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ptaylor1989 wrote:

I'm actually a HUGE hip-hop fan. My knowledge of jazz is extensive but my love for hip hop might very well be even larger. The reason I don't talk more hip-hop is because I literally haven't seen a good hip-hop chart. I'm still looking of course but I think most of the rap tastes on this site are a bit pedantic and cliche. They are built to be accessible and popular rather than challenging. I'm guilty of only including a certain type of rap album here because other than the hip hop game lethal puts on, people seem far more preoccupied with other genre. We all know hip-hop is largely a cultural aesthetic and like any canon of music takes a certain level of historical context to fully appreciate. The majority of discussed genre rarely overlaps with hip-hop but with all the hip hop we wade through, im shocked that a significant hip hop chart hasn't become more popular.

This BAWP crap isn't cutting it for me and it doesn't cut it for most avid fans. So please, I challenge someone to actually give their nuanced taste of rap a chance to coalesce into a meaningful chart. I can already tell which users have at least a nominal understanding of rap and am very interested in seeing what we come up with. A meaningful chart that invites members in and challenges their tastes is certainly much more important than blanketing and disempowering terms such as "racist".

Check my decade charts. Apologies if you have already and they just don't appease you.

Jasonconfused
If We Make It We Can All Sit Back and Laugh

Gender: Male
Location: Washington

Puncture Repair wrote:

I always enjoy your contributions to the site, regardless of your personal opinion. It's healthy to have both sides of the coin - we're all prone to taking things personally and to heart now and then. I sincerely hope you don't mean this.

I second this. I always enjoy your input Romanelli.
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ptaylor1989

Age: 34

lethalnezzle wrote:

Check my decade charts. Apologies if you have already and they just don't appease you.

Will do. But last time I looked, everything else was almost too tidily conglomerated. Almost like you copied and pasted from somewhere or assumed an ignorant audience. There are no mistakes or questionable records in the decades from what I can remember. I've heard all the records from the 2000's back and would agree, these are seminal records.

Im curious as to what you do because if i were to teach a hip hop class, id definitely use your masterfully ordered decade charts as a foundation. But it's a bit normative in that you didn't take any chances with your audience. Please don't kill me for this review because I haven't taken another look but I will say I remember truly enjoying the 2010's chart. I'll peruse it after breakfast...

I can PM if y'all want to keep this thread on topic.
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http://www.last.fm/user/ptaylor1989

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ptaylor1989 wrote:

Will do. But last time I looked, everything else was almost too tidily conglomerated. Almost like you copied and pasted from somewhere or assumed an ignorant audience. There are no mistakes or questionable records in the decades from what I can remember. I've heard all the records from the 2000's back and would agree, these are seminal records.

Im curious as to what you do because if i were to teach a hip hop class, id definitely use your masterfully ordered decade charts as a foundation. But it's a bit normative in that you didn't take any chances with your audience. Please don't kill me for this review because I haven't taken another look but I will say I remember truly enjoying the 2010's chart. I'll peruse it after breakfast...

I can PM if y'all want to keep this thread on topic.

To a large extent I agree with what you've written, and I think there are a couple of obvious reasons behind this. For a start, hip-hop is a genre in which technical ability is key for a lot of listeners, and certainly was for me at least up until two or three years ago (I've mellowed on this recently, and find that a rapper's personality is now the main thing. It always has been, hence my love of Ghostface, but as each day passes I pay less and less attention to a rapper's proficiency, although being extremely capable and dexterous on the mic still catches my attention). This means that so much emphasis is put on a rapper's cadence, flow and rhyme scheme that it leads to a lot of Top 5/10/50/whatever lists having a very similar look and feel due to most people's favourite rappers all being pooled from an elite group of MCs (that said, I don't think that a 2000s Top 20 including Blu, Murs, Binary Star, Elzhi, Masta Ace, Sean Price, Pharoahe Monch's Desire, The Clipse's Lord Willin' is in any way normative, even if those rappers don't stray into overtly experimental territory, although I don't live in America and don't know whether those albums are regularly seen amongst an average hip-hop fan's favourite albums. Admittedly my '90s chart is far more predictable and canonical, although again I doubt you'd see the likes of Rhythm-Al-Ism, The Art of Storytelling and Super Tight, amongst others, in many Top 20s). Hip-hop is a genre in which, for me at any rate, there tends to be a fairly black and white sense of "good hip-hop" and "bad hip-hop". There are experiments I can appreciate, and albums that divide opinion, but on the whole I find that - amongst people in my life who know a lot about hip-hop - there is less room for completely subjective appraisal. To explain what I mean by this, one man could completely hate Bob Dylan's voice and lyrics, whilst others liken him to a deity. Most hip-hop fans tend to agree that Nas has a good rapping voice and strong lyrics. Even people that find Nas boring still admit that lyrically he's stunning. There is a massive proportion of rock fans, with otherwise impeccable taste, who refuse to admit that Dylan has any of the talent his followers claim. Nas may have his share of haters, but there tends to be a knowing respect that says, "yeah, regardless of what I think, he's one of the best ever" (I'm not sure what I think of this, as personally I believe that this is the same as people saying "I don't like the Beatles, but objectively they're great", or "Cher must be great because Believe sold 20 million copies"). Anyway, it does lead to a shared opinion between fans on who the greatest rappers are and what the greatest albums are, in a way that I don't believe occurs - at least so blatantly and overtly - within other genres. Secondly, the point of the charts was to list my favourite hip-hop albums, and admittedly my tastes are pretty conservative when it comes to hip-hop. This is probably the major reason behind my charts looking as they do. I've always found enjoyment in the standard formula of soul/jazz sample + decent rapping, and whilst I like a lot outside of that template it is still that which I find myself being drawn to and going back to. Lastly, living in the UK I didn't - until the recent internet influenced phenomenon of artists who would usually never be heard outside of their home states finding national, and international, acclaim - hear a lot of underground artists. The first hip-hop album I bought, as an eleven year-old, was Jay-Z's The Blueprint. You wouldn't find interesting or experimental albums and mixtapes over here very easily up until the last two or three years, and I think that as I catch up to a lot of the scenes that never made their way over to this island you'll see the charts evolve. I'm genuinely sorry that you don't find the charts particularly interesting (or perhaps, more accurately, too conservative), but they are charts that I feel honestly represent my taste in hip-hop at this point in my life. If that's too "pedantic and cliche" and not "nuanced" or "meaningful" enough for your tastes then I can do little more than apologise and ask you to accept that, despite us both clearly loving the genre, that we have different tastes and want different things from it. I do look forward to your hip-hop chart(s) though (whenever you're eligible for custom charts), as I feel the site needs more of them, obviously, and because I value your opinion (as I've said before, your chart is great). I'd also point you towards this chart as you continue your search for a BEA hip-hop chart that satisfies you. Hope that all makes some sort of sense.

ptaylor1989

Age: 34

That makes perfect sense! I sincerely have a lot of respect for your hop hop taste especially with you on the other side of the pond. Today I tinted my car's windows and added a new speaker system and still haven't gone on my Valentine's day date yet. As soon as i get a chance, I'll be all up in your chart and your recommendation Smile

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