Hip-Hop
I read a post on this blog (sorry cant remember which one) that made me think about real hip-hop. Hip-hop that made you think. Rewind the tape back hip-hop. Made you memorize it like your life depended on it hip-hop. How did hip-hop evolve into the bullshit you hear on the radio today? How did it become commercialized and trivialized? When did hip-hop assimilate? The state of music today depresses me. So this is kind of my ode to hip-hop… maybe if I put it out there in the universe the suffering (50 cent, crunk music, lil john, ja rule, cash money, etc…) that has been the past decade will end.
Some of my favorite hip-hop songs/records
1.Rappers Delight – Sugar Hill Gang. This was the song that bought hip-hop to the masses. Before that it was mostly underground. The focus was more so on DJs & break dancers not MCs.
2.The Breaks – Kurtis Blow. He was the first hip-hop MC to perform on TV. He performed The Breaks on Soul Train.
3.White Lines – Grand Master Flash & Melle Mel. Anti-cocaine public service announcement. I love this song. The beat is crazy.
4.Roxanne, Roxanne – UTFO. Roxanne Shante came out with a response record to this called “Roxannes Revenge”, I thought it was kind of wack but it got good air play.
5.The Show/La Di Da Di – Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew - no explanation needed. Released in 1985 it still gets mad love 20 years later.
6.Paid in Full – Eric B. & Rakim – Eric B was always a good lyricist. It seemed like every album he dropped just got better and better. He kind of fell off on some of his last ones though.
7.You Gots to Chill – EPMD. You couldnt go to a party in 88 without hearing this song.
8.By All Means Neccesary/Stop the Violence – Boogie Down Productions. The whole album was fly but the stand out song was Stop the Violence. It was the first hip-hop collaboration (that I can think of) song of this magnitude. “Heavys at the door so therell be no bum rushing.”
9.The Bridge is Over - Boogie Down Productions. One of my favorite songs of all times. KRS One is one of the dopest lyricist ever. The Juice Crew song “The Bridge” was a battle son in answer to BDPs song. (actually I cant remember which one came out first). Honorable mention to “Criminal Minded”.
10.Radio/I Need Love – LL Cool J. Yes the ladies loved LL. I still do. His fineness just grows and grows. But lyrically I think this is his best album. I Need Love is just one of the classics hes put out over the years.
11.All Hail the Queen – Queen Latifah. The one and only. She was the first female rapper that I really paid attention too. I could play that record from beginning to end without skipping any songs. I loved it that much. My favorite was Ladies First.
12.Hot, Cool & Vicious - Salt-N-Peppa. This album was pretty commercial but commercial wasnt anywhere near as bad as it is now. Push it & Tramp were party tracks that got a lot of airplay.
13.2Hype – Kid N Play. I must admit I had a crush on Kid. I guess it was the hair. A lot of people dont like their music but if you listen to the lyrics they werent too bad. Rollin with Kid N Play was the song and I know we all have House Party in the collection.
14.Licensed to Ill – Beastie Boys. Paul Revere… enough said!
15.King of Rock – Run D.M.C. This wasnt their first album but for some reason I wasnt really feeling them until this second album. King of Rock was the joint.
16.Living Large – Heavy D & The Boyz. I dont care what anyone says… I loved this record. I had the biggest crush on Heavy D. I used to cut pictures of him out of magazines and paste them on my wall.
17.Midnight Marauders/Bonita Applebum – Tribe Called Quest. Before Midnight Marauders came out the only song I like of theirs was Bonita Applebum. When that album came out I fell in love with Tribe. They recorded a song with The Jungle Brothers called “Buddy” that has to be in the top five of my favorite songs.
18.For the People – Boot Camp Clik. If I had to name a favorite song by them, I couldnt. All of their songs were lyrically superior to so many things that were out at the time. I do love How Many Emcees though. Honorable mention to Black Moon, Ras Kass, Group Home etc…
19.Daddys Little Girl – Nikki D. Ok this is a stretch but I just loved that song and the record was pretty nice too.
20.Brendas Got a Baby – Tupac. Before all the drama.
21.Sally – Stetsasonic. The song didnt make to much sense but I loved the beat.
