h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Have we heard this?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3EGljZ-N_Y

There's no need for that, Ed.

For those that struggle to decipher rap -

http://www.b3ta.com/links/Freestlye_Rap_Battle_Translated

Thanks for the link SWL, it illustrates better than I could have put into words why I started this thread.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8d9C5KHP5z0

The excert above also summarises, a little ironically, the fact that the immage of the style of art that is rap/hiphop is dictated predominantly by what many people see as the content of what they are exposed to. As with your video some how the content and the behaviour of small example is used to make a point about the whole.

Sadly this is true not just of people who sayt hey dont like it but more often than those who actually like it.

Much as I hate what 50cent stands for, I think what he says ought to be heard I only wish it wasnt so bloody often. Lets face it what's the point of censoring or in some way tryingto pretend that most of the hormonal young people who go for his stuff arent hormone driven people wo will given the chance emulate his actions or the actions of the bikini clad dancers in his videos.

I just dont get how people assume that rap/hip-hop is bad because some performing goon and the record comapany that pay for the videos to get made are willing to playtot the lowest common denominator to get the 12-22 year olds to part with their cash.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IHIvMD3mgHk&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6qWF2TNSjUc

My favourite rapper.

I seem to remember similar discussions taking place in the 70s about punk. In fact, I'm sure "Not the Nine o' clock News" did a translation of a punk song so nothing's new.

For that reason I've nothing particularly much to say about hip-hop. It leaves me cold and I'm not even interested enough to try to analyse why. Doesn't mean it's good or bad, it's just not for me.

Hahahaha... that Day to Day pisstake of a Nirvana sanitary towl advert is amazing....

FB

Edward, you missed out Kool Herc. Widely recognised origin of hip-hop right there. A lot of the early terminology came from him as well: b-boys etc. Afrika Bambataa did Kool Herc style break beat sound systems before he went all electro.

Saying hip-hop isn't a distinct art form because it's a variant of the rock'n'roll family tree is a bit weird. I think I know what you mean but it sounds like you're saying roock and roll etc, African American pop music is a distinct art form. Which it isn't. It's music. Same as Pinky and Perky or John Cage.

Now I'm wondering if this is something to do with tonality. Some people think that if music isn't recognisably of western tonal structure then it isn't music. This is like a Welshman saying Yorkshire puddings aren't food. The melodic, harmonic bits of Hip hop are in the majority of western tonal structure but the rap its self isn't. I tend to like the hip hop music that isn't. I like the Wu who used samples from kung-fu films a lot that were pentatonic and on chinese instrumentation and Public Enemy who had a kind of looped modal monstrosity approach. Apparently they just fiddled about until they found something they thought would scare white people and then looped it. I think this is an excellent way to write music and have adopted it my self, with the advantage of actually being a white person and therefore not having to guess what scares white people.

>>Edward, you missed out Kool Herc.

Oh, and many others, no doubt. Fab Five Freddie told me everybody's high!

>>Saying hip-hop isn't a distinct art form because it's a variant of the rock'n'roll family tree is a bit weird.

nnn...I'm not sure I am saying that, quite. All I'm trying to get over is that the lines are blurred. Gloriously so! Music - art in general - is at its best when it mixes it up.

>>African American pop music is a distinct art form. Which it isn't. It's music. Same as Pinky and Perky or John Cage

...except I suggest that the African variant added some new elements that were hitherto missing from European music. But then...some of Mozart can be traced back to Ottoman military music (true!).

'course...when Hip-Hop meets Reggae, we get Toasting/Ragga/Dancehall...and 'tis but a short step to Grime.

Here's someone whose music I discovered in Copenhagen, having come across her grave while visiting that of Soren Kierkegaard:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZETuC_XALWI
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UIjPJL4QTGg

And isn't Reggae just American R&B played backwards?

Keep on blurring!

Proto-Hip-Hop:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCQSk2l8bc
An oldie but goodie!

And YouTube has helped me get over my senility. Here's the other related band I was thinking of:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jVHE-oYRKts&feature=related

Was listening to this at the weekend in a post-party haze. Forgot how wonderful it was. Cinematic Orchestra featuring Roots Manuva - All Things To All Men.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rZdfZfMPw

Bit of fun - Pitman, Witness The Pitness

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E1dAf7EaJ28

"you had a threesome with the Krankies, and they ed off cause you were crap."

Yeah, Edward, alloys are stronger, I think pretty much all popular (not just pop) music has been a western/african hybrid in some way or other since blues. Blues is obviously so because of the tuning, which is kind of what you get trying to play traditional African music on a western instrument, but it runs a lot deeper.The rythym and the emphasis on repitition being the main ones. What Stockhausen calls Africanisms. It's hard to differentiate because the mixing up came just as recording did. The use of the drum kit is a weird one. Relatively recent and brought into use by Jazz (I think) but of distinctly western military decent but used to play African rythyms.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CQCdKe9kU2w&feature=related

The German beastie boys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXY0HkH8mN0

These guys are ace, I think...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlz5nBkxFXQ&feature=related

The sweedish slim shady


There was a wlesh guy before Goldie lookin chain called The Rhyme Commandant who was ace but I can't find him. He always got a compliment when he rocked a constonant.

Question: Does the rap element of Hip-Hop hark back to the West African 'griot' tradition? Probably!

Hope this is the right link (can't check it from w**k) - but here's some proto-proto-rap:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vAczJUkwU0

even http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vAczJUkwU0

*cough*Rex Harrison*cough*

Hip-Hop Springsteen cover from a jazz bassist/ Scientologist:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZhNQhl6qUQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZhNQhl6qUQ

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ISUoTJaXVBQ

Descriptions!