The Glory of Hip Hop

Our hip-hop selection has been slim to none, so I want to start off in the DJ realm (not to be confused with DJ Realm). One of the best 'trip-hop' albums ever made, DJ Shadow's Entroducing, is known to most if not all hip-hop enthusiasts as one of the greatest and most influential albums ever made. DJ Shadow's ability to mix jazz and funk and a seemingly infinite amount of samples is unparalleled. Ironically this album came out around the time hip-hop took an exponentially accelerating dive down into the ignorant abyss of gangster rap, hence one of the songs' titles being, "Why Hip Hop Sucks In 1996," where the only vocal sample echoes, "It's the money." Brevity is the soul of wit, as they say.

Here's a classic off the album: "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt"

What is probably even more relevant from an education standpoint is the movie Scratch (Watch it! It's awesome). It details the origin of hip-hop, its acting as a medium for unity and social progression among the black community, and unfortunately its deviation from culture to what is today's "rap' or "hip-hop", which mostly consists of the manipulating, money-grubbing corporations promoting "artists" who facilitate the elevation of topics such as: money, womanizing, gang violence etc. Or, more aptly put, OneManArmy of Binary Star states in the song "Honest Expressions" : "Hip-hop, and then there's hip-pop... You got the Top 40 version of hip-hop, ya know what I mean?" There are many problems with the way rap has evolved not simply just because one musically pretentious person thinks it sucks . But hey political music commentary could take up an entire blog, so I'll leave that out! 

-Woland