Artists and Polotics.. do they go?

What they have to understand is that once they become respected artists they have to have a certain level of professionalism. A certain artist who helped UK breakthrough in the hip hop scene, made an embarrassing political statement on live news. What they need to understand is that people look up to them and they need to need to maintain their standards. Check out the video below:


Now what i didn’t understand was that if Dizzee Rascal didn’t know much about the political view then why did he do the interview and embarrass himself.

QoD

Embarrsing UK artists

My opinion is that UK artists are getting negative media and views because of what their videos consist of. They try to imitate what American artists do, but they do a very bad imitation. All the videos consist of is violence, guns, crime, alcohol and girls. The American hip hop artists videos consist of the similar things, but the difference is they pay allot for high budget quality videos, where as the U.K artists produce low budget cheesy videos.

If you look at this link, it is a video of N-dubz, a UK hip hop group, and you will understand what I mean by low budget videos compared to American artists.
Whereas you have some people who make high budget unique videos
Check out the video below people, it’s ‘Roll deep – shake a leg’


QoD

Where Have the Poets Gone?

Focusing on 1 of the most known and respected Poets of our time had to be 'Tupac Shakur'. He rapped his life, he rapped his emotions, he rapped about situations that people are dealing with still to this day. But what separated 'Tupac' was his unique rapping style. Compared to artists such as Notorious B.I.G, 'Tupac' was poetic where as B.I.G just rhymed and made no sense, which is just like most artists of today.



The only poetic artist that has been recognised and been respected for is ‘Marshall Mathers’ also known as ‘Eminem’. He has been the only artist compared to ‘Tupac’s’ level. 50Cent was considered to be the next ‘Tupac’, because of the pain in his music, but that pain died out in his music when he started to become more commercialised and focused on other business ventures.

Check this video out – One of Eminem’s poetic songs


One of 50 Cents poetic songs


QoD

U.G.K = UK?

Right everyone we can get a lot different point of views on this topic. UK hip hop has come a long way; we have artists like Kano, Wiley and Dizzee Rascal, who have opened up the doors for UK Hip-Hop to get recognised. When Wiley and Dizzee Rascal came out they did certainly open the doors for UK hip hop, because at the time it was mainly about American hip hop, but the more songs the UK artists released the more the media was publicising and American artists started to recognise and give credit for the UK hip hop scene.

There are a lot of new artists who are helping push hip hop further, but are they succeeding? We will elaborate more on that later on.

'You don’t have to be American to be a rap star' as stated by an underground artist named 'Craze 24'. He has a good point here because UK hip hop has not received the deserved amount of credit it should have compared to American Hip-hop. But there are some acts, like the US scene, that are holding the UK side down. So-called artists like N-Dubz who in our opinion are having their 15 minutes of fame at the moment. Acts that are 'manufactured' by the record labels after the money.

For out UK readers in particular, what are your views on all of this?

QoD

New Blood?

Which artists have been blowing up the scene? Papoose was thought to be next best thing after 50Cent, because of his clever rapping style(see the video below to see his talent), put due to the producers and his management he never did make it big. There’s a particular artist that has come across as a talented freestyler if he is directed in the right way to become commercialised yet keep it street like Lupe for instance. His name is Cory Gunz, he’s only a young lad who started free styling and battling other MC’s to get his name out there. He has a unique rapping style compared to other freestylers. The question is can he just freestyle or can he rap too? Will he do the same as 'Jin' and stay as an underground freestyler because he couldn’t make it as a rapper?


He has done freestyle collaboration with other artists but not yet released an official album, but he has released an underground mix tape which I’ve read about and the reviews are encouraging. What’s your views about this rapper everyone?


QoD

Rap Battle

A lot of artists make their way up by underground freestyling and participating in rap battles. There are a lot of rappers out there who have no freestyling talent at all, and still make it big within the hip hop industry because of the songs that have been produced for them. There have been many artists who have come onto the scene slightly but have disappeared temporarily or permanently. Take Papoose for instance he made it real big with free styling, and he did alot of mixtapes working with DJ Kay Slay, but he never did that well getting commercialised. He got featured on many tracks such as Busta Rhymes' "touch it (remix)", Joe's "where you at" and chamillionaire's "ridin' (remix)".

