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Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

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Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#101

Post by chiefalchemist »

giantrobot wrote: post #85
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was more thinking of choosing between Check The Rhime (Grover Washington Jr. and a sublime use of Minnie Ripperton) as it's got such a kicking beat or Scenario (Brother Jack McDuff and a bit of Hendrix) due to its influence and being such a stand-out introduction to Busta Rhymes. Or Award Tour (Charles Earland, Weldon Irvine) or maybe just cheat and go for Excursions and Buggin Out (what a way to start an album).

Fuck. You guys made me want to grab my ATCQ albums out of the garage. My ears will be far happier than my lower back. *shakes fist*

Mind if I drop by...and break into your garage? :)

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#102

Post by cookie_monsta »

jrm4 wrote: post #65

A big thing in the background of all of this; America, perhaps the world, myself included, really hasn't come to properly reckon with the extent to which we all subconsciously think of Black American art (including hip-hop) as something to be "taken" or "used" or generally not culturally owned by Black folks, usually Americans. The example that sticks in my head: if I, a black guy, were to get into Irish step-dancing…

As a white guy I am aware of the minefield I am skipping merrily into here, but here goes:

I can see the general point here, but don't think it applies as strongly to hip hop. Maybe it's just the circles I move in, but hip hop fans and artists seem to be quite aware of the origin stories and hold a particular reverence for the old school.

Compare that to rock fans who wouldn't look further back than Presley (the king, lol) or green day fans who have never even heard of the stooges.

Maybe it's because hip hop is a relatively young genre and ties to the old school fade as generations pass.

If we're talking about money then yeah, sure - I'd be surprised if any of the creators made anything out of it compared to what corporate America does, but that's nothing new either. I don't know anything about (Rap)Genius.com, but I guess my question would be: what would you prefer to be happening that would respect the genre's origins but still allow it to grow?

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#103

Post by giantrobot »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #101
giantrobot wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck. You guys made me want to grab my ATCQ albums out of the garage. My ears will be far happier than my lower back. *shakes fist*

Mind if I drop by...and break into your garage? :)

You can dig through the top layer of junk. It'll save my back for going through the second layer.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#104

Post by NickC25 »

dep_b wrote: post #3

The blog era, that was so cool. The most rare stuff you could find, including some background. Now it's usually on YouTube mostly devoid of context and only single tracks.

There is some rare stuff on YouTube - check out this channel - https://www.youtube.com/@OGDonNinja

Guy is a collector of old hip hop records and tapes from the 80s until early 2000s. They are all available on his channel in their dusty-sounding glory. Amazing.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#105

Post by zhengyi13 »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #91
10729287 wrote: post #6

A little off topic but funny enough to mention. Here in France, Skyblog.com is closing its doors in the next days. It was a blog platform ran by the #1 hiphop radio. It's not related to hip hop at all, even the radio only play crappy mainstream rap since 30 years ago, but back in the days, it was an easy way for a lot of teens to have a voice on the Internet. It wasn't deep at all, often really dumb, and it was mocke…

For the record (ha!), French hip hop is my favourite of all the "international" flavours. Some excellent DJs and producers and there's something about the smoothness of the accent that coincides very well with my tastes. Not understanding French and so not having to worry about problematic lyrics may add to the appeal;)

For anyone following along at home, MC Solaar might be a really good entry point into French Hiphop.

Give La concubine de l'hémoglobine a try - talk about smooth.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#106

Post by zhengyi13 »

whinenot wrote: post #51
Exmoor wrote: post #29

I've thought about this quite a bit. I'm a big fan of the record label Bear Family, a German label that specializes in releasing boxsets from R&B/Rock&Roll/Country artists from the 20's-70's. Want to hear every song The Carter Family ever recorded in their original incarnation? They have a 12 CD boxset for you! They generally do this be acquiring the original master tapes from the labels, which often include a lot of…

> A lot of these tracks were also recorded over unlicensed beats/samples That's the killer, right there. For example, the Beastie Boys album Paul's Boutique probably could not be released today as it samples an incredible number of other artists.[0] [0] https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7kI8XoDoiHcrG0aGmtvq1g

On a similar note, Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album" remixing Jay Z's The Black Album over samples from The Beatles' White Album... Amazing.

It's pretty findable, but it's unfortunate that there's no canonical source.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#107

Post by w-ll »

tyre wrote: post #62
michaelt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, most of this material was only released in unofficial forms, often on low-quality MP3s and often with some random dude shouting over the intro. If that's the art form as it was experienced, do archivists need to make a "better" version?

This is like asking if a recording of the 1996 Olympics should have to include all of the commercials. For historical purposes, sure, have that as an option, but lil wayne's mixtapes are not better off for the random DJs or website advertisements yelled over them. That's not the music he made.

Lil Wayne does have producer tags on his offical mixtaps, its just a lot of sites add their own crap even on top of that.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#108

Post by Ductapemaster »

VikingCoder wrote: post #15

Hip-Hop Evolution on Netflix is really, really good. [1] Hip-hop is for sure not my favorite genre - but this series was fantastic. [1] : https://www.netflix.com/watch/80141893?trackId=200257859

Historically, I've only casually listened to the genre through friends or events. However, watching this show gave me such a new appreciation for the stories of the performers, the inspiration for their music, where the different styles come from, and the sheer brilliance of the producers and artists. It completely changed my opinion and respect for the genre.

I can't recommend the show highly enough. My partner and I have watched it through at least twice.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#109

Post by analog31 »

jimt1234 wrote: post #71

Back when I first started listening to hip hop music (around 1982; i'm old), it wasn't easy to get your hands on it if you lived in the suburbs. Record stores in the suburbs didn't stock hip hop until the Beastie Boys' "Licensed to Ill" and Run DMC's "Raising Hell". I had a circle of friends that could get me bootlegs - basically, mixtapes from people with hip hop records. I threw all of them away years ago. And I've…

I remember that time, living in a suburb of Detroit. My first exposure to hip hop was on the radio, driving to my summer job. A lot of it seemed like it was being made on the spot, for instance there were references to recent local events and politics.

Re: Hip hop historians who are racing to preserve its story

#110

Post by Hanschri »

10729287 wrote: post #6

A little off topic but funny enough to mention. Here in France, Skyblog.com is closing its doors in the next days. It was a blog platform ran by the #1 hiphop radio. It's not related to hip hop at all, even the radio only play crappy mainstream rap since 30 years ago, but back in the days, it was an easy way for a lot of teens to have a voice on the Internet. It wasn't deep at all, often really dumb, and it was mocke…

ArchiveTeam is also currently archiving Skyblog!

https://tracker.archiveteam.org/skyblog/

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