&item=158 The Anthology Of Rap May 15, 2010 We are living in a period of growth for hip-hop culture, led this time not simply by artists but by students and scholars. The word-revolution in rhyme has been reflected in a slew of necessary critical perspectives that shed light on hip-hop’s history and development. Books and multimedia on hip-hop culture and rap music have entered a boom period—or should I say BOOM BAP period: a time in which the recorded history and the breakdown of interpretations may be more entertaining than a lot of the new music being made today. The Anthology of Rap is a landmark text. What makes it so important is that the voices included within it are from the artists themselves, but they are presented in a way that gives the words context and meaning as part of a tradition. Anyone could put together a bunch of lyrics, but an anthology does something more: it provides the tools to make meaning of those lyrics in relation to one another, to think about rap both in terms of particular rhymes, but also in terms of an art form, a people, and a movement. Every great literature deserves a great anthology. Rap finally has its own. I first heard about The Anthology of Rap after meeting Dr. Adam Bradley at a symposium sponsored by the HipHop Archive at Harvard University. A few weeks later, I interviewed him on my Air America Network radio show, ON THE REAL, about his first book, Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop. I was fascinated by what I would call the emergent “artcademic” perspective he was describing. Here was someone who grew up with the music and had gone on to study it in a social context as well as “gettin down to it” on the level of language. He was spitting out a well-considered, highly analytical point of view to a mass audience that too often defines rap merely by what they hear on radio and see on television. Along with Dr. Andrew DuBois, Dr. Bradley has now brought us a book that just might break the commercial trance that’s had rap in a chokehold for the last several years. Rap now has a book that tells its lyrical history in its own words. My own history in hip hop goes back decades. I started out in back in 1979 as a mobile DJ/MC under a crew called Spectrum City in Long Island, New York. Most of the shows we did were in less than ideal acoustic situations. Luckily my partner Hank Shocklee, who is now regarded as a sonic genius in the realm of recording, was just as astute about getting the best sound available out of the least amount of equipment. The challenge for many MCs was figuring out how to achieve vocal projection and clarity on inferior sound systems. I’ve always had a big voice, so my criteria was different because my vocal quality and power were audible. The content of my rhymes was heady because of what I knew. I'd been influenced by big voices like Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I studied the rhymes and rhythms that worked and tried to incorporate my voice and subject matter in a similar manner. I had to be distinct in my own identity. That was a very important aspect to propel me beyond the pack. Most MCs don't listen to enough other MCs. As artists we need to open our ears to as many styles as possible, even—and maybe especially—those that are not commercially successful. In sports you must study the competition. You’ve got to game-plan. You’ve got to school yourself not just about the defending champions, but about every team in the league. In these times, the individualization of the MC has often meant isolation—artists focus on a single model, a single sound. Some focus is a good thing, of course, but too much leads to a lot of rappers sounding the same, saying the same things, finding themselves adrift in a sea of similarity. Having a range of lyrical influences and interests doesn’t compromise an MC’s art. It helps that art to thrive and come into its own. For instance, my lyrics on “Rebel Without a Pause” are uniquely mine, but even the first “Yes” I utter to begin the song was inspired by another record—in this case, Biz Markie’s “Nobody Beats the Biz,” a favorite of mine at the time. The overall rhyme style I deployed on “Rebel” was a deliberate mixture of how KRS-One was breaking his rhymes into phrases and of Rakim’s flow on “I Know You Got Soul.” Although the craft is difficult, the options are many and the limits are few. There are many styles to attend to and numerous ways to integrate them into your own art, transforming yourself and those styles along the way. That’s where The Anthology of Rap comes in. It reminds us just how much variety truly exists in this thing we call rap. KRS-One raging against police brutality is far removed from Will Smith beefing about parents that just don’t understand or UGK explaining the intricacies of the street pharmaceutical trade, but all of them are united through rhyming to a beat. We learn more as rap artists and as a rap audience by coming to terms with all those things that rap has made. Back in 2006 I did a collaboration with the great conscious rapper Paris. Paris singlehandedly created a Public Enemy album called Rebirth Of A Nation. At the time, people asked why an MC like me would relinquish the responsibility of writing my own lyrics. My reason was simple: I thoroughly respect the songwriter and happen to think there is a valuable difference between the vocalist and the writer. Rarely are people gifted in both or well trained and skilled enough to handle both at once. The unwavering belief that MCs should always and only spit their own rhymes is a handicap for rap. In my opinion, most writers shouldn't spit and most vocalists shouldn't write unless there is a unique combination of skill, knowledge, ability, and