Another good up-and-coming underground rapper is Cory Gunz. Although not well known now, in the underground scene he is known for his complex freestyling skills. These are the kind of rappers that should be making a name for themselves, but aren't getting the recognition they deserve, well in our opinion anyway.


Heres a taste of some good freestyle rappers courtesy of BET. The rappers featured are, Willie Northpole, Blaq Poet, Hime and Cory Gunz, with DJ Premier. Enjoy!

QoD

The Recession

No not the album by Young Jeezy. I'm talking about the recent crisis that the world seems to be in at the moment. I brought this up partly to do with what we were talking about a couple of weeks ago, how rappers are making their money through different ventures.
Then I started to think about the recession and how maybe because of record sales, this may have lead to the cause of so many delays of album releases. Albums such as Busta Rhyme's "B.O.M.B" album and until its eventual release Common's "Universal Mind Control" album. Could this be a reason for the boom of rappers going into other areas of interest?

PEACE

6oD

The Saviours? (part 3 - Lupe Fiasco)

So we have talked about people of the past that people may consider are 'past' it, and people who have left their mark but still haven't done as much as hoped. But what about the ones who are the present and the future of the industry. One name seems to always spring up in most peoples mind, Lupe Fiasco.

The reason we singled this artist out is because we see him as probably the most talented artist to emerge in a long time. For those not so familiar, Lupe is an artist who has been known to keep the meaning of his songs very real and deep in meaning. Whether its in the style of a more mainstream sound or a more traditional sound, Lupe Fiasco always seems to deliver in such a way that it caters for everyone. We see this as the real progression of hip hop today.

We want to know what your thoughts are, and if there are any other artists that are similar that you think should get the recognition that Lupe Fiasco is getting.

PEACE

6oD

Mind on their Money, or Money on their Music?

An interesting thought I've had over the past few days that I thought I would bring up. So I was watching TV and I came across a comedian who was talking about how rappers are becoming the new modern entrepreneurs of this century. And it got me thinking that what he was saying is true. For example we have Jay-Z the CEO of Roc-a-Fella records, but also has a clothing line called Roc-a-Wear as well as a club and even a vodka called 'Armadale'! But Jay's not the only one, we've got Pharrell Williams and his Billionaire Boys Club and Ice-Cream clothing line and 50 Cent with the G-Unit clothing line.

This has got me wondering, with people so determined to make money, are the great rappers of our era trying to concentrate on other ventures rather than concentrate on the music? Is this what is partly killing off the hip hop genre, the fact that rather than focusing on creating new fresh meaningful music, that these 'entrepreneurs' would rather make money? Let us know your views, this should be an interesting topic.

PEACE

6oD

p.s. oh yeah theres a new poll for you guys, check it out :)

Dead & Gone?

Hi everyone, i just wanted to talk about the artists within hip-hop who made a big contribution within hip-hop and have past on. I feel that artists are living of the legacy of former greats. An example being P-diddy makes his money off Notourious B.I.G's legacy. Another example being Tupac who has made it easy for artists such as Eminem, 50 Cent and Dr.Dre to make them and got them to where they are today becuase of his legacy. Also would doors be open as they are now if it weren't for artists such as BIG, Tupac or Big L etc?

Tell me your opinions people...

QoD

The Saviours? (part 2 - Relevance)

Hey everyone, sorry about the delay of the blogs and stuff, as like most of you we have been enjoying our holiday break, and seeing as both myself and QoD are both new to blogging, along with university its hard to keep up with it all. Enough with the excuses lets get back on topic!

I was actually checking out the site 'State of Hip Hop Blog' (a site we are using to aid us in our research) and came across an interesting post about how people are looking at the pioneers of the hip hop industry as irrelevant. From that I started to think, is this what is causing people to forget the 'Golden Age', as they see rappers like LL Cool J, Coolio etc no longer needed for the industry. They are still recording music to this day but not as they usually do, but by trying to relate it to what people want today. But this doesn't seem to be enough. So are these 'forgotten' pioneers doing the right thing by abandoning their successful styles, or should they continue to try and 'fit in' with the rest of the present rappers?

Could we even be seeing today's rappers doing the same in later years? Over on our facebook discussion page somebody posted about the rapper Common heading that way with his latest album 'Universal Mind Control'. Could Common be heading our way?