22.One For All – Brand Nubian. I loved this record. I played it just about everyday.
23.Ready to Die/Gimme The Loot – Notorious BIG. Bigs rhyme style is like no other. It took me a minute to figure out it was him doing both voices on Gimme The Loot. I had never heard anything like it.
24.It Aint Hard to Tell - Nas. My favorite Nas song.
25.One Day Itll All Make Sense/I Used to Love H.E.R. – Common.
26.Black on Both Sides – Mos Def. One of my favorite artists of all times. Ms Fat Booty is such a sexy song. I love New World Water too.
27.Love, Peace & Napiness – Lost Boyz. Ive always loved this group. My favorite songs are Music Makes Me High and Renee.
Thats just a few. I could go on and on, but I wont cause this post is long enough. Happy Hump Day!
I still don't know what's going on with this template. I may have to change it again.
Some of my favorite hip-hop songs/records
1.Rappers Delight – Sugar Hill Gang. This was the song that bought hip-hop to the masses. Before that it was mostly underground. The focus was more so on DJs & break dancers not MCs.
2.The Breaks – Kurtis Blow. He was the first hip-hop MC to perform on TV. He performed The Breaks on Soul Train.
3.White Lines – Grand Master Flash & Melle Mel. Anti-cocaine public service announcement. I love this song. The beat is crazy.
4.Roxanne, Roxanne – UTFO. Roxanne Shante came out with a response record to this called “Roxannes Revenge”, I thought it was kind of wack but it got good air play.
5.The Show/La Di Da Di – Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew - no explanation needed. Released in 1985 it still gets mad love 20 years later.
6.Paid in Full – Eric B. & Rakim – Eric B was always a good lyricist. It seemed like every album he dropped just got better and better. He kind of fell off on some of his last ones though.
7.You Gots to Chill – EPMD. You couldnt go to a party in 88 without hearing this song.
8.By All Means Neccesary/Stop the Violence – Boogie Down Productions. The whole album was fly but the stand out song was Stop the Violence. It was the first hip-hop collaboration (that I can think of) song of this magnitude. “Heavys at the door so therell be no bum rushing.”
9.The Bridge is Over - Boogie Down Productions. One of my favorite songs of all times. KRS One is one of the dopest lyricist ever. The Juice Crew song “The Bridge” was a battle son in answer to BDPs song. (actually I cant remember which one came out first). Honorable mention to “Criminal Minded”.
10.Radio/I Need Love – LL Cool J. Yes the ladies loved LL. I still do. His fineness just grows and grows. But lyrically I think this is his best album. I Need Love is just one of the classics hes put out over the years.
11.All Hail the Queen – Queen Latifah. The one and only. She was the first female rapper that I really paid attention too. I could play that record from beginning to end without skipping any songs. I loved it that much. My favorite was Ladies First.
12.Hot, Cool & Vicious - Salt-N-Peppa. This album was pretty commercial but commercial wasnt anywhere near as bad as it is now. Push it & Tramp were party tracks that got a lot of airplay.
13.2Hype – Kid N Play. I must admit I had a crush on Kid. I guess it was the hair. A lot of people dont like their music but if you listen to the lyrics they werent too bad. Rollin with Kid N Play was the song and I know we all have House Party in the collection.
14.Licensed to Ill – Beastie Boys. Paul Revere… enough said!
15.King of Rock – Run D.M.C. This wasnt their first album but for some reason I wasnt really feeling them until this second album. King of Rock was the joint.
16.Living Large – Heavy D & The Boyz. I dont care what anyone says… I loved this record. I had the biggest crush on Heavy D. I used to cut pictures of him out of magazines and paste them on my wall.
17.Midnight Marauders/Bonita Applebum – Tribe Called Quest. Before Midnight Marauders came out the only song I like of theirs was Bonita Applebum. When that album came out I fell in love with Tribe. They recorded a song with The Jungle Brothers called “Buddy” that has to be in the top five of my favorite songs.
18.For the People – Boot Camp Clik. If I had to name a favorite song by them, I couldnt. All of their songs were lyrically superior to so many things that were out at the time. I do love How Many Emcees though. Honorable mention to Black Moon, Ras Kass, Group Home etc…
19.Daddys Little Girl – Nikki D. Ok this is a stretch but I just loved that song and the record was pretty nice too.
