When Rap Was Great!

Devious · Post by **Devious** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:21 pm

This thread is dedicated to a music form that has been a great addition to worldwide culture but now has gone astray. It used to contain quality songs on every theme: sex, comedy, friendship, dance, relationships, family, politics, art and more. Now it's themes are largely reduced to drug trafficking and usage, sex, violence, money and mostly the boasting about them all.

Here's a good old 'high quality' music video of Chubb Rock's 1991 song Treat 'Em Right. Don't forget to look in the lower right corner just below the video for the gear icon and click it to choose a high quality setting. If the playback is intermittent just click the pause/play button in the lower left corner and after a couple minutes it will be ready to play uninterrupted. Alternatively, you can use one of these few downloaders for your Android device. Tick the box "on", for 'Unknown Sources' (usually found under Settings->Security) before downloading the apps.

References to Robocop, selling bootleg tapes, drug use (crack). A sorely missed positive rap style, replete with hip and groovy sound.

psj3809 · Post by **psj3809** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:29 pm

Rap in the late 80's was just superb.

NWA, Public Enemy, Digital Underground, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Ice T, Gangstarr, Naughty by Nature, Young MC, ATL and many others.

MTV Raps back in the late 80s/early 90's was brilliant

Loved it back then ! As for the english counterparts, hmm, Derek B (hmmm !), Ruthless Rap Assassins werent bad.

Granted NWA started making it hardcore and swore tons but back then everyone i knew in the UK who liked rap didnt take it seriously. Now so many kids listen to gangsta rap and laughingly try to act like them

Devious · Post by **Devious** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:35 pm

psj3809 wrote:Rap in the late 80's was just superb.
Granted NWA started making it hardcore and swore tons but back then everyone i knew in the UK who liked rap didnt take it seriously. Now so many kids listen to gangsta rap and laughingly try to act like them

Yeah. I don't know what is to blame for the credulity of modern youth.

Antiriad2097 · Post by **Antiriad2097** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:36 pm

I thought this topic had warped in from the future. I'm still waiting for good rap.

Devious · Post by **Devious** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:37 pm

Antiriad2097 wrote:I thought this topic had warped in from the future. I'm still waiting for good rap.

Wait no longer, check out that video!

Antiriad2097 · Post by **Antiriad2097** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:50 pm

Devious wrote:
Antiriad2097 wrote:I thought this topic had warped in from the future. I'm still waiting for good rap.

Wait no longer, check out that video!

Video checked. Still waiting.

Rinoa · Post by **Rinoa** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:59 pm

I've never been a fan of rap, old or new. The closest to rap I like is Rage Against the Machine

andy vaisey · Post by **andy vaisey** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 6:02 pm

Rinoa wrote:I've never been a fan of rap, old or new. The closest to rap I like is Rage Against the Machine

I actually completely agree with that. I've never liked 'Rap', but when there are some funky riffs involved or some heavy guitar, it seems to improve it somehow.

Otherwise I think it's all bollocks.

Fred83 · Post by **Fred83** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 6:44 pm

loved rap meself,run dmc,public enemy,beastie boys,another rage against the machine fan here too,even got myself a cool addias leather jacket from ebay at time,something i never thaught i would get one

hope you like this,i censored love it,its public enemy-he got game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y_VFGrG ... re=related

Antiriad2097 · Post by **Antiriad2097** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 6:57 pm

andy vaisey wrote:I've never liked 'Rap', but when there are some funky riffs involved or some heavy guitar, it seems to improve it somehow.

The further it gets from rap, the better it gets. Hmm, I wonder why that could be...

liveinabin · Post by **liveinabin** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:00 pm

I much prefer rap from the EARLY Eighties. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are most definitely where it's at.

Antiriad2097 · Post by **Antiriad2097** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:08 pm

Agreed. I wish rap had stayed in the 80s too, never to be heard again

boggyb68 · Post by **boggyb68** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:15 pm

Couldn't agree more with this thread....

I used to love my collection of Streetsounds Electro stuff...

Doug E Fresh, Slik Rik, Whistle, Ollie and Jerry, Break Machine, Lovebug Starski, Eric B and Rakim, Rock Stready Crew... and of course Grandmaster Flash (The Message is incredible), and of course the Suga Hill Gang...

I don't mind some Public Enemy, NWA, Eminem etc, but I think alot of today's Rap has lost the plot, and these guys become multi millionaires by making the same old censored, over and over, either with or without some other artists sound bite or break or riff in the background, so everyones recognises it and buys the "new" version... and the same looking bunch of guys in the video's all leaning forward into the camera, pushing their arms out with their fingers pointing, or just standing around or lazing in a chair dripping with honeys (not a bad thing

What I am trying to say is that I just can't see how they become as big as they do.. and yes I am jealous of their success, as I see it as money for old rope...

B.

andy vaisey · Post by **andy vaisey** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:25 pm

boggyb68 wrote:Doug E Fresh, Slik Rik, Whistle, Ollie and Jerry, Break Machine, Lovebug Starski, Eric B and Rakim, Rock Stready Crew... and of course Grandmaster Flash (The Message is incredible), and of course the Suga Hill Gang...

Just that list of names justifies the reason why Rap sucks...

Devious · Post by **Devious** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:53 pm

andy vaisey wrote:
Rinoa wrote:I've never been a fan of rap, old or new. The closest to rap I like is Rage Against the Machine
I actually completely agree with that. I've never liked 'Rap', but when there are some funky riffs involved or some heavy guitar, it seems to improve it somehow.

Otherwise I think it's all bollocks.

Some people just like the music and pay hardly any mind to the lyrics of the rap itself. That was how I was when I was a youth and so were my friends. But later, as time went on, kids a few years younger than us would recite the lyrics to the songs we liked but never paid attention to lyrically and we would look at each other like wtf? So we then started to pay more attention to what was actually being said and stopped relating the cadences of the rapper's voice to being just another musical instrument in the song.

When the rapper's own creative juices were dried up as a result of the divisive 'old people vs the young people' monkey spanner that was thrown in during the late eighties, most of the music from then on was sampled from old Motown tunes or funk and R&B. So rappers gained a wider acceptance because that music was already familiar to the older crowd and well liked all over.

But with the media always trailing the happenings in the personal lives of the rappers and the media's tendency to over sensationalize the negative and its unique ability to easily sway the sentiments of large masses of people, rap was headed for self-destruction. Rappers were told that violence sells by their A&R. Hence, a backlash, a small but faithful gesture, the song by a still good rap group, Westside Connection, called Superstar (Double Murder = Double Platinum).

I must admit though, that I do love the hardcore rap, so-called gangsta rap. Such as this Snoop cut where he disses his old record label boss (1) and this one by the previously mentioned awesome group which displays some lovely footwork (2). Even the Chinese seem to have an audience to market to thanks to Mack 10, a member of said rap group. (3)

But I guess you lot won't be wasting any keystrokes. You won't be sharing any anecdotes or favorites then.

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