Let us know your thoughts, we look forward to them...

...PEACE

6oD

The Saviours? (part 1 - 50 Cent)

Is Hip-Hop considered to be dying out or will someone bring hip-hop back? There are a number of names that people consider will bring back the 'Golden Age' of hip hop. People like 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, Talib Kweli, Common, T.I. etc that keep the genre alive.

When 50 Cent first burst onto the scene it was thought that Hip-Hop was dying and 50 Cent would be the one to bring it back, and my opinion is that he did have a strong movement and role in this and a lot of people supported him. But now he has begun to fade into the background and it feels like hip hop is dying again. His style of hip hop catered for those that are wanting the original old school style as well as the people not so familiar with the hip hop history, but just want something good to listen to.

Just like our earlier post about Lil Wayne however, some people will not agree with these statements. As 6oD said to me, he believes that the way that Lil Wayne is being treated as a rapper of legendary status is the same as when 50 Cent was in the spotlight. They all deserve their moments, but with the more popular 'snap music' etc in the mainstream, are the veterans being taken over by the novices?

QoD

Change of Plans & So Called "Hip Hop"

Ok first order of business, we've decided to do our blogs every Friday. This is simply because of our schedule at university, and its gonna be hard to fit in our research etc for this project, along with other things we're doing.

Now back onto this weeks blog, the artists and music that claim to be under the hip hop banner. To be more precise, snap music and pop rap. Now most of you can probably guess what artists we're talking about, artists like Soulja Boy, Hurricane Chris, D4L, Dem Franchize Boyz etc.

These artists are useless for hip hop but are still liked by the younger youth as we found out from research that we did,and are aimed specifically to be catchy. These types are loved in night clubs because the videos that are produced have a specific dance and are aimed for the younger generation for a age group around 10-21.

Should this type of so called hip hop music be allowed to be associated with the genre? Its understandable from the business side of things, how they are used as a way of marketing the genre and it is working. But this happening is in our opinion, killing off the real meaning of what hip hop was and should still be, the poetry of the streets.

PEACE...

6oD

A joint production

So what we thought we would do this week as a one off to begin with, is both contribute on a blog together. Normally one of us will do a blog on Monday's and the other on Friday's.

The blog is mainly about contrasts in the 'golden age' of hip hop compared to the modern age hip hop scene. But there is one discussion that has caught our eye, aiming on a particular rapper that goes by the name of Lil' Wayne.
We've found that the majority of blog sites and discussion boards are going back and forth arguing whether he is of 'legendary' status or not, with the majority of people saying he is not. But what of those of the people who say that he is?

The Queen of Diamonds says: Lil' Wayne can have his good moments, but he has mostly bad moments, his rap style can be a little silly and on alot of tracks he mumbles the lyrics which can be annoying becuase you cannot understand him. He recently started the whole T-pain auto-tuner singing style, my personal opinion on it is its unecessary because it sounds awful and why not be unique. Now the question is "Is lil Wayne the future for Hip Hop?"

The six of Diamonds says: I would also like to ask the question, is this the direction Hip Hop should be going?

We look forward to your views on this

PEACE...

6oD & QoD

Intro

Hey

This is your boy 6oD kickin' off a brand new blog along with my queen, the Queen of Diamonds!

Basically we're creating this blog for a uni project. In our brief we basically wrote:

"On this project we are focusing on the current state of Hip Hop and observing people’s opinions on this by looking at various blogs. We are going to compare agreements and disagreements of people on the blogs, of their views of whether hip hop is dying as a genre in music and what people think is causing this. We will also be looking at a brief history of hip-hop and peoples views on if hip hop was a better era during the ‘Golden Age’ of hip-hop then what hip hop music has become today. We will look at the different styles of rapping from the current rappers there are, and also we will look at the rapping styles when hip hop started off."

From that we also aim to answer the following questions:

Why people voicing their opinions via blogging?

Do people’s opinions via blogging influence others to change their views on that particular subject?

Do people voice their opinions through different mediums such as video blogging, if so how do they get their message across?

How is hip hop influential to the youths compared to twenty years ago, and how is this shown in the blogs, i.e. age-wise?

We look forward to your comments during these next few months...

...PEACE

6oD