So why haven't I been blogging you ask? Well, to quote Mr. Kelvin Mercer: "life can get all up in your ass, baby, you betta work it out." You gotta prioritize and I honestly haven't had the time to commit to a blog over the last two and a half years. Hopefully that will change.
Hip-hop and I have have had a very strained relationship throughout the years. As I've grown older and matured I feel that hip-hop has somewhat stayed the same (and at times regressed). Throughout the last three or four years I became tired of listening to how dope an MC is, how many mics he kills, and how many bitches he fucks. I thought it was time to grow up and I wanted substance. Aside from this many of my favorite artists began to dumb down their music or cater to the lowest common denominator in order to become successful instead of pushing their art forward. I wasn't feeling it. After realizing this I started to explore other music. I delved into indie rock, prog rock,and other rock subgenres and found I lot of stuff that I truly dug. But really, my heart has always been in hip-hop.I though that hip-hop had changed but then I reazlized that I had.
These last couple of months have seen me go back to that music that I spent most of my adolescent years loving. What happened? The Roots dropped a new album.
I had forgotten how much I loved The Roots and How I Got Over reminded me of that.
The Roots have always been a big part of my life. They were the first (real) hip-hop group that I listened to and the reason why I fell in love with hip-hop in the first place. It's not their best album but it is definitely their best work since Things Fall Apart. This isn't supposed to be a review of the album so I'll skip on describing it for now, but all in all this is what a hip-hop album should be. Black Thought has definitely grown as an MC (he actually raps about things besides rapping now!) and the band's sound is so intricate and nuanced that they are really starting to transcend genres now. It's a mature hip-hop album for somebody who has grown up with hip-hop. It is exactly what I needed.
No matter what hip-hop is always gonna be about having fun. You can't over think it. For every dude that's trying to be Talib Kweli you have fifty who are trying to become Jay and 50. My problem was that I was forgetting why I loved hip-hop. I forgot that when it comes down to it it's just about dope rhymes and dope beats.
Artist to Check out
The name of today's group is The Doppelgangaz and they hail from Australia (I think). They remind me quite of Artifacts. They have a really dope, throwback to the mid 90s, boom-bap sound. Here are a couple of videos. Hope you enjoy. Peace.
The Doppelgangaz-Digging
The Doppelgangaz-La La La
No comments:
Post a Comment