Friday, January 29, 2010

COOL, SOPHISTICATED HIPHOP

What do you think, that hiphop is? A drum-machine, some samples from REAL musicians, someone doing weird stuff with turntables and a guy or a woman talking nonsense in a rhytmical way on top of it? There may be some examples for that, but this is far from holding for the genre per se. I did like it from the very beginning (just try to rap, and you will immediately know, that it is not that easy...), and I did like it better, the more it got sophisticated. E.g., sophistication is found in the idea to have samples from jazz (swing) classics played against straight (although syncopated) rhytmic patterns and a rapper doing cool renderings on top of that. It may first have come to the mind of The Guru (of GANGSTARR fame) when doing his JAZZMATAZZ thing (also early Brand Nubian or Dream Warriors could be named here). An example of the redefinition of the genre done by JAZZMATAZZ aka the GURU, that more or less sticks to classic hip-hop whilst transforming it to a COOL genre is "The Lifesaver" from the first (or second?) Jazzmatazz-recording.



In a way as cool as that is DEL THE FUNKEE HOMOSAPIENS, although this one is really danceable (whilst the above mentioned GURU tune is more or less a chill-out-affair). Listen to Mistadobolina (dance to it!!!):



To approach the more jazzy side of hip-hop, listen to CHAPTER & THE VERSE, who took the genre (among, at the same time as, and : like others) into totally new dimensions by finally swinging it:



Sticking to the rule of climax, I close this post with the Digable Planets, maybe the coolest hip-hop-crew ever (but who cares about categories, it's just music), at least, they are COOL LIKE THAT:



As embedding has been banned on Youtube for that one, here is the link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY0c2ZAeMK4

2 comments:

  1. really have to say i love all the flavors of hiphop you posted here (btw, afaik it's the second jazzmatazz).

    just wanted to add "the herbaliser", a cool london guy who remixes a lot and also cooperates with various rappers, in this one with jean grae (yes, named after the x-men character), formerly known as "what what".
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48iIcUsDYVs&feature=related

    and one more track from the same artists with more instrumental background:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBym7yN-TJM

    some piece of (girl)friendly advice:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pBGc80j-ks

    oh, and something french (never forget the french hiphop!), also quite jazzy stuff:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUaJbuVomIg

    and finally the amazing dj koze (mostly renown for his crazy electronic mixes, really awesome stuff) with max gold making fun of the bad gangster rappers(ignore the piggy-video):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK-PeXApIyc

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