distinction. To have Paris write my lyrics as well as produce the music added a breath of freshness to my voice. I put my ego aside—a hard thing for a lot of rappers to do—and was rewarded with a new weapon in my lyrical arsenal, unavailable had I simply gone it alone. In order for a lyric to last, it takes time and thought. Although top-of-the-head freestyles might be entertaining for the moment, they quickly expire. Even someone like Jay-Z, who claims never to write before rhyming, does his own form of composition. He has the older cat’s knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of the many facets of multi-dimensional life zones and the ability to exercise his quickness of wit and tongue. Few MCs have his particular combination of gifts. Lyricism is a study of a terrain before it’s sprayed upon like paint on a canvas. Most MCs would do better to think and have a conversation regarding what to rhyme about before they spit. While the spontaneity of the words to a beat might bring up-to-the-minute feelings to share, one cannot sleep on the power of the word—or in this case the arrangement and delivery of many words in rhythm. When it comes down to the words themselves, lyricism is vital to rap, and because rap fuels hip-hop, this means that lyricism is vital to hip-hop culture as a whole. A rapper that really wants to be heard must realize that a good vocabulary is necessary like a good ball-handler sports his dribble on a basketball court. Something should separate a professional rapper from a 6th grader. Lyricism does that. Even when a middle school kid learns a word and its meaning, social comprehension and context take time to master. Even when a term or a line is mastered, the challenge should be on how many more peaks a rapper can scale to become a good lyricist. We all should know that the power of a word has both incited and prevented war itself. Good lyrics, of course, have been around far longer than rap. They’re the life-blood of song. They direct the music and the music defines the culture. This is true for rap even though some mistake the music as being all about the beat. People sometimes overate the beat, separating it from the song itself. I ask folks would they rather just listen to instrumentals? The general response is no. Listeners want to have vocals driving the beat, but—importantly--not stopping it or slowing it down. It takes a master to ride any wild beat or groove and to tame it. Rakim, KRS-One, André 3000, MC Lyte, Black Thought and Nas are just a few such masters featured in this anthology. They will make the music submit to their flows while filling those flows with words to move the crowd’s minds, bodies, and souls. So reading lyrics on the page gives us a chance to understand exactly what makes these lyrics work. What’s their meaning? What’s their substance? How do they do what they do? Like the air we breathe, hip-hop seems to be everywhere. The culture and lifestyle that many thought would be a passing fad has, more than three decades later, grown to become a permanent part of world culture. Hip-hop artists have become some of today's heroes, replacing the comic book worship of decades past and joining athletes and movie stars as the people kids dream of becoming. Names like 50 Cent, P. Diddy, Russell Simmons, Jay-Z, Foxy Brown, Snoop Dogg, and Flavor Flav now ring as familiar as Elvis, Babe Ruth, Marilyn Monroe, and Charlie Chaplin. But keeping in step with straight-up rap, a rapper is not just a celebrity. There still lies a performance factor that must be included before we describe an MC as a lyrical beast. While the general public knows many of the names, videos, and songs branded by the big companies, it's important to study rap’s history. The best place to start is the holy trinity, the founding fathers of hip-hop: Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa. All are DJs that played the records that moved MCs and dancers to fashion their own art forms. The MC had to go to the rhythm of the DJ, thus creating the atmosphere with words on the beat to music. This background is crucial to the evolution of the MC. But the influence of these hip-hop pioneers often went beyond the realm of art. Bambaataa almost single-handedly quelled the New York City gang wars of the 1970s with his message of peace, unity, love, and having fun. Hip-hop is simply a term for a form of artistic creativity spawned from New York City, more precisely the Bronx, in the early to mid 1970s. Amidst the urban decay in the areas where black and Hispanic people dwelled, economic, educational and environmental resources were depleted. Jobs and businesses dried up. Living conditions at times were almost indistinguishable from a developing country, all in the midst of the nation’s wealthiest city. Last but not least, art and sports programs in the schools were the first to be cut for the sake of lowering budgets; music classes teaching history and technique were all but lost. From these ashes, like a phoenix, rose an art form. Through the love of technology and of records found in family collections or discarded on the street, the DJ emerged. Different from the ones heard on the radio, these DJs were innovating a style first popularized on the island of Jamaica. Two turntables kept the music continuous, with the occasional voice speaking or chanting on top of the records. This is the very humble beginning of rap music. It is important to remember that the thing we call rap is not a music in itself. It only becomes music when two words are combined: rap and music. Rap is the vocal application placed on top of the music. On a vocal spectrum, it falls somewhere between talking and singing and is one of the few new