From my iPod 2/28/2015: Hip Hop

·         Aesop Rock – spits more words than most can handle in a lyrical jigsaw puzzle that amazes the ear [Music For Earth Worms (1998), Appleseed EP (1999), Float (2000), Labor Days (2001), Daylight EP (2002), Bazooka Tooth (2003), Fast Cars, Danger, Fire, and Knives (2005), Coffee VLS (2007)]

·         B Dolan – beard-brother of Sage Francis on Strange Famous records spouting politically conscious dark hip-hop that brings words into practical world change.  Lives the movement with uncle Sage.  Film the Police [The Failure (2008), House of Bees Vol 1 (2009), Fallen House, Sunken City (2010), House of Bees Vol 2 (2012)]

·         Beastie Boys – hip hop licks from party to the scratch [Licensed To Ill (1986), Hello Nasty (1998), Paul’s Boutique – 20^th Anniversary Edition (2009)]

·         Black Star – authentic intelligent hip-hop from two legitimate global-poet MC’s [Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star (2002)]

·         Boogie Down Productions – original KRS masterpiece with the truth tongue that can spit knowledge from the rooted library of consciousness [By All Means Necessary (1988)]

·         De LA Soul – poetic jazz hip hop flow pulling hip hop away from violence into the beauty of language [De La Soul is Dead (1991)]

·         Del the Funky Homosapien –  Oakland hip hop that raps street and probably has a limited word arsenal, curses without needing to, not the best but ok [No Need For Alarm (1993)]

·         Digital Planets – New York hip hop triad with trade off the mic word flow including songs like Le Femme Fatal getting political [Reachin (A New Refutation Of Time and Space (1993)]

·         The Fugees –  Lauryn Hill , Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel hit huge with mix of hip hop rap and song did a good job of remaking other people’s songs [The Score (1996)]

·         Jay-Z – I respect the industry of the guy.  Borders on not really being in my wheel-house.  Death To Audiotune made me interested enough to check him out.  The unplugged album was my favorite, because it is stripped down from a lot of the commercial show-me rapping about rapping and misogynistic shit I dislike that mitigates my interest in this style of hip hop.  Now I never listen to him, because ultimately him and Kayne and that slant of hip hop just made me feel like they were about image, money, and I found insulting as a feminist.  I probably just closed off exploring, but there is probably more there I just haven’t been more interested to find out.  As talented as Beyonce probably is she is grouped in there too. [Unplugged (2001), The Black Album (2003), The Blueprint 3 (2009)]

·         K’naan – Somali authentic poetic hip-hop of usurping true poverty and grabbing a heart and still dancing, but there is an anger that is tapped into the suppressed cage of being an artist, a keeper of the flame in a country like Somali that as a citizen of New Orleans and hearing some of the music of ancestors of slaves here growing up in all that New Orleans is, I found something kindred in K’naan’s music as a fellow human that I really respect.  [The Dusty Foot Philosopher (2008), Troubadour (2009), More Beautiful Than Silence (2012), Country, God or the Girl (2012)]

·         KRS-One – authentic urban street MC that can command an audience and spit from a professor’s stance.  I need to explore most of his music. [Playlist: The Very Best of KRS-One (2010)]

·         Lauryn Hill – solo work of ex-Fugee baring a feminist powerhouse with a mix of rap and song that make for a beautiful yet tortured artist [The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)]

·         Mos Def/Yasin Bey – straight hip hop with deep thoughts, global commentary, and Michael Jackson pop hooks when he feels like it [Black on Both Sides (2002), The New Danger (2004), The Ecstatic (2009)]

·         NWA – not really my thing, but I appreciate the harshness, but not the immaturity for true change at times, the record has a place in history, the worship of violence as a career rather than a revolution speaks to a sadness, a failure of our human community of humans telling it how it is, and sometimes the devil’s made by the active ignorance of others do not look so palatable when they finally have an avenue to speak to the mainstream, gangster rap did that.  However the misogyny and murder worship display an inability to evolve as corporations have monetized the message stealing the art away from artist’s rebellion into a commercial product that I find abhorrent, but in the year this record was made that didn’t happen yet.  [Straight Outta Compton (1988)]

·         Public Enemy – The hip-hop version of The Clash defining consciousness in the genre challenging the establishment with intelligence and the power of the underground.  Public Enemy is everything active hip hop should be, challenging the human condition to be better, calling out the true devils and problems of places polished America doesn’t want to look in the eye.  Icons [It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold us Back (1988), Fear of a Black Planet (1990), Apocalypse91..The Enemy Strikes Back (1991), Power to the People: Public Enemy’s Greatest Hits (2005)]

·         The Roots – Black Thought will make you contemplate, real hip-hop with real instrument musicianship grounded by Quest Love on the drums [The Roots Come Alive (1999), Things Fall Apart (2004), Tipping Point (2004), Do You Want More?!!! (2005), How I Got Over (2010), Phrenology (2011), Undun (2011), Illadelph Halflife (2012), …and then you shoot your cousin (2014)]

·         Run DMC – original Hollis Queens MC’s creating hip hop as they spit in the era of spoon feeding white bread America an instruction of the coming artistic storm [Raising Hell (1986)]

·         Sage Francis – Public Enemy-influenced spoken word hip-hop MC master of the slam poet speaking of the darkness, the anti-commercial atheist politically conscious introvert with indie hip-hop cred operates Strange Famous Records with a heart that has climbed through hell for the rewrite.  Sage probably does a lot of stuff, but I do know he went to South Africa to help children with Aids.  Man is DIY hip hop and lives hip hop in the best sense, master wordsmith, commander of language.  [Sick of Waiting Tables (2001), Personal Journals (2002), Sick of Raging War (2002), Still Sickly Business (2005), Road Tested Live 2003-2005 (2006), Human The Death Dance (2007),  A Healthy Distrust (2008), Li(f)e (2010), Ubuntu (2012), Blue – single (2013), Copper Gone (2014)]

·         Scroobius Pip – British hip-hop political on Strange Famous records [Distraction Pieces (2011)]

·         Talib Kweli – spoken word artist poetic hip hop with rhyme skill [Reflection Eternal [Train of Thought] (2002), Prisoner of Conscious (2013)]

·         A Tribe Called Quest – foundational hip hop collective can I kick it? [The Anthology (1999)] 

·         Wu-Tang Clan – a hip hop rap-ninja tribe East Coast gathering of RZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Ol’Dirty Bastard and like four or five other dudes in super rap group  [Enter the Wu-Tang (1993), Wu-Tang Forever (1994) Legendary Weapons (2011), A Better Tomorrow (2014)]

Compilations

·         Dave Chappelles Block Party – Blackstar, Jill Scott, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common, The Roots, Erykah Badu

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