20.Brendas Got a Baby – Tupac. Before all the drama.
21.Sally – Stetsasonic. The song didnt make to much sense but I loved the beat.
22.One For All – Brand Nubian. I loved this record. I played it just about everyday.
23.Ready to Die/Gimme The Loot – Notorious BIG. Bigs rhyme style is like no other. It took me a minute to figure out it was him doing both voices on Gimme The Loot. I had never heard anything like it.
24.It Aint Hard to Tell - Nas. My favorite Nas song.
25.One Day Itll All Make Sense/I Used to Love H.E.R. – Common.
26.Black on Both Sides – Mos Def. One of my favorite artists of all times. Ms Fat Booty is such a sexy song. I love New World Water too.
27.Love, Peace & Napiness – Lost Boyz. Ive always loved this group. My favorite songs are Music Makes Me High and Renee.
Thats just a few. I could go on and on, but I wont cause this post is long enough. Happy Hump Day!
I still don't know what's going on with this template. I may have to change it again.
posted by Meka at 9:02 AM
15 Comments:
Nice new look. Im jealous you figured out how to change your template, and I barely figured do anything fancy. Anyway, I think hip hop started changing sometime after Salt n Peppa.And like you said, that was overly commercial.
Anyway, just wanted to send out a notice that I've moved spots.
*blogger formerly known as Devas*
'i catch headaches from the wack and then i take a bufferin an i max' somehow that line from puba on one for all seemed appropriate.
dont get me started on old hip hop or i'm liable to be quoting lines all day
All....shooks!! I gots to call my my boy Terrence and have a 80's Rap party now...Nice!! Although I didn't see not one LL on that list:) 'I Can't Live Without My Radio'? Come on now!!:)
Uh uh dee-dee don't try to play me look at #10
Meka honey. Let me find out! I was feeling that entire post. Shame on you, it should've been longer. You've got to make your way to the Splinter Cell and check out my latest post. I had some technical difficulties recently and posted my list last Monday, but my site was down for the duration until recently.
My first inclination was to post my favorite hip hop singles, but the list would have been tooooo long. But let me know what you think of mine. I loved yours. By the way, beautiful layout too luv! You're my new hero now... (smile)
By the way, I read your previous post about the funny little icons in your blog. These usually appear in place of apostrophe's, colons, semi-colons and ampersand special symbols.
I used to have this problem and I'm thinking you're like me in this aspect. You type up your post in a word document and then transfer it to blogger correct? Since blogger sux sometimes (lol)
That's when it usually happens to me, except only apostrophe's were affected. Yours seems to be bogging down all of the special symbols.
Try this. Type up your next blog in a notepad, save it and transfer to blogger and see what happens. This is a good detriment to that problem. However, if all else fails, and this part really sucks, you'll have to go back into blogger and erase all special symbols and "re-type" them again in your post editor. That definitely works. Hope all of that helps too luv.
Just passing through, I'm digging the blog by the way.
Wow - that brought back memories! I agree with you totally on the state of hip-hop.
don't you love music. I love it when I hear a song and it makes my heart heart. Or when I hear a song don't nothing else matter. Music is my drug!
Holla!
I'm not quite sure about the hip hot thang -- way back in my day they called it "rock-in-roll." Is that what you are talking about. Anyway, they say that Elvis started rock and roll but I have also heard that it was Fat's Domino and another guy whose name has slipped my mind. I'm from the old school so I'm way behind. *grin.*
I love your blog. Looking good around here.
Is it juuuust me? Or does Kanye West and Kurtis Blow look like father and son???
YOU'RE BRINGING TEARS TO MY EYES. SOMETIMES I WISH WE COULD GO BACK TO THE DAYS WHEN RAP DIDN'T IGNITE THUG-DOM!
Just Passing through... I wanted you to know that I read your 100 things and one of the comment was you thought noone read your blog, well I did and I also did a 101 things about me... Check it out!!
Also tune in on fridays for Haiku....
Rappers Delight is the only rap song I know all the words to. Sorry, huh?
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