alternatives for vocalizing to emerge in the last fifty years. It is important to realize that inventors and artists are side by side in the importance of music’s development. Let's remember that inventor Thomas A. Edison recorded the first rhyme with “Mary Had A Little Lamb” in 1877. He did this in New Jersey, the same state that produced the first commercial rap hit, the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rappers Delight,” more than a century later. It's hard to separate the importance of history, science, language arts, and education when discussing music. Because of the social silencing of black people in America from slavery in the 1600s to civil rights in the 1960s, much sentiment, dialogue and soul is wrapped up in the cultural expression of black music. In eighteenth century New Orleans, slaves gathered on Sundays in Congo Square to socialize and play music. Within this captivity many dialects, customs, and styles combined with instrumentation, vocals, and rhythm to form a musical signal or code of preservation. These are the foundations of jazz and the blues. Similarly, it is impossible to separate hip-hop and rap music from the legacy of creativity from the past. Look within the expression and words of black music and you'll get a timeline reflection of American history itself. The four creative elements of hip-hop—MCing (the art of vocalization); DJing (the musician-like manipulation of records); breakdancing (the body expression of the music); and graffiti (the drawn graphic expression of the culture)—have been intertwined in the community before and since slavery. However, just because these expressions formed in the black and Hispanic underclass doesn't mean that they are exclusive to those groups in perpetuity. Hip-hop is specific, but it’s universal too. Hip-hop is a cultural language used best to unite the human family all around the world. Many international rap artists can rhyme in multiple languages and still move crowds with meaning. The world beyond the United States has excelled in hip-hop’s fundamentals, perhaps more even than in the country of the culture’s invention. To peep rap’s global explosion one need not even search very far. Starting just north of the U.S. border, Canadian hip-hop has featured rappers who are infusing different language and dialect flows into their work, from immigrant artists like K’naan rhyming about the “ghosts in my old home” to French flowing cats from Quebec. Few know that France for many years has been the second largest hip-hop nation, measured not just by high sales numbers, but also by its political philosophy. Hip-hop has been alive and present since the mid-1980s in Japan and other Asian countries. Australia has been a hotbed in welcoming world rap acts, and it has also created its own vibrant scene, with the reminder of its government's takeover of indigenous people reflected in many rappers’ flows and rhymes. As a rhythm of the people, the continents of Africa and South America (especially Ghana, Senegal, and South Africa, Brazil, Surinam, and Argentina) have long mixed traditional homage into the new beats and rhymes of this millennium. Hip-hop and rap has been used to help Brazilian kids learn English when school systems failed to bridge the difficult language gap of Portuguese and patois to American English. It has entertained and enlightened youth, and has engaged political discussion in society, continuing the tradition of the African griots and folk singers. For decades, hip-hop has been bought, sold, followed, loved, hated, praised, and blamed. History has shown that other cultural U.S. music forms have been just as misunderstood and held up to public scrutiny. The history of the people who originated the art form can be found in the music itself. The timeline of recorded rap music spans more than a quarter century, and that is history in itself. With all this said it might sound like a broken record but the re-introduction must come with the clear definition of what it is. A rapper’s style is not to itself. It comes from somewhere. All of these lyrics evolve as the griot-like timeline with the words finally manifesting themselves into a solid testament of the craft. In the words of the Public Enemy song “Bring the Noise,” here we go again. . .

i think will's more referring to the internet thugs who immitate the gangsta rappers style are wack, hate 'em or not rappers like 2Pac, Biggie, 50 Cent, and Fat Joe all lived the street lifestyle they talk about it in their songs but there's punks out there who immitate them who didn't live that lifestyle, LL calls them "laptop gangstas", it's all a matter of opinion of who we think got the most skills but they all represent hip hop since they tell stories in their songs to the best of their talents and their abilities, 50 Cent's just not as talented as 2Pac but he's still hip hop, it's like Chuck D said "Don't Believe The Hype" which I believe is the most relevant hip hop song of all time since all this bull**** we talk about is "hype", we tear down rappers whenever there's a "beef", "don't believe the hype" when it comes to hip hop 'cause i still "love h.e.r.", peace...

song making isn't really talib's greatest strength but he always delivers lyrically and snoop could seem to go a lil' bit to left field sometimes like andre 3000 but he could definately flow still

From their Facebook, this is fire, FP should get on a remix, looking forward to buying their CD on November 15th, hip hop is alive!!: We're at the "Perfect Party" Place.... Las Vegas, Nevada USA shooting the video to "Perfect Party". Our 1st Single from our new LP "Anthem Inc". Available Nov 15th!! Thank you all for the continuous Global Support!! #PassportPimpin'!

