Bump n’ Run
I grew up a hip hop kid, with a few dashes of older reggae, Daft Punk and Dave Matthews Band. The former two have remained in heavy rotation up into adult hood, while the latter has, thankfully, fallen by the wayside. (Note: I wont attempt to defend liking Dave Matthews Band; at a certain age, you just don’t know any better.) But hip hop was always the staple growing up, from my first tape (19NaughtyIII) to reading up in the Unsigned Hype section in The Source to my first solo concert experience (The Roots). As much as I’ve learned and been exposed to since I started paying closer attention to music several years ago, I know that in 45 years, I’ll be sitting down my grand-kids and using The Chronic, Ready to Die and Black Star to explain the long since forgotten concept of an “album.”
Having grown up with hip hop, I can’t help but be intrigued by seeing what succeeds in the genre today (don’t worry, this isn’t another long-winded deconstruction), particularly in the world of Pitchfork, Elbo.ws and music blogs. Why are certain rappers accepted by indie kids and hipsters? Why did Atmosphere’s “The Ropes” receive 711 ♥s (at last check) last week on the Hype Machine while label contemporary Brother Ali goes largely unrecognized outside the hip hop community? Why does everyone in the music blog world fall all over Kid Cudi? Is it because alt people have been able to be up on these rappers, among others, before their non-alt friends?
It seemed like I was asking rhetorical questions that I would have the answer to in the next paragraph, no? Well, I can’t claim to understand why people like certain music; just as with wine and movies, we all have different perceptions and tastes in music. My ear is very different than Heavy D’s, and differences like these allow for the diverse range of opinions available all over the interwebs (thanks for reading ours, by the way). This is all to say that I can’t begin to explain why a group of people may enjoy a specific artist.
The popularity of DOOM or Atmosphere in these forums is a bit of a mystery. They make great music, but so do many other rappers, and those guys aren’t the top rated tracks on Elbo.ws. Of course, as electronic dance music has grown into a near mainstream genre, certain artists (Wale, Theophilus London, Chiddy Bang, etc.) have achieved varying levels of success in part because they have been ready and willing to use the popular electro stuff in creating their own beats.
And THAT’s why I’m putting up the music below, because I love this development. Three more summer jams for you today: our boys The Knocks remixing Wale, Crookers remix of the Busy P and MURS collaboration and Calvin Harris working with Dizzee Rascal.
Wale ft. Lady Gaga - Chillin (The Knocks Remix)
Busy P and MURS - To Protect and Entertain (Crookers Remix)
Dizzee Rascal ft. Chrome - Holiday (prod. by Calvin Harris)
(Meta aside, or a slightly more meta aside than the rest of this meta post: Chuck Klosterman discussed the problems with feedback on a writer or artist or any creative type, namely that if the creator gets rapped up in what the loudest sect of his or her consumers respond to, they alter their product to fit those needs. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and for music bloggers, Hype Machine is reader feedback times eleventy bajillion. Please know that while Heavy D and I do pay attention to out traffic and feedburner stats and the rest, we write about music we enjoy, or don’t enjoy, not stuff that will drive traffic from HypeM or Elbo.ws. We don’t make enough money off of our blog to think about it any other way.)
