Shawshank in a minute

This is one of the best rap songs I’ve ever heard. Which is saying a lot, seeing how I hate rap and all.

http://www.vimeo.com/1644468

It’s a jibjab parody of shawshank redemption. I’m puking with laughter, honestly.

Man, I hate rap too. But I love hip hop…

But back to the link. Looks like one of those hilarious (“white and nerdy” comes to mind) parodies of tracks I already dislike.

What is the difference between hip hop and rap?

Well you take a big ol’ muscled testosterone chugging male (or gym-crazed female), hung with more gold and bling than Fort Knox could house this millenium, arm him( or sometimes her) with a variety of projectile spitting personal defence devices (yeah right) and pants that always seem to slide down so as to show more of his / her well developed torso. Then you have them speak in rhyme using the colloquial terms of the current fashion and mix it up with beat. That would be rap.

Then you add melody, if you’re lucky you can come up with your own. Otherwise you hob nob with what I believe are called deejays and you “reinvent” (read plagiarise) a previously owned melody adding your own subtle twists to it as a form of homage. That is called Hip & Hop.

Hip hop is culture, rap is a component of the culture.

hip hop = four elements:

breaking, mcing (read: “rapping”), djing, graffiti.

of course most fucking pricks these days forget about the other parts of this art form (and the best parts of hip hop are no less than that) and think that bling, Fergie, Ja Rule, Nelly and Flo-rida are shining examples of hip-hop royalty.

I think if you look back to the black eyed peas you’ll see what I’m talking about. the founding members of the group are incredibly skilled dancers, eloquent lyricists and can cut it behind the decks. But for some reason ($$ maybe?) they went from 1997’s “behind the front” - standout single “falling up” should give you a taste of where they were at - to now. “Boom” is quite possibly the stupidest song ever released, but their most successful single. No-one remembers Falling Up…

I guess what I’m trying to say here (apart from a little rebuke to AnubisZA) is that Hip Hop is like all pop culture - the underground shit is always more intelligent than the stuff that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Here are some “rap-hiphop” pairs for comparison - see if you can work out which ones plagiarise a previously owned melody, and which ones have well developed torsos…

El-P - Smithereens vs Eminem - Crack a Bottle

Common - Electric Wire vs Nelly - Dey Say

Jeru Tha Damaja - Playin Yaself vs Soulja Boy - Cranck that

Sorry for raiding your thread mate…

Dan

So I got round to watching it and ehhhh…pretty good! course, being white and nerdy they can’t help but sound like the Beastie Boys

Ouch. This f*cking idiot is now really hurt. Oooh, look I think someone shot me. Bleh.
:eyebrowlift:


However, long before Hip & Hop even existed as an identifiable style people were putting up some damn good Graffitti, which I do believe is an artform.

And nowhere in my previous post did I say anything about disliking Hip & Hop, in fact you are quite right that my image is drawn from popular hip hop culture / royalty. The problem being that those gods of Hip Hop are what little Hip Hop kiddies wanna grow up to be.

Commercialism, it dulls the mind and rots the soul.

Ps. I really like Missy Elliot - commecial… yes, but still. So, your magnanimous Hip Hoppetiness, is she a rapper or hiphop artist?

I like graffiti. Just not if it’s on my car.

If she could battle rap then i’d call her an mc. she’s a bit of a trend fiend when it comes to production (and i’m simply far too lazy to wiki her producction credits, thanks) so i’m in two minds about her level of craft.

soiunds like I misunderstood your previous post. But you sounded pretty unhappy about the whole music thing… I guess the bile just vame tumbling out. It horrifies me to think that people have never heard of artists like Common, or De La Soul, and their only benchmark for quality is how many rnb singers are on the latest crunk joint.

Alright, I’ll put my two cents worth in here.

I can’t claim to be informed about this any longer but 25 years ago, I could have.

Rap was invented when african-american culture was undergoing a lot of change.

Look up ancient B-movies like “Breakin’” about the whole break dancing scene in the late 70’s early 80’s in New York. Rap came on the scene at the same time and started with talented kids on street corners with their “boom boxes” picking a classic R&B or Rock tune and making up their own lyrics. The talent came from making rhymes in real-time as the song was playing in the background. The rap scene was light-hearted and simple. Many times the songs were comical. For reference, look up Run-DMC or Beastie Boys (License to Ill), Grandmaster Flash, or even DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (har har, Will Smith!!)

Hip Hop is, on the other hand, a culture. Hip Hop is a form, or derivative of Rap in the sense that you use the same style…speaking in rhyme to a catchy beat of some sort. Hip Hop however is all about the mean street. Growing up in the Ghetto. Hip Hip is the young culture’s response to classic Rhythm and Blues. (Not R&B, that’s different)

I grew up in Flint MI, where, at the time, the gangs successfully made it the murder capital of the US for a few years. Crack was an epidemic. For a contrast in Rap vs. Hip Hop, listen to that Run-DMC song again, then look up Dayton Family, if you want to hear some raw Hip Hop. Warning: Songs about kidnapping your girlfriend, and sticking a shotgun in her ** and pulling the trigger are typical lyrics.

It’s disgusting, really, and Black Eyed Peas may have came from the Hip Hop scene, but aren’t remotely representative of what Hip Hop really means.

Interesting that you mention the Beasties there. To my mind, a lot of their earlier stuff was just as misogynist as Dayton Family.

Heh, in Notts we don’t have anything like Dayton Family, but we do have Out Da Ville, who once wrote a track about trainers. Sweet, yeah? :slight_smile:

Speaking of raw hip-hop, you must have heard the 36 Chambers? now that’s got some mean skits on it. And Cage used to have some absolutely twisted lyrics, before he went all weird and shoegazing.