On another note like Turntable mentioned this book should be updated, I'd love to see his thoughts on the newer mcs like BOB, J. Cole, and Jay-Electronica as well, maybe Kool Moe Dee could release an update of this book when he drops his new album...

you could tell that keith sweat and r. kelly are my 2 favorite r&b artists from posts,i gotta say that "phenomenon" isn't ll's finest hour, especially when you compare it to his previous album which was the mid-90s classic "mr. smith", but it got one of the best songs ever made on it which is "father" and the incredible "4, 3, 2, 1" that sparked off the legendary battle with canibis which motivated one of his best albums in "g.o.a.t." so for that reason it did it's purpose right now i'm listening to ice-t's "99 problems"

I figured I'd bump this thread up since I've been getting back to reading a little bit more these days, I wanted to post Kool Moe Dee's thoughts on Fat Joe since we've been talking about him a lot on the board lately with his new mixtape on the way: -#46- Fat Joe "The Puerto Rican Rhyme Don" "Everybody talk gats Really don't pack 'em 98 percent of these rappers is all actors Stay frontin' Like you wild out and spray somethin' Come to find out You ain't never slayed nothin' Think it's a game, gone lose the sport I seen dudes get bruised through fought Then choose the court They just pursued the course If you even think of bustin' their ass They'd sue ya thoughts" Believe it or not, Fat Joe is a pioneer. No, he's not the first successful puerto rican emcee. That would be Ruby Dee of the Fantastic Romantic Five. He's also not even the first highly acclaimed Puerto Rican emcee. That would be the devastating Tito of the Fearless Four. And yes, Gerardo had pop success, Kid Frost had the streets in the West, and B-Real of Cypress Hill is an icon in the Mexican and Latino Hip-Hop communities. But Fat Joe is the true Puerto Rican soloist to cross over into the predominatly African-American world of Hip-Hop. Fat Joe, aka Joey Crack, aka Don Cartegena, is accepted as a lyricist, an emcee, and a hard-core artist in the tightly knit underground level of the Hip-Hop world. He's respected on the streets for the credibility of his lyrical content. He's the essence of "keep it real". When he first hit the scene in the early to mid-'90s, the same credibility he is now respected for was viewed as problematic. The press was just beginning to turn the heat up on gangsta rap and practitioners of its music. Add to the equation Joe's uncompromising rhyme style, and small scale independent label relativity, and you had a prescription for failure. However, with shoetring album and video budgets, Joe persevered. With marginal underground hits and guerilla style management via Mick Benzo, Fat Joe was able to maintain a street presence that would ultimately pay off for him in the long run. Ironically, in the beginning, Fat Joe wasn't really that good of an emcee. I can honestly say he's one of the emcees who worked his way up lyrically. With each LP you could clearly see growth. He hit his stride in the late '90s with the Terror Squad and Big Pun. Soon Fat Joe was on multiple collaborations and shining every time out. At the end of the millenium he signed with Atlantic/Big Beat and finally had some real money behind him. Suddenly Fat Joe had the breakthrough "Bet Ya Man Can't". This was the beggining of Fat Joe showing his diversity as an emcee. On his earlier works, 1993's "Represent" and 1995's "Jealous Ones Envy", Joe semed to only be concerned with keeping it gangsta. However, as all emcees find out, no matter how lofty our dreams of being a real emcee may be, nine times out of ten, one cannot survive the game without hit records. This is one of the hardest jobs that the newer emcees have to face. Keeping your deal is job one. Fat Joe had figured it out. In 2001, he dropped J.O.S.E., the cleverly self-titled acronym "Jealous Ones Still Envy." The single "We Thuggin'" with R. Kelly transitioned Joe from a respected emcee into a Hip-Hop star. What's great about this situation is that because of Joe's lyrical abilities, he never had to sacrifice his reputation,or compromise his lyrical integrity to make the hits. Many times emcees take a total departure from everything they represent, as they attempt to chase that elusive hit. Not only did Joe not do that, but he enhanced his image. He added the player persona to the thug persona upgraded his lyrical skills. He followed the formula that Puffy created with Notorious B.I.G., gave the radio a couple of Spoonie G-type love songs, played up the player energy for the ladies, and the rest of the album gully and hard-core. Fat Joe followed this formula again on the 2002 release of Loyalty and once again he delivered. There was once a skeptical school of thought about Joe's ability to succeed without the help of Big Pun. Sometimes the pundits are too cynical. Not only did Fat Joe succeed, but he superseded all expectations. DEFINITELY ONE OF THE FIFTY GREATEST EMCEES.