GOAT!

18 thoughts on “GOAT!”

1. I’m everlasting, I can go on for days and days
   With rhyme displays that engrave deep as x-rays

   He’s Muslim. That might have much to do with his lack of cursing.Report

   1. I did not know that. But, and maybe I’m old-fashioned, I like the fact that he works “clean” and could still level just about anybody. Burt was mentioning that certain words in rap songs threw him off, so I was hoping something like this might work better for him.Report

      1. He signed on with Dre’s “Aftermath” but…

         Well, I’ll lift this from the wiki:
         Rakim used a metaphorical example that Dr. Dre wanted Rakim to write about killing someone, while Rakim wanted to write about the resurrection of someone.

         I am sorry that I was not given the opportunity to purchase “Oh, My God”.Report

      2. To make a weird comparison, I saw Seinfeld talk about how he doesn’t use curses. He tried once, and it didn’t feel right. More importantly, he felt (and others agreed) that it was generally more challenging to be funny without cursing. I wonder if something similar is true with rap.Report

2. Oh man, I know what I’ll be listening to tonight. I’m glad you like Follow the Leader.

   Rakim was just on another plane. I always feel like he must have recorded his rhymes in one take, and almost like he freestyled them. I don’t get that sense much from artists today. Except for… well, I’m not even going to name him. I’ll just say that I saw him freestyle, and it was incredible. And also point to this, because yes!

   Also, I think I may have mentioned it before, but I listen to a lot of non-American hip hop, and non-English language hip hop in particular, especially while I’m working (I keep meaning to do a post, but I’m afraid I’m the only one who’d like it). One of the things you hear from German, French, North African, even Russian rappers is that there influences were: X, Y, Wu Tang, and Rakim. Biggie is a distant third in number of mentions, but Wu Tang and Rakim are ubiquitous. I think it says something about your talent when everyone, everywhere, tries to rap like you even 25 years later.Report

   1. I’m not ready to say Follow the Leader is better than PiF…but it may be better than PiF. So yeah, thanks for the recommendations.

      RE: Rakim’s non-English influence….I have mentioned before that I often don’t notice lyrics unless they are great, or terrible, and hip-hop in particular is so dense with words that many (or even most) just slip by me…but with Rakim, like I said I hear the “strikes” or syllabic emphases around each beat, pulling forward or back (and even, somehow, up and down; almost like a “shot grouping” around each beat). It’s intensely musical.

      I imagine that *sound* comes through, even (maybe especially) if you don’t speak English.Report

      1. ftl is better than pif. and lyrics of fury may be their best song.

         supposedly autechre (who are huuuuge e.b+r fans) reworked microphone fiend for the 2nd peel session. but i don’t hear it.

         [ this is kind of interesting, or at least indicative of how many times they’ve listened to microphone fiend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeEcOcbQQkU ]Report

   2. I wish you would do a non-American hip hop post, and I’m pretty sure I’d like it.

      One of the songs I’ve never stopped listening to is Los Orisha’s track Niños, from 2002…

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKFBlIEvTkYReport

      1. Er. Los Orishas’ track, of course. Dammit fingers, stop making me look like I don’t know grammar.Report

      2. Oh wow, that is awesome. I had never heard it, but I love it. Now I have to find some more.Report

      3. Chris,

         Didn’t you have some French shit on your original list?Report

      4. I did. I think some Seyfu and MC Solaar. Solaar was, in the Aughts, probably one of if not the biggest rappers in the world.

         Seyfu is more “street.” He is from a rough suburb of Paris, like a lot of French-language artists, and it comes out in his music:

         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2m_hRQB5YoReport

      5. Here‘s a recent favorite video, now with English subtitles and Congotronics. I think Baloji is Belgian. The rapping isn’t spectacular, but the song and the sound are great.Report

      6. I like Baloji. He’s really not a bad rapper, and his music is an infectious fusion of European-style rap and African (specifically Congolese) music. Kinshasa Succursale, the album on which you can find the track you linked (which features a Congolese band), is a really good album. Here’s another track from it;

         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l_7_O_29SAReport

      7. @chris
         Oh, hell, he’s not a bad rapper at all. It’s just that Rakim is a hard act to follow.

         “Karibu ya Bintou” put me on to Konono No 1, who has a sound that just floored me, in the “Why wasn’t I informed of this?” way. Calling their sound “Congotronics” is also an example of genius in labeling, even though their album appears to be seven variations of the same song.Report

3. Random Old School but relevant to this week’s events:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgcTvoWjZJUReport

   1. I don’t know if you saw this:

      http://www.avclub.com/article/nikki-finke-reports-that-the-subject-of-mandela-lo-106278

      The headline made me do a double-take. Surely not even the AVC would be so crass…then I saw O’Neal wrote it, and relaxed. He’s the snark-master, but he’s no fool.

      And sure enough, the snark was directed *AT* someone crass. And it was glorious.Report

      1. I saw Nikki Finke’s tweet on the Atlantic Wire round up and yes it was a staggering and incomprehensible amount of crassness and cluessness.

         But the Marketing brained people never learn.Report

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