Hip-Hop Thread Genre • Page 770

if GMKC is nothing new then My Krazy Life definitely isn't either. Great record no doubt! but it's pretty clear what the source material is

 

MKL isn't "new" either. It was just the better version of what Kendrick was trying to do.



imo of course! To be honest, I haven't listened to either in a while. GKMC (as is well documented) was a let down for me, especially with how much I enjoyed Section 80

 

I guess when you listen to a lot of weird shit like I do, the idea of TPAB being in any way pretentious is kinda funny haha

 

I have addressed the problem of antisemitism in rap a lot, even here, usually without any responses, if that’s where you’re going

 

Swap that round and you've got what I think. Whenever I've listened to YG, i've always thought it's just standard west coast stuff. Nothing groundbreaking IMO.

 

I’m not saying he sounds like Eminem, I saying I dislike him for the same reasons

 

TPAB is great, not saying it isn't, but the skits DO takeaway from the record--especially since they're tacked onto the end of literally every track and they progressively get longer as the album nears the end. That said, most of the songs themselves just aren't super memorable for me--and anyone saying it's breaking new ground clearly hasn't listened to OutKast's Aquemini or Goodie Mob's Soul Food which came out 20 years beforehand and do exactly what TPAB is doing sonically, but better.

Also the Eminem comparison is mostly in the way that KDOT tries to rhyme every syllable to the point where it feels forced in some songs/changing his voice/ etc...

 

TPAB also wasn’t anything “new” yet people act like he invented rapping over beats played by Jazz musicians

That’s not a Kendrick diss btw

 

Sometimes albums are given immense critical praise because they are good and not because it's "new" or whatever

 

Right, but he also gets the latter

 

TPAB brought jazz rap back to the mainstream, so i'll always be grateful for that haha

 

That I can see

 

If someone had told me 3 years ago i'd be arguing FOR Kendrick, I would have laughed in their face.

 

I saw a notable music writer say that Drake made mixing rapping and singing viable, as if many hadn’t done that successfully for decades lol rap fandom just has a short memory

 

I’m not shitting on Kendrick, his existence or his career or whatever doesn’t bother me, I only explained why I don’t really listen to him, with what I believe are properly subjective reasons that weren’t meant to start an argument

 

I would concede that Lupe has a more pleasing voice to listen to

 

I listened to the Amine album the other day, and to me it didn't really click because it sounded like nothing new. And I've liked some Amine stuff before, I like his voice and his style, but the entire album felt like the same type of album that a mid to high level mainstream rapper should be putting out. Musically not too different, subject matter similar throughout the songs, the meaning behind it falling into a small subset of pre-approved "being a successful rapper should mean this to you" cliches. It felt like I've heard it too many times before.

I'm a big fan of Kendrick, and I hear the argument that he's done nothing new, he really is a collection of his influences and it shows. If he's brought anything new to the table, its the way he's structured his albums and had a more nuanced message involved. For both TPAB and Damn. the songs may not sound out of this world different, but TPAB threading of a story across the album and Damn having a reversable and looping narrative was something I had not heard before, at least in mainstream mid to high level rap albums.

I think that's worth something, but maybe I'm just an album structure nerd and who cares.

 

I think part of why I haven't liked GKMC or Section 80 as much is because he lacks those elements. GKMC he tries to create a narrative but it feels underwhelming, leaving what is mostly a string of loosely connected songs with an attempt to tie them together that was never going to succeed. His talent has always been evident, but until TPAB he never felt like much more than a very good mid to high level rapper doing the same things they are expected to do.

 

Agree with every point of this. First, I was bummed that I didn't like the Amine album as much as his older stuff, or as much as people in here. Definitely gives off the vibe of just another mid-tier rapper's album, which stinks because he's super creative on other things!

With Kendrick, the "album" aspect of it is certainly something that he does better than a ton of his peers. Each of his tapes, even the ones i'm not 100% on, are cohesive and flow better than the majority of other mainstream artists out there. I think he's doing some weird shit on an album that most casual/serious fans of hip hop are going to listen to. I think at his level of fame, he could just coast and spit technically proficient bars and sell a ton of records, so it is nice to see him putting his heart into his albums.

 

Section 80 is basically the album that I was referring to in the last part of my last post: a super talented technically proficient rapper releasing a string of bangers with no real cohesive tie and a decent amount of filler. If he released that album after TPAB, I'm sure it'd have hits but I'd be bummed that some of the storytelling went away.

 

Section.80 is by far my favorite Kendrick album tbh.

 

Yeah, I'm not railing on Kendrick saying he's bad or anything. Lupe is just better for me - voice, flow, lyrics, instrumentation/production, replayability. I respect Kendrick's ability to also make strong concept albums but I also refuse to believe "he brought it back into the mainstream." These kinds of arguments just don't really make sense to me- as if he's a pioneer or something. Concepts in hip-hop records have been around forever, and never really left.

 

I'd say Kendrick is like a rap Radiohead in a lot of ways. Started off with two well received albums that did well amongst the fan base (Pablo Honey/The Bends & Overly Dedicated/Section 80), blew up with his/their next one (OK Computer and GKMC) and took a switch in direction after that, gaining a large amount of critical recognition (Kid A and TPAB). If you take Amnesiac out the picture and went straight to Hail to the Thief, you could argue that DAMN is similar to that in the fact he/they went back to a more straightforward sound but still retaining some of the influences from their previous album.

I may be thinking about this too much haha

EDIT: actually, you could easily say Amnesiac and Untitled Unmastered are similar too. Both continuations from their last albums and both recorded and made around the same time. BOOM. *ahem*

 

im not saying you’re anti semitic. i’m saying it would make sense why it wouldn’t bother you as much as others, who it very clearly bothers for good reason.