Tired of hearing vout this and not actually hearing the songs, I went to look up Kendrick Lamar expecting to hate it because I’m old and all rap sounds like shit to me these days.
And… This kinda hits. This Lamar kid’s got somethin.
i can’t tell the difference between a guy self-consciously doing conscious jazz rap, who deliberately positions himself as stylistic through-line to the 90s and puts himself in literal conversation with hiphop greats, and his “wack” contemporaries
why pretend to be an old head – you can just say you’ve never, once, listened to hip hop lol
Which one did you hear? Not Like Us is a pretty standard trap beat with some more lyrical complexity than usual, but it’s really nothing out of left field musically. It sounds like a pretty average trap song. The other 2 are a little more involved, but again nothing too crazy since these songs were made on a tight schedule. If this is really your first introduction to Kendrick I highly recommend you do yourself a favor and listen to To Pimp a Butterfly.
IMO trap music is always unfairly maligned in mainstream discussions outside of the hip hop sphere (i.e. in predominantly white spaces). It’s a broad genre, there’s some low brow trap music, then there’s your Earl Sweatshirts, Jpegmafias, Uzis, etc. who take the genre and do some very interesting things with it. Kendrick has been known to freely take a lot of influence from different subgenres and he definitely also shows that the attitude that a lot of people, especially oldheads, took toward “mumble rap,” was super shortsighted. It’s like dismissing randomness in video games because slot machines exist.
There was a period where everyone was doing the migos flow. ~2017-2022 felt like a relative genetic bottleneck in hiphop structure. I agree there are some trap artists that diverge, and a lot of the vocal anti “mumble rap” discourse is carrying strong racial undertones, but I don’t think crackery is enough to explain the sharp trend towards the Atlanta sound.
It felt like industry was collectively realizing they can capitalize on the triplet flow’s popularity more than artists independently drawing inspiration from it. Message-wise, trap also seems easier for capital to co-opt and commodify than what came before.
It’s possible. I’m a relatively new hip hop fan (started listening in 2018, 2019-ish) and I basically have always heard trap as the dominant subgenre. But I’ve also viewed it as hella diverse because I always stayed a bit closer to the underground, seeing trends of abstract hip hop and some experimental artists taking trap and doing interesting things with it, rather than the commercial trap which skated around the same few flows with nothing much to say. And, IDK, is trap really any worse than bling rap as far as being easy to co-opt?
Tired of hearing vout this and not actually hearing the songs, I went to look up Kendrick Lamar expecting to hate it because I’m old and all rap sounds like shit to me these days.
And… This kinda hits. This Lamar kid’s got somethin.
amazing
The most critically acclaimed rapper of a wack generation
Just because “mainstream” rap isn’t good doesn’t mean people haven’t constantly been releasing quality stuff.
Also, Kendrick is pushing 40 and has been putting out music for 2 decades, so he’s not exactly a part of the younger generation of rappers.
That’s certainly in his favor. I called him kid because he’s about 10 years younger than me and I was being cute
why pretend to be an old head – you can just say you’ve never, once, listened to hip hop lol
I like what I’ve heard of Lamar so far. I like that stuff that sets him apart. It’s many of his contemporaries I don’t like.
i mean he’s been mainstream for 14 years now i think we’re well into a new generation after his
I dropped out in mid-late 2000s. Hopng the new shit is more my style.
Which one did you hear? Not Like Us is a pretty standard trap beat with some more lyrical complexity than usual, but it’s really nothing out of left field musically. It sounds like a pretty average trap song. The other 2 are a little more involved, but again nothing too crazy since these songs were made on a tight schedule. If this is really your first introduction to Kendrick I highly recommend you do yourself a favor and listen to To Pimp a Butterfly.
I may have already heard To Pimp a Butterfly? Not sure. But I will.
But the fact that these were in a subgenre I usually hate is what surprised me here.
IMO trap music is always unfairly maligned in mainstream discussions outside of the hip hop sphere (i.e. in predominantly white spaces). It’s a broad genre, there’s some low brow trap music, then there’s your Earl Sweatshirts, Jpegmafias, Uzis, etc. who take the genre and do some very interesting things with it. Kendrick has been known to freely take a lot of influence from different subgenres and he definitely also shows that the attitude that a lot of people, especially oldheads, took toward “mumble rap,” was super shortsighted. It’s like dismissing randomness in video games because slot machines exist.
There was a period where everyone was doing the migos flow. ~2017-2022 felt like a relative genetic bottleneck in hiphop structure. I agree there are some trap artists that diverge, and a lot of the vocal anti “mumble rap” discourse is carrying strong racial undertones, but I don’t think crackery is enough to explain the sharp trend towards the Atlanta sound.
It felt like industry was collectively realizing they can capitalize on the triplet flow’s popularity more than artists independently drawing inspiration from it. Message-wise, trap also seems easier for capital to co-opt and commodify than what came before.
Not sure I have a thesis here, just my thoughts.
It’s possible. I’m a relatively new hip hop fan (started listening in 2018, 2019-ish) and I basically have always heard trap as the dominant subgenre. But I’ve also viewed it as hella diverse because I always stayed a bit closer to the underground, seeing trends of abstract hip hop and some experimental artists taking trap and doing interesting things with it, rather than the commercial trap which skated around the same few flows with nothing much to say. And, IDK, is trap really any worse than bling rap as far as being easy